Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”
Originally published on social media on April 23rd, 2022
In honor of Earth Day (yesterday), I wanted to discuss a film that discusses man’s relationship with animals and earth, but is also one of the least known but incredible Disney films.
There are so many film and cartoon versions of the Jungle Book which can make the search for this film confusing. You’ll know if your watching my family’s favorite version by looking for the cast and crew: Jason Scott Lee, Sam Neill, John Cleese, Cary Elwes, and Lena Headey all directed by Stephan Sommers. Not every Jungle Book is the same, and this is by far the best version. Here’s why:
They honored the original Jungle Book, but made it very similar to Tarzan. They did further character development in Mowgli and let him fall in love & learn English (like Tarzan). The human characters also closely resemble those from Tarzan, but are believable and realistic. The acting is great, but that’s to be expected from a film with such a talented cast!
This film also shares a similar vibe with Alfonso Cuarón’s A Little Princess. Perhaps it’s the warm lighting, authenticity in historical elements like wardrobe, or the love that is felt throughout the entire film.
This film is incredible and earns
Here are fun facts provided by IMDB:
- This live action film required the use of over two hundred trained animals including fifty tigers and fourteen purebred wolves.
- Unlike versions before or since, this is the only time where Shere Khan is not a villain but rather a neutral force of nature. Stephen Sommers stated it would be impossible for him to allow Shere Khan to be killed for his actions seeing how majestic tigers are.
-The only animal that is not actually a real one is Kaa. Due to the difficulty in training snakes, a combination of CGI, animatronics and puppetry was used.
- For safety reasons a blue screen was used for all of the moments where an actor is face to face with a big cat.
- For the scene where the Baloo is shot, a trainer gave the animal voice and hand commands to lay down and roll around and the make up department applied a non toxic fake blood to create the wound. Sound effects were dubbed in later.