Disney Cracks Open The Jungle Book Again - IGN (original) (raw)

When most people think about Disney's classic animated films, The Jungle Book is probably not the first title that comes to mind. But among animation fanatics, it's one of the real gems in the studio's catalogue. Ironically, one reason for that is the fact that it was the last film to be supervised by Walt himself, who died before it was finished. The final product has a rough look about it, one that might not have met with the studio founder's approval, but enthusiasts have come to appreciate the film's distinctively loose, unrestrained style. Look closely and you can still see the animator's original construction lines in the figures as they dance around. Compare a more conventional character like Peter Pan to the gangly figure of young Mowgli and it's easy to see the evolution from polished refinement to controlled chaos. It's like comparing jazz to classical music.

But the sketchy elements that make the film a favorite among animation buffs also make it one of the more difficult projects to restore. So, when Disney's director of restoration, Theo Gluck, sat down with his team to begin the arduous task of remastering the film for its 40th anniversary DVD release, he had to make some tough decisions about what to "fix" and what to leave in.

"What we did from day one was [say], 'We're not going to clean that up,'" Gluck says in an interview at Disney's Animation Research Library, where the studio's valuable archives are stored and preserved. "You look at what was done before, and we have a really astute and a great set of eyes on the team. We have never regretted doing anything, and we've never been taken to task by doing anything. So that's, I suppose, a good way of looking at it. Certain things we can fix. These bananas that come down, if all of a sudden, like everything that was the lighter yellow became the darker yellow because the person painting the cell mixed them up. We can go back in and actually correct that. You'll see them oscillate. You'll see certain paintings disappear. You could see all the lines on Mowgli's pants disappear. We can draw them back in. If it was something that they surely would have fixed at the time, we will absolutely do it."

Gluck tells stories about Xerox toner dust giving certain characters sickly looking spotted tongues or mistakes in inking that have made characters appear to have webbed hands. It makes you wonder where the quality control was back in 1967. Did the loss of the notoriously perfectionist Disney mean that these errors went unnoticed? Not necessarily.

"See, here's the thing," Gluck explains. "Even if they saw it at the time, and whether or not somebody went out to the woodshed because of it, I don't know, but if you saw it at the time and wanted to fix it, you had to re-ink the cell, repaint the cell, re-photograph it. ... Now, we can turn this around in scant moments if need be. And there are also times that we'll see something and we're like, 'You know what? That's just the animation. That's the way it was. We'll leave it.'"

The restoration process involved cleaning up over 122,000 color frames and scanning nearly four miles of film. The picture was also returned to its original 1.75:1 aspect ratio, a somewhat uncommon format that Disney specialized in during the period the film was produced. The team working on the restoration took advantage of the studio's research library to refer to the original drawings and elements to get the look of the film as close to the original as possible.

To promote the special-edition DVD, available in stores on Oct. 2, Disney invited IGN and other outlets to tour the Animation Research Library, which is not usually open to the public. The visit included the vaults containing original artwork and elements from every animated feature and short the studio has ever produced. This is where researchers unearthed the concept sketches for a lost character that was originally intended for The Jungle Book, but was cut early on in the production.

The story of Rocky the Rhino is a great example of Disney's influence on the development of the features that came out of his studio. Initially conceived as a "punch drunk fighter," according to the bonus feature on the DVD devoted to him, the producers cast actor Frank Fontaine, who was well known for playing a dim-witted character on The Jackie Gleason show. The reasons given for the elimination of the character vary, but according to one account, Disney didn't like Fontaine's vocal performance. And if the clips included in the featurette are any indication, Disney made the right choice.

The Jungle Book also has historical importance as a turning point in the history of the Disney studio. Following Walt's death there was a marked drop in the quality and popularity of the animated features produced by the studio. The '70s saw the release of films like The Aristocats and Robin Hood, which may have their fans, but they'll never be considered equals to earlier classics like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. But had The Jungle Book not succeeded at the box office, those films might not have even been made.

According to Bruce Reitherman, whose father, Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman, directed The Jungle Book, and who provided the voice and live-action reference for the character of Mowgli, it was by sheer determination of the filmmakers and animators left behind that the studio remained in the animation business after Walt was gone.

"That's the real story," he says, "The story of filmmaking at the studio and what they managed to achieve, and what my dad managed to achieve. I mean, when Walt passed away there was a good chance that animation would just go away. It hadn't been very financially successful for the first couple of films preceding The Jungle Book, and it was a very expensive process. It took forever. The guys had been at the studio forever, and it took a lot of them. The nine old men plus a series of other very talented artists. It took a lot just to keep them on the lot. And it was no slam dunk as to whether or not it would survive. Had Jungle Book tanked, there could easily have been no more Disney animation for quite some time. So the guys there really, I do think, realized that it was a matter of do or die, and we had to really, if we got this thing wrong, we had a lot of excuses. Walt was sick and he was busy with Disneyland and yeah, he was an integral part of the story decisions, but you could find ways of excusing something less than perfection, something less than the best they possibly could do, but they just weren't willing to settle for that. And they ended up with something that, ironically enough, is the product of some incredible hard work and some growing pains and some birth pains that were acute, but looks on the screen to be the most effortless, lighthearted, wonderful, warm, delightful thing."

That's a legacy that Gluck and the restoration team recognized and honored in their work. They came on to the project with a respect for the history and significance of the film, which audiences may have forgotten or never even realized, and that drove every decision along the way.

"You check your ego at the door when you're doing this," he says. "We're not doing this because we think it's the right thing to do. Personal opinion foisted as fact accomplishes nothing in this area. This is informed, intelligent consensus and research. And with an absolute reverence and respect for this library. And that, I think, is really what has been the key to the success of the restoration project."