Mowgli

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Loxodonta Cobra

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Jungle Book 2018 Mowgli has released its first trailer. Directed by Andy Serkis, it promises to be the darkest version of the story yet, and follows more to the books than any other version:

I think the idea behind it is good, however the CGI animals look alot worse than the Disney version that came out two years ago. Unlike Disney, in which the voice actors characters were all CGI to make them look like realistic animals, Warner Brothers did the motion capture that Serkis is famous for to bring them to live. Because of this, the creatures really look like they delved a lot into the uncanny valley.
 
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Good news! Finally, after so many years, looks like that it will be for first time ever a decent Jungle Book movie! One that really catch the true spirit of the Jungle Book!
 
It's Rann or Chil (I think Chil substituted Rann when he passed away, but the Jungle Book doens't specify that, just changed the name over the course of the history from Rann to Chil). It's the Kite, the messenger of the Jungle, that played a crucial role in advertising Baloo and Bagheera about Mowgly being kidnapped by the Bandar-Log (grey monkeys). Well, in this trailer it looks like a scissor-tailed kite (Chelictinia riocourii) instead the Brahminy kite (Haliastur indus) that it should be, but nothing is perfect...
 
It doesn't look anything like either a Scissor-tailed kite or a Brahminy Kite. It looks like an imaginary beast.
 
Kakapo said:
Good news! Finally, after so many years, looks like that it will be for first time ever a decent Jungle Book movie! One that really catch the true spirit of the Jungle Book!
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Did you not enjoy the Disney version from two years ago? Personally I loved it and I think they should be awarded for the efforts they went through to make animals look and act realistic. The movie also only showed animals that are distributed in South East Asia which is rare among movies as most get animals geographic ranges incorrect. The animation was also incredible in my opinion (I'm by no means an animation expert, so it could be absolute rubbish for all I know, but I think it looked good).
 
In my opinion, the Disney version from two years ago is better animation wise because the animals actually look and act like realistic animals, in this movie they look like they came straight out of a cartoon. They all have the human forward-facing eyes.
 
Chlidonias said:
It doesn't look anything like either a Scissor-tailed kite or a Brahminy Kite. It looks like an imaginary beast.
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Hmmm... not?
Milano 1.jpg
Milano 2.jpg

Ok, certainly the general looking is more from a swallow-tailed kite (Elanoides forficatus), with longer wings, even deeper tail fork, and black upperparts, but it have the upper part of the head dark, and that't why its looked like more the scissor-tailed one to me... tough of course it could be based in E. forficatus too. Obviously not a perfectly accurate one, but, are the other animals perfectly accurate? The Jungle Book doesn't intend to be a field guide of the animals of India...
 
animal_expert01 said:
Did you not enjoy the Disney version from two years ago? Personally I loved it and I think they should be awarded for the efforts they went through to make animals look and act realistic. The movie also only showed animals that are distributed in South East Asia which is rare among movies as most get animals geographic ranges incorrect. The animation was also incredible in my opinion (I'm by no means an animation expert, so it could be absolute rubbish for all I know, but I think it looked good).
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Hmmm, actually, I was unaware of the existence of this version... or maybe I saw something announced somewhere, I can't remember, anyway I didn't saw a so recent version in a movie. By what you said, looks like a decent one...
 
That's a really vague similarity. Have a look at the close-up of the head right at the start of the trailer, or the long shot at about 1.10. It looks like a cross between an eagle and a quetzal and a phoenix.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
They got Baloo's species right, mind you :p
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That's one of the most controversial points of The Jugle Book... in India of course it should be a sloth bear, but, the own Kipling said that it's a brown bear... and I think I prefair fidelity to this tale, than fidelity to biogeology. If we accept that there is a long and precise Jungle Law and all animals speak ones with others, then why don't accept the only species-slip of Kipling?
 
Well, is your point of view, but it can't be more different from a quetzal. About phoenix, it's mythological so one cannot know if it's similar or not (well, maybe you're tinking in the phoenix bird of Chronicles of Narnia, that have the same silhouette than this one). It's mythological unless, of course, you're thinking in the bird that I always tought that is the Phoenix bird: the golden pheasant (but then, as quetzal, it's nothing alike the bird in the trailer). However, that bird is identical to a swallow-tailed kite with black nape, or a scissor-tailedkite with longer wings, longer neck, smaller head and black upperparts. Anyway for sure not the brahminy kite that is the species that I always assigned to Rann/Chil.
 
Respect for Serkis continuing to go through with this after the Disney remake's huge success. Unfortunately in its shadow the odds are still against him, and there are quite a few visual and thematic similarities - for example Kaa is again female and comes off as villainous again, ala Disney, but it's admittedly hard to tell from a few seconds of a trailer.

I also have to agree, the animals look really rough. It's disappointing as I was pretty excited for this. As a film hopefully it holds up but, yeah... the wolves, especially. :/ On the plus side, Tabaqui! Albeit as a striped hyena but that's not uncommon in adaptations and is cooler in my book. I also do appreciate the wolves actually looking like the Indian subspecies.

My favorite versions are still both traditionally animated. I grew up on Disney's '67 version and still love it - I just consider it it's own thing. I can attribute a lot of my inspiration in getting into animation and character design as a career to it. But my favorite has to be the 70's Russian adaptation, Maugli. Gorgeous art direction, extremely faithful to the book, and overall just has a lovely, poetic dreamlike feel to it. I adore its take on Bagheera, too. (if you do watch it, seek out a subtitled Russian version as the English dub has atrocious voices, a redone score with forcibly inserted songs and is generously censored.)
 
Colonel Hathi in this trailer looks a lot like a Mammuthus meridionalis unlike Favreau's 2016 Disney adaptation which had him and the other elephants looking more like Palaeoloxodon namadicus.

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Those animals look pretty weird. And why have both versions made Kaa female? Kaa is very clearly stated to be male in the book.
 
elefante said:
Kaa is very clearly stated to be male in the book.
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I don't remember any reference of Kaa being male (in the Spanish translated version of the book, that is what I know). I always tought it as a female (overall giving the fact that Kipling said that it's enormous or giant).
 
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