Kerchak is a villainous Mangani from the original Tarzan books, a vicious ape who was responsible for the deaths of Tarzan's original family and the main antagonist in Tarzan of the Apes. His role was replaced in the 1999 Disney animated film by Sabor, a rogue leopard.
Biography[]
In the novel Tarzan of the Apes, Kerchak is the "king" of a tribal band of Mangani, a fictional species of Great Ape intermediate between real life chimpanzees and gorillas. In the beginning of the original novel, Kerchak leads his band against Tarzan's marooned father and kills him; the infant Tarzan is saved by a female Mangani named Kala, who rears the baby and protects him against Kerchak. When Tarzan reaches adulthood, he fights and kills Kerchak and succeeds him as king of the apes.
Trivia[]
- Disney's Tarzan has him change from a major villain in the original novel into an antiheroic character who was initially apathetic towards the titular protagonist, simply because the latter's a human being. The passage of the leadership role has also been portrayed more sympathetically in the film, as Kerchak was instead brutally killed off by Clayton (that film's main antagonist) and has willingly let Tarzan take that job for the entire jungle family just as the gorilla slowly dies. Therefore, Kerchak is more similar to Tublat in Tarzan of the Apes.
- Ironically, Disney's Tublat is more similar to Kerchak from Tarzan of the Apes.
- Strangely enough, while the books portrayed Kerchak as being the brutal and destructive one, he was made more sympathetic by Disney, using the book's portrayal of Tublat as being benevolent, while their version of Tublat suffered the complete opposite (he’s changed into a villain using the original version of Kerchak's personality).
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 Villains
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