Lady Bagheera
16 August 2025 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeApparently Soviet Bagheera is female :-)
I hadn't realised this, as the character doesn't actually speak in the various comparison clips I'd seen... and yes, the Soviet version is not only, as advertised, much closer to Kipling -- Kaa is a dangerous ally, not an ineffectual enemy -- but a greater deal darker as a result.
Although to be fair, Disney apparently did originally plan to make a much more 'realistic' version of "The Jungle Book" (at one point I had a tape that included some of the music written for it before the project was abandoned), and made a conscious choice to go for a comedy take on the story that has a lot of charm and good songs in its own right. And it has George Sanders, of course :-)
I hadn't realised this, as the character doesn't actually speak in the various comparison clips I'd seen... and yes, the Soviet version is not only, as advertised, much closer to Kipling -- Kaa is a dangerous ally, not an ineffectual enemy -- but a greater deal darker as a result.
Although to be fair, Disney apparently did originally plan to make a much more 'realistic' version of "The Jungle Book" (at one point I had a tape that included some of the music written for it before the project was abandoned), and made a conscious choice to go for a comedy take on the story that has a lot of charm and good songs in its own right. And it has George Sanders, of course :-)