Tarzan

Chris Buck and Kevin Lima throw out the third act of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel on purpose. In the book Tarzan leaves for England; here the writers turned Clayton into a poacher travelling as a guide, which keeps the danger inside the jungle and locks the story onto family rather than a comparison of civilisations. Kerchak was rewritten too, from the novel’s savage male gorilla into a leader guarding his troop. The stretches where Tarzan crosses the canopy are built on sliding, not swinging. Glen Keane, supervising animator on the adult Tarzan, watched his son skateboard and designed the character as a tree surfer, and the body positions in the Son of Man sequence were taken from Tony Hawk footage. To set that sliding figure inside wide painted jungle, the studio built Deep Canvas, which stores brushstrokes in three dimensional space, and its makers took an Academy technical achievement award in 2003. Brian Blessed both voices Clayton and delivers the Tarzan yell. No character sings. Phil Collins performs the songs from outside as a narrator, so the film never halts for a number. A good fit if you want the canopy travel drawn off skateboarding and the songs laid over the cutting rather than interrupting it. Not for a reader who wants the England chapters on screen.