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Sheena (film)
Encyclopedia
Sheena is a 1984 Columbia Pictures
film
based on a comic-book character that first appeared in the late 1930s, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
.
A hybrid
of action-adventure
and soap opera
-style drama
, Sheena was shot on location in Kenya
. It tells the tale of a female version of Tarzan
who was raised in the fictional African country of Tigora by the equally fictional Zambouli tribe.
The movie starred Tanya Roberts
, Ted Wass
(later to star in the television series Blossom
) and Trevor Thomas. It was directed by John Guillermin and written by Lorenzo Semple Jr.
, who had previously collaborated on the infamous 1976 remake of King Kong
.
Sheena bombed in theaters and was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards
including Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Tanya Roberts), Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Musical Score, but it reportedly did find some cult success on home video
and DVD
.
s Philip and Betsy Ames (Michael Shannon and Nancy Paul) are killed in a cave-in
, leaving their young daughter Janet an orphan
.
Janet is adopted by Shaman, a woman of the native Zambouli tribe (Princess Elizabeth of Toro
), and because of a prophecy about the cave-in ("when the sacred mountain cries out") she is viewed as a child of the gods and re-named Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
As she grows up, Sheena (Tanya Roberts
) learns much from Shaman about the lore of the jungle
and the ways of all its creatures. She is even entrusted with the secret of telepathic communication with the animals. Outsiders rarely disturb their territory, since that part of Tigora is under the special protection of King
Jabalani (Clifton Jones
).
But trouble is brewing in Tigora; the King's ex-football
champion younger brother Prince
Otwani (Trevor Thomas) is conspiring with his brother's fiancee, Countess Zanda (France Zobda), to have Jabalani assassinated so that they can exploit the titanium
-rich Zambouli land. (This may or may not have something to do with the healing properties of the soil, but this is never explained).
Experiencing a vision foretelling the death of the King, the Shaman hastens to Tigora's capital of Azan to try to warn him, but is arrested by corrupt
police officer
s working for Zanda.
Otwani's old "friend," reporter Vic Casey (Ted Wass
), and his cameraman Fletch Agronsky (Donovan Scott
) are in Tigora to do a story on the former football player. When King Jabalani is killed and the Shaman is framed for it, Vic and Fletch realize they are on to a much bigger story than they had anticipated.
Heading to a remote prison
compound to interview the Shaman, they bear witness to her rescue by Sheena and her animal friends: "Chango," an elephant
; "Marika," a zebra
; and "Tiki," a chimpanzee
. As they escape back into the jungle after destroying the prison, Vic and Fletch follow.
Otwani obtains the services of Colonel
Jorgensen (John Forgeham
) and his small army
of soldier
mercenaries
, the Black Berets. Their mission is to eradicate
the Zambouli people so their territory will be open for strip-mining. Vic must join forces with Sheena to stop the evil Prince and his army, and along the way, Vic falls in love.
. According to the article To Realize the Impossible Dream in the Marvel Comics
Super Special for the film (see below), producer Paul Aratow had been trying to get the movie made since ten years prior its completion and release in 1984.
"At first it looked incredibly easy," Aratow says in the interview. "After only two months I had an office at the studio and Raquel Welch
was going to play Sheena." However, the film became mired in preproduction limbo and bounced back and forth between different studios for the next several years.
Originally, when the film came to Columbia and looked ready to be made, Aratow hired David Newman
to write the script. But when John Guillermin became the director, he felt like the script needed "something more," so Newman ended up being replaced by Guillermin's old friend Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who had worked with him on King Kong
.
The film was shot over seven months and ran into all of the expected production problems involved with shooting on location. Ted Wass (Vic Casey) recalled, in the article Man on the Spot (an article about executive producer
Yoram Ben-Ami, also found in the Super Special), "Making a movie is like going to war. You can be the greatest general in the world but if you don't have a good army, you're going to lose the battle."
The film's multitude of animals were managed by Hubert Wells, who recalled, "We flew over an elephant, a rhino, five lions, four leopards, four chimpanzees, five horses and sixteen birds. It was the largest shipment of animals back to Africa and just getting all the necessary permits to bring them in and out of the country was a superhuman task."
