The Weissmuller films made Jane (and her father) British instead of American, and later films followed suit including the Disney version, which further cemented this in viewers' minds. This resulted in many people being surprised when The Legend of Tarzan portrayed Jane as an American again. It was previously only done in Greystoke and the Pre-Weismuller films.
The Weissmuller films are also responsible for the popular image of Tarzan speaking in Hulk Speak, as well as establishing what his Signature Roar sounds like (which, in the book, is just described as "the victory cry of the bull ape").
The Weissmuller films cemented the idea that Jane moves into the jungle with Tarzan and becomes a vine swinging Action Girl living the same wild lifestyle as her mate. In the books, while Jane returned to the jungle many times with her husband, she never lived there with him and never became an animal skin-wearing, treetop-dwelling vine swinger, as Tarzan had already returned to civilization by the time they got married.
Broken Base: What year was Tarzan born in, 1888 or 1872? This single question has led to numerous fan debates and conflicting chronologies picking one or the other.
Fair for Its Day: The books are rife with Burroughs' well-meant ethnocentrism and sexism. Burroughs repeatedly mentions the vicious and exploitative treatment the African natives received at the hands of white men, and attributes at least part of their bloodthirst to an understandable desire for revenge. He usually finds something to praise about his various ethnic characters, even if it might be in a way that would be extremely offensive today. Jane may not be an Action Girl (let's not be ridiculous!), but she's intelligent and remains level-headed no matter how dire the emergency. While later stories introduce the Waziri people and have them as subservient to Tarzan and Jane, they are shown to be intelligent, dignified, competent, beautiful, and kind even before Tarzan met them and helped save them from exploitation; something virtually unheard of in literature at the time's portrayal of native Africans.
In 1996, a subspecies of chimpanzee has been discovered in the Bili Forest of the Congo Republic that shows many gorilla-like behaviors — much like how Burroughs' Mangani mix traits of those same apes with some primitive human. Doubles as Accidentally Correct Zoology.
Tarzan's interactions with the civilized characters in The Return of Tarzan are remarkably similar to those of Conan the Barbarian. Especially when his "veneer of civilization" slips.
Most Wonderful Sound: When Tarzan first lets loose his signature yell you know the awesomeness has only begun. The best known version from the Johnny Weissmuller films was a combination of two chorus singers and a hog caller. Intriguingly, the yell for the Disney version was provided not by Tony Goldwyn, but by BRIAN BLESSED (who was ironically playing the villain Clayton) since Goldwyn couldn't create his own satisfactory version of the yell.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Thanks to the Disneyfied animated adaptations, the books are sometimes mistaken for being child-friendly jungle adventure stories. In reality, Burroughs' novels present a fair amount of violence, racist and sexist content, and occasionally even Gorny torture scenes.
Accidental Innuendo: In the song "Strangers Like Me", one of the lyrics is "Why do I have/This growing need to be beside her?" Then again, the entirety of the song could be considered a metaphor for Tarzan's own romantic awakening.
As a child, Tarzan is quite awkward at trying to fit in. As an adult, he's a lovestruck fool whenever he's around Jane and is endearingly curious about everything to do with human culture.
Professor Porter. Smart, spacey, and lovable? Indeed. When he finally gets to meet the gorillas, he's so overwhelmed with joy he passes out.
Like the professor above, his daughter Jane is nerdy, bookish, and awkward, but that just serves to make her more endearing.
Tantor's a huge, clumsy and awkward elephant who's scared of almost everything.
Did Kerchak not accept Tarzan for so long because he was different, or because he never got over the death of his first son? Or both?
Did Terk not want Tarzan hanging around with her and the other gorilla children because she was embarrassed by him, or because she knew they didn't like him and didn't want him to feel like any more of an outcast than he already did?
Awesome Art: At the time the film came out, Tarzan himself was Disney's most impressively animated character. Impressive not just because of surface detail but because Tarzan was rendered with as much anatomical accuracy as possible; he moves like a gorilla and pulls off spectacular acrobatics, all while his muscles still flex and move believably. For the majority of the movie he wears very little, with his physique on full display, which is very difficult to pull off in animation. Not to mention the groundbreaking use of CGI for backgrounds that beautifully blended 3D movement with a classic hand painted look.
