Trailer Trashin’: An Animated Classic Comes to Life in The Jungle Book Teaser Trailer

It’s almost October, dear readers, and that means prestige movie season is just around the corner. But it also means that we’re going to be getting trailers for more of next year’s big movies. And this week’s installment of Trailer Trashin’ is just that, with our first look at Disney’s The Jungle Book.

Premise: The orphan boy Mowgli (Neel Sethi) grows up in the Indian jungle with the help of a pack of wolves, the bear Baloo (voice of Bill Murray), and the black panther Bagheera (voice of Ben Kingsley).

My take: The Jungle Book (1967) holds a special place in the Disney animated canon, being the final animated film to be in production while Walt Disney was alive, and the first to be released following his death. And in the last five years, Disney has found quite a bit of success with live-action remakes of its animated classics. So it’s no surprise that Disney’s next live-action remake will be a new version of The Jungle Book, coming next spring from director Jon Favreau. The first teaser trailer for the live-action The Jungle Book has arrived, and it’s shot up my “must-see” list for 2016.

0:13: The voiceover that starts here and continues through much of the trailer is by Scarlett Johansson, but the character she’s playing is not revealed until later.

0:19-0:22: A very atmospheric shot of Mowgli (Sethi) standing alone among the trees, with the entire area shrouded in mist.

0:26-0:27: Our first look at the tiger Shere Khan, voiced by Idris Elba. Very cool shot of him standing atop a rocky outcropping and roaring.

0:30-0:31: A moody nighttime shot of the bear Baloo (voiced by Bill Murray) and the black panther Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley) standing together, looking at what appears to be a fire off in the distance. Baloo and Bagheera were a great goofball and straight man duo in the animated film, so I’m interested to see how much of that is retained here.

0:36-0:37: Given that this is a much younger Mowgli, this scene must be the first meeting between Mowgli and Bagheera.

0:40-0:41: The monkeys climb up a steep cliff face. If you look closely at the center of the frame, you can see Mowgli clinging to the back of one of the monkeys. Did they rescue him, or is he being kidnapped?

0:46-0:47: Mowgli faced with a group of elephants. The elephants were of course part of the animated film, but it’s unknown at this point if their leader Colonel Hathi will appear in this version.

0:48-0:50: Now we get our first look at the character I’ve perhaps been most looking forward to: the monkeys’ leader, King Louie, voiced by Christopher Walken. While Louie was very much a comic antagonist in the animated film, he seems to be depicted as much more menacing here, and Mowgli looks genuinely frightened. Like in the original film, Louie and his monkeys have their lair inside an old abandoned temple in the jungle. In the original film, Louie wanted Mowgli to tell him the secret of how to make fire, which is man’s greatest weapon against the creatures of the jungle and the only thing that Shere Khan fears.

For anyone who’s wondering why he looks so big here, Jon Favreau has explained that this version of King Louie is a Gigantopithecus, not an orangutan like he was in the animated film, because orangutans have never been native to India. Gigantopithecus is an extinct genus of great ape closely related to orangutans, which grew up to ten feet tall and weighed over half a ton, and lived in China, Vietnam, and India up until about one hundred thousand years ago.

1:00-1:04: Shere Khan lunges toward Mowgli, but the tiger is intercepted just in time by Bagheera. A fight ensues and Bagheera is quickly knocked down by Shere Khan, who again turns his attention on Mowgli. The boy runs for his life, and jumps into a ravine to escape the tiger. Bagheera never was involved in any fighting in the animated film, so it’s cool to see him willing to go toe-to-toe with Shere Khan to protect Mowgli.

1:06-1:10: Now, the trailer finally reveals who’s been speaking the entire time, and it’s Kaa the python, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Kaa was a male in the original Rudyard Kipling stories and the animated film, but is female in this version. This also reveals, for those who didn’t know, that the animals will indeed talk in this film, like they did in the animated version. Most attempts to depict realistic-looking animals as talking have been pretty bad, but the little bit we see here looks good, so hopefully they’ve managed to pull it off. And in a nice reference for fans, Kaa’s line ends with “trust in me,” which was the name of Kaa’s big song from the animated film.

1:17-1:18: Bagheera and Baloo in the courtyard of the ruined temple, facing down a swarm of charging monkeys. Presumably, the two of them are there to rescue Mowgli from King Louie, as was the case in the animated film.

We also see Baloo stand on his hind legs and roar, making it look like he’s probably not the goofy character he was in the cartoon.

1:20: Another shot of King Louie, which gives us a good sense of how big he is. He’s a creature that’s ten feet tall when standing up, and even when he’s hunched over to fit inside this human-sized temple, his head is still almost touching the ceiling.

1:21-1:22: This shot is following on from Mowgli jumping into the ravine to get away from Shere Khan. Down in the ravine, a herd of wild water buffalo are charging by, and Mowgli grabs onto the horns of one to make his escape. If you look up toward the top-right of the frame, you can see Shere Khan on the cliff above, looking down at Mowgli.

1:22-1:23: Really nice close-up of Shere Khan, with a flash of fire in front of him, possibly from a torch held by Mowgli. I can’t wait to hear Idris Elba’s voice coming out of that tiger’s mouth.

1:25-1:27: One last moment with King Louie, as we see the giant ape charging through the temple after Mowgli, smashing through part of the walls as he does. Mowgli jumps out a narrow doorway, just ahead of one of King Louie’s huge arms, with a hand that looks almost as big as Mowgli’s entire torso. And that arm is being thrust out with such force that the stonework around the doorway starts to break apart.

1:35-1:39: After all that intensity and action, the trailer ends on a nice, peaceful note, with the classic image from the animated film of Baloo floating on his back down the river with Mowgli sitting on his stomach. And we hear Baloo whistling the tune of “The Bare Necessities,” his classic song from the cartoon.

I was already interested in this film, because of the people involved. The Jungle Book was one of my favorite Disney films when I was a kid, and this looks like it could be a worthy remake. Yes, a lot of the trailer focuses on action and creating an intense mood, but there’s still enough elements that make it look like they’re keeping a good amount of what made the animated film great. When we get to mid-April next year, I’ll definitely be checking out The Jungle Book for myself.

ANTICIPATION: We must go to the man-theater and see this movie!