Wells had few problems with the trained animals, but the crew did have some with wild animals that would come onto the set, in particular wild lions who would try to start fights with the tamed ones. Guards had to be posted on the set at night to keep them away. Despite this, Wells was quoted as saying that he enjoyed working on the picture so much he hoped for a sequel, which of course never came.
with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, Sheena received two thumbs down. Ebert commented that "This movie is rated PG, not PG-13. It's probably the only PG-rated movie that will play continuously on the Playboy Channel--you see more of Tanya Roberts than you did of last month's playmate." They later listed Sheena as one of the "Stinkers of 1984". Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin
seemed to agree, rating the film as a BOMB and stating: "Tanya definitely swings as Eisner & Iger
's comic-book jungle-queen, but Mother Nature forgot to endow her with a script. Supposed to be campy, but it's just plain awful."
composed
and conducted by Richard Hartley
for the film was released in 1984. It was reissued on CD by Varèse Sarabande
in 2004, separating the first track into two parts ("Theme" and "Interlude").
published an adaptation of the film as a Marvel Super Special (#34), written by Cary Burkett and illustrated by Gray Morrow
. It followed the story of the film very closely, and developed the character of Fletch the cameraman quite a bit more than in the film, in particular revealing his surname to be "Agronsky." The comic also had several pages in the back about the making of the film. One noteworthy difference between the film and the comic concerns the ethnicity of Otwani's troops. In the film, they are all white
. In the comic, the only white soldiers are Colonel Jorgenson and the helicopter pilot (identified as "Joe"), while all of the others are of African descent, including the featured soldiers (Wadman, Anders and Blau).
Other differences:
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
based on a comic-book character that first appeared in the late 1930s, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is a fictional, American comic book jungle girl heroine, published originally by Fiction House. The female counterpart to Tarzan, Sheena had two things in common with Edgar Rice Burrough's Jungle Lord: Both possessed the ability to communicate with wild animals and were...
.
A hybrid
Cross-genre
A cross-genre is a genre in fiction that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres.-Examples:*Action comedy *Comedy-drama or dramedy *Comedy-horror...
of action-adventure
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
and soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
-style drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, Sheena was shot on location in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. It tells the tale of a female version of Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
who was raised in the fictional African country of Tigora by the equally fictional Zambouli tribe.
The movie starred Tanya Roberts
Tanya Roberts
Tanya Roberts is an American actress best known for her roles in Charlie's Angels, The Beastmaster, A View to a Kill, Sheena and That '70s Show. Roberts was groomed as a Hollywood sex symbol during the early 1980s.- Early life :Blum was born in The Bronx, New York City, of Irish and Jewish descent...
, Ted Wass
Ted Wass (actor)
Ted Wass , is an American actor and director. Goodman School of Drama graduate Wass made his Broadway debut in the 1976 production Grease...
(later to star in the television series Blossom
Blossom
In botany, blossom is a term given to the flowers of stone fruit trees and of some other plants with a similar appearance that flower profusely for a period of time in spring...
) and Trevor Thomas. It was directed by John Guillermin and written by Lorenzo Semple Jr.
Lorenzo Semple Jr.
Lorenzo Semple Jr. is an American screenwriter and sometime playwright, best known for his work on the campy television series Batman and the political/paranoia movie thrillers The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor .-Early work:Semple's writing career started in 1951, as a short story...
, who had previously collaborated on the infamous 1976 remake of King Kong
King Kong (1976 film)
King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition....
.
Sheena bombed in theaters and was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards
Golden Raspberry Awards
A Golden Raspberry Award, or Razzie for short, is an award presented in recognition of the worst in movies. Founded by American copywriter and publicist John J.B. Wilson in 1981, the annual Razzie Awards ceremony in Los Angeles precedes the corresponding Academy Awards ceremony by one day...
including Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Tanya Roberts), Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Musical Score, but it reportedly did find some cult success on home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
.