Awesome Music: Considering that the entire soundtrack is done by Phil Collins, it's to be expected. In particular, the optimistic main theme of the film, "Two Worlds", will get stuck in your head for days.
Base-Breaking Character: Some people love Terk for being a rare example of a female comic relief character who isn't overtly feminine in appearance and personality, no doubt due to her being written as male in earlier drafts. Others dislike her because of Rosie O'Donnell's performance and her schtick with Tantor being a blatant repeat of Timon and Pumbaa, who are themselves base-breaking characters.
Broken Base: Phil Collins' soundtrack for the film is still divisive as hell even after the re-appraisal of Collins' music. Viewers think it's either an awesome and effective collection of songs that complements each scene well, or a mess of unfitting, generic pop songs with Collins' sudden voice feeling awkwardly placed in. Some viewers in the latter are even fans of Collins' music or think the songs themselves are good but feel their placement in the actual film is clumsy and off-putting.
Common Knowledge: Although popularly thought of as an Evil Poacher, dues to the standards of the time, Clayton does not actually commit any poaching. Yes, he tries to capture the Tribe of Kerchak, but there were no breeding programs at the time, meaning that was the only way animals were brought to civilization. Clayton's actual crimes include mutiny and attempted murder, but not poaching.
Crosses the Line Twice: Tarzan trying to peek under Jane's dress. If a civilized person did it, it would be totally unacceptable, but when it's done by a savage that doesn't know the norms because he's never interacted with people before, it becomes funny.
Fanon: It's a popular notion among fans that Sabor is female, mainly because in the original novel that name was used to describe lionesses in the apes' language (male lions were referred to as Numa). The movie never gives any indication of the leopard's gender, neither does the sequel or the tv series, leaving Sabor as an example of Ambiguous Gender. The film commentary, however, has the creators referring to Sabor as male and Sabor is also credited as male in the Kingdom Hearts universe. However, Disney books have explicitly referred to Sabor as female.
It may just be a coincidence, but Tantor freaks out when a skull is bounced between his tusks in "Trashin' the Camp"; elephants are the only other animal besides humans who recognize bones.
Another one that's likely unintentional, but Tarzan has no idea what Jane is doing when she kisses him. Other species of ape do kiss, gorillas included, but protracted, romantic, mouth-to-mouth face mashing is only really seen in one other species, and that's bonobos.
Thanks in no small part to the fact that the hugely popular Ákos Kovács did the songs for the Hungarian dub of the movie, this film's music is immensely popular in Hungary, enough so that Ákos regularly performs them at mainstream concerts.
The stage musical had a short run on Broadway due to audiences and critics not being impressed, but in Germany it ran from 2008 to 2018, moving from Hamburg to Stuttgart and then Oberhausen.
Terk is forced to dress up like Jane, which Tantor compliments her on. In an episode of the TV series, Tantor himself would have to crossdress as a distraction.
A movie heavily featuring gorillas and music by Phil Collins is rather funny when many years later, the Cadbury chocolate company would release a bizarre ad that quickly went viral featuring a gorilla playing the famous drum solo from Collins' "In the Air Tonight".
The reason why Tarzan isn't a traditional musical was because of the filmmakers weirded out about Tarzan, a half-naked man raised by gorillas, suddenly bursting into song. And then the film got its own Broadway musical, and Tarzan would burst into song multiple times because of that. In addition, the animated version of Tarzan would get to sing in the finale of Once Upon a Studio.
Jerkass Woobie: Kerchak. The movie opens with him and Kala losing their original child to Sabor. This loss is implied to have made the silverback bitter and dangerously protective of his family.
No Problem with Licensed Games: The PSX/N64 game is actually a really fun platformer with various difficulty settings based on the levels and it's actually quite complete. The version for GBC is also really good, having gameplay similar to that of the Donkey Kong Country games.
Obvious Judas: Clayton is an Egomaniac Hunter who is rude, condescending and shows an open disregard for the wildlife in the jungle. Is it really a surprise that he's plotting against the protagonists? It should be noted that according to various texts, such as Disney's Tarzan by Russell K. Schroeder and Victoria and Saxon and The Tarzan Chronicles by Howard Green, they didn't want Clayton to be an obvious villain from the start, but rather wanted to keep the audience guessing whether or not he was a villain.
