Contents
Reviews
How
Discs Are Rated
#
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
News
Archives
DVD
Guide
Contest
About
DVDlaunch
Meet
The Staff
Contact
|
Tarzan Collector's Edition
review by Zach B.
Rated G
1 hours 28 minutes
With the voices of Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn
Close, Rosie O'Donnell, Nigel Hawthorne, Wayne Knight
Based on "Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs,
Written by Tab Murphy and Bob Tzudiker & Noni White
Directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck
Retail Price: 39.99
Features: Audio Commentary with Producer Bonnie Arnold
and Directors Kevin Lima and Chris Buck, Trivia Game, Tarzan
Read-Along, Sneek Peak at Disney's Dinosaur. History &
Development: From Burroughs to Disney, Early Presentation
Reel, Research Trip to Africa, History of Production. The
Music of Tarzan: The Making of the Music, Tarzan Goes
International, "You'll be in my Heart" and "Strangers Like
Me" music videos, Studio Sessions with Phil Collins and 'N
Sync (BAH!), Original Phil Collins Song Demos. Story and
Editorial: Building the Story, Original Treatment,
Storyboard to Film Comparison, Abandoned Sequences.
Animation Production: Concept Art, Color Keys, Layouts and
Backgrounds, Deep Canvas, Intercontinetal Filmmaking,
Production Progression. The Characters of Tarzan: Tarzan,
Jane and Porter, Kala and Kerchak, Tantor and Terk, Clayton
and Sabor, Supporting Characters. Publicity: Poster/Ad
Campaign, Three Trailers
DVD Rom: Tarzan Action Game Demo, Special Features
Specs: THX Certified, Digital Anamorphic Widescreen
Transfer (Aspect Ratio 1:66:1), 5.0 Dolby Digital in
English, Spanish and French, Chapter Search (36 Chapters),
Descriptive TheaterVision™ for the Visually Imparied,
English and Spanish Subtitles, Dual-Layer Format
In the summer of 99, Disney hit box office gold once
again with their newest animated feature, Tarzan, based on
the classic story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Past summers,
Disney did struggle a little with their animated features,
they only made 100 million or a little bit over that sum.
But with great animation, catchy music by Phil Collins and
good voice acting, Disney did sort of redeem themselves,
Tarzan made over 170 million at the box office. The film was
also critically praised. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the
film, but I did find it lacking in some areas. I thought
some characters needed a little more development, and I saw
ways the story could have been a little bit more expanded.
But my biggest complaint was that there could have been more
conflict between two central characters: Tarzan and his ape
father Kerchak.
Anywho, the story of Tarzan begins when two parents and a
baby get off a burning boat wreck, and settle down in an
African jungle. But a mean animal by the name of Sabor kills
the baby's parents, as well as the young daughter of two ape
parents. The mother ape parent, Kala, finds the baby, who is
all alone, and is adopted into their ape tribe, but still
not excepted by her husband, Kerchak. Yet soon it all
clashes together when a few years later humans arrive in the
jungle, who Tarzan makes friends with. That includes Jane
and her father. But soon enough, Tarzan suffers an identity
crisis. Who is he? What is he feeling? And with a ruthless
villian named Clayton, who is a threat to his family, it's
time for Tarzan to find his place.
The lesson of family and being who you are in Tarzan is
very good, and like all Disney movies, all the values and
morals are good. Though I did point out the parts I did
dislike about the film earlier, there is still lots to like
about it. The voice acting is very good, and the animation
is Disney's best yet. With some parts created with the help
of computers, there are some great angles and shots are
breathtaking to look at. The music is great and I must say
catchy. All the songs were written by Phil Collins, and, he
was awarded an Oscar® for the song "You'll Be in my
Heart". Mark Mancia's score is very nice, but not up to par
with other Disney features like "The Lion King", but it does
work on many levels and fits perfectly into the film. It is
better then some of their recent features though, but either
how, I really did enjoy it.
Tarzan is great family fare, and if you are the least bit
interested in it and have not seen it, it is worth checking
out.
Simply put: Perfect. This is another great reference
disc. No scratches or artifacts whatsoever, all the colors
and detail are vibrant and perfect. It's a marvel to look at
and it's a digtial transfer too, plus it's anamorphic.
Still, I did notice some slight pixelation during the
"Trashing the Camp" scene, which is about halfway through
the movie. But I believe this was the layer change, and only
occurs for a second. Truly a top-notch transfer, all in the
ratio of 1:66:1. It's THX too. WOOHOO!
You may have recalled in the standard DVD version of the
film there was an audio problem on some of the discs.
Thankfully, this has been corrected with this DVD. The mix
is very nice, and it is needed. The chirps of the birds, the
crashes, the various noises, without a good mix it's hard to
watch the movie. But thankfully, it is a nice sound mix.
