| Kala | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Tarzan of the Apes |
| Last appearance | Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
| Created by | Edgar Rice Burroughs |
| Portrayed by | Glenn Close |
| In-universe information | |
| Species | Mangani Gorilla (Disney version) |
| Gender | Female |
| Spouse | Tublat (book) Kerchak (Disney films) |
| Children | Akut (2016 film) Tarzan (adoptive son) |
| Relatives | Terk (niece, Disney films) |
Kala is a fictional ape character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's original Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes , and in movies and other media based on it. She is the ape mother of Tarzan who raises him.
In the novel, Kala is a female in a band of Mangani , a fictional species of great ape intermediate between real life chimpanzees and gorillas. She saves the infant Tarzan from the murderous fury of Kerchak , the mad leader of the ape band, after the latter kills Tarzan's human father. Kala goes on to rear the human baby as her own while protecting him against Kerchak and her own mate, Tublat . After Tarzan reaches adulthood, Kala is killed by a native African hunter, who is subsequently killed by Tarzan in revenge. [1]
Kala also appears in Jungle Tales of Tarzan , the sixth book of the Tarzan series, which relates episodes from the ape man's youth omitted from Tarzan of the Apes. Chapter 7, "The End of Bukawai," relates an episode in which Tarzan is almost killed when he swings so long on the rope that it frays and parts, dropping him to the ground. Kala runs to the boy's aid and he soon revives. [2]
The character of Kala has also appeared in the syndicated comic strip Tarzan and in Tarzan comic books, in a portrayal essentially faithful to Burroughs's conception, generally in adaptations of the original novel. Kala was also faithfully represented in the first Tazan movie, a 1918 silent film adapting the novel, the 1984 film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes , and the 2016 film The Legend of Tarzan .
The 1957 Tarzan movie Tarzan and the Lost Safari conflates Kala with Kerchak in a mention by the ape man of his adoption as a baby by a she-ape. The account echoes Burroughs's version of Tarzan's youth, but names Kerchak rather than Kala as his ape foster mother. While neither actually appears in the film (nor any other ape character, aside from the ubiquitous Cheeta), the direct reference to the original Burroughs story is unusual for a movie of this period.
In Disney's Tarzan (1999) and its direct-to-video sequel, Burroughs's "Great Apes" are gorillas, and Kala is the mate of Kerchak (a much more benign figure in the film) rather than Tublat, who himself appears in the Disney animated TV series as the rogue tyrant instead. In the film's retelling Tarzan's parents are killed by Sabor the leopard, and Kala saves the infant Tarzan from Sabor, not Kerchak. Her own child having been previously killed by the same leopard, Kala adopts Tarzan as her own, though Kerchak disapproves of this. Kala is portrayed as the aunt of Terk, later Tarzan's best friend. Kala does not die in the movie. The character was voiced by actress Glenn Close. [3]
In the 2013 computer-animated film Tarzan , Kala is a gorilla mated to Kerchak, the silverback leading their gorilla troop. After Kerchak is challenged and treacherously killed by the rogue Tublat, Kala adopts the young Tarzan to replace her deceased baby with Kerchak; Tarzan grows up to eventually challenge and exile Tublat. Late in the movie Kala is shot by mercenaries, seemingly dying, though she is subsequently shown to have recovered.
Tarzan of the Apes is a 1912 novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the first in the Tarzan series. It was first printed in the pulp magazine The All-Story in October 1912 before being released as a novel in June 1914.
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes is a 1984 adventure film directed by Hugh Hudson based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel Tarzan of the Apes (1912). Christopher Lambert stars as Tarzan and Andie MacDowell as Jane; the cast also includes Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm, James Fox, Cheryl Campbell, and Ian Charleson.
The Legend of Tarzan is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, based on Tarzan from the novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the character's original creator who appears in one episode of the series. The series is also based on Disney's 1999 animated feature film Tarzan by Walt Disney Pictures and aired initially on the Disney's One Too block on UPN. However, reruns were broadcast shortly after on Toon Disney.
Tarzan is a 1999 American animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is based on the 1912 story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, being the first animated major motion picture version of the story. The film was directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck and produced by Bonnie Arnold, from a screenplay by Tab Murphy and the writing team of Bob Tzudiker and Noni White. It stars the voices of Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Rosie O'Donnell, Brian Blessed, Lance Henriksen, Wayne Knight, and Nigel Hawthorne.
Opar is a fictional lost city in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and later the Khokarsa novels of Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey, as well as various derivative works in other media.
Kerchak is a fictional ape character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's original Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes, and in movies and other media based on it.
