THE ANIMATION FREAK. THE JUNGLE BOOK.

 

                                  THE ANIMATION FREAK. 

                                       THE JUNGLE BOOK. 

When I do these posts I usually watch the film before I write about them and I just got through seeing this amazing and beautiful film. Fist lets talk about how beautiful and amazing the animation was, Ollie Johnson and Frank Thomas did an awesome job back when animation was hand drawn, damn it was so refreshing to watch that style again, now don't get me know computer animation is great at times but you just can't beat the hard work it took and the genius skills it took to draw it frame by frame with a pencil, ya it looked rough in some places but that's what made it so great. The Jungle Book story that Walt Disney turned into his own after he bought the rights to it was from the great author of his time and lets face it ours Rudyard Kipling. 

Rocky the Rhino never made it into the film and when I seen what the plan was for him and who they wanted him to be I can see why he was cut from the film, he didn't really fit the narrative, plus with Disney films you can't have three action scenes in a row if it's animated, I mean it works for comic book her films but in animation it is a no no. Ya know in most films the villain is featured a lot but Shere Khan was in the film but not as much as I would have liked but still an amazing character none the less. Then there are the Beatle birds, which were very entertaining and if you looked closely they looked like the Beatles all the way down to the hairdos. There is also KAA who is voiced by the same actor who did Winnie the Pooh Sterling Holloway, to me he brought his A game cause it was amazing. All the voices, animation, and the story was put together in great fashion, everything in this film was written with special care by every one of the writers, storyboard artists, all the way down to the director. I am glad that they made this film and that I got to see it at the drive-in like I did most of the animated Disney films, The Jungle Book almost didn't get made cause of arguing but in the end it finally got made and now it is part of the animated classic films we all love today. The music is amazing as well.

Thank you so much for joining me and as always leave a like and comment on my Twitter and you can read the story down below. 

Thanks again, I will see you all in the next one. 

Mowgli, a young orphan boy, is found in a basket in the deep jungles of India by Bagheera, a black panther who promptly takes him to Raksha, a mother wolf who has just had cubs. She and her mate, Rama, raise him along with their own cubs and after ten years, Mowgli becomes well acquainted with jungle life and plays with his wolf siblings. Bagheera is pleased with how happy Mowgli is now, but also worries that Mowgli must eventually return to his own kind.

One night, the wolf pack parents meet at Council Rock, having learned that Shere Khan, a man-eating Bengal tiger, has returned to the pack's part of the jungle. Pack leader Akela decides that Mowgli must leave the jungle for his own safety. Bagheera volunteers to escort him to a "Man-Village." They leave that very night, but Mowgli is determined to stay in the jungle. He and Bagheera rest in a tree for the night, where Kaa, a hungry Indian python, tries to devour Mowgli, but Bagheera intervenes. The next morning, Mowgli tries to join the elephant patrol, led by Colonel Hathi and his wife Winifred. Bagheera finds Mowgli, but after a fight, decides to leave Mowgli on his own. Mowgli soon meets up with the laid-back, fun-loving sloth bear Baloo, who promises to raise Mowgli himself and never take him to the Man-Village.

Shortly afterward, a group of monkeys kidnap Mowgli and take him to their leader, King Louie the orangutan. King Louie offers to help Mowgli stay in the jungle if he will tell Louie how to make fire, like other humans. However, since he was not raised by humans, Mowgli does not know how to make fire. Bagheera and Baloo arrive to rescue Mowgli and in the ensuing chaos, King Louie's palace is demolished to rubble. Bagheera speaks to Baloo that night and convinces him that the jungle will never be safe for Mowgli with Shere Khan around. In the morning, Baloo reluctantly explains to Mowgli that the Man-Village is best for him, but Mowgli accuses him of breaking his promise and runs away. As Baloo sets off in search of Mowgli, Bagheera rallies the help of Hathi and his patrol. However, Shere Khan himself, who was eavesdropping on Bagheera and Hathi's conversation, is now determined to hunt and kill Mowgli himself.

