Disney's Tarzan (1999) remains a high-water mark for the Disney Renaissance, serving as the studio's last major traditional animation success of the 20th century. Whether you are a dedicated film historian or a fan looking for a deep dive into the archives, the production of this film represents a pivotal moment when hand-drawn art met digital innovation. The Creation of "Tree Surfing"
One of the most distinctive elements in the Tarzan archive is the evolution of Tarzan’s movement. Directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck, the film moved away from the "swinging on vines" trope of previous adaptations. Instead, they drew inspiration from 1990s extreme sports like skateboarding and snowboarding to create Tarzan's unique "tree surfing" style.
Lead animator Glenn Keane designed Tarzan’s anatomy to be grounded in animalistic reality, basing his physique and movements on how a human would truly adapt to living with gorillas. Deep Canvas: A Technical Milestone
To allow Tarzan to navigate the dense jungle at high speeds, Disney’s technical team developed Deep Canvas. This revolutionary software allowed 2D characters to interact with fully 3D, computer-generated environments that maintained a hand-painted aesthetic.
Searching for resources related to the 1999 Disney film in the Internet Archive reveals several "helpful papers" and digital assets, including scholarly critiques, activity centers, and archival media. Scholarly & Critical Papers
Disney’s Tarzan and Defining the African Post-Colonial Subject
: This paper, hosted in the Warwick University archive, provides a critical analysis of the film's depiction of Africa from a Western perspective. Tarzan of the Apes - Wikipedia Archival References tarzan 1999 archive
: While not a single paper, the Wikipedia entry archives multiple academic sources from 1999, such as Jeff Berglund’s work on the character's history and development. Archival Media & Interactive Resources
The Internet Archive (Archive.org) contains specific digital copies of supplemental "paper" materials and software from the film's release era:
Disney’s Activity Center Tarzan: A digital version of the 1999 software that includes levels of arcade action and a "jungle journal" for creating secret animal languages. Disney’s Tarzan Print Studio
: An archival resource for printing character-themed materials like stationary, posters, and cards. Storybooks & Scripts: Digital scans of books like Disney's Tarzan by Zoehfeld and
are available for borrowing, which translate the film's script into a readable format. Expert Commentary & Production Insights The Making of Disney's Tarzan
: Archival interviews with the animation team detailing how they reinvented Tarzan’s movement based on surfers and animal biology. Disney's Tarzan (1999) remains a high-water mark for
Tarzan (1999) Movie Commentary: A fan-hosted commentary archive discussing the production and the iconic Phil Collins soundtrack.
No discussion of the 1999 archive is complete without the music. In an audacious move, Disney hired Phil Collins—then recovering from the fatigue of Genesis and a divorce—to write the film’s score. The Tarzan soundtrack became a phenomenon: "You’ll Be in My Heart" won an Oscar, and "Son of Man" became a mid-grammy staple.
But the archive holds the demos. Bootleg recordings (some officially unearthed in Disney’s Legacy Collection release) reveal Collins humming melodies over scratch piano, lyrics still in flux. The most fascinating artifact is the "Trashing the Camp (Swahili Version)" — a full alternate take recorded with African choirs before the decision was made to stick with English scat-singing. Additionally, the archive contains storyboard-to-screen sync tests where animators used Collins’s raw guide vocals to time over 40 minutes of montage—a rhythmic feat unmatched in Western animation.
Accessing the official Disney vault is impossible for the general public (you need academic credentials or industry connections). However, the fan archive is alive and well.
For historians, the archive is a time machine to a moment when Disney trusted artists to write software, and pop stars (Phil Collins) to write tragedy.
The most coveted section of any "Tarzan 1999 archive" is the material related to Deep Canvas. This proprietary software, developed specifically for the film, allowed animators to paint 3D environments in a 2D style. The result was a breathtaking parallax effect: backgrounds that felt as deep as a rainforest but as textured as an oil painting. The Phil Collins Tapes: Alternates, Demos, and Swahili
For years, the source code and raw Deep Canvas scene files were locked on Silicon Graphics workstations in the now-demolished Feature Animation building in Burbank. Archival leaks in the early 2010s revealed terabytes of unused data: alternate camera moves through the "Trashing the Camp" sequence, rotoscoped vine physics, and test renders of Kala the gorilla moving through fog-shrouded canyons. Much of this material was considered lost when Disney shifted fully to CGI, but fragments have resurfaced via private collectors and former animators. These assets form the holy grail of the archive—a missing link between hand-drawn humanity and digital depth.
The source code and engineering logs for Deep Canvas are the rarest artifacts in the archive. Disney patented the process, and after Tarzan, it was used only sparingly (notably in Treasure Planet). Much of the original Deep Canvas pipeline is now defunct, incompatible with modern rendering software.
Within the Tarzan 1999 archive, you can find:
For graphics programmers, exploring this archive is akin to studying a lost language of cinematic art.
Because Disney has not fully released a "Making of" 4K edition, fans have built their own archives. Search GitHub and animation forums for:
Before Tarzan swung onto screens, the character was considered box office poison. A string of live-action failures in the 1980s had made the property feel dated. Disney’s archive from 1995–1998 tells a story of intense development hell. Early concept art, much of which resides in the Walt Disney Animation Research Library (the true "archive"), reveals radically different visions: a comedic Tarzan voiced by Steve Martin, a noir-ish 1930s take, and even a version set in a post-apocalyptic jungle.
The final narrative breakthrough came from a single sketch. Animator Glen Keane, who would serve as the film’s supervising animator for Tarzan, drew a now-iconic image: Tarzan sliding down a tree bark on his back, upside down. That single piece of paper—preserved and digitized in the archive—unlocked the film’s visual language. It fused the physics of a surfer with the verticality of a vine climber.