Iron Man director Jon Favreau is now bringing us an almost entirely CGI rendition of the classic story The Jungle Book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcgJRQWxKnw I think it looks pretty good though there are some obvious animal inaccuracies that no doubt will be pointed out by many of us. Funny, I was looking forward to seeing if they went with Asiatic Black Bear or Indian Sloth Bear for Baloo but instead they went Brown Bear I look forward to reading about your thoughts. I'll be posting mine within the next few days because I'm a tad busy lately with school and work. Cheers! Fun Fact: Disney's calling this movie the most technologically advanced movie ever made! ~Thylo
Judging by size, King Louie is a Gigantopithecus here... And they made bad guys out of gibbons & lion-tailed macaques Also I wonder whether Kaa would blink? Hopefully not! Making him a female is kinda justified. In the book, his length is said to be 30 ft, unreachable for a male Burmese python.
Judging to the trailer... a lot of rubbish Can't never ever mess with the "original" animated movie from 1967. This was (and still is) heart-touching, made with love, with wonderful UNIQUE (singing) voices, just world class. There are some movies that should never have a remake and Disneys animated film from 1967 is one of them.
Not to the level of 'Life of Pi' which I seen all without realizing the tiger was CGI (although I was on the plane). Animals and landscapes look quite fake - especially the blue-eyed python and orangutan the size of a dinosaur. Overall, I hope they keep the strength of the book in the well-developed personalities. But looks they opted for typical Hollywood oversized world: sky-high cliffs, hordes of hundreds over hundreds of monkeys, child running on tree branches like a soccer player on grass etc.
Life of Pi had great effects. It's a shame the special effects company that did it went bankrupt soon after the release. Not a lot of special effects companies can do animals well. The oranguatan is supposed to be gigantopithecus. The reasoning being that orangutans don't live in India, so instead he's a gigantopithecus that leads the other monkeys or something. The trailer stuff is pretty cool, I'll go see it in theaters if the reviews are decent.
Some of tiger shots were live-action, using several animals (and CGI tiger's appearance is a mix of them all).
did you notice that in the scene with all the primates swarming up the cliffs, that they were all gibbons? Dozens and dozens of gibbons. In the scene at the temple where the primates were attacking Balou and Bagheera they were a mix of hanuman langurs and (presumably bonnet) macaques.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/jon-favreau-breaks-down-disneys-live-action-129130133927.html As said in a post above, King Louie in this movie is supposed to represent a Gigantopithecus, "We changed it to a Gigantopithecus, because orangutans don’t live in that part of the world.” However, "These animals aren’t cartoonish anthropomorphs. Each is painstakingly crafted to look like native Indian fauna. Baloo now resembles the sloth bear of Kipling’s original stories, not the brown-bearish comic relief of the '67 version" - I think we would all beg to differ!!
Not all gibbons, I clearly see LTM's with them as well Without 'nasty bits' of course. Doesn't matter that kids may see them at zoos and in documentaries.
All of the boat scenes used a CGI tiger, so, it was fake for most of the film. I could tell it was CGI, but it was still very impressive.
I remember the first live action version Disney tried to pull off, not great if I remember correctly! Baloo was a brown bear in that as well, maybe Disney have.a blind spot when it comes to real life sloth bears, then again it may be because there aren't any trained sloth bears available!
I'm more impressed with the actors doing the voices. Walken as Louie? Yes, please! Bill Murray as Baloo? F yeah! Kaa is an interesting choice for the voice. All I can picture is the movie Her. I don't see how Kaa is a Burmese Python. Nor even an Indian Rock Python. Looks more like a Reticulated Python, but where this is supposed to take place, doesn't make sense. Much like the Lion King and the Giant Anteaters. It's Disney and will still crush and succeed. Be interested to know if any Zoo will try to piggyback on this movie and name animals from it or create an exhibit with the animals from the movie. SNZ's Asia Trail is kind of there, but not. Bagheera looks awfully large, as well. Excited for Idris Elba as Shere Kahn.
I think Disney needs to get a good look of an actual Sloth Bear And I think it's cool that they've corrected the orangutan problem, but do gibbons live in India? ~Thylo
yes, re-watching it there clearly are quite a number of lion-tailed macaques in there as well. The other scene with a close-up of a lion-tailed macaque and with Mowgli on the back of a gibbon I interepreted incorrectly as well (I didn't realise he was being kidnapped) and is from that same cliff-scene. Also in the temple scene I said the macaques were presumably bonnets, but they are far more likely to be rhesus (there are a couple in behind one of the scenes with King Louie as well).
interestingly, this new Disney Jungle Book is coming out next year, and then in 2017 there will be Warner Bros' Jungle Book: Origins which will be motion-capture with (of course, sigh) Andy Serkis among others. Do we really need two reboots of the same story from two different studios?