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It's Hard Out There For An Ape-Man! Craig Brewer To Write And Direct New TARZAN Film!
Nordling here
Craig Brewer's made some really good films so far, but he's never done anything like this before. Deadline is reporting that Brewer has signed on with WB to write and direct a new installment in the classic TARZAN series. Brewer says he's got an idea for a trilogy featuring Edgar Rice Burroughs' favorite swinger (of vines), and hopes that his next job will be to helm the film.
We last saw Tarzan in a Disney animated film - which was quite good - and there were rumors a few years ago that Guillermo Del Toro was interested in adapting the Burroughs novels. Now that Brewer is definitely involved, will he go directly to the source novels, or come up with a new story? Will it be an origin story, or at least touch on the origin? How epic will the film be? Will Tarzan fight monsters? (I sure hope so.)
It's an interesting choice for Craig Brewer, but I have full confidence that he'll be able to pull this off. His last two films explored music, and the upcoming FOOTLOOSE remake continues that trend. This will be something different from him. Harry's all over Edgar Rice Burroughs and he's close friends with Mr. Brewer, so I'd expect to hear something from him soon regarding this. It's unclear what the story would be, but it's been quite some time since we've gotten a live-action Tarzan film. The films have all touched on Burroughs' books in different ways, but none of them have quite gotten them right. I hope Brewer finds what makes the character so special and runs with it. Now... casting? Why should play Tarzan? Jane?
Nordling, out.
Readers Talkback
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June 2, 2011, 12:32 p.m. CST
So, is "Tarzan" the most "rebooted" character in history?
by WriteForTheEdit
Or is it "Sherlock Holmes?" Has to be Sherlock, right. But this Tarzan sure is catching up fast. My question: Why?
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And can we have something really cool to see? There hasn't been a good Tarzan movie since Greystoke.
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Tarzan = Paul Giamatti Jane = Hope Davis
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..if they're smart.
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June 2, 2011, 12:42 p.m. CST
Didn't the Casper Van Diem Tarzan come after Disney's 'toon?
by WriteForTheEdit
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and Yvonne Strahovski (hot blonde from "Chuck"). Yes, I know I'm a genius.
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Tyler Perry as Jane
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Greystoke was the best Tarzan adaption so far. I think a take along those lines would be the best route to take him. And gawddamnit man make Tarzan sinewy, leather skinned and almost cromag looking, not some California valleykid pretty boy.
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I love ne some Burroughs and Tarzan, but I really want to know exactly what kind of story Tarzan will be in for the twenty-tens. Greystoke was great until it hit England and turned into an especially boring installment of Masterpiece Theater, so what will be done today? We already saw an attempt at the Smallville-ification of the character on the WB a few years back and that sucked cock lock your grandma during Fleet Week, so what trend will be mined for this latest re-imagining? We'll likely never see a film that has the same flavor as the books because the books are incredibly violent and can be quite nasty. If you've never read them, check out the first six or so and be prepared to be quite surprised at the content, especially when considering how long ago they were written. Adventure pulps from back in the days did not fuck around and even an icon of wholesome family entertainment like Tarzan had his roots firmly planted in gore and sadism. In the first book alone he gets into a very graphic fight against a gigantic and savage male ape when he's little more than a kid, and said ape rips young Tarzan's scalp off, leaving it barely attached by a shred of flesh. And in The Son of Tarzan, Meriem, a pretty girl who is at first believed to be some orphaned Arab slave girl, is eventually revealed to be the daughter of a French military officer who had grievously offended an evil sheik, and the sheik orders the guy's little girl kidnapped to be raised as his own until she is of age to be sent back to her father "with a swollen belly." Not exactly what you got in the old MGM flicks, right?