Plot
While investigating rumors of a mystical "healing earth" whose powers are said to flow forth from the sacred Gudjara Mountain, geologistGeologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
s Philip and Betsy Ames (Michael Shannon and Nancy Paul) are killed in a cave-in
Cave-in
A cave-in is a collapse of a geologic formation, mine or structure which typically occurs during mining or tunneling. Geologic structures prone to cave-ins include alvar, tsingy and other limestone formations, but can also include lava tubes and a variety of other subsurface rock formations.In...
, leaving their young daughter Janet an orphan
Orphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...
.
Janet is adopted by Shaman, a woman of the native Zambouli tribe (Princess Elizabeth of Toro
Princess Elizabeth of Toro
Princess Elizabeth Christobel Edith Bagaaya Akiiki of Toro is the Batebe of the Kingdom of Toro. She is a Ugandan lawyer, politician, diplomat, model and actress. She was the first female East African to be admitted to the English Bar. She is a paternal aunt of the current King of Toro, Oyo Nyimba...
), and because of a prophecy about the cave-in ("when the sacred mountain cries out") she is viewed as a child of the gods and re-named Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
As she grows up, Sheena (Tanya Roberts
Tanya Roberts
Tanya Roberts is an American actress best known for her roles in Charlie's Angels, The Beastmaster, A View to a Kill, Sheena and That '70s Show. Roberts was groomed as a Hollywood sex symbol during the early 1980s.- Early life :Blum was born in The Bronx, New York City, of Irish and Jewish descent...
) learns much from Shaman about the lore of the jungle
Jungle
A Jungle is an area of land in the tropics overgrown with dense vegetation.The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala which referred to uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to "dry land", it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its...
and the ways of all its creatures. She is even entrusted with the secret of telepathic communication with the animals. Outsiders rarely disturb their territory, since that part of Tigora is under the special protection of King
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
Jabalani (Clifton Jones
Clifton Jones
Clifton Jones is an actor, mostly known for his roles on British television.His most prominent role is probably that of David Kano during the first season of the science fiction series Space: 1999....
).
But trouble is brewing in Tigora; the King's ex-football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
champion younger brother Prince
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
Otwani (Trevor Thomas) is conspiring with his brother's fiancee, Countess Zanda (France Zobda), to have Jabalani assassinated so that they can exploit the titanium
Titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....
-rich Zambouli land. (This may or may not have something to do with the healing properties of the soil, but this is never explained).
Experiencing a vision foretelling the death of the King, the Shaman hastens to Tigora's capital of Azan to try to warn him, but is arrested by corrupt
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
s working for Zanda.
Otwani's old "friend," reporter Vic Casey (Ted Wass
Ted Wass (actor)
Ted Wass , is an American actor and director. Goodman School of Drama graduate Wass made his Broadway debut in the 1976 production Grease...
), and his cameraman Fletch Agronsky (Donovan Scott
Donovan Scott
Donovan Scott is an American character film actor best known for his role of cadet Leslie Barbara in the 1984 film Police Academy starring together with Steve Guttenberg...
) are in Tigora to do a story on the former football player. When King Jabalani is killed and the Shaman is framed for it, Vic and Fletch realize they are on to a much bigger story than they had anticipated.
Heading to a remote prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
compound to interview the Shaman, they bear witness to her rescue by Sheena and her animal friends: "Chango," an elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
; "Marika," a zebra
Zebra
Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...
; and "Tiki," a chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
. As they escape back into the jungle after destroying the prison, Vic and Fletch follow.
Otwani obtains the services of Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Jorgensen (John Forgeham
John Forgeham
John Forgeham is a British actor who is probably best known for playing businessman Frank Laslett in the ITV series Footballers' Wives....
) and his small army
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
of soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
mercenaries
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
, the Black Berets. Their mission is to eradicate
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
the Zambouli people so their territory will be open for strip-mining. Vic must join forces with Sheena to stop the evil Prince and his army, and along the way, Vic falls in love.
