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How far does the Tarzan embargo go?



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Zackarix

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Obviously the characters are off limits. There were no Deep Jungle tracks in Melody of Memory, so I guess recycling the setting as a generic jungle is not an option either.

But here's where it gets confusing. A Jungle King card was scraped from CoM and there's none in MoM, which would seem to point to Tarzan-inspired things also being forbidden. But apparently it was available as an avatar part in Coded? That seems really weird, why include it in one game but not others?

And then there's the Deep Jungle-exclusive heartless, Powerwild and Bounceywild. They've both been featured in other games, so I guess there's no restrictions on using them. But why would Tarzan-inspired heartless be okay, but not the Keyblade?
 

AdrianXXII

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My guess is that the Keyblade would be okay, but they're trying to avoid the association. The Keyblade is a representation of Deep Jungle, so I can kind of see why they wouldn't want to use it much when they can't use or reference Tarzan and his world. Alternatively perhaps they used something in it's design that was trademarked.

Powerwild and Bouncewild did mostly appears in Deep Jungle, but weren't exclusively tied to the world, so maybe they feel more at ease to use them especially because the more they use them outside of that world the less tied to it they'll be.
 

Oracle Spockanort

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The Edgar Rice Burroughs estate isn’t really that logical when it comes to claiming what can and can’t be used. They are money-hungry and latch onto whatever they can for as long as they can. I imagine SE felt that they can get away with using the Heartless because they are just monkeys that do not look like something inherently a part of Deep Jungle whereas the Keyblade is heavily-jungle themed and the ERB estate could start a fuss about it if they ever used it again.
 

AdrianXXII

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Yeah, some things from the first novel are I belive, but it's really hard to tell what is PD and what is still Copyrighted, so i can see why Disney and SE would rather side-step it to avoid any lawsuit.

Samething will likely happen once Mickey does Public Domain, Disney will probably guard as much of him as they can.
 

okhi12

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The Edgar Rice Burroughs estate isn’t really that logical when it comes to claiming what can and can’t be used. They are money-hungry and latch onto whatever they can for as long as they can. I imagine SE felt that they can get away with using the Heartless because they are just monkeys that do not look like something inherently a part of Deep Jungle whereas the Keyblade is heavily-jungle themed and the ERB estate could start a fuss about it if they ever used it again.
The keyblade itself is jungle themed but also pretty generic looking... The only part of the keyblade which could be directly related to Tarzan or at least the Disney movie is the keychain, because it's one of those butterflies that covered the keyhole in the game which are based on this butterfly from the movie:
IMG_20211008_220946.jpg
It would be funny if they're not allowed to use that keyblade because of a butterfly which afaik doesn't even have anything to do with ERB... :LOL:
 

AR829038

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General rule of thumb: If it didn't appear until Kingdom Hearts, then the ERB estate doesn't have a right to it. So, Keyblades, Heartless, etc. I think the only reason that Square refrains from using even their own Deep Jungle stuff is because they probably think it's best to just leave that world in the past since they can no longer use anything meaningful from it. So many of the games that reference the first game have already had to awkwardly rub out all mention of DJ from the timeline, so continuing to use stuff from that world would just be uncomfortable. Of course, we still got Powerwild Heartless in KH3, so I guess as long as the things can be reappropriated for a different aesthetically similar world, then it's all good.
 

okhi12

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Yeah all of the Heartless of Deep Jungle could have been used for any other Jungle themed world. Though I'm happy the Powerwilder Heartless got to stick around. They're one of my favorite Heartless types in the entire series
Same with that chameleon heartless in the Clayton boss fight which was reused as different heartless in 358/2 days, with some minor changes in its design but with similar attacks and the same annoying ability to become invisible.
I remember one appears as a boss in that mission when Roxas and Axel are sent to Twilight Town to find Xion.
 

Zackarix

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What baffles me is that some Tarzan elements should theoretically be public domain now, if my limited knowledge of copyright law is correct.
Tarzan is in the public domain, but the ERB estate is keeping control over the property by abusing trademark law which works differently than copywrite. They claim that any unauthorized use of Tarzan (or John Carter) damages and dilutes their brands. A few years ago the ERB estate used the trademark justification to take legal action against Dynamite Entertainment for publishing comics based on public domain stories.

Disney probably could stand up to the ERB estate, but they don't want to. They're likely planning to use the same loophole to keep control over Mickey Mouse when he enters the public domain in a few years.
 
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Face My Fears

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I didn't get why they skipped Deep Jungle music in MoM. There's no way the Tarzan owners can claim those songs.

Honestly, if they can rehash KH1 with Deep Jungle on PC and the SWITCH, I don't get why they couldn't include that same footage in MoM. Just exclude the Tarzan characters and show locations in Deep Jungle that were not featured in the film.

I mean I get just avoiding Tarzan completely, but it's just weird that things that definitely don't belong to the Tarzan owners are also never touched. The live concerts could have used the Deep Jungle tracks and not even have cutscenes from Tarzan.

I kinda wish I never found out about the Tarzan owners just denying everything. I had always assumed that Namine didn't fix Sora's memories correctly/there was an issue with his memories coming into Castle of Oblivion and he lost Tarzan's memories forever.
 

WaltK

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It hadn’t occurred to me to point it out before, but they also don’t seem to mind covering Deep Jungle and its characters in the Ultimanias and stuff. It still shows up in the Memorial Ultimania, for example.

Honestly, if they can rehash KH1 with Deep Jungle on PC and the SWITCH, I don't get why they couldn't include that same footage in MoM. Just exclude the Tarzan characters and show locations in Deep Jungle that were not featured in the film.
They did, actually. Kairi’s memory dive included the scene where Sora sees the vision of her inside the treehouse, and I think there were other quick moments too.
 

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I didn't get why they skipped Deep Jungle music in MoM. There's no way the Tarzan owners can claim those songs.

Honestly, if they can rehash KH1 with Deep Jungle on PC and the SWITCH, I don't get why they couldn't include that same footage in MoM. Just exclude the Tarzan characters and show locations in Deep Jungle that were not featured in the film.

I mean I get just avoiding Tarzan completely, but it's just weird that things that definitely don't belong to the Tarzan owners are also never touched. The live concerts could have used the Deep Jungle tracks and not even have cutscenes from Tarzan.

I kinda wish I never found out about the Tarzan owners just denying everything. I had always assumed that Namine didn't fix Sora's memories correctly/there was an issue with his memories coming into Castle of Oblivion and he lost Tarzan's memories forever.
There's a problem with that, In Melody of memory the songs need to have some background to them, you know, following through the level. But that's kind of tough to do when most of the locations are present in the movie.
 

Chaser

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Honestly, if they can rehash KH1 with Deep Jungle on PC and the SWITCH, I don't get why they couldn't include that same footage in MoM. Just exclude the Tarzan characters and show locations in Deep Jungle that were not featured in the film.
I imagine the contracts drawn up for the remasters covered any future use of the location as long as it wasn't changed in any way, shape, or form from its original version (2002) which is why they "rehashed" it on PC and Switch (which really isn't a local version but just streaming from a server somewhere in the world).

Like others have said, it's probably easier for SE and Disney as a whole to just pretend Deep Jungle never existed outside of its original use. The only times they ever have to acknowledge Tarzan is with KH1 and an early cutscene in KH2. Rather than devote time to battling a potential lawsuit or anything in the future, just ignoring it is the best course of action.
 

Face My Fears

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I imagine the contracts drawn up for the remasters covered any future use of the location as long as it wasn't changed in any way, shape, or form from its original version (2002) which is why they "rehashed" it on PC and Switch (which really isn't a local version but just streaming from a server somewhere in the world).

Like others have said, it's probably easier for SE and Disney as a whole to just pretend Deep Jungle never existed outside of its original use. The only times they ever have to acknowledge Tarzan is with KH1 and an early cutscene in KH2. Rather than devote time to battling a potential lawsuit or anything in the future, just ignoring it is the best course of action.
Wait... I haven't played KH2 in a while, but when was the Deep Jungle cutscene in KH2? I am sure they never showed it during Sora's memories during the memory progress clips.
 

Chaser

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Wait... I haven't played KH2 in a while, but when was the Deep Jungle cutscene in KH2? I am sure they never showed it during Sora's memories during the memory progress clips.
Oh, you're 100% right. I had a false memory of Sora locking the keyhole as one of the restoration clips.
 

Elysium

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Tarzan is in the public domain, but the ERB estate is keeping control over the property by abusing trademark law which works differently than copywrite. They claim that any unauthorized use of Tarzan (or John Carter) damages and dilutes their brands. A few years ago the ERB estate used the trademark justification to take legal action against Dynamite Entertainment for publishing comics based on public domain stories.

Disney probably could stand up to the ERB estate, but they don't want to. They're likely planning to use the same loophole to keep control over Mickey Mouse when he enters the public domain in a few years.
So true. Disney might have the power to do that, but they don't want to set a precedent.

I thought Disney would've paid for the rights again to do a Tarzan live-action remake by this point, but maybe that won't happen after all. A shame if they don't, since I'd love for Tarzan to appear in KH again (and a re-make of the film wouldn't be too bad either, pending how they do it).
 

Zackarix

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I thought Disney would've paid for the rights again to do a Tarzan live-action remake by this point, but maybe that won't happen after all. A shame if they don't, since I'd love for Tarzan to appear in KH again (and a re-make of the film wouldn't be too bad either, pending how they do it).
There was a rumor last year that Disney was planning a Tarzan remake. But there doesn't seem to have been any updates since then, so take it with a grain of salt.

To be honest, a Disney live action Tarzan might not be worth it. Tarzan is still an active franchise that has new films every few years. The one thing that makes the Disney version stand out is that it's the Disney version with high quality animation. Make it live action and you lose the thing that makes Disney's version stand out from the dozens of others.
 

WaltK

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It hadn’t occurred to me to point it out before, but they also don’t seem to mind covering Deep Jungle and its characters in the Ultimanias and stuff. It still shows up in the Memorial Ultimania, for example.


They did, actually. Kairi’s memory dive included the scene where Sora sees the vision of her inside the treehouse, and I think there were other quick moments too.
Bringing this up again because I wanted to point out that despite being covered in Ultimanias, it doesn’t show up in the Character Files.
 
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