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This movie will never, never, never, ever be coming to theaters. It won't get made. The studios are too flaky for this. They'll try to get Brewer to make "Tarzan Makes Fart Jokes in New York". Brewer will insist that this is crap and gracefully exit the project.<br /> <br /> It would be cool, though, if he uses his unique voice to give us a fresh Tarzan, something along the lines of "Romancing the Stone". A Tarzan and Jane movie has to be romantic but it also has to have high adventure and some epic visuals.<br /> <br /> Sigh, if only the suits had listened to Craig Brewer but he was off this project after only a few weeks. "What's that?" you say. "He's not off the project! Check your references!"<br /> <br /> "Aw, but I have," I respond. "I've looked into the crystal ball. And this movie is never, never, never, never, never, never, ever getting made."
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If that don't put asses in the seats, nothing will.
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...and keep Jane a woman, lesbians...
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Were often quite frisky. "Tarzan and his Mate" has some early nudity, and is quite the adventure film. Personally, I don't think a good Tarzan movie can be made any more. The concept was of a particular time and place, and totally dependent on an overpowering belief in Nature over Nurture: an English gentleman raised by Apes is still an English Gentleman. The balancing POV would be that an ape raised by English Gentlemen would be an English Gentleman--and no one would buy that shit as anything but the broadest comedy. It just won't wash. Tarzan, raised by apes, would be a permanently mentally crippled geek without the capacity for speech or complex thought. I suspect that under the surface, that understanding keeps this from having any chance at all to work.
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WB had a series a few years back where Tarzan went to New York. Of course, it was atrocious, and it lasted only a few episodes. I rather enjoyed it in one small way - the fight choreography had a really nifty and athletic mix of capoeira and grappling and some other arts. I've never seen anything quite like it (and I've watched a LOT of fight choreography, in movies, TV shows, etc.). Sadly, that stuff was good for only the first 2-3 episodes IIRC, and then it went to standard WB-land where they focused on the Tarzan-Jane love story.....
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Tarzan fights dinosaurs and an introduction to Pellucidar.
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June 2, 2011, 1:33 p.m. CST
I hate it when people say. "loves me some Tarzan" or some dumb shit
by Knobules
Sounds retarded. Stop it now.
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and not Scorsese making a movie about Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.
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My god she was hot. Stupid movie but holy crap that woman was screaming sexy.
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June 2, 2011, 1:36 p.m. CST
Leave room for a Christopher Lambert cameo, and
by openthepodbaydoorshal
maybe Glenn Close as an in joke.
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June 2, 2011, 1:36 p.m. CST
"Will Tarzan fight monsters? (I sure hope so.)" = me smashing my head on keyboard in frustration
by Stegman84
Seriously, read a fucking book. I suggest some of ERB's for starters, given the topic at hand. How about, just for once, we actually try to make a serious Tarzan movie that lives up to its pulp origins, and doesn't try to couch them in comedy or predictable 'high concept' ideas (like Tarzan in the city! oooh! Yawn...). Tarzan should be almost like a more noble Conan, the jungle is his home, regardless of his lineage, and he is fiercly protective of it. Don't 'Clash of the Titans' it. Don't 'fish out of water' it. Give us a grittier, pulpy, king of the jungle film, not just another Tarzan Lite or Tarzan in name only effort. Graystoke tried, but never quite managed it. This material could be great. It could be epic. With the right writers and director on board, with a constant eye on the source material and sensibilities of ERB's original work, with a cast that takes the material seriously, we could get a great film. Sadly, I don't think that'll happen because Hollywood tends to take the path of least resistance, and if they can serve up something for the happy meal crowd I think that's exactly what they'll choose to do. Brewer is an interesting choice though, Footloose is clearly his 'paycheck' movie, paying his dues to the accountants running hollywood, and he has shown talent in the past with Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan. But will the lure of hollywood cash that he has tasted with this pointless Footloose remake lure him into the darkside of 'director for hire - pay me, pay me now!', or will he use the leverage of his previous quality films, and his upcoming 'for-the-money' gig, and actually try and do Tarzan some justice. The opportunity is there, just gotta wait and see which direction Brewer jumps in I guess...