Cast
- Tanya RobertsTanya RobertsTanya Roberts is an American actress best known for her roles in Charlie's Angels, The Beastmaster, A View to a Kill, Sheena and That '70s Show. Roberts was groomed as a Hollywood sex symbol during the early 1980s.- Early life :Blum was born in The Bronx, New York City, of Irish and Jewish descent...
.... Sheena - Ted WassTed Wass (actor)Ted Wass , is an American actor and director. Goodman School of Drama graduate Wass made his Broadway debut in the 1976 production Grease...
.... Vic Casey - Donovan ScottDonovan ScottDonovan Scott is an American character film actor best known for his role of cadet Leslie Barbara in the 1984 film Police Academy starring together with Steve Guttenberg...
.... Fletch Agronsky - Princess Elizabeth of ToroPrincess Elizabeth of ToroPrincess Elizabeth Christobel Edith Bagaaya Akiiki of Toro is the Batebe of the Kingdom of Toro. She is a Ugandan lawyer, politician, diplomat, model and actress. She was the first female East African to be admitted to the English Bar. She is a paternal aunt of the current King of Toro, Oyo Nyimba...
.... Shaman - France Zobda .... Countess Zanda
- Trevor Thomas .... Prince Otwani
- Clifton JonesClifton JonesClifton Jones is an actor, mostly known for his roles on British television.His most prominent role is probably that of David Kano during the first season of the science fiction series Space: 1999....
.... KingMonarchA monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
Jabalani - John ForgehamJohn ForgehamJohn Forgeham is a British actor who is probably best known for playing businessman Frank Laslett in the ITV series Footballers' Wives....
.... ColonelColonelColonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Jorgensen - Errol JohnErrol JohnErrol John was a Trinidadian actor and playwright.Born in Trinidad, he was home schooled then began his career as an artist and journalist. Deciding to pursue a career in acting, he joined the Whitehall Theatre Group...
.... Boto - Sylvester Williams .... Juka
- Bob Sherman .... Grizzard
- Michael Shannon .... Phillip Ames
- Nancy Paul .... Betsy Ames
- Nick BrimbleNick BrimbleNick Brimble , is an English actor known for his performance as Little John in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and his appearances on various television shows....
.... Wadman - Paul Gee .... Blau
- Dave CooperDave CooperDavid Charles Cooper is a cartoonist, commercial illustrator and a graphic designer who lives in Ottawa, Canada. In addition to comics, Cooper has worked extensively as a designer, producer, and creator in the field of animation...
.... Anders - Oliver Litondo .... ChiefTribal chiefA tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
Harombano
Production
The movie was shot entirely on location in KenyaKenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. According to the article To Realize the Impossible Dream in the Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
Super Special for the film (see below), producer Paul Aratow had been trying to get the movie made since ten years prior its completion and release in 1984.
"At first it looked incredibly easy," Aratow says in the interview. "After only two months I had an office at the studio and Raquel Welch
Raquel Welch
Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...
was going to play Sheena." However, the film became mired in preproduction limbo and bounced back and forth between different studios for the next several years.
Originally, when the film came to Columbia and looked ready to be made, Aratow hired David Newman
David Newman (filmmaker)
David Newman was an American filmmaker. From the late 1960s through the early 1980s he frequently collaborated with Robert Benton. He was married to fellow writer Leslie Newman, with whom he had two children, until the time of his death...
to write the script. But when John Guillermin became the director, he felt like the script needed "something more," so Newman ended up being replaced by Guillermin's old friend Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who had worked with him on King Kong
King Kong (1976 film)
King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition....
.
The film was shot over seven months and ran into all of the expected production problems involved with shooting on location. Ted Wass (Vic Casey) recalled, in the article Man on the Spot (an article about executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
Yoram Ben-Ami, also found in the Super Special), "Making a movie is like going to war. You can be the greatest general in the world but if you don't have a good army, you're going to lose the battle."
The film's multitude of animals were managed by Hubert Wells, who recalled, "We flew over an elephant, a rhino, five lions, four leopards, four chimpanzees, five horses and sixteen birds. It was the largest shipment of animals back to Africa and just getting all the necessary permits to bring them in and out of the country was a superhuman task."
