TARZAN: THE EPIC ADVENTURES 3: TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD QUEEN

 

TARZAN: THE EPIC ADVENTURES 3: TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD QUEEN

 

The format changes somewhat. We get a “Next on TARZAN: THE EPIC ADVENTURES” preview of the upcoming episode. Then a bit of the episode.

 

Tarzan, impressively, swings through a dark jungle. Lara’s impressive. Tarzan lands and kills a snake by shooting an arrow into its head as it is about to kill an African man, the sub titles say is named Timba. He tells Tarzan, rather quickly, that bandits attacked him, ran off his porters and stole all of his belongings and left him to die, tied up. Tarzan knows him and knows he always did talk a lot. They know each other. Tarzan leads him back toward his village, the Valley of the Wogambi. He’s been gone 13 years. The locations are apparently really Africa (South Africa) and look impressive. They stop for night and Tarzan eats. Timba’s father died last month and he is now chief. He’s been in Europe and is like a stranger here, Tarzan knows that feeling. He felt that way at Greystoke. This makes me wonder if this is supposed to be after the movie GREYSTOKE or as Wikipedia suggests between the two sections of the novel THE RETURN OF TARZAN, before he married Jane (or was that just the pilot? He’s not yet married so…maybe all of EPIC takes place there?).

 

Tarzan sees a girl that says, “Help me,” and then …where did she go? He’s attacked by Leopard Men, men dressed in leopard skins and fake claws. Timba helps him and is slightly wounded but they fight the men off and the men leave.

 

Then a new title credit sequence, said over images from a book a man with a sleeved suit is reading.

 

“Tarzan. Orphaned at birth in darkest Africa. Raised by the great apes. He grew up in the primitive world of the jungle until fate brought him face to face with his past. Taking his rightful place as Earl of Greystoke, Tarzan soon became disenchanted with civilization. He returned home to Africa. Tarzan, lord of the jungle.”

 

When this finishes we get new clips from…where? This and other episodes? I believe the theme music is also changed but I’m not sure of this. It is not very distinctive.

 

Instead of the Tarzan yell, which would have made more sense and been adequate, we get Tarzan on a cliff yelling, “WAAAAAA!”

 

 

Tarzan tells Timba the leopard men are made up of warriors from many different tribes. They were attacked for sacrifice to the demon that lives in Sheeta, the leopard. Tarzan just explained but then Timba asks why they kill for no reason at all. Tarzan says they are possessed by an evil spirit and that once, he knew a leopard man, a brave Botu warror, the man slit his throat rather than live under the spell of Sheeta.

 

Special creature and make up effects are by John Beuchler and Magical Media Industries.

 

Tarzan wonders what happened to the white woman but Timba did not see any white woman. They take to a canoe some of the rest of the way and then back on foot.

 

In contrast to the Wolf Larson series, here we have a sprawling village, that Timba says looks small now but it’s is complete with a lot of natives, a woman and two children who rush into Tarzan’s arms. They know each other. He calls them by name “Wautani”? The woman is Timba’s mother.

 

Tarzan sees a leopard but when he dives at it from a tree, there’s the white woman instead. They talk. She hugs him, telling him she must go. She scratches his back, roughly. A leopard is seen running away. He washes the top of the wound, badly and can’t get most of it, then for some reason he removes his knife and dives into a river or pond?

 

Back at the village, there is a dance while Timba is given a robe for the chief. There’s also a shot of a goat. Is it alive?

 

Tarzan finds a cave and a chest that he seems to know about already and checks himself out in a hand held mirror and checks out the wound. He sees an old photo of a couple that must be his parents. Holding the picture, he seems to lick or kiss or smell or all three. He goes out to wash his face and gorillas come, one of them Mogani. They are friends of his.

 

Then, there is a thunderstorm and as Timba’s mother gives him his father’s necklace and medallion, the girl enters Tarzan’s cave as he sleeps (he sleeps holding a spear head knife?) and kisses him. Before she enters and when she touches him, there seems to be orange mystical power energy about?

 

In the morning, Tarzan sees vultures. A large shadowy elephant moves through the brush in a haunting fashion. Tarzan finds the village empty of people and there seems to have been an attack. He sniffs like a gorilla. He finds a shirtless Timba in the brush. As the commercial comes, we see the image of the show turn to one of the illustrations in the book from the credits.