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I think it was called Desperado. Antonio was Tarzan and cock sucking lips big tits was Jane.
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A zillionth remake would be boring unless some crazy new storyline were created, monsters or robotic fighting.
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June 2, 2011, 1:45 p.m. CST
antonphd: I'll have you kindly not refer to my future wife and mother to my children as "cock sucking lips big tits."
by WriteForTheEdit
Granted, I share your enthusiasm for those attributes.
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except he's insisted on a few script revisions. Instead of Tarzan being a feral boy raised in the wild to become lord of the jungle, he's going to be an out of work insurance adjuster trying to reconnect with his daughter after the death of his alcoholic wife.
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But if you can explain, logically, why an ape just happened to choose a white baby to raise but never a black one, when there would be thousands of times as many of them over thousands of years...I will happily laugh in your face.
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...the Tarzan movie is not PC and is dated early 1900s or earlier. But being NOT PC doesn't mean he is not protective of mother nature. But he will be naive, instinctive and wise(not a wise-ass). Jane should be an athletic natural beauty like Emmy Rossum or Summer Glau. Tarzan I hope will be somewhat of a newcomer and with that somewhat of a naive look, at least until he is needed for action. Hopefully the beauty of the land and its inhabitants will be enough to make viewers wish they could be there.
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After 'King Kong' and 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes', he's really making monkeys his business!
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That's...interesting. Not sure what to make of the man's racial attitudes, and Tarzan is a time bomb in that regard. It would take someone extraordinary to keep that material from being hella offensive and/or condescending/ patriarchal/ ultra-conservative/ nonsensical. I mean, Disney just decided to do an End-run around the whole issue and literally make a movie SET IN AFRICA without a single black person, one of the most extreme instances of cowardice I've ever seen. This...might be a disaster.
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Who wants to see Tarzan take on poor, aids- ridden natives hacking each other up with machetes? Great place for a George Romeo movie, though.
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If they could capture just how tough Tarzan was, this could be good. I'm still waiting to see the Tarzan who uses a rope as a weapon, flinging it out of the canopy of leaves and soundlessly dragging some porter into the trees by his neck.
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Who really cares about another Tarzan? How about an original concept Hollywood......anyone? Anyone? Didn't think so. Keep your re-boots, re-makes, prequels, sequels and shove them up your ass. Thanks..needed to vent. I feel better now :)
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He has to do it right. Tarzan wasn't an ignorant wild man. He was an English Lord and self educated! I want KORAK! I wanna see him fighting the Kaiser's Germany! I want Opar and La done right!
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LMAO.
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You're welcome.
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into the "will never happen" file.
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June 2, 2011, 2:11 p.m. CST
REWORK TARZAN-now, tarzan is an ape who grows up(raised by humans) in post-apocalyptic america
by BILLY
Seriously, I'd see that
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June 2, 2011, 2:16 p.m. CST
Brewer is the biggest wigger since Eimiem. He wants so bad to be a black dude.
by tamethecunt
No thanks.
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Wise man of darkest Africa
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the brendan fraiser movie was awesome
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnWlTyZLQhQ
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June 2, 2011, 2:37 p.m. CST
Tarzan- Johnny Depp, Jane-Helena Bonham Carter, Main Gorilla-Michael Clarke Duncan
by Raindog789
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He's one of the greatest pulp/literary characters ever. He's like Sherlock Holmes, Batman, Superman, Dracula and James Bond: timeless. He's do for another great update (Tarzan: Legend of Greystoke was a great idea bungled somewhere along the way).
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June 2, 2011, 2:45 p.m. CST
Could be amazing but I doubt they will do it right.
by the Green Gargantua
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Tarzan and his crew land on an Earth run by talking apes. "I FUCKING LOVE THIS PLACE!!" says Tarzan, as he runs off into the trees naked and whooping.
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That way you can have your savage in a loin cloth and knife fighting dinosaurs and monsters. Just a boy and his Sabre-tooth tiger.