Mangani is the name of a fictional species of great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and of the invented language used by these apes. In the invented language, Mangani is the apes' word for their own kind, although the term is also applied to humans. The Mangani are represented as the apes who foster and raise Tarzan.
Representations of gorillas are common in popular culture in the Western world with the full range of electronic media having gorillas as mascots, gorillas behaving like humans, and humans behaving like gorillas.
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle is an American animated series created by the Filmation studio for Saturday mornings on CBS, starting in 1976. This was the first animated series about the jungle hero. There are 36 episodes produced over four seasons.
Tarzan II is a 2005 American direct-to-video musical animated film, and the third Disney Tarzan film after Tarzan and Jane, though it chronologically takes place during the events of the original film set during Tarzan's childhood, years before he met Jane. It was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and DisneyToon Studios Australia, with animation outsourced to Toon City Animation. Taking place during Tarzan's youth and before his adulthood, the film follows Tarzan's adventure to discover who he really is. Glenn Close and Lance Henriksen reprise their roles as Kala and Kerchak from the first film while Harrison Chad, Brenda Grate, and Harrison Fahn are the new voices for the younger versions of Tarzan, Terk, and Tantor, replacing Alex D. Linz, Rosie O'Donnell, and Taylor Dempsey. They are joined by new characters voiced by George Carlin, Estelle Harris, Brad Garrett, and Ron Perlman.
Tarzan is a musical based on the Walt Disney Animation Studios 1999 film of the same name. The songs are written by Phil Collins with a book by David Henry Hwang. The musical follows Tarzan, who is raised by gorillas in West Africa. He meets Jane, a young English naturalist, and falls in love, unknowing that Jane's entourage plans to kill the gorillas.
La is a character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Tarzan novels, the queen and high priestess of Opar, a lost city in the jungles of Africa. Opar is portrayed as a surviving colony of ancient Atlantis in which incredible riches have been stockpiled down through the ages. The city's population exhibits extreme sexual dimorphism caused by a combination of excessive inbreeding, cross-breeding with apes, and selective culling of offspring. Consequently, female Oparians are physically perfect, while male Oparians are hideous bestial creatures.
Jane Porter is a fictional character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Tarzan novels and in adaptations of the saga to other media, particularly film. Jane, an American from Baltimore, Maryland, is the daughter of professor Archimedes Q. Porter. She becomes the love interest, later the wife of Tarzan and subsequently the mother of their son, Korak. She develops over the course of the series from a conventional damsel in distress, who must be rescued from various perils, to an educated, competent and capable adventuress in her own right, fully capable of defending herself and surviving on her own in the jungles of Africa.
Tantor is a generic name for elephants in Mangani, the fictional language of the great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In Burroughs's works a number of elephants appear under the name of Tantor, most notably one particular bull elephant the ape man befriends in his youth in the first Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes and in the 1999 animated Walt Disney film he is a red African forest elephant and friends with the ape Terk.
Jungle Tales of Tarzan is a collection of twelve loosely connected short stories by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, comprising the sixth book in order of publication in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. Chronologically the events recounted in it occur within Chapter 11 of the first Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes, between Tarzan's avenging of his ape foster mother's death and his becoming leader of his ape tribe. The stories ran monthly in Blue Book magazine, September 1916 through August 1917 before book publication in 1919.
Tarzan, a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in twenty-four sequels by Burroughs and numerous more by other authors. The character proved immensely popular and quickly made the jump to other media, first and most notably to comics and film.
Tarzan of the Apes is a 1999 animated musical adventure film produced by Diane Eskenazi and Darcy Wright and written by Mark Young. Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries was used as the score during the opening scenes of the film. It was released directly to home video on March 9, 1999. The apes appear to be chimpanzees in this version, however they are not explicitly identified as such, unlike the unrelated 1999 Disney film in which they are gorillas.
Tarzan is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer.
Tublat is a fictional ape character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's original Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes and one of its sequels, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, as well as animated films, television series and other media based on them.
Tarzan is a 2013 English-language German computer-animated action-adventure film written, directed and produced by Reinhard Klooss and released on October 17, 2013 in Russia. The film was released across early 2014 in other countries. The film stars the voices of Kellan Lutz, Spencer Locke, Anton Zetterholm, Mark Deklin, Joe Cappelletti, and Jaime Ray Newman. The screenplay was written by Reinhard Klooss, Jessica Postigo and Yoni Brenner. The film is based on the novel Tarzan of the Apes (1912) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film grossed $44 million worldwide despite receiving predominantly negative reviews from critics. Tarzan was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 5, 2014 by Highlight Film.
