Tarzan

Tarzan is the thirty-seventh animated feature in the Disney Animated Canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution on June 18, 1999. It is based upon the Tarzan of the Apes novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and is the only major motion picture version of the Tarzan property to be animated.
Tarzan is considered by many to be the last major box office success of the Disney Renaissance before the studio's decline in the early to mid 2000s (sometimes known as Disney's Second Dark Age), although some consider Dinosaur (2000) to be the last film in the Disney Renaissance. At the time of its release, its production budget of $130 million made it the most expensive animated film ever made, until topped by Disney's own $140 million Treasure Planet in 2002. It was also the first Disney animated feature to open at first place at the North American box office since Pocahontas (1995).

## Plot

In the late 1880s off the coast of Africa, a young couple and their infant son escape a burning ship and land on the unexplored rainforests of Africa, where they craft themselves a large treehouse in which to live using salvaged ship parts in order to survive ("Two Worlds"). Meanwhile, a gorilla couple named Kerchak and Kala are traveling with the rest of their group when their infant son is killed and eaten by a leopard named Sabor. The next day, the still-heartbroken Kala hears a distant child's cry and, following it, stumbles upon the treehouse. She enters the treehouse to find it trashed, and blood covered paw prints (as well as the corpses of the couple) on the floor. Kala rescues the baby from a still-hungry Sabor and returns with it to the rest of the group, but Kerchak despises the boy for his appearance. Nevertheless, Kala decides to raise the boy as her own, naming him Tarzan ("You'll Be in My Heart").

A few years later, Tarzan befriends Kala and Kerchak's niece, a feisty young female gorilla named Terk. One day, Terk and two of her friends go to a pond where the elephants are. Terk tells Tarzan he can hang out with them if he gets a hair from an elephant being sarcastic hoping it would get rid of him, but Tarzan takes her seriously, so he tries to get a hair but he starts to cause a commotion with all the elephants including a young elephant named Tantor thinking Tarzan is a piranha. Eventually, he gets the hair and sends all the elephants (except Tantor) into a stampede right into the gorillas, almost killing a baby gorilla. He then befriends Tantor and goes on adventures with Tantor and Terk ("Son of Man"). Despite his inability to compete with the rest of the gorillas, Tarzan perseveres and eventually grows into a strong, capable, and gorilla-like grown man. When Sabor attacks the group again, Tarzan successfully fights with and kills her, earning Kerchak's respect. Tarzan has a scratch on his chest, almost into his heart, but he manages to survive. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. Although Sabor was killed, a deadlier danger has only just begun.

Tarzan then notices a group of humans arriving: Professor and his daughter Jane, who have traveled to Africa in search of gorillas, along with their hunter guide Clayton. Jane accidentally separates from his father and Clayton, and then has an encounter with a horde of olive baboons, who chase after her. Jane runs towards a cliff and tries to jump to the other side, only to be caught mid-leap by Tarzan. She screams as she is taken to a branch, where she demands to be put down. Tarzan puts her down, but then the baboons get closer and she screams, "No! Pick me up!" The chase then rages on, but finally, Tarzan gets Jane to safety. Curious about Jane, Tarzan proceeds to examine her, at one point playing with her feet, tickling her. He then notices her gloved hand. Taking off the glove, Tarzan places his hand against hers, then puts the side of his head to her chest and listens to her heartbeat, and this is when he realizes that he and Jane are the same. He takes Jane back to her camp.

Tarzan and Jane.

Meanwhile, Tarzan's friends, who are looking for him, arrive at the human trio's campsite and proceed to destroy it, playing music on various human objects they find in camp ("Trashin' the Camp"). Tarzan returns Jane to camp but departs with the other animals before Professor Porter and Clayton arrive. In the jungle, Kerchak instructs the others to stay away from the campsite, but Tarzan protests, believing that the humans pose no threat. Tarzan secretly returns to the campsite and is introduced to the other men, and the three of them teach Tarzan about the human world ("Strangers Like Me"); nevertheless, Tarzan refuses to tell them the gorillas' location, fearing Kerchak's fury. A few days later, when the boat to England arrives, the trio, unable to find the gorillas, prepare to leave, and Tarzan is heartbroken to see Jane depart. Clayton tells him that they will stay once they find the gorillas. Tarzan, eager to have the humans remain, schemes with his friends Terk and Tantor to get Kerchak out of the way while Tarzan shows the humans the nesting site.