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Me: "Me ready." *Unzips pants*
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June 2, 2011, 2:50 p.m. CST
OTHER THAN THE CHEESY SETS USED, AND ANDIE MCDOWELL DUBBING, GREYSTOKE WAS NON-AWFUL
by Darth Busey
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Bring it Marvel.....Ka-zar all up in the Savage Land, fighting dinosaurs with a knife and sabre-toothed tiger.
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That Tarzan....he loooooooves to swing.
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Because that's the only important consideration now days (or so it seems).
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It'll be a threeway with the Bieber! All the tweenies will hate me for sure!
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...like that retarded Lone Ranger movie coming.
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For the win!
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Me just in Bieber.
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Makes all the sense in the world to me!
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Human emotions are strange to him.
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was truly EPIC!
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How about dusting off Robert Towne’s visionary original script (not the pretentious detritus that Hugh Hudson and Michael Austin crapped out) and adding elements from ‘Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar’ and you would have an intelligent Indiana Jones type rousing adventure. I know that this would never happen in today’s Hollywood but at least I can dream. I suspect that Warner’s “passion” for this project is based more on Tarzan’s Public Domain status ( only the name is still has a copywrite ) here’s Gore Vidal’s excellent take on Tarzan and ERB http://tinyurl.com/4yoasoj
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The guy who played Crixus in the two "Spartacus" series. For Jane: Olivia Wilde. If you really want to see some excellent Tarzan stories, check out the Disney animated series that followed up the film. Kidsafe, of course, so there's only so far they can go, and the sidekick animals can get pretty cloying. But you see a ton of characters and situations taken right from the books that had never been dramatized before, including La of Opar and the Waziri. PAD
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June 2, 2011, 3:35 p.m. CST
Tarzan:some buff Brit Jane: Haley Atwell Cheetah: some chimp
by Dennis_Moore
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Just set it on Pandora and collect dump truck loads worth of cash. Get Jim Cameron on the horn and get it done people.
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Why is three suddenly a magic number? It isn't. It's just the time where people get bored with a film property and when it probably becomes less profitable. But planning trilogies is gay and stupid.
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Let me see, in the past couple decades we got a god-awful, soft-core port version starring Bo Derek as Jane--then I believe we got a low-budget, craptacular with pretty boy Casper Van Diem in the role. Then we got a bloated, over-long, boring, "serious" interpretation by that "Quest for Fire dude that advertised its snooty, pretentious approach by calling it "Greystoke: The Legen of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes". Why not just have called it "Tarzan of the Apes"? If that was good enough for ole' ERB, it should have been good enough for the self-important shitbags who made that piece of floatsam. Anyway, point being. Barring the really good Disney cartoon version, a high budget, faithful reboot is a damn good idea. But why get the "Footloose" remake guy to do it? BAD CHOICE! Get del Toro!
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It was epic... stuffy, but epic. I like it still!
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I tend to agree with you on the trilogy thing. Surely there are some great trilogies out there, but there are also great examples of films that have either less than three films or more than three. The double whammy of Alien and Aliens featured a perfect two-film story arc that was bungled by further entries to the series. The Terminator and T2 are another two-film casualty that were slightly wounded by their sequels and spin-offs. A lot of the time, one or two films might likely be just enough to tell the story and leave things at a satisfying point of departure for the audience. Look at both Matrix sequels. While I liked them overall, a lot of people didn't because they were kind of bloated. If they had streamlined the basic plot running through Reloaded and Revolutions into one three hour film, instead focusing on the primary characters more intensely, then it would have been a better film from a character/story perspective. Then again, whether you like The Matrix trilogy or just the original film, The Matrix itself stands on its own just fine. On the other end of the spectrum, you have something like Harry Potter, which is way more than three films but is successful and from my understanding they did the books justice for pretty much all of the entries in that series. Then a lot of the time when there is that rare gem of a trilogy that actually manages to hold itself together with three good films, they go and screw it up with a crappy fourth film or prequel(s). I'm looking at you Star Wars, Indiana Jones, possibly the upcoming Jason Bourne #4. Even something like Alien 3, which for those who are fans of that film, it at least provided some closure for the character of Ripley before being driven completely off the tracks by the runaway circus train known as Alien Resurrection. Of course, the studios want to hear the magic words "trilogy" or "franchise" these days no matter if it is good for the overall story arc or not.
