Editorial:
Tarzan

Cool - the hippos ears wiggled. Cool - the gorilla's bust down a campsite. Cool - I like Phil Collins. Uncool - I like Rosie O'Donnell, too, but not as a smart-ass gorilla. Uncool - whatever happened to action, drama, suspense, great characters, plot, story, and all the great things I expect to see in a Disney flick? Uncool - anyone still worried about George of the Jungle rehabs needs to be worring about Tarzan rehabs.

My wife said the animation was great (nice work, Keith). I say, "So what? I expect the animation to be great - it's Disney, not Don Bluth." Disney animated films are to good to skate by on looks (or should be). Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are not only great animation - they're great films (need I remind you thast Beauty and the Beast was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar - not best animated - Best Picture). Along these lines, Tarzan falls (no pun intended) a bit short. Sure, the kids were entertained. But I must admit I'm not going just for the kids; if I was, I'd have sent them with the sitter and gone to see Austin Powers. So I expect to be entertained, too - as an adult - like I was at Hunchback and B and B.

"Tarzan is a different kind of story," she says. So? I didn't force them to use Tarzan - are we that close to running out of stories? They can have about any story they want. The fact is, they can make any story they want. Is the creativity well running dry? Have all the good stories been told? I find that extremely hard to belive.

The fact is, I think Disney skimped on Tarzan. Skimped on the story, skimped on the music, and skimped on fulfilling the expectations of movie viewers like me who want another B and B and another Hunchback. Why did they skimp? I have no idea. I know they have been laying off animators.

But the kids liked it.

And the animation was good.

Editorial Archives.