Dialogue is clear too, and things are loud and
ear-crackling. But for some reason, something feels missing
in this mix, but I can't put my finger on it. The mix is
Dolby Digital 5.0 in English, as well as French and Spanish.
Also, there is "TheaterVision™", something I have heard
of but never actually seen (well, heard before), and it is
used if you are blind, I guess. It just describes the whole
movie, so, if you can't see, this helps you imagine the
movie quite a bit more.
Collector's Edition means many many features! While this
disc does not cover so much new ground, because the whole
layout is basically like the great
A Bug's
Life Collector's Edition. Even the booklet is the same
layout (I guess this is how all Disney Collector's Edition
booklets and discs are going to be). A very good majority of
the features is about the whole making of the movie, all the
process and techniques involved. Before I deeply go into
that, let me tell you about the stuff about that is not so
much about the making. On the first disc, there is the
Tarzan Read-Along, basically a storybook which you
can read yourself or have read to you. For the kids,
basically. There is also a somewhat hard Trivia Game,
Disney seems to be including these in all their animated
discs now. Just for the record, I scored 13 out of 15 the
first time I played. If you've seen Toy Story 2 in the
theaters, then you have already seen the Sneek Peak at
Disney's Dinosaur, which is the opening to Disney's
summer 2000 spectacle. It has 2.0 sound and a stunnng
transfer. On disc two, there is a publicity section
featuring Posters, which is an ad campagin from all
across the world advertising the movie (A Bug's Life did
have a lot more of these, and in various langugaes too).
There are also Three Trailers, each having 2.0 sound,
two are full frame and one is widescreen. Also, there are
some DVD ROM features. I haven't checked them out yet, but I
know there is a Tarzan Action Game Demo (PC only) and
some other stuff, I am assuming there is the usual Disney
Blast stuff. Now, all the making of stuff! Back to disc one,
there is an Audio Commentary with Producer Bonnie Arnold
and Directors Kevin Lima and Chris Buck, which I have
not listened to as of now, but I am sure they have lots of
stories to tell. Disc two then features a few sections. The
first is History & Development, which is a lot of
pre-production stuff. From Burroughs to Disney is a
short featurette about Tarzan and Burrough's grandson and
the filmmakers/animators thoughts, an Early Presentation
Reel showing storyboards, a Research Trip to
Africa and History of Production. Then there is
the very nice section, The Music of Tarzan. There is
The Making of the Music, Tarzan Goes
International where Phil Collins explains and showing
him singing his songs in many many languages, the nice
"You'll be in my Heart" and "Strangers Like Me" music
videos and Studio Sessions with Phil Collins and 'N
Sync (BAH!). But my favortie part of this section is the
Original Phil Collins Song Demos. It's amazing how
some of the songs were planned, and how the music was
changed. The Story and Editorial part features Building
the Story, the Original Treatment with the whole
plot outline with some storyboards, the Storyboard to
Film Comparison which is self explanitory, but very
interesting to watch. An Abandoned Sequences part,
there are only three and animated using storyboards, and you
can see what they cut out before totally animating it.
Were's almost done! Then comes Animation Production: with
Concept Art, Color Keys, Layouts and
Backgrounds, and the much talked about, computer
oriented Deep Canvas process. Also is
Intercontinetal Filmmaking, and Production
Progression where for one scene you see the whole
animation process come to life. Finally, there is The
Characters of Tarzan, with designs and everything of
Tarzan, Jane, Porter, Kala,
Kerchak, Tantor, Terk, Clayton,
Sabor and some Supporting Characters. And that
is it! There is a lot of supplements here as you can see,
all for a very nice retail tag of around forty bucks. But as
I early mentioned, it's very similar to the previous "A
Bug's Life Collector's Edition", and I said, I guess this is
how Disney Collector's Editions will format now. It also
seemed like the filmmakers of "A Bug's Life" were more
involved with the DVD. But my biggest complaint is that a
lot of the stuff is very short (according to the DVD itself,
the second disc only runs about 86 minutes in total, a far
cry of length from what the Bug's Life CE was timed at) and
for some reason, I was really expecting more, maybe I got my
hopes up too high for this one. Either way, there is a lot
of stuff, and the menus are nicely done with the second disc
too.
While I did find some weak points to this film, the DVD
has a great transfer, very good sound mix and lots of stuff
you'll spend some time to go through. Plus it's THX, and it
shows! Though I wish a little bit more could have been done
with the extra features, Tarzan Collector's Edition is truly
worth it, especially since the standard DVD version is five
dollars cheaper. If you're going to buy Tarzan on DVD, go
with this version, especially with this pricepoint and
comparison. And how can you go wrong with
TheaterVision™!?
 (4/5, NOT included in
final score)
 (5/5)
 (4.5/5)
(4.5/5)
(4.5/5, NOT an average)
|