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I saw what you did up there. Nice!
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Or a film based on the 'Dynamite' comic character by Frank Cho . . . "Jungle Girl"
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June 2, 2011, 4:59 p.m. CST
Am I the only one who was hoping for like 5 sequels to Tarzan and the Lost City?
by JuanSanchez
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If you're raised by apes, have generally the same genitalia, and you become the lord of the apes, I think some ape rape would come into play.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i__2vabLGxY
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But I believe it's Last Call on this story. Who cares.
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Or Tarzan w/ dinosaurs, like there were from time to time in that old Filmation cartoon. And while we're at it an epic Lancelot Link film.
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Instead of being an English nobleman stranded in Africa, he can be an African tribal nobleman stranded in the wilds of New York City. Wait a minute ... isn't that the plot of COMING TO AMERICA? Landis finds new ways to amaze me every day.
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June 2, 2011, 5:45 p.m. CST
Val Kilmer should play fat Tarzan - after he retired from whatever it was he did.
by JuanSanchez
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Preferably modern-day Africa, with the warlords and the arms traders and the AIDS and the greedy enablers of pharmaceutical companies ... HILARITY WILL ENSUE.
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June 2, 2011, 5:47 p.m. CST
Oh, and for BSB and Kermit: "Gaystroke: The New Legend"
by WriteForTheEdit
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cheeta = gilbert godfried.
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Have Colin Farrell play him in Charlie Chan makeup.
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The animated series deserves respect. Quite entertaining.
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None of the good ideas above will happen. Time for Twilight in the Jungle.
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June 2, 2011, 7:15 p.m. CST
Turn it into Brokeback Jungle and cast a dude as Jane...
by schizoschizo
...and have a lot of banana-related sexual innuendos.
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Make the first movie the first faithful adaptation of Burrough's novel TARZAN OF THE APES, complete with it's unhappy ending (there's no happily ever after for Tarzan and Jane in this book). Then divide the second novel, THE RETURN OF TARZAN, in two. Call part one MONSIEUR TARZAN showing Tarzan's adventures in civilization, first in France and then working as a spy in North Africa. A kind of anti-Tarzan Tarzan movie. Then back to the jungle for part two with Tarzan living with the Waziri, discovering Opar and meeting La, and reconnecting with Jane for the big emotional finish.
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As an avid fan of the books, and currently reading the first for the umpteenth time, I think he would be a good choice. Bale would own in the role, but I think Hemsworth has the size to pull it off even more. I would really like the movie to try to adapt the novel as faithfully as possible. There is some really great moments in it, both quiet and action. As for those of you who are only familiar with "Greystoke," that movie was fairly faithful until he went to England and then it was totally bullshit. The ape "father" that gets killed in the park--bullshit. in the book that didn't happen. As for the casting of Jane, Hmm. in the book she's 19 when they meet. I dunno who might fit that bill right now.
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They stripped all the action out of it, to an absurd degree. And were NOT honest with the character. When the cops killed his adopted father, Tarzan wouldn't have held his father's body and cried--he would have torn the cop's throat out with his teeth. Only Jane could have stopped it. Now THAT would have been a scene. But for reasons I cannot fathom, they seemed to have a pathological avoidance of having good, rough action, and that kills the pulp roots of the whole thing. Very unsatisfying on any but some angsty psychological level.
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Also, I am not in the "Lambert was a great Tarzan"camp. Physically, he was not right for the role. The shitty movie aside, I submit that the most physically faithful Tarzan to date has been Miles O'Keefe. Mike Henry was good for a civilized Tarzan, but for pre Jane Tarzan, O'Keefe had it.