Meanwhile, Mowgli encounters Kaa once again, who again attempts to eat him after hypnotizing him to sleep, but he wakes up and escapes thanks to the unwitting intervention of the suspicious Shere Khan. As a storm gathers, a depressed Mowgli encounters a group of friendly vultures who accept Mowgli as a fellow outcast. Shere Khan appears shortly after, scaring off the vultures and confronting Mowgli. Baloo rushes to the rescue and tries to keep Shere Khan away from Mowgli, but is nearly killed. When lightning strikes a nearby tree and sets it ablaze, the vultures swoop in to distract Shere Khan, while Mowgli grabs a large flaming branch and ties it to the tiger's tail. Shere Khan, who is terrified of fire, panics and runs away.

Bagheera and Baloo take Mowgli to the edge of the Man-Village, but Mowgli is still hesitant to go there. However, his mind abruptly changes when he is smitten by a beautiful young girl from the village who is coming down by the riverside to fetch water. After noticing Mowgli, she "accidentally" drops her water pot. Mowgli retrieves it for her and follows her into the Man-Village. After Mowgli shrugs to Baloo and Bagheera, to show that he has made up his mind and chosen to go to the Man-Village, Baloo and Bagheera decide to head home, content that Mowgli is safe and happy with his own kind.

After The Sword in the Stone was released, story artist Bill Peet claimed to Walt Disney that "we [the animation department] can do more interesting animal characters" and suggested that Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book could be used for the studio's next film. Disney agreed and Peet created an original treatment, with little supervision, as he had done with One Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone. However, after the disappointing reaction to The Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney decided to become more involved in the story than he had been with the past two films, with his nephew Roy E. Disney saying that "[he] certainly influenced everything about it. With Jungle Book, he obviously got hooked on the jungle and the characters that lived there".

Peet decided to follow closely the dramatic, dark, and sinister tone of Kipling's book, which is about the struggles between animals and man. However, the film's writers decided to make the story more straightforward, as the novel is very episodic, with Mowgli going back and forth from the jungle to the Man-Village, and Peet felt that Mowgli returning to the Man-Village should be the ending for the film. Following suggestions, Peet also created the character of Louie, king of the monkeys. Louie was a less comical character, enslaving Mowgli trying to get the boy to teach him to make fire. The orangutan would also show a plot point borrowed from The Second Jungle Book, gold and jewels under his ruins. The ending also was very different from the final film's: after Mowgli got to the man village, he would get into an argument with Buldeo the hunter which would cause him to return to the jungle with a torch, which he would use to scare those who attacked or mocked him through the journey, before being dragged back to the ruins by Buldeo in search for the treasure. After recovering a great part of the treasure, Buldeo would declare his intentions to burn the jungle to avoid the threat of Shere Khan, only for the tiger to attack and kill him, before being killed by Mowgli with the hunter's gun. Due to his actions, Mowgli would be hailed as a hero in both the jungle and the village, and declared the first human to be part of the wolves' council. Disney was not pleased with how the story was turning out, as he felt it was too dark for family viewing and insisted on script changes. Peet refused, and after a long argument, Peet left the Disney studio in January 1964.

Disney then assigned Larry Clemmons as his new writer and one of the four-story men for the film, giving Clemmons a copy of Kipling's book, and telling him: "The first thing I want you to do is not to read it". Clemmons still looked at the novel and thought it was too disjointed and without continuity, needing adaptations to fit a film script. Clemmons wanted to start in medias res, with some flashbacks afterward, but then Disney said to focus on doing the storyline more straight: "Let's do the meat of the picture. Let's establish the characters. Let's have fun with it". Although much of Bill Peet's work was discarded, the personalities of the characters remained in the final film. This was because Disney felt that the story should be kept simple, and the characters should drive the story. Disney took an active role in the story meetings, acting out each role and helping to explore the emotions of the characters, helping create gags, and developing emotional sequences. Clemmons also created the human girl with whom Mowgli falls in love, as the animators considered that falling in love would be the best excuse for Mowgli to leave the jungle. Clemmons would write a rough script with an outline for most sequences. The story artists then discussed how to fill the scenes, including the comedic gags to employ. The script also tried to incorporate how the voice actors molded their characters and interacted with each other. The Jungle Book also marks the last animated film from the company to have Disney's personal touches, before his death on December 15, 1966.