10 Movie Remakes That Ditch Classic Elements
4. The Ending Was Completely Changed - The Jungle Book (2016)
There’s two types of Disney live action adaptation: those that are scene for scene remakes, and those that are vague approximations of the original. It’s the difference between Cinderella (2015) and The Lion King (2019).
The Jungle Book, though, that’s an interesting one. It keeps a lot of the visuals of the 1967 Animation (albeit more realistic animals thanks to some stellar CGI) but it also adds stuff here and there to change things up just a touch. Kaa is made female, for instance, with Scarlet Johansson lending her talents to the voice role. King Louie turns out to be absolutely massive – although having Christopher Walken as the King of the Swingers is a special kind of comedy I don’t think Disney were intending.
The most interesting change has to be the ending, though. The Disney classic ends when Mowgli takes a fancy to a village girl he spies at the river and chooses to begin life in the village with the other humans, in an unsettlingly covert message to stick with “your own kind” – if you catch my drift.
It’s a lowkey conservative message that really isn’t in keeping with Rudyard Kipling’s original stories, which show Mowgli never really settling with other humans until he’s much older and embracing his animalistic instincts alongside his human craftiness. Jon Favreau’s portrayal is truer to the page: Mowgli, once he has dispatched of his rival Shere Khan the tiger, reunites with his wolf pack and continues to live in the forest, away from “man”.
Turning the ending on its head does more for the film than many might realise. Mowgli, who should be alien to the jungle, fits better there than where some believe he should be. It’s a brave move, but something we should really appreciate.