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June 3, 2011, 1:09 a.m. CST
Tarzan = Brendan Fraser, Jane = Betty White, Cheetah = Bubbles
by Happyfat73
Watch out for that tree!
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for his Tarzan? Just very interested.
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June 3, 2011, 5:47 a.m. CST
The Disney Tarzan movie was really good, yes. THe Phil Collings songs however, were hellish abominations.
by AsimovLives
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June 3, 2011, 6:14 a.m. CST
I love the 1984 movie GREYSTOCK: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN LORD OF THE APES.
by AsimovLives
Yeah, i really like that movie, which apparently has a poor acceptance among he geekry, for reasons that sound like bullshit to me.
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I liked Graystoke, but it wasn't Tarzan as Burroughs created him, psychologically--Tarzan was a borderline berzerker, and the character in the film went into melancholy and tears instead of rage. The stories were adventures, while the film seemed far more interested in exploring the "romance" of the primitive man trying to find his place in civilization. I know for a fact that there was a fight scene when Tarzan first reached civilization (a shanty town of some kind? It's been decades) that was excised, so it had to be quite deliberate. "Graystoke" was sort of an anti-Tarzan in those senses, and undoubtedly a beautiful film. Add the elements of action Burroughs reveled in, and it might have been the best Tarzan ever made. But without them...it was kind of like a Sherlock Holmes film where he never made a deduction or solved a crime--but was scrupulous in every other way. A fascinating experiment, perhaps, but it's not "bullshit" to dislike the lack of adventure.
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Remove the fur and apes are pretty whitey.
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June 3, 2011, 9:33 a.m. CST
hipshot, the Greystock i know has a fight in a shanty town.
by AsimovLives
It also has a brutal scene where young tarzan is beaten to a pulp by the apes boss. Later tarzan as an adult tells him who's the boss. I don't know what pussified version of the movie you know, but the one i saw is brutal when it needs to be.
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When I was in highschool and loved them all. There's so much material there for a really awesome series of movies if they would just STOP FUCKING WITH THE MATERIAL! Why do Hollywood suits feel they have to change things; the Tarzan stories as written by Edgar Rice Borroughs rocked. When Greystoke returned to civilization he adapted the veneer of a sophisticated man, but a very very thin veneer. He could go back to his savage self in the blink of an eye. A definitive Tarzan has not yet been created in my opinion. Get someone like Nolan to treat the source material with respect.
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I'd like to see a remake of Captain Blood, not from the Errol Flynn movie, but from the book by Rafael Sabatini. After all, aren't pirate movies all the rage? And while they're at it, do Scaramouche, too. Chris Hemsworth might make a good Greystoke. He certainly has the physicality, but he's more Norse God looking than savage ape looking. Although... ya never know. Um... Jared Padaleki (supernatural) would make a good Tarzan...
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Also some gymnastic/ parkour/ capoeira classes to help with movement.
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I don't know why...it just came to me!
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Funniest comment in the TB. Well done, Sir, I say, well done.
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The main issue with the old Greystroke was that they forgot how Burroughs books were a thinly veiled rant on Nature vs Nurture -- since they whole point was even an while British orphan raised by apes would still rise above, teach himself to read and take over his tribe. the challenge is conveying all that without having some buff actor spend time trying to emote thru a bunch of grunts and growls.
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This was to be George Cosmatos' next film before he died. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
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It makes your boards unreadable - who the hell wants to click every post to see it. You need to fix that dude.
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No more ridiculous than the casting for that atrocious 2009 Sherlock Holmes film.
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And put his dog's name there. So you are saying his problems with the finished product is bullshit too? It was a nice attempt, but the overall film didn't pull off what Robert Towne was envisioning (admittedly, it would have helped if he finished the fucking script). Hugh Hudson amplified the pretentions of the script and worse, he seemed to feel ashamed of it's pulp origins (never once do they mention the fucking name "Tarzan"!).
