Disney’s Jungle Cruise is based on the theme park attraction of the same name, but the movie also takes from real-life historical figures and concepts. Jungle Cruise follows a British scientist, her brother, and a jungle cruise skipper as they embark on an adventure down the Amazon River in search of the mythologized Tears of the Moon. The Disney film stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Francisco “Captain Frank Wolff” Lopez de la Heredia, Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton, Jack Whitehall as her brother MacGregor Houghton, and Jesse Plemons as the villainous German Prince Joachim.
The story takes place back in 1916 at the start of World War I with international tensions high, and few scientific prospects for women like Lily in a patriarchal society. Along their journey to find the Tears of the Moon, which is said to cure any sickness and save the lives of millions, they come face-to-face with the mythologized curse put on Spanish conquistadors from 400 years prior. While many of the jungle’s dangers become real for the crew, Jungle Cruise also takes cracks from the Disney theme park ride it’s based on, introducing terrors that turn out to just be tricks by the boat’s skipper.
While Jungle Cruise is a new take on an adventure franchise for Disney, it also takes from several existing films that popularized the genre, including films like Disney’s own Pirates of the Caribbean, The Mummy, and The African Queen. Many of these films were also based on prior fictional concepts, but like Jungle Cruise, draw heavily from real-life history. Here’s a breakdown of the ideas from Jungle Cruise that were inspired by true historical figures and concepts.
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Tears Of The Moon Mythology & Twist
In Jungle Cruise, Tears of the Moon is a magical tree also referred to as the Tree of Life, whose petals are said to treat any ailment and break any curse, though most take it as a simple myth not to be believed. Lily and Jungle Cruise's protagonist characters set out on the Amazon to find the Tears of the Moon to use their abilities to greatly benefit modern medicine, while Frank is after them to reverse the undying curse that keeps him trapped on the river for eternity.
The film’s mythology states that the tree can only be found with an ancient arrowhead, which found its way to The Association in London, where Lily steals the item and embarks on her adventure. Once at the Tree of Life, Frank and Lily discover a twist to the arrowhead’s puzzling clues - the arrowhead isn’t an arrow at all, it’s a heart. Once the arrowhead is broken in half, it reveals a pink gem that once placed in the tree, causes all of the magical petals to bloom under the blood moon.
The Tree of Life, as Tears of the Moon was called before Jungle Cruise was released, is based on Disney’s Animal Kingdom tree of the same name, though it doesn’t come with the magical powers from Jungle Cruise at the theme park. The same tree is based on wider real-world religious and spiritual mythology, an archetypal “tree of life” that in many philosophies provides immortality, fertility, and healing. In European mythology, the tree of life is associated with the elixir of life that can provide eternal youth or a cure to all diseases, which in Jungle Cruise’s case would be the Tears of the Moon’s petals.
"The Association" And Its Treatment Of Women
Jungle Cruise’s Royal Society of explorers, or “The Association,” is shown to be a chauvinistic group of middle-aged white British men who don’t take well to a woman’s opinion or outsiders. Lily has to make her younger brother MacGregor the spokesperson for her speeches because Jungle Cruise's Association won’t let a woman take the floor, immediately taking audiences back to the overly misogynistic regulations of the WWI era. Lily faces discrimination for her adventurous lifestyle throughout the movie, most obviously with men making fun of her for wearing pants when women were expected to wear dresses.
While the specific explorers association is fabricated for Jungle Cruise, these types of society were very real at the time, and some like it even exist today. Jungle Cruise’s society is based on London’s real-life historical Royal Society, a scientific institution that conducted research and education around the globe, which also didn’t accept women as members until 1945. The film takes place in 1916, which was about 30 years before women were welcomed, so this is why Jungle Cruise's ending scene shows women only in the viewing sections of the auditorium.
Prince Joachim, Son Of The Kaiser
The main antagonist of Jungle Cruise, aside from Frank’s old cursed Spanish conquistador associates, is the German Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons). Joachim is said to be a son of Kaiser Wilhelm, the ruler of Germany during World War I, for whom he is searching out the Tears of the Moon to win the war. He attempts to kill Frank, Lily, and MacGregor along their expedition while freeing the vengeful cursed Spanish conquistadors from their petrified states. Prince Joachim dies at the end of Jungle Cruise when he is punched by MacGregor, sending a giant boulder off a cliff that drops on top of him.
In real life, Prince Joachim of Prussia was the 6th child and youngest son of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm. Joachim would have been 25 at the time of Jungle Cruise’s Tears of the Moon adventure, while the actor Jesse Plemons was made to be a bit older at age 33. The prince was never sent on a mission to find a magical savior for the war, instead being in the middle of Dubin’s republicans advocating for Joachim to sit on an Irish throne in 1916. Prince Joachim then came to a tragic end, taking his own life at age 29 in 1920.
Spanish Conquistadors & Their Curse
The major twist in Jungle Cruise comes when Frank reveals himself to be one of the Spanish conquistadors on Aguirre’s 16th-century expedition to find the Tears of the Moon. Aguirre (Édgar Ramírez), Frank, and the other two men made it deep into the river before turning on and attacking the native tribe, leaving Frank to defend the village. The chief before Trader Sam cursed all of Jungle Cruise’s conquistadors, Frank included, making them immortal and trapped within the confines of the Amazon river for eternity. Each cursed conquistador now seeks the Tears of the Moon to finally lift their curses and either live out the remainder of their mortal lives or rest.
Aguirre is based on a real-life Spanish conquistador, Lope de Aguirre, from the 16th century who was known for being a madman adventurer. He is most notable for his final expedition that parallels Jungle Cruise, in which he traveled down the Amazon river in search of the mythical golden kingdom of El Dorado. Aguirre traveled to find El Dorado with his daughter, which is the inspiration for Jungle Cruise’s character searching for Tears of the Moon to find a cure for his daughter. On Aguirre’s real-life expedition, he ended up claiming himself as the Prince of Peru, Tierra Firme, and Chile, murdering any natives or followers who tried to capture him. Finally, Aguirre was murdered by those who succeeded in destroying his tyrannical reign. Jungle Cruise’s version of Aguirre is still an anti-hero at best, though his nobility in searching for a cure for his daughter is much more acceptable than the greed of finding gold and riches.