Disney Movie Challenge
Tarzan (1999)
When I think of movies from 1999 I think of The Matrix, Fight Club, and The Sixth Sense. 1999 was one of my favorite years for films (check out my previous post about 1999 FIlms). What I don’t think of when I think of 1999 films is Tarzan. It’s a movie that never really seemed to make a mark in the zeitgeist and I never felt I needed to see it. I was also under the impression that while Tarzan is considered part of the Disney Renaissance it was one of the lesser films of the era. While it doesn’t quite live up to the early Renaissance films it’s not a bad film.
Tarzan is based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel about a man raised by apes. The movie starts with a ship sinking and Tarzan and his mother and father escaping to the jungle. There they build a giant tree house. At the same time a baby gorilla is killed by a leopard and when Tarzan’s parents are killed by the same leopard the mother of the baby gorilla adopts Tarzan as one of her own. He grows up learning the ways of the apes and slowly gets accepted as part of the family. That is except for the leader of the group Kerchak who fears Tarzan will bring disaster to the group. When new human explorers come to study the apes Kerchak’s worst fears come true. While Tarzan falls in love with Jane, one of the group Clayton only sees the apes as something for him to capture and bring back to England.
One of the things that happened at Disney prior to production started was the departure of Jeffrey Katzenberg. Katzenberg played an important role in ushering in the Renaissance but he ruffled a lot of feathers while he was at Disney. Michael Eisner had promised Katzenberg a promotion but when the opportunity came he was passed over. Katzenberg then left Disney and started his own Studio with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen called Dreamworks SKG. Tarzan was one of the first films that Katzenberg had no hand in developing. In its desire to do something different and move away from the Katzenberg era, Disney ditched the Broadway Musical format that defined most of the Renaissance era. Still wanting to capture the magic of The Lion King they hired Phil Collins to write and perform songs during the film. The biggest difference was instead of having the characters sing the songs they just played the Phil Collins version over the action. This worked to various degrees. At times it accentuated the scenes other times it just felt like it overpowered the scene and felt like a music video.
Tarzan also marked the first film to use a new program developed by Disney called Deep Canvas. Deep Canvas used 3D backgrounds that the 2D characters can move through. This created an added depth to the scenes. It also made the scenes where Tarzan are swinging through the jungle or sliding down trees look fantastic. While it’s reported that only about 10 minutes of the film were shot using Deep Canvas the whole film has eye popping animation.
The story itself is pretty generic. At the time it was the 48th time Tarzan was turned into a motion picture (although the first time as an animated film) so most people know the story. The love story between Tarzan and Jane just never really felt real. A lot of the characters were just kind of annoying, especially his friends, a gorilla named Terk (Rosie O'Donnell) and an elephant named Tantor (Wayne Knight). The two standouts were Glenn Close as Tarzan's adoptive mother Kala and Lance Henriksen as leader of the gorillas Kerchak. Close and Henriksen brought the emotional depth needed to care about the characters.
Overall: Doesn’t really hold up as one of the best Disney Films. The animation looks amazing but most of the characters are annoying, While the songs were memorable at times the movie felt more like a compilation of Phil Collins videos than a coherent movie. And for some reason it really bothered me that there was a blatant disregard for physics in the movie. I get it's an animated movie and it shouldn't have mattered but it bothered me more than usual in this one.
Random Facts
My kid confused The Jungle Book with Tarzan. Told him one is about a kid raised by wolves in the jungle and one is about a kid raised by apes in the jungle.
Jeffrey Katzenberg originally pitched the idea of a Tarzan movie to be made at the TV animation department. But director Kevin who previously directed A Goofy Movie at the Disney Television Studios decided it would be too complicated to make on the smaller budget. After Katzenberg left, Eisner himself pitched the idea to Lima and said it could be made at the motion picture studios.
Brendan Fraser auditioned twice for the role of Tarzan, but ended up doing George of the Jungle instead which was pretty much the same character.
Tony Goldwyn who voiced Tarzan couldn’t do the “Tarzan Yell”. The yell heard in the film was done by Brian Blessed who played the villain William Clayton.
The idea for Tarzan to slide down the trees was inspired by Tony Hawk.
Terk was originally going to be a boy, but they loved Rosie O'Donnell so much they changed the character to a girl.
Woody Allen was originally going to play Tantor but Katzenberg convinced him to do Antz at Dreamworks and he left the project.