Wells had few problems with the trained animals, but the crew did have some with wild animals that would come onto the set, in particular wild lions who would try to start fights with the tamed ones. Guards had to be posted on the set at night to keep them away. Despite this, Wells was quoted as saying that he enjoyed working on the picture so much he hoped for a sequel, which of course never came.
Reception
On the television program At the MoviesAt the Movies
At the Movies is an Australian television program on ABC1 hosted by film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, in which they discuss the films opening in theatres that week.-History:...
with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, Sheena received two thumbs down. Ebert commented that "This movie is rated PG, not PG-13. It's probably the only PG-rated movie that will play continuously on the Playboy Channel--you see more of Tanya Roberts than you did of last month's playmate." They later listed Sheena as one of the "Stinkers of 1984". Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
seemed to agree, rating the film as a BOMB and stating: "Tanya definitely swings as Eisner & Iger
Eisner & Iger
Eisner & Iger was a comic book "packager" that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books...
's comic-book jungle-queen, but Mother Nature forgot to endow her with a script. Supposed to be campy, but it's just plain awful."
Soundtrack Listing
A soundtrack album of musicMusic
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
composed
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
and conducted by Richard Hartley
Richard Hartley
Richard Hartley is a British composer.His work is extensive and varied, including musical arrangement for theatre and many scores for television and film. In the 1970s he began a long association with Richard O'Brien. Hartley was originally part of the four-piece band for the Rocky Horror Show. ...
for the film was released in 1984. It was reissued on CD by Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
in 2004, separating the first track into two parts ("Theme" and "Interlude").
- Sheena's Theme (Main Title) (2:52)
- Interlude (0:40)
- Introduction / One Way Ticket (6:15)
- Climb! / Young Sheena (5:58)
- Marika and the Water Deer (2:14)
- African Ballet (1:53)
- The Encounter (3:36)
- Shaman Taught Me (1:58)
- The Circle (1:13)
- Come on Vic Casey (2:20)
- May I (1:43)
- End Title (2:59)
Comic Adaptation
Around the time the film came out, Marvel ComicsMarvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
published an adaptation of the film as a Marvel Super Special (#34), written by Cary Burkett and illustrated by Gray Morrow
Gray Morrow
Dwight Graydon "Gray" Morrow was an American illustrator of paperback books and comics.-Biography:Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Morrow is best known as art director of Spider-Man between 1967 and 1970 and as illustrator of the syndicated Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant comic...
. It followed the story of the film very closely, and developed the character of Fletch the cameraman quite a bit more than in the film, in particular revealing his surname to be "Agronsky." The comic also had several pages in the back about the making of the film. One noteworthy difference between the film and the comic concerns the ethnicity of Otwani's troops. In the film, they are all white
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
. In the comic, the only white soldiers are Colonel Jorgenson and the helicopter pilot (identified as "Joe"), while all of the others are of African descent, including the featured soldiers (Wadman, Anders and Blau).
Other differences:
- Otwani plays for the Washington RedskinsWashington RedskinsThe Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
, rather than the fictional Cougars. - The scene where Fletch notices the mercenaries' helicopter, Hawk One, at the airport is missing, as is the scene of him and Vic leaving their hotel and encountering Jorgenson and his men by getting off on the wrong floor.
- King Jabalani is hit in the back by the arrow, rather than the chest.
- Sheena and Vic escape from the villains on foot, rather than climbing a tree and hiding.
- When the fuel truck catches fire, at least one of the soldiers is killed in the process, whereas none die in this scene in the movie.
- The destruction of Z'Kuru occurs entirely offscreen. Sheena and Vic do not witness the massacre.
- During the scene of Hawk One strafing the animal herd, the pilot actually manages to hit some of the animals unlike in the movie.
- The Zambouli lead the villains into a rocky canyon, rather than the jungle, before ambushing them.
- Colonel Jorgenson is not shown being killed. He disappears entirely from the final battle, and Chief Harumba's line "For Z'Kuru!" is spoken while killing a random soldier instead.
- The deaths of Wadman and Anders during the battle are also omitted.
- Juka does not return to America with Vic and Fletch.