Mowgli 2018 - May 22

And so, Andy Serkis will be delivering yet another version of ‘Mowgli’ the movie in this year, (2018). What can be said about it?

Judging by the trailer that we have seen so far, it is basically a reboot, or a derivative, of 2016’s ‘Jungle Book’, albeit one where humans, as opposed to CGI animals, play a greater role. It still is not like the 1990s ‘Mowgli’ film, which was basically a version of Tarzan, just set in India/Asia, rather than Africa, but still. It might be closer to Kipling’s initial anthologies rather than the original Disney animated movie, so that it something of an improvement over the 2016 movie, but somehow, the first trailer at least, is highly reminiscent of that film, so we just have to wait and see before forming any conclusions first. What next?

The (CGI) animal cast remains largely the same, save for the addition of one new character – Tabaqui, or whatever his name is. In the original anthologies, he was a jackal who followed Shere Khan, as jackals sometimes follow tigers in real life. Here, in this trailer at least, he looked more like a hyena, and that is weird.

Here is why. Firstly, hyenas are not really related to jackals and other wild dogs; they are more closely related to cats, including the great cats such as lions, tigers, and leopards, (panthers). Secondly, hyenas are much bigger than most wild dogs, especially the spotted hyena, featured in ‘The Lion King’ franchise, but like most hyenas, it lives only in Africa; the only hyena species that is found on both African and Asia continents is the striped hyena instead. And-?

And while it is smaller than the spotted hyena is, it still a large animal, and is no more a scavenger than, well, a grey wolf would be. Sure, it does not let carrion go by, especially if it is hungry, but it is not a professional scavenger. Neither is the jackal, of course, but lives more like a fox than a wolf or a coyote, so Tabaqui is shaping to be some sort of a zoological chimera already, and as for the ‘Jungle Book’ itself, we’ll have to wait and see, again, if this version of Mowgli defeats Shere Khan, (who, here, is lame, rather than one-eyed as he was in 2016), by having a herd of water buffalo trample him in a ravine, as it happened in the canon. In the 2016 movie, Mowgli defeated Shere Khan with fire, in a manner reminiscent of Disney’s earlier animated Mowgli films, so we got options.

We also got Kaa who is female, again. Why? In Kipling’s novels, Kaa was male; White Hood the cobra might have been female, but probably not. The only female characters in the Jungle Book novels were Mowgli’s mother, the Mother Wolf, and his love interest, (who appeared only briefly at the end, when Mowgli became a man). So, why change Kaa’s gender? Disney’s animated movie made Kaa a male, so why change him to her in 2016, and why not change back now? Nobody knows… The fact that Serkis’ film is trying to be both different from the 2016 movie and yet basically do the same thing is not very impressive. Or rational. Or sane. Well, maybe T’Challa and the rest of his Wakandan friends will make a cameo there in the process. They got to do something while the rest of the Avengers figure out how to reanimate them and undo the damage that Thanos did to the galaxy and beyond…

And on a more serious note? The next JW movie is coming on June 22, 2018, so let us first watch it, and then return to Mowgli, (maybe). Until then – see you in the future.