French double card. Image: Burroughs / Disney. Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Little Tarzan in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Tarzan in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Tarzan in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Tarzan in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Torn between the jungle and going with Jane to England
A ship disappears burning in the waves. Only a young, British family, a couple and their baby survive the disaster. They end up in the African jungle, where they build a treehouse.
In that same jungle lives a group of gorillas led by the silverback Kerchak. Kerchak and his wife Kala have a child, who falls victim to the African leopard Sabor. Not much later, Kala finds the treehouse. Sabor turns out to have struck there too and killed the two people, only the baby is still alive. Kala manages to save the baby from Sabor.
Despite leader Kerchak's disapproval, Kala raises the baby renaming him, Tarzan. A few years later, young Tarzan struggles to keep up with the other gorillas as he is different. Eventually, he becomes friends with Kala's niece, Terk and the paranoid elephant Tantor.
In the following years, Tarzan develops all the instincts of an ape and learns all about the jungle and its dangers. As an adult, he masters all these skills and his athletic physical abilities. When the group is attacked by Sabor, Tarzan saves Kerchak and the group and kills the leopard with his spear.
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter and his daughter Jane are studying the gorillas led by their hunter guide Clayton. When Jane is chased by a pack of baboons, Tarzan rescues her. Tarzan discovers he is a human and must decide where he really belongs. He becomes torn between the jungle and going with Jane to England.
French double card. Image: Burroughs / Disney. Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Tarzan in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
French postcard by Chromovogue, Boissy, no. 3S10140041476. Image: Disney. Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
French double card. Image: Burroughs / Disney. Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
The end of the Disney Renaissance
The screenplay for Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999) was written by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker and Noni White and they captured the spirit of the classic story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 'Tarzan of the Apes' (1912). The plot, a good combination of drama, action, comedy and romance, is basic and easy to follow but more remarkable is the character development.
All the characters are memorable and Tarzan and Jane's relationship is wonderfully developed. Tarzan is charismatic, emotional, outgoing, and at the same time, goofy and boyish. Jane is eccentric, feisty, benevolent, and intelligent. The scenes between Tarzan and his ape mother, Kala, are tender and it's beautiful to see how Jane helps Tarzan to understand the ways of human life.
Glen Keane served as the supervising animator for Tarzan as an adult, while John Ripa animated Tarzan as an infant and child. Ripa studied the movements of young chimpanzees to use for young Tarzan's animation, while Keane used the movements of a gibbon and used it for the animation of adult Tarzan, he also watched his son Max Keane do his skateboarding and snowboarding and used surfers' moves in the scenes where Tarzan is sliding through the trees.
Terk and Tantor provide great comic relief, and the gorillas provide plenty of quite emotional scenes. The animation is mind-blowing. The jungle feels immersive and lifelike and it's exciting to see Tarzan energetically swinging in the trees. Also impressive are the fire effects used in the jungle, and the smoke effects from the guns used by the poachers.
Kudos to the makers for how they managed to combine hand-drawn animation with CGI effects. The action scenes move at such a fast and steady pace, unseen before in a hand-drawn film. The songs by Phil Collins are spectacular, even winning an Oscar for 'You'll be in My Heart'. Tarzan was Disney's last big box office hit and widely acclaimed film for a number of years. It would be the end of a great period that had started with The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements, John Musker, 1989), a period now known as the Disney Renaissance.
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Tarzan in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Taiwanese postcard by Starpics / Suwan Studio. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. Tarzan and Jane in Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
French postcard by Sonis, no. C. 1043. Image: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. / Walt Disney Enterprises. French poster for Tarzan (Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, 1999).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.
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