Inverse: Why Tarzan Should Go Full Superhero
Zebbie Watson, writing in Inverse, asks: “Legend of Tarzan looks cool, but why stop there?” — and then goes on to pose some interesting observations about Tarzan and his superhero characteristics. Check this out:
Tarzan’s superpower is the fusion of his humanity with animal instinct. He not only possesses, but epitomizes the best aspects of each. His (specifically noble) English blood grants him an innate rational and emotional intelligence that allows him to reign superior over the animals he is raised with, teach himself to read (Burroughs objected heavily to the ‘I Tarzan, you Jane’ thing in the 1932 film adaptation), and rejoin proper civilization after years in the jungle. And yet his primitive animal side can be unleashed like a secret identity, ripping open his shirt to reveal the superhero costume that is raw muscle and rage.
There’s more — an interesting read. Check it out here.
6 comments
I agree with almost everything in the article. I, on the other hand, do like the historical context. Tarzan’s father was sent to Africa to investigate something similar. I really do like the idea of embracing the superhero component of Tarzan. I believe the most underused superhuman power Tarzan has is his sense of smell. He uses that amazing power all the time in the books. It gives him a huge advantage over any advisary. I understand this would be a hard power to convey on film, but I’d hope a gifted director like David Yates could solve that puzzle. I think it would be cool if early in the movie Tarzan and Jane have a playful game of hide and seek were he follows her trail through her scent. She’s in on it by rubbing her wrist or lips on an object. Tarzan stops at each object smiling. When he catches her…well there goes my daydream. He can now use that power later in the jungle and everyone gets it.
Someone a board revealed that they had seen the film. Just pieces of info.
1. Trailers making it seem like an origin story are misleading. There are some flashback scenes but as we know, the story starts decades after Tarzan has been living in London.
2. Tarzan goes back to the jungle to stop some kind of slave trading or something.
3. This might be disappointing for fans but he doesn’t truly become ‘Tarzan’ until the second half of the film. Meaning the shirt comes off only at the mid way mark. So the SkarsAbs that WB has built their marketing around come in only in the second part.
4. The sex scene is not very raunchy inspite of the punching, just PG 13 stuff.
5. SLJ is apparently pretty bad.
Two more HQ abdominal stills of Alexander Skarsgard as Tarzan doing… well showing off his abs yet again.
http://assets.cdn.moviepilot.de/files/0a5d6d4255899ac7fc2101c8dbb2896da7470cea37d5d32fbcfcafec5eab/the-legend-of-tarzan-mit-alexander-skarsgard.jpg
http://assets.cdn.moviepilot.de/files/a010cf6a5ddc694333bc32a5a8df69d8298ddacae553af620b5d2358f7f8/the-legend-of-tarzan-mit-alexander-skarsgard-und-david-yates.jpg
Thanks for finding those. Pleae keep posting anything you find. I’m going to do a summary of all the promotion to date sometime over he weekend. It will be a short post! …. but I want to log the photos and when they were released, then compare it to some of the competition. So if you see anything ….. pls share, as you have been doing. THanks!
Those stills came out almost two weeks ago.
The LOT FB page has release a few new stills, including one of Djimon:
https://www.facebook.com/LegendofTarzan/photos?ref=page_internal
He and Adam Cozad were part of WB expo in Mexico City this week:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFnJSgIBndR/?taken-by=wbpictures_mx
Alex did interviews for Russian GQ and Russian Cosmo, released this week, and also another abs still plus short blurb in this week’s US Weekly.
Here’s another still, but not of the SkarsAbs variety. http://legendoftarzan.com/post/144657730191/obey-the-rules-of-mother-nature