Tarzan leads the humans to the nesting site, but Kerchak returns, and when he sees the humans, attacks them. Tarzan is forced to put Kerchak in a headlock long enough for the humans to escape, and as a result alienating himself from the gorillas though mostly Kerchak. Sympathetic, Kala takes Tarzan to his biological parents' treehouse, and he decides that he belongs in the human world. Tarzan decides to depart for England with the others.

When Tarzan, Jane, and Archimedes board the ship the next day to return to England, Jane and her father are captured by the thugs (who have also turned on the captain and his officers); as soon as he steps on the boat's deck, Tarzan realizes what's going on, and after watching the thugs closing in on him, he narrowly avoids them by jumping over them and landing on one of the cages. Clayton's men start climbing the cage so Tarzan quickly jumps to another cage and then to the ship's mast. He briefly gets distracted after hearing Jane calling out his name as she's taken to the cargo room, but before he could even try to do something, one of the thugs takes hold of his right ankle, leaving him hanging from the mast. He shakes him off by kicking him in the face, but the rest of them are catching up with him quickly, so he climbs to the top of the mast and makes a huge leap from there, towards the ship's funnel, much to the amazement of his pursuers. He manages to reach its end and hang from it; however, he immediately finds out that the funnel is too slippery for the shoes he is wearing. He desperately tries to hold tight, but being unable to lay his own feet and keep them in place, his left hand slips away, and Tarzan is left horrified as he watches his right hand slowly slip away as well. He finally loses his grip and falls from a great height, crashing right into a pile of boxes. Tarzan slowly crawls out of the remnants of the shattered boxes, obviously in an enormous pain. Two of Clayton's men take advantage of this and rush towards him, grabbing him and slamming him against the ship's superstructure. He uselessly tries to break free from their grip, but he's just too weak and hurting from the fall. It is just then that Clayton appears on deck, firing his shotgun into the air and asking what was going on. Tarzan, still trying to break free, begs for Clayton's help, to which Clayton teases him (pretending he didn't know him and calling him "ape man") and slams him with his gun right in his stomach. Clayton then reveals that he wanted to find the apes so that he could sell them for a high price, and admits that he couldn't have done that if it wasn't for Tarzan telling him where the apes were. Tarzan realizes what he had done and then screams out loud in anger as he sees Clayton walk away and tell the thugs to lock him up with the others.

As the crew storms the jungle, Tantor and Terk hear Tarzan's scream in the distance rush to rescue him and they race off to stop Clayton and his men. In the ensuing battle (in which the gorillas are aided by various jungle animals), Clayton shoots Tarzan in the arm, grazing it, and mortally wounds Kerchak in the chest with his rifle. Tarzan and Clayton duel among the treetops until Tarzan wrests Clayton's gun away and smashes it. Clayton pursues Tarzan with a machete, trying desperately to stab and kill him, into a tangle of jungle vines, which Tarzan uses to ensnare Clayton, with one of the vines becoming looped around Clayton's neck. Clayton's wild slashing at the vines to free himself cuts the vines holding him in the air, but does not notice the vine around his throat, and does not cut it, causing him to fall and hang himself. Tarzan then finds the dying Kerchak, who apologizes to Tarzan for his behavior and accepts him as his son, but makes him, as the uncontestedly most capable of the younger generation, leader of the gorillas. Kerchak dies, and Tarzan and the gorillas mourn for his demise. Tarzan then leads the gorilla group to the new nesting grounds.

With Clayton's men captured and the crew released, Jane and Professor Porter prepare to depart for England. Tarzan reveals that he now plans to stay with the gorilla group. As the rowboat leaves the shore, Professor Porter encourages his daughter to stay with the man she loves, Jane agrees and jumps overboard and returns to the shore and is soon followed by her father; the three of them reside happily in the jungle among the animals and gorillas ("Two Worlds Finale").

## Characters

* Tarzan
* Jane Porter
* Terk