Two Jungles
Disney has made The Jungle Book twice, fifty years apart, and the two films could hardly be more different. The 1967 cartoon is loose, funny and musical, built around jazz, personality and two of the most famous songs the studio ever produced. The 2016 remake is a photorealistic technical marvel, with animals that look completely real, a darker, more dangerous jungle and a boy who seems to be lost in it.
Both are good. It’s unusual for a Disney remake. The original is as purely enjoyable as anything Disney ever made, and I rate it a 10. The remake is the rare one that finds a reason to exist beyond copying the original, and I give it an 8. This page looks at both, and at what each one does with the same story.
The cartoon makes me happy in a way very few films manage. Phil Harris growling through a song about doing as little as possible is about as close to pure pleasure as animation gets for me, and the loose, jokey shape of it is the whole appeal. The remake impressed me, and Idris Elba’s tiger is the best reason to see it, but it never makes me grin the way the original does.
Kipling’s Book
Both films come from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, published in 1894, a collection of stories about Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle, and the animals who teach him its laws. Kipling’s Mowgli stories are darker, stranger and more violent than either film. They’re about law, loyalty and the line between the animal world and the human one, and Mowgli is a fierce, sometimes cruel figure.
Disney’s first version threw out almost all of that and kept the characters and the basic trip: a boy taken through the jungle to the man village, meeting its animals along the way, and pursued by the tiger Shere Khan. The 2016 remake returns some of Kipling’s darkness and his idea of the jungle’s law, while keeping the 1967 film’s characters and some of its songs.
The Jungle Book (1967). 10/10
10 / 10
Wolfgang Reitherman directed the original, and it came out in October 1967. It was the last animated film Walt Disney personally oversaw; he died in December 1966, before it was finished, and the studio’s staff completed it knowing it would be seen as his farewell. The film was a huge success, and it’s one of the films most people think of first when they think of classic Disney.
Its story is simple. Mowgli, a boy found as a baby by the panther Bagheera and raised by wolves, has to leave the jungle because the tiger Shere Khan has returned and will kill him. Bagheera sets out to take him to the man village. Along the way, Mowgli meets Baloo the bear, the python Kaa, the elephant patrol, King Louie and his monkeys, and a quartet of vultures, and finally has to face Shere Khan himself.
It’s episodic, a series of encounters more than a plot. That’s part of its charm. Each episode introduces a big, funny personality, and the film lets them play. Nobody watches The Jungle Book for its plot. They watch it to spend time with Baloo, Bagheera and King Louie, and the film knows it.
Walt’s Last Word
The film’s loose, jazzy tone came directly from Walt Disney. The studio’s great story artist Bill Peet originally developed a darker, more faithful version of Kipling’s stories, and Disney rejected it. He wanted something lighter, funnier and built around personalities, and Peet left the studio after the disagreement.
Disney told his team not to read Kipling’s book, and to concentrate on character. The result is a film that feels like a series of brilliant variety acts, each built around a performer: Phil Harris as Baloo, Louis Prima as King Louie, George Sanders as Shere Khan. Many of the characters were designed around the voices of their actors, and you can hear it in every scene.
It’s a film made by a studio at the end of an era, and it has the ease and confidence of artists who knew exactly what they were doing. It’s also, knowingly, a goodbye. The staff who finished it after Walt’s death have spoken of the strange feeling of completing his last project without him, and there’s a gentle melancholy under all the jazz.
For Writers
Walt Disney told his team not to read Kipling and to build the film around personalities. The characters, designed around their voice actors, carry a story that’s barely a plot.
When you write, a series of vivid encounters can carry a simple trip if every character is distinct enough to be memorable on their own.
If your story is episodic, make each episode’s central character so specific that the reader could recognize them from a single line of dialogue.
Baloo and the Bare Necessities
Phil Harris voices Baloo, a lazy, fun-loving bear who adopts Mowgli and teaches him to live the easy life. Harris was a bandleader and radio comedian, and his relaxed, growling delivery made Baloo a favorite with generations of viewers. The Bare Necessities, written by Terry Gilkyson, is his song, a jaunty, easy-going number about taking life as it comes, and it was nominated for the Oscar.
Baloo’s friendship with Mowgli is the film’s heart. He’s irresponsible, childish and completely devoted, and when Bagheera tells him that Mowgli must leave the jungle for his own safety, Baloo’s heartbreak is moving. The scene where he has to tell Mowgli the truth, and Mowgli runs away, is one of the saddest in any Disney film.
That scene gets me. Baloo is a big lazy clown for most of the picture, and when he has to break the boy’s heart for his own good, Harris plays it without a single joke to hide behind. I’d put it up against anything Disney ever did for sadness.
King Louie
The film’s other great musical number belongs to King Louie, an orangutan who rules a ruined temple full of monkeys and wants Mowgli to teach him the secret of fire, so he can become human. Louis Prima, the jazz singer and trumpeter, voices him, and I Wan’na Be Like You, written by Richard and Robert Sherman, is a wild, swinging jazz number that turns into a full-scale dance party.
It’s the most joyful sequence in the film, and Baloo’s disguise as a female ape, dancing with Louie, is one of its funniest moments. It’s also a sequence that has been discussed for its possible racial overtones, with a jazz-singing ape who wants to be human, and the 2016 remake reworked the character to avoid them.
Prima’s performance is irresistible whatever one makes of the design, and the sequence is a showpiece for the studio’s best animators, working at the top of their game. It’s the scene most people remember, and the one children ask to watch again.
For Writers
King Louie wants the secret of fire so he can become human. His comic song is really about longing, and it makes him more than a villain.
Give your comic character one sincere wish that drives everything they do, and let their big comic scene be an expression of that wish. For more, see my article on humor in writing. Give a comic antagonist a real desire and they become funnier and more interesting than simple menace.
Kaa, the Vultures and Shere Khan
Sterling Holloway, the voice of Winnie the Pooh, voices Kaa, the hypnotic, lisping python who tries to eat Mowgli twice, and his song Trust in Me is creepy and very funny. The four vultures, with their mop-top haircuts and Liverpool accents, are a gentle nod to the Beatles, and their doo-wop number about friendship is a treat.
George Sanders voices Shere Khan with a silky, aristocratic menace that makes him one of Disney’s best villains. He never raises his voice. He’s elegant, amused and completely confident, and when he finally appears, the film’s light tone darkens. The final fight, in a storm, with lightning setting a dead tree on fire, is exciting, and Mowgli defeats him with fire, the one thing Shere Khan fears.
The ending, with Mowgli following a girl into the man village while Baloo and Bagheera watch, is gentle and bittersweet. It’s the right ending for a film about growing up and leaving home. Mowgli doesn’t choose the village because anyone forces him. He chooses it because he’s ready, and Baloo, heartbroken, lets him go.
The Jungle Book (2016). 8/10
8 / 10
Jon Favreau directed the remake, and it’s a technical wonder. Every animal and every piece of jungle was created digitally, and the only real thing on screen is Neel Sethi as Mowgli, filmed on soundstages in Los Angeles.
The effects are so convincing that it’s easy to forget none of it is real. It won the Oscar for visual effects, and it was a huge commercial success.
The story is closer to Kipling and much darker. Shere Khan is a scarred, vengeful tiger who wants Mowgli dead because humans burned him, and he kills Mowgli’s wolf father in front of the pack. The jungle feels dangerous, the animals are frightening, and Mowgli is in real peril throughout.
It keeps the 1967 characters and two of its songs, and it combines the original’s affection with a harder, more adventurous tone. It’s the rare Disney remake that improves on the original in some respects, and the only one of the studio’s live-action remakes that I’d happily watch again. It also ends differently: Mowgli stays in the jungle, using human tools to live alongside the animals.
The 2016 Cast
The voice cast is superb. Bill Murray is Baloo, a lazy, fast-talking, lovable con artist, and he’s perfect, and his version of The Bare Necessities is a delight.
Ben Kingsley is a stern, loving Bagheera. Scarlett Johansson is a sinister, seductive Kaa, and Lupita Nyong’o is Raksha, Mowgli’s wolf mother, whose love for him gives the film its emotional core.
Idris Elba is the best thing in the film. His Shere Khan is terrifying, a scarred, intelligent predator with a deep, rumbling voice and a clear motive, and he’s far more frightening than Sanders’ elegant tiger. Christopher Walken voices King Louie, reimagined as a giant ape called a Gigantopithecus, and his menacing, half-spoken version of I Wan’na Be Like You is strange and very funny.
Elba is why I rate the remake as high as I do. His tiger has a grudge you understand, and every time he’s on screen the jungle feels like a place where a child could die.
I’d have cut Walken’s song, though. It’s a fun oddity, and it throws the brakes on right when the film has you scared.
Neel Sethi, who was about ten, holds the film together almost alone, acting against puppets, blue screens and nothing at all, and he’s very good. His Mowgli is quick, cheeky and resourceful, a boy who uses tools and tricks to survive, and he makes the digital jungle feel inhabited. Without a convincing child at its center, the whole film would fall apart.
Different Approaches
The two films show two completely different ideas of what animation can do. The 1967 film uses animation to create personalities: exaggerated, musical, stylized characters who could never exist in the real world, and who are more alive for it. The 2016 film uses technology to create reality: animals that look like real animals, a jungle that looks like a real jungle, and a world that feels dangerous.
The original is more fun. The remake is more exciting. The original’s songs and characters are more memorable, and the remake’s story is stronger and its villain better. Watching them together, it’s hard not to feel that each has something the other lacks. The ideal Jungle Book would combine the 1967 film’s joy with the 2016 film’s stakes.
For Writers
In a rewrite or adaptation of a familiar story, trying to copy the original’s strengths usually produces a weaker version. Finding a different angle can produce something new. Before rewriting a story, decide what the original did best, and then deliberately choose a different strength for your version. Build everything around that choice.
Which Is Better
The 1967 film, for me. It’s a 10, because it’s pure pleasure: two great songs, a handful of vivid characters and a warmth that never fades. It’s a film I can watch any time, in any mood, and enjoy completely.
The 2016 film is an 8. It’s an impressive, exciting, beautifully made film with a better villain and a stronger story, and it’s the best of Disney’s live-action remakes by a distance. It lacks the original’s lightness and joy, and some of its songs feel out of place in its darker jungle. Watch both, starting with the original.
Craft Note
Craft Note
The 1967 Jungle Book has almost no plot. A boy walks through a jungle and meets a series of characters, and it works because every encounter is built around a vivid personality with a clear desire.
With a simple story, the temptation is to add plot twists to keep it interesting. Often the better answer is sharper characters.
Take your simplest storyline and give every character your hero meets one clear want and one memorable trait. Let the encounters move the story forward.
The Verdict on The Jungle Book
The 1967 original gets my 10 because it’s the one I can put on in any mood and enjoy start to finish, with Baloo, King Louie and two songs Disney never bettered. Favreau’s remake is an 8 and the only live-action Disney remake I’d happily watch again, held back because it trades the original’s joy for danger and never figures out where the songs belong. Watch both, and start with the original.
