Brother Bear


Brother Bear is a 2003 American animated musical comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. It was directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker, and written by Tab Murphy, Lorne Cameron and David Hoselton, Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman. The film features the voices of Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Suarez, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Jason Raize, and D. B. Sweeney. The story follows a Native American boy named Kenai who is transformed into a bear by the Great Spirits as punishment for killing one. To become human again, he must travel to a faraway mountain, befriending a cub named Koda along the way.
Brother Bear premiered at the New Amsterdam Theatre on October 20, 2003, and was released in the United States on November 1 by Walt Disney Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $250 million against a $46 million budget. It received a nomination for Best Animated Feature at the 76th Academy Awards. A direct-to-video sequel, Brother Bear 2, was released on August 29, 2006.

Plot

In post-ice age Alaska, the local tribesmen believe all creatures are created through the Great Spirits, who are said to appear in the form of an aurora. A trio of brothers, Sitka, the oldest; Denahi, the middle; and Kenai, the youngest, return to their tribe for Kenai to receive his totem, a necklace in the shape of a different animal, from Tanana, the shaman of the brothers' tribe. The particular animal it represents symbolizes the trait he must achieve to call himself a man. Unlike Sitka, who gained the eagle of guidance, and Denahi, who gained the wolf of wisdom, Kenai receives the bear of love. He objects to his totem, stating that bears are thieves and believes his opinion is proven to be a fact when a grizzly bear steals their basket of salmon, which Kenai did not tie properly in a hurry to receive his totem. Kenai searches for the basket and finds it devoured.
He sees the bear, provokes it, his brothers find him, but a fight ends on top of a large glacier. When the bear gets the upper hand, Sitka sacrifices himself to save his brothers by dislodging the glacier, although the bear survives the fall. After Sitka's funeral, a furious Kenai blames the bear for Sitka's death and rejects his totem. He hunts down and chases the bear up onto a rocky cliff, fighting and eventually slaying it. The Spirits, represented by Sitka's spirit in the form of a bald eagle, arrive and transform Kenai into a bear after the dead bear's body evaporates and joins them. Denahi arrives and falsely believes that Kenai was killed by the bear from earlier. Kenai falls off the cliff and down some rapids, but survives. Denahi vows to avenge Kenai.
Kenai awakens as he is healed by Tanana and discovers his transformation. Tanana cannot understand Kenai, but advises him to go to the mountain where the lights touch the earth to find Sitka and be turned back into a human, but only when he atones for his actions; she vanishes without explanation. Kenai quickly discovers that he can now understand the wildlife, meeting a pair of moose brothers named Rutt and Tuke. He gets caught in a trap, but is freed by an outgoing bear cub named Koda. After they evade Denahi, who is still unaware that the bear he is pursuing is Kenai himself, Koda reveals to Kenai that his mother is missing. They make a deal: Kenai will escort Koda to an annual salmon run, and then the cub will lead Kenai to the mountain nearby. Along the way, the two form a brotherly relationship and are joined by Rutt and Tuke, and ride on the backs of a woolly mammoth herd. Kenai and Koda eventually continue their journey on foot.
After another ordeal with Denahi throughout a volcanic field, Kenai and Koda eventually reach the salmon run, where a large number of bears live like a family, including the leader Tug. Kenai adjusts to his surroundings and is happy spending time with the other bears. During story time among the bears, Koda tells a story about his mother recently fighting human hunters on a glacier, reminding Kenai of his and his brothers' fight with the bear that led to Sitka's death, making him realize that Koda's mother was the bear he killed the entire time. Horrified of what he has done, Kenai runs away in a fit of guilt, but Koda soon finds him. Downhearted, Kenai confesses the truth to Koda, who runs away grief-stricken, and a remorseful Kenai leaves to reach the mountain. Meanwhile, Rutt and Tuke, having had a falling-out, reconcile in front of Koda, prompting him to forgive Kenai.
On the mountain, Kenai is cornered by Denahi, but their battle is interrupted by Koda, who steals Denahi's spear. Kenai goes to Koda's aid out of love, prompting Sitka to appear and change him back into a human, much to Denahi and Koda's surprise. However, upon realizing that Koda needs him because of his own mistake, Kenai asks Sitka to transform him back into a bear with Denahi's support. Sitka complies, and Kenai resumes his bear form. Koda is reunited briefly with the spirit of his mother before she and Sitka return to the spirits. In the end, Kenai lives with the rest of the bears and gains his title as a man, through being a bear.

Voice cast

  • Joaquin Phoenix as Kenai, the younger brother of Sitka and Denahi, who has a hatred of bears. After he callously kills a bear, Kenai is turned into one himself to teach him to see through another's eyes, feel through another's heart, and discover the true meaning of brotherhood. John E. Hurst and Byron Howard served as the supervising animators for Kenai in human and bear form respectively.
  • Jeremy Suarez as Koda, a cheeky grizzly bear cub who helps Kenai on his journey to "where the lights touch the earth." Alex Kupershmidt served as the supervising animator for Koda.
  • Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as Rutt and Tuke, a comedic Canadian moose duo. They are based on the comedy duo characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, which are portrayed by Moranis and Thomas.
  • Jason Raize as Denahi, the middle brother. This was Jason Raize's first and only film role before his death in 2004. Harold Gould provides narration from an older Denahi's point of view. Ruben A. Aquino served as the supervising animator for Denahi.
  • D.B. Sweeney as Sitka, the oldest brother.
  • Joan Copeland as Tanana, the shaman-woman of Kenai's tribe.
  • Michael Clarke Duncan as Tug, a wise old grizzly bear, and the leader of the bears at the salmon run.
  • Greg Proops as Male Lover Bear
  • Pauley Perrette as Female Lover Bear
  • Estelle Harris as Scrawny Old Lady Bear
  • Jo Anne Worley as Fat Old Lady Bear
  • Darko Cesar as Foreign Croatian Bear
  • Paul Christie and Danny Mastrogiorgio as Rams
  • Bumper Robinson as Chipmunks
  • Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley as Narrator

    Production

Development

Following the critical and commercial success of The Lion King, then-Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner urged for more animal-centric animated features. He suggested a North American setting, taking particular inspiration from an original landscape painting by Albert Bierstadt that he purchased. For the characters, the hero would be a bear, the king of the forest. At the time, the original idea, which was inspired by King Lear, centered around an old blind bear who traveled the forest with his three daughters. In 1997, veteran animator Aaron Blaise joined the project as director because he "wanted to be attached so that could animate bears", and was soon joined by co-director Robert Walker. Because Blaise desired a more naturalistic story, Blaise and producer Chuck Williams produced a two-page treatment of a father-son story in which the son is transformed into a bear, and in the end, remains a bear. Thomas Schumacher, then-president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, approved the revised story and proclaimed, "This is the idea of the century." Tab Murphy, who had co-written the screenplays for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, came on board to write an early draft of the script.
After the project was green-lit, Blaise, Walker, and the story artists embarked on a research trip in August 1999 to visit Alaska where they traveled on the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and Kodiak Island. They also traveled through Denali National Park and the Kenai Fjords National Park, where they visited Exit and Holgate Glacier. A year later, the production team took additional research trips through the Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and the Sequoia National Park. Around 2000, the story evolved into a tale in which the transformed Kenai is taken in by an older bear, Grizz, who was to be voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan. However, Blaise explained that "we were struggling , trying to get some charm into the film. So we turned Grizz into a cub named Koda", who was voiced by Jeremy Suarez. Because Blaise, Walker, and Williams enjoyed Duncan's vