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Disney's King Louie is a cryptid

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https://www.yahoo.com/movies/jon-favreau-breaks-down-disneys-live-action-129130133927.html

The director of the new live action Jungle Book has announced that King Louie is no longer a scat-singing orangutan.
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"We changed it to a Gigantopithecus,” explains Favreau, referring to an extinct great ape species, “because orangutans don’t live in that part of the world.”
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There's talking snakes and tigers and bears, but an orangutan on the wrong continent would be a troublesome detail...

IIRC, Baghera had a bald spot on his neck where the collar used to be. He was an escapee from some human's menagerie. I'd probably have kept the orangutan, jut gave him a very visible collar or shackle. Blame man for his being there.
 
Only problem I can think of is that the huge size makes Louie way more intimidating than he should be if they're keeping him to the original characterization.

Which... I'm not sure if it's a good idea either way, because racism and stuff. Seriously, Louie is fun and interesting and one of my favorite Disney characters ever, but the idea of a jazz-singing ape with mannerisms straight out of a minstrel show is just Unfortunate Implications Central.
 
exodiasrightleg said:
Only problem I can think of is that the huge size makes Louie way more intimidating than he should be if they're keeping him to the original characterization.

Which... I'm not sure if it's a good idea either way, because racism and stuff. Seriously, Louie is fun and interesting and one of my favorite Disney characters ever, but the idea of a jazz-singing ape with mannerisms straight out of a minstrel show is just Unfortunate Implications Central.
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I think King Louie might have a more menacing characterization this time around
 
One of the IMDB discussions of the movie is about King Louie. One poster is okay with Favreau adding a Gigantopithicus because, well, it's possible we've just never found a living gigant-etc, and this takes place in the middle of the jungle where Man has never been.

Who, uh, built the temple ruins Louie live in, then?
 
Encounters with gigantic orangutans
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/12/14/encounters-gigantic-orangutans/
Over the past couple of months I’ve been reading John MacKinnon’s In Search of the Red Ape (Collins, 1974) – one of the first books anyone reads whenever they want to learn about orangutans. The book is stuffed full of anecdotes and other natural history tales about Borneo and Sumatra, and it seems that MacKinnon (who, these days, is best known for his association with the discovery of the Saola Pseudoryx nghetinensis in Vietnam (MacKinnon 2000, Van Dung et al. 1993, 1994)) encountered just about every creature you could hope to encounter in the tropical jungles of the region… yes, even the enigmatic orang-pendek (or its tracks, at least).

Anyway, one particular section of the book really stands out for me: the bit where MacKinnon catches sight of a gigantic, terrestrially walking male orangutan…

I was nearly home when I saw a terrifying spectacle. For a moment I thought it was a trick of my vision. A huge, black orang-utan was walking along the path towards me. I had never seen such a large animal even in a zoo. He must have weighed every bit of three hundred pounds. Hoping that he had not noticed me, I dived behind a large tree. I was in no state to defend myself, or run from him should he come for me, and I could recall clearly the natives’ terrible stories about old, ground-living orangs. I held my breath as the monster passed within a few feet of me and let him get about forty yards ahead before I followed in pursuit. He was enormous, as black as a gorilla but with his back almost bare of hair; Ivan the Terrible was the only name I could think of. (MacKinnon 1974, p. 54)

‘Ivan’ was an efficient, speedy walker and preferred not to climb. MacKinnon doesn’t state whether ‘Ivan’ was walking quadrupedally or bipedally, but remember that orangutans are highly capable bipeds, and indeed work on their energetics shows that they are more efficient (in terms of wattage/kilo) at it than we are . It seems that giant male orangs that become too heavy for an easy life in the trees descend to the ground, and often walk upright and bipedally (though they presumably use their hands for regular support).
 
I was probably 10 years old when the Disney Jungle Book movie was released. My family went to see it together. Families did that sort of thing in 1967. I remember my father saying the King Louie scene was his favorite, and he explained all about Louie Prima. He must have been a big Prima fan, because he said the cartoon Louie mimicked the singer Prima's stage act. Being 10 years old, it never occurred to me to ask if he had ever seen Prima perform live.
 
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