The combining of Kerchak and Tublat originated with the first Tarzan film in 1918.
Sabor as an individual animal was previously seen on the television series starring Wolf Larson, the difference being that Sabor only appeared a few times either playing with her cubs or in the company of other lions, thus being a more neutral character than her Disney counterpart. Likewise, Tantor being portrayed as an individual originates with the Wolf Larson series as does Tarzan having been raised by gorillas rather than the fictional Mangani, albeit it took three seasons to establish gorillas as the apes that raised Tarzan.
Sabor being a leopard rather than a lioness has a forerunner in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, in which the episode of Tarzan's youth where he learned to swim featured a lioness ("Sabor" as the Mangani called them) being replaced by a leopard, a black leopard in this case, but a leopard nonetheless.
The shot where Tarzan "surfs" across the jungle foliage at the end of the "Son of Man" sequence. It was everywhere from the commercials, trailers, it was even incorporated into video games and served as a way to make this version distinct from past screen versions.
Clayton's Family-Unfriendly Death due to being perhaps the darkest villain death of the Renaissance, if not the entire animated canon, though it is not without some fierce competition.
Signature Song: It's a Phil Collins soundtrack so there's bound to be some memorable songs. Two of those being:
"Two Worlds" When thinking of epic intros to Disney movies, this is usually brought up aside from Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
"You'll Be In My Heart" is seen as the "other" song in the movie everyone remembers, from it's gentle lullaby sung by Kala, and as the end credits song. It was so popular that it got Collins an Oscar, AND a Golden Globe for "Best Original Song"!
Theme Pairing: Jane and Captain Amelia from Treasure Planet are similar characters — cultured women with 18th-19th century aesthetics and British accents. Illuminated has them as its main pairing. It helps that Ken Duncan was the supervising animator of both characters.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite being introduced as a formidable threat with a personal vendetta against Tarzan, Kala and Kerchak, Sabor is killed by Tarzan before the halfway point of the film and not mentioned again afterwards. Many audiences were disappointed when she was replaced with Clayton, who is mostly a two-dimensional greedy hunter with no real personal connection to the protagonist.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Terk, though she was apparently based off a male character. It doesn't help that in the stage musical Terk is now male. It's at least alleviated a little when you know she was voiced by a woman. The animated series lampshades this and makes it something of a Running Gag.
Vindicated by History: Not for the film itself, but its soundtrack. By 1999, Phil Collins had become so widely detested for his sheer overexposure in the preceding decade that many were vocally apprehensive towards the Tarzan soundtrack simply because it was Collins' work. However, the critical and public redemption of Collins in the 2010s, spurned on by a mix of '80s nostalgia, nostalgia from people who grew up with the movie, and endorsements of Collins by popular R&B artists, ended up extending to the Tarzan soundtrack as well. Nowadays, it's gone from being seen as gimmicky treacle to one of the best film soundtracks for a Disney film to date, with the soundtrack album being considered Collins' best release since Face Value. It's certainly still a divisive soundtrack, but its number of detractors have been balanced by its number of fans rather than outnumbering them.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The hand-drawn animation is beautifully blended with CGI backgrounds in several shots, some of which move in strong perspective and constantly change angles.
Kala. One of her first scenes involves her losing her child, she has to watch her adoptive son struggle to be accepted by the other gorillas and by her mate Kerchak, and at the end of the movie, she loses Kerchak too.
Tarzan himself. Throughout much of his childhood he is rejected by the other gorillas and especially Kerchak, who later forbids him to interact with the first humans he sees, and ends up being torn between the two sides. And by the time Kerchak finally accepts Tarzan as his son, the gorilla is on his death bed.
Woolseyism: During the song "Strangers Like Me", there's a scene where Jane asks Tarzan to lead her, her father, and Clayton to where the gorillas are, and asks if she understands him, which he confirms by saying "I... understand." Some dub versions of the movie have Tarzan use imperfect grammar in this scene to further show Tarzan's difficulty with learning a human language. For example, in languages where verbs change depending on who's performing the action, it's not uncommon for Tarzan to use the "(you) understand" form that Jane just used.
a gorilla playing the famous drum solo from Collins' "In the Air Tonight".