 

Appreciating the longer 42 minutes over the 23 of the Wolf Larson series, this starts off well for the first ten minutes or so and then feels choppy and meandering. Why didn’t Tarzan stay in the village? Is this where he used to live? It would seem so.

 

The book image, artwork, returns and then turns live action as we return to the show.

 

In the cave, Tarzan treats Timba’s wounds.

 

Okay, I know it’s supposed to be dark and I appreciate not having the night time scenes look like day time but…the lighting here is very poor. The entire thing, even during day time scenes, look as if they are filmed with sepia tones or a kind of twilight or dusk glow about them. The night scenes are even darker. None of it is well lit.

 

Outside, Tarzan eats a fruit and gets alarmed when he hears Timba yelling. Didn’t he know it was Timba?

 

Timba thinks what happened was a nightmare but then Tarzan tells him it happened. Timba can’t remember anything.

 

Inexplicably, Timba, when he returns to the village with Tarzan, decides to leave, believing all his mother and all his people are dead. What? Tarzan tells him if he leaves now he will never be at peace. Tarzan tells him he will help him.

 

Timba says he has to move on. What a jerk.

 

So, with a longer running time, instead of using that for more action and adventure, here, we get an almost stupid Tarzan and a giving up Timba, who is even more unlikable than the “companion” in the first two episodes, the two hour TARZAN’S RETURN. Tarzan finds a leopard man claw in the village and shows Timba, who asks, “Do you think they are responsible for the attack?”  What? Are they both dumb?

 

Tarzan explains that the scent on the claw of the leopard man has a spore that is his and he can be tracked. They cross a bridge over a nice area of waterfall. Timba’s father sent him to Europe to be educated so one day he would return and share it with his people.

 

Tarzan agrees with Timba that the music, ballet, art, food and more in Europe are wonderful things. Timba asks him if he had friends that he missed. Tarzan says there was one person, a woman but he would not elaborate on this. Timba asks if she didn’t want to leave Europe but Tarzan wants to move on from the rest they are taking.

 

They hear cries of a woman or women from the Waziri village and run to it. There are, again, a lot of natives. One, a child or teen, looks almost 75 percent naked as they watch the woman or woman shriek because, as the chief, Robega, tells Tarzan, last night the leopard men took two girls from their village and killed men who were trying to save the two.  I’m not sure from the look of this funeral rite but there are two large structures that are burned, possibly three. Are the bodies of the men inside these? Robega tells them that the Queen is possessed by the great demon. A girl in the village seems attracted to Timba. We later find out her name is Tazi. She tells Timba, later, that she is a princess.

 

Okay, I have to take a break and treat this as a half hour show. It’s very ponderous and takes forever to get going. In fact, it’s boring and repetitious. All of this could have been established in ten minutes instead of the 24 minutes it has taken.

 

More later…

 

…it’s later…

 

So, I doubt this has anything to do with this novel:

Tarzan and the Leopard Men - Wikipedia

 

Robega gives Timba a talisman to protect him and says something or someone says it will protect him. The Samswomas? He also knew Timba’s mother and father. It seems a given that Timba’s tribe is all dead?

 

Tarzan walks with a boy he seems to know from this new tribe. The boy either has his own bow and arrow or is holding Tarzan’s.

 

At night, the Queen visits Tarzan, who lets his guard down and is overcome by a powder she blows on him. He and Tazi and maybe some others (?) are carried away by Leopard Men. As Robega, Timba and the Waziri men plan an attack, Tarzan tries to escape but is overcome by…three of the Leopard Men? What?

 

Two of them force him to the throne area and he’s chained up. Two!?

 

The girl appears again in a weird get up. Tarzan calls her Kali. Does he know her? Do we? She claims she is not Kali, she’s just using her body, increasing her powers and possessing her. When she tells Tarzan she is not interested in Kali’s idea of love and her attraction for Tarzan, Tarzan tells her that love is the key to the powers of the universe and those powers will destroy her, the Queen Demon or whatever she is.

 

She kisses him but he appears to bite her.

 

Tarzan is whipped; Timba is captured, and Tazi is taken from her cell by two of the leopard men (for what, we can only guess, horribly). Seemingly herself, Kali comes to Tarzan’s cell to tend to his wounds while Robega reveals himself (to us) as the helper of the Queen. I’m confused. He asks her to spare some of the Waziri.

 

Kali tells Tarzan she’s thought of killing herself but he tells her not to think like that. Her parents were missionaries and she was taken from them and has had the demon inside her when she was a little girl.

 

I’m even more confused. Kali tells Tarzan the Womgambi were not sacrificed by the Queen. Tarzan now seems surprised the Queen gets her power from the sacrifices when he was the one who told Timba at the start of this about that, or maybe he just knew they used sacrifices. Either way, all of this muddled and makes Tarzan look weak. Kali tells him some of the Waziri warriors and Timba were captured. They and Tazi with the Waziri maidens will be sacrificed. Tarzan will be the last one killed.

 

Kali frees Tarzan and helps him attack the guards, then flees as the Queen starts to awaken in her. Tarzan lets out Waziri men and they fight. Tarzan kicks a man between the legs? Leopard women dance over the sacrifices.

 

Let me understand this? Tarzan and the men were held in the compound and escape, go to the jungle and then have to break back in? Or were they held in a different area? Tarzan tosses a guard off a high roof, apparently killing him? Then, in a less than spectacular siege, Tarzan just walks into the main room and stops the sacrifice and talks Kali down while NOT knifing her head man (is that Robega?). Kali is NOT freed but flees…after turning into a leopard. Tarzan tells all the others they are free, the demon is gone.

 

The Waziri celebrate as Tarzan tells Timba not to stop looking for his people and who took them or what took them. Timba goes to find his father’s necklace medallion and Tarzan has it and gives it to him, getting so close I thought the two men were going to kiss. “Welcome home, Timba.”

 

Gosh.

 

This must have looked good on paper and there’s nothing wrong with the basic plot. TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN is one of my favorite TARZAN movies but this is just lame and does not live up to the premise. I’m not sure if it was the execution, the haphazard way things develop or what. The locations are nice but the lighting is poor and does not help. The action is limited and frankly, boring. There’s not enough action either. Tarzan seems easily overpowered and at one point, he knees or kicks a leopard man between the legs. We’re not told what happens to Robega and frankly, his revelation of being in with the Queen Demon is so low key, that I’m not even sure that WAS him. Is something cut out of the version I saw? Is this version I saw a bad quality copy?

 

The premise should be high octane action and adventure. Instead, this sort of hangs there and not together and not in a good way. It feels inconsequential as if nothing really important happens, though Tarzan lets himself be captured, suckered, and kissed and almost nothing special happens even though all of that does.

 

If the rest of the series is this boring, this lame, this badly executed, this is going to be a long, long project.

 

Joe still makes a great Tarzan in look and in acting but…the way this is scripted and staged, it feels almost rushed and random as if no one really cares about this and whether or not it matters. Believe it or not, there IS an art to Tarzan on film and on TV. This, so far, does not have it.

 

As flawed as almost every episode of Wolf Larson’s TARZAN show, I’d take almost any of those episodes (over all three seasons) over this one. This feels miserable, low key, anemic, slowly paced, stretched out, morbid, and grim without all the fun stuff one might expect from a Tarzan TV show or movie. That dark tone would be fine if they went all the way there but they don’t even do that, nor does anything feel as if it is in danger, even when Timba, Tazi and another girl are ready to be sacrificed. Tarzan just strolls in and stops it. The Queen orders him killed but the men inside offer little by way of a fight and Tarzan seems to just use the back of a knife to down the old man (or is it?).

 

There’s no real commitment here from the script, the story, the actors even other than Joe Lara, all of them seem almost sleep walking. A Tarzan show should have energy, life, and brightness as well as almost non stop action or plot points revealed. Here, we get the same plot points revealed over and over, hitting us over the head.

 

This was NOT a good episode and it’s hard to tell why it was not good. It SHOULD have been great. I mean Tarzan vs Leopard Men and a friend possessed by a demon and another betraying him. I also wonder if I should care about Timba’s tribe. Do we ever find out what happened to them? Do I care?

 

There’s no real personality to most of the character either. On Ely and Larson’s shows, the guest stars, the chiefs, or the tribesmen were personable, likeable and understandable in their motives and reasoning and lives….but here, we just get that the natives are sort of there and seem to be just victims.

 

It’s not good. I hope the show picks up but this was an awful first story after the pilot movie.