What makes Shere Khan a cruel character is his desire to kill Mowgli, who was just a baby at that time. Adults can reach up to 20 feet and can weigh as much as a teenager, ranging from 70 to 120 pounds. Characters from Disney's 19th animated feature, The Jungle Book and its sequel. What he seems to want most is to capture Mowgli. The most famous stories of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling are the three stories about the adventures of Mowgli, a “man cub” who was abandoned and raised by wolves. Now, the menacing beast swears that--by the first drop of rain--he will kill this boy before he ever gets the chance to become a man and imperil the jungle. The wolf pack leader Akela tells Mowgli not to use his man tricks in front of the other animals. Bagheera (बघीरा ''Baghīrā''; Black Panther), Mowgli's mentor. Father Wolf hears the loud whine of Shere Khan, and Mother Wolf tells Father Wolf that Shere Khan plans to hunt man. Kaa is able to hypnotize animals, which Baloo and Bagheera use to their advantage to save Mowgli from the pack of monkeys. But back to The Jungle Book: because The Jungle Book characters are animals who primarily serve to teach moral lessons, both The Jungle Book and its sequel The Second Jungle Book are often considered fables. Like the 1967 animated version (but perhaps for different reasons), this Jungle Book movie adaptation veered noticeably from the content of Kipling’s original stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Jungle_Book_characters An adventurous young boy found in the jungle by Bagheera and raised by wolves. These guys have roars that can be heard up to three miles away, weigh up to 500 pounds, and can eat as much as 60 pounds of food in one night. Learn about the German brothers who made some of the most popular fairy tales of all time. Knowing no other life, he thinks everything about his life is normal, but, of course, it isn’t. The truce is disrupted when a scarred tiger named Shere Khan arrives, detecting Mowgli's scent in the large crowd. This species is not native to India, it is most likely a reference to invasive species. He told the Express newspaper that “The voice of Mowgli required something special, in the sense that he had to be absolutely ordinary. Join our Weekly Literary Roundup to receive the most popular and relevant literary news every Tuesday at 10 am. Along the way, Mowgli gets tangled up in a series of encounters with a sly snake named Kaa, a swimmingly ruthless gigantopithecus named King Louie and a lazy bear named Baloo, who quickly becomes his guide to the 'bear necessities' of life. The cast of The Jungle Book 2016 film also packs a punch with huge names in Hollywood voicing the characters: Check out this Disney-approved behind-the-scenes look at how the directors, producers, artists, and cast of The Jungle Book came together to make this CGI movie such a success: Even without these many film adaptations, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling would probably still be considered one of the best children’s classics of all time. “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” was also turned into a 1975 animated short with Hollywood heavyweight Orson Welles voicing one of the cold-hearted cobras. | Lion-Tailed Macaque. Long-Eared Jerboa. Without further ado, here's a more in-depth introduction to your favorite Jungle Book characters. Human (Homo sapiens) 2. All jungle animals will suffer. Your son or daughter might love raising funds for a new favorite wildlife non-profit too. And while wolves may look a lot like Fido, they're a world apart. Indian Sloth Bear (Melursus ursinus ursinus) 6. In this case, a mongoose seeks to protect a family of humans from a pair of deadly cobras. Bruce Reitherman, the son of the film’s director Wolfgang Reitherman, played the endearing “man cub” in the film. Plot Keywords Malayan Tapir. Learn about one of science's most intriguing geniuses. Lion. This adaptation of The Jungle Book made history for being 100% filmed in front of a green screen. The Kipling family soon grew to include daughter Elsie, born in 1895, and later son John in 1897. © 2020 Books on the Wall, All Rights Reserved, would later come to be known collectively as, racial insensitivity, colonialist arrogance and anti-feminist caricature.” (However, Dirda goes on to make a fair argument for why Kipling is a great writer and deserves serious consideration in spite of his imperialist views. After a threat from the tiger Shere Khan forces him to flee the jungle, a man-cub named Mowgli embarks on a journey of self discovery with the help of panther Bagheera and free-spirited bear Baloo. Glen Bowman/Flickr. Walt Disney himself, Notify of new replies to this comment - (on), Notify of new replies to this comment - (off), he later admitted to making this up entirely, reportedly made his writers change their early screenplay, The Life and Work of Alice Munro, "Canada's Chekhov", 15 Pride and Prejudice Quotes: Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and More, 16 Huckleberry Finn Quotes Everyone Should Know, Five of the World's Most Prolific Authors. List of Species in The Jungle Book. Born of man, yet raised by wolves, young Mowgli quickly learns the ways of the pack, and how to avoid danger, always under Bagheera's ever-watchful eye; however, during a "water truce", the carnivorous Bengal tiger, Shere Khan, manages to notice him: the den's peculiar new member, and the weirdest creature among all animals.