Tarzan

Tarzan
Directed by	Chris Buck Kevin Lima
Produced by	Chris Buck
Written by	Tab Murphy Bob Tzudiker Noni White
Starring	Tony Goldwyn Minnie Driver Rosie O'Donnell Glenn Close Brian Blessed Lance Henriksen Wayne Knight Nigel Hawthorne
Music by	Phil Collins
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	June 18, 1999 (UK)
Running time	88 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$150,000,000
Gross revenue	$448,191,819
Followed by	Tarzan & Jane Tarzan 2

Tarzan is a 1999 American animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on June 18, 1999. The thirty-seventh film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, it is based on the story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and is the only major motion picture version of the story Tarzan property to be animated. It was also the last "bona fide" hit before the Disney slump of the early 2000s making $171,091,819 in domestic gross and $448,191,819 worldwide, outgrossing its predecessors Mulan and Hercules. To date, it is the last film based on the fictional character Tarzan to have had a theatrical release, and also currently holds the record for being the most expensive Disney animated film, with a budget of $150 million. It was also the first Disney animated feature to open at #1 since Pocahontas. This was the last major box office success of the Disney Renaissance.

Plot

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In the late 1880s off the coast of Africa, a young couple and their infant son escape a burning ship, ending up on land near uncharted rainforests (presumably West Africa). The couple craft themselves a treehouse from their ship's wreckage. The couple are killed by a savage female leopard named Sabor. Kala (Glenn Close), a gorilla who recently lost her own child to the vicious leopardess, hears the cries of the orphaned infant, and finds him in the ruined treehouse. Kala is attacked by Sabor, who wants to kill and eat the baby, but Kala manages to get her tangled in the ropes holding the derelict rowboat, and she and the baby escape. The kindly Kala takes the baby back to the Gorilla troop to raise as her own, despite her mate Kerchak's (Lance Henriksen) disapproval. Kala raises the human child, naming him Tarzan (Alex D. Linz as a young boy, Tony Goldwyn as a young adult). Though he befriends other gorillas in the troop and other animals, including the young female gorilla Terk (Rosie O'Donnell) and the male elephant Tantor (Wayne Knight), Tarzan finds himself unable to keep up with them, and takes great efforts to improve himself, including occasionally fashioning crude tools, to put him on par with the other gorillas. As a young man, Tarzan is able to kill Sabor with his crude spear and protect the troop, earning Kerchak's reluctant respect.

The gorilla troop's peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a team of human explorers from England, including Professor Porter (Nigel Hawthorne), his daughter Jane (Minnie Driver) and their hunter-guide Clayton (Brian Blessed). Jane is accidentally separated from the group and chased by a pack of baboons. Tarzan saves her from the baboons, and recognizes that she is the same as he is, a human. Jane leads Tarzan back to the explorer's camp, where both Porter and Clayton take great interest in him—the former in terms of scientific progress while the latter hoping to have Tarzan lead him to the gorillas so that he can capture them and return with them to England. Despite Kerchak's warnings to be wary of the humans, Tarzan continues to return to the camp and be taught by Porter and Jane to speak English and learn of the human world, and both he and Jane begin to fall for each other. However, Clayton cannot convince Tarzan to lead him to the gorillas, due to Tarzan's fear for their safety from the threat of Kerchak.

When the explorers' boat returns to pick them up, Clayton makes Tarzan believe that if he shows the group the gorillas, then Jane will stay with him forever. Tarzan agrees and leads the party to the gorilla troop's home, while Terk and Tantor lure Kerchak away to avoid having him attack the humans. Porter and Jane are excited to mingle with the gorillas, but Kerchak returns and threatens to kill them. Tarzan is forced to hold Kerchak at bay while the humans escape, and then leaves the troop himself, now alienated by his actions. Kala takes Tarzan back to the treehouse she found him in, and shows him his true past (including an old photograph of Tarzan's biological parents, and himself as a baby). Kala encourages him to follow his heart, and leave with Jane and Professor Porter (although it will break her heart to see him go). When they return to the ship, they are ambushed by pirates, led by Clayton, who desires to capture and sell the gorillas in England for a fine price. He orders them locked below with the Captain and his crew, but Tarzan manages to escape with the help of Tantor and Terk, and races back to the gorilla home.

Kerchak and Tarzan together battle Clayton; Kerchak is fatally shot, while Clayton chases Tarzan into the vine-covered trees, where Tarzan gets the drop on him, destroying Clayton's gun. Clayton, in his haste to kill Tarzan, ignores his warning about the vine wrapped around his neck, and Clayton's neck is broken in the drop when he cuts himself free. Kerchak, in his dying breath, accepts Tarzan as his own son finally, and names him the leader of the gorilla troop. The rest of the gorillas (including Kala) are freed by Jane, Professor Porter, Terk and Tantor, and other of Tarzan's miscellaneous animal friends (baboons, rhinos, etc.), after fighting and/or scaring away the rest of Clayton's men, imprisoning them in the very same cages they planned to imprison the gorillas in.

The next day, as Porter and Jane prepare to leave on the ship, Tarzan reveals that he now plans to stay with the gorilla troop. As the ship leaves shore, Porter encourages his daughter to stay with the man she loves, and Jane jumps overboard to return to shore; Porter shortly follows himself. The two are accepted into the gorilla troop where, as the song says, they are all finally "Two Worlds, One Family".

Cast

• Tarzan (voiced by Tony Goldwyn) is the protagonist of the movie, a human who the female gorilla, Kala, finds as a baby, saving him from the leopard Sabor, and raising him among the apes, despite his foster father, Kerchak's, disapproval. Tarzan is shown when he is younger to not be able to keep up with the gorillas; however, through perseverance and endurance, and the aid of Terk, another female gorilla, and Tantor the elephant, he grows into a strong and capable man, who moves through the jungle with agile skill and later avenges his own parents and saves his family by killing Sabor. When Professor Porter and Jane visit the jungle, he becomes interested as they are human like him, and rescues Jane from baboons. After spending time with them learning about human life and culture, he eventually falls in love with Jane, teaching her of gorilla life. At the height of the film, he must choose whether to live as a human or stay among the gorillas; he eventually decides to honor Kerchak's dying wish after Clayton kills him and takes the gorillas captive, and becomes their leader. Jane stays and lives in the jungle with him, as does Professor Porter.
• Jane Porter (voiced by Minnie Driver) is the daughter of Professor Archimedes Q. Porter, an explorer from London, England, who first encounters Tarzan after he rescues her from a horde of baboons. She notices that he is interested in her, as the first human he has ever seen, and begins to feel the same way, teaching Tarzan about human culture and in turn exploring jungle life and the way of the gorillas. Through their time together, she eventually falls in love with Tarzan, and after helping to rescue his family, chooses to stay and live with him in the jungle rather than return to London. She is at first notably clumsy and somewhat ditsy, but with Tarzan's help comes to be somewhat more capable of living in the jungle. Jane is the principal savior of Kala from captivity.
• Terkayna ("Terk") (voiced by Rosie O'Donnell) is a feisty, tomboyish ape who acts as a foster sister of sorts to Tarzan. She at first considers him a pest, but later warms up to him, often helping and keeping Tarzan out of trouble with Kerchak. Terk is openly curious about humans, and with Tantor and some gorilla friends, trashes the campsite. Terk (with Tantor) keeps the humans away by disguising herself as Jane, and in the climax of the film, frees Tarzan and helps rescue the gorillas. Despite her feisty nature, she is extremely loyal to Tarzan and their family. Terk is also Kala's niece.
• Kala (voiced by Glenn Close) is Tarzan's foster mother, who rescued him from Sabor after losing her own baby to the leopard. She rears Tarzan as a man of the apes, and lends a voice of compassion and understanding to Tarzan when he feels that he doesn't belong, explaining that Kerchak simply can't see they are one and the same. After he defends Jane and the other humans, she shows him his home, and explains that his parents were human. She happily accepts Jane as a daughter-in-law, and protects Tarzan from Kerchak's wrath many times. Throughout the film, the bond between mother and son remains strong, though sometimes strained, and Kala is always accepting of him.
• Clayton (voiced by Brian Blessed) is a hunter who seeks to find and sell the gorillas for profit. He is shown to have very little patience with Tarzan, and finally tricks him into taking them to the gorillas; he later captures them and kills Kerchak. In the battle with Tarzan, Clayton has his gun wrested away and turned on him. Clayton taunts Tarzan to be a man and kill him, but Tarzan refuses to be the sort of man Clayton is. Clayton gets wrapped/tangled in several vines by Tarzan, but he cuts himself free with his machete. However, Clayton fails to notice the vine wrapped around his neck; so when he cuts all the others he falls screaming, his neck is broken in the drop, and thereby he dies getting accidentally self-hung.
• Kerchak (voiced by Lance Henriksen) is the xenophobic leader of the gorillas, who refuses to accept Tarzan as his son because he is different. Throughout the film, Tarzan does many things to try and gain Kerchak's respect (such as killing the leopard, Sabor) but ultimately fails after refusing an order from him to stay away from the humans and saving them by holding Kerchak back. It is not until the climax of the film, after Clayton fatally wounds Kerchak, that he finally accepts Tarzan as a son, naming him leader of the gorillas with his dying breath.
• Tantor (voiced by Wayne Knight) is a lovably, slightly-neurotic elephant; a friend of Terk and Tarzan, who has a fear of germs, violence, unfamiliar things (like the human campsite), etc. He later manages to overcome many of his fears, and helps Terk keep Tarzan out of trouble (such as leading away Kerchak). It is Tantor who convinces Terk that they must rescue Tarzan after Clayton locks him and the other sympathetic humans up. Tantor also helps to free the gorillas, and his size and trunk prove very useful on numerous occasions.
• Professor Archimedes Q. Porter (voiced by the late Nigel Hawthorne) is Jane's biologist father, who befriends Tarzan immediately upon meeting him and helps teach him about human life. He is very good-humored and curious, if sometimes silly, and responds to meeting gorillas with delight, happily choosing to help Tarzan and remain with him and Jane in the jungle.
• Young Tarzan (voiced by Alex D. Linz) is shown as having many difficulties, such as nearly killing the gorillas by causing an elephant stampede while trying to obtain an elephant hair, and feeling insecure because of his differences.
• Young Tantor (voiced by Taylor Dempsey) is an elephant who notices Tarzan and tries to warn the other elephants, but goes unheard; he later befriends Tarzan.
• Baby Baboon (voiced by Frank Welker) is a mischievous baboon who steals Jane's sketchpad after seeing a picture of himself; he appears again at the end of the film, kissing her.

Differences from the Book (Tarzan of the Apes)

• The "Great Apes" of the novel have been changed to gorillas.
• Sabor, rather than Kerchak, kills Tarzan's father. Sabor is a female leopard instead of a lioness.
• Tarzan's mother also dies in the movie, killed by Sabor.
• Kala stays alive instead of being killed by an African warrior.
• Kerchak has been changed into a more sympathetic character.
• The villainous male Great Ape, Terkoz, who dies, is changed into a sympathetic female gorilla named Terk (which is short for Terkayna), who lives.
• The Porters are British biologists instead of an American treasure-hunter and his daughter.
• Lt. D'Arnot, who teaches Tarzan to speak, is deleted, as are the French navy.
• All of them leave the jungle, in the book, and meet again in the United States. In the movie, they all stay in the jungle.
• Kala's mate was known as "Tublat" in the book; Kerchak became her mate in the movie.

Production

Crew

Deep Canvas

To create the sweeping 3D backgrounds, Tarzan's production team developed a 3D painting and rendering technique known as Deep Canvas (a term coined by artist/engineer Eric Daniels).^[1] This technique allows artists to produce CGI background that looks like a traditional painting, according to art director Daniel St. Pierre.^[1] (The software keeps track of brushstrokes applied in 3D space.)^[1] For this advancement, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the creators of Deep Canvas a Technical Achievement Award in 2003.

After Tarzan, Deep Canvas was used for a number of sequences in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, particularly large panoramic shots of the island and several action sequences.

Expanded to support moving objects as part of the background, Deep Canvas was utilized to create about 75% of the environments in Disney's next major animated action film, Treasure Planet, though the results were less stunning, due to the film's tighter painting style which could have been accomplished without such advanced software. Deep Canvas was designed to accomplish a very loose, brushstroke-based style without hard edges, but Treasure Planet's backgrounds were more hard-edged and clean.

Deep Canvas was finally used in a more natural setting in restrained doses for Disney's final two traditionally animated theatrical releases, Brother Bear and Home on the Range.

An advanced version of Deep Canvas technique was originally planned to be used in Angel and Her No Good Sister, a Disney animated feature which was to feature bluegrass music. However, since the project was canceled, it is unknown if Deep Canvas will be used on any of the new projects given the Disney/Pixar merger and the software Disney will have acquired as a result.

Music

The songs for the film were written and performed by the singer Phil Collins.

• Two Worlds
• You'll Be in My Heart (featuring Glenn Close)
• Son of Man
• Trashin' the Camp (featuring Rosie O'Donnell)
• Strangers Like Me

"Trashin' the Camp" and "You'll Be in My Heart" are the only songs in the feature to be sung out by the characters; all the other songs are background.

Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly gave the soundtrack a B-, stating that it was awkwardly split between Collin's songs and the traditional score, was burdened by too many alternate versions of the tracks, and in some instances bore similarities to The Lion King and Star Wars.^[2]

Release

Home media

The standard VHS and DVD release of Tarzan was released on February 1, 2000. Disney also released a 2-Disc Collector's Edition on April 18, 2000 with Behind the Scenes, Music Videos, Games, and More. Those 2 editions were eventually put in the Disney Vault. On October 15, 2005, Disney released a single-disc special edition.

Reception

Entertainment Weekly compared the film's advancement in visual effects to that of the Matrix (stating that the backgrounds are "themselves animated – yet still look as if they were painted with feathery brushstrokes"), and that the film far surpasses previous live-action attempts, in some cases on an emotional level.^[3]

Awards

Tarzan won the following awards:

• 2000 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for the song "You'll Be in My Heart" by Phil Collins.
• 2000 Academy Award for Best Song for the song "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins.
• 2000 Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

Annie Awards

Merchandising

Various action figures and plush toys were produced, including a talking Terk and Trantor produced by Gund.^[4]

Broadway

A Broadway musical, also titled Tarzan, produced by Disney Theatrical began previews on March 24, 2006 which an official opening night on May 10 of the same year. After performing for a year on Broadway, the show closed on July 8, 2007.

Videogames

There are a few videogames featuring Tarzan. Disney's Tarzan, a side scrolling platformer, was developed by Eurocom for Playstation, Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color and released in 2000. Disney's Tarzan Untamed, developed by Ubisoft, was a game that revolved around Tarzan surfing on giant leaves and was released for Playstation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube in 2001. Tarzan, Jane, Tantor and Terk, in their young forms, appear as playable characters in Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure, developed by Toys for Bob and released for Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox and Game Boy Advance in 2003.

Tarzan's home, Deep Jungle, is a playable world in the Disney/Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts released for Playstation 2 in 2002. It does not appear in any subsequent games in the series, due to Square Enix's failure to acquire the required rights from the family of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Trivia

• Jane mentions that Darwin, Rudyard Kipling and Queen Victoria will want to meet Tarzan. Thus the second half of the film - Tarzan's adult life - must be set between 1865 and 1882, when all three of these individuals were alive.

See also

• You'll Be in My Heart
• Tarzan (musical)

References

External links

• Tarzan at the Big Cartoon Database
• Tarzan at the Internet Movie Database
• Tarzan (1999 film) at Box Office Mojo