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I like the movie just fine. and i have Greystock on DVD and the director Hugh Hudson never once says anything about him being ashamed of the movie or it's origins. And what pretentiousness is there in that movie? What are you talking about? Greystock is not a pretentious movie at all. What silliness is that? So it's a Tarzan movie that wants to take it's subject seriously, what's wrong with that? And it has the word Tarzan in the title, so no the movie has no shame on that as well. Greystock is a good movie. Robert Towne has his own reasons for disliking the movie because it's not his vision. Fair enough. But as the movie turned out, it's a damn good movie. His pains are not yours, you know?
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June 4, 2011, 3:14 p.m. CST
Beside,s in-story where the bloody hell the name Tarzan would came from?
by AsimovLives
Tarzan only learns to speak thanks to the belgian explorer. And then the first language he learns is french, not english, due to his teacher being belgian. His whole life was spent with apes. So where, in-story, it would make sense for him to go around calling himself Tarzan? Last i checked, apes can't talk. Or to be more precisely, the only apes who can talk are humans. The movie calls him by his birth name, as the descendent of the Grestock family. That makes sense in-story, don't you think?
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Just don't force feed us the bs that we all have to like it. "...which apparently has a poor acceptance among he geekry, for reasons that sound like bullshit to me." No, not all reasons are bullshit. You say it isn't pretentious, I say it is. It was almost painfully stately IMO (and many others). Hudson takes Tarzan and makes it a movie more about Victorian/Edwardian furniture and stuffy rooms. Hudson's stuffy tableaux nearly suffocates some great performances from Holm, Richardson and Lambert, but even their great effort can't evaluate this film. And how hard would it be to give a rational for calling him Tarzan? Yeah, it is called Tarzan in the title, but why? The name has no meaning in this film other than the barest reference to the source material. Imagine "Superman: the Man of Steel" and he never once is called Superman. And no. Towne's pain isn't mine, and I never said it was. But I pointed it out to show that many people of higher esteem disagree with you about that film. If Robert Towne has a problem with it (and so do many very good critics and filmmakers) who are you to say their opinion/reasons are bullshit? And if their reasons are justified, who are you to say the same with the people here in these TBs? Finally, I'm not a film geek, so the geekry comment doesn't imply to me. Geek implies someone who judges everything based on only the other movies and pop culture items he has devoured. I base my judgement on movies on all my life experiences, not just the imaginary ones.
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In the book, his name Tarzan means "white ape." His ape mother, Kala (keeping in mind this was turn of the 20 th century when very little was known about the animal kingdom) named him that in her ape language. He teaches himself to read and write rudimentary English based upon picture and word association with children's picture books. Since he has no knowledge of the sounds, he can't speak. D'Arnot teaches him to speak French. As an aside, people. Please, It's called "GREYSTOKE." Not Greystroke, or Greystock. if you're going to present an argument, at least spell your subject matter correctly.
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Apes DO talk, in Burroughs' world. They have a simple language, and "Tarzan" means "White Skin" in that language. Burroughs has dozens of ape-words in the course of his stories. Without some basic language given to Tarzan early, it would have been impossible for him to learn English later at all--the "window" for linguistics is fairly narrow, and if you don't learn to speak before the age of about six, you'll pretty much never learn at all.
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I saw "Graystoke" when it first came out. There was indeed a scene where Tarzan gets the shit beaten out of him by the head ape. When he reaches the shanty town, on the other hand, there was clearly SUPPOSED to be a fight scene, but it wasn't really present in the film. If they've re-inserted it, that's great.
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I think the whole idea has been so overdone it doesn't really work anymore. It's more a relic of an earlier time... unless there are no-holds barred fight scenes and brutal murders described in the books. A "realistic" Tarzan? America would never accept it.
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Rehashing this shit a gazillion of times won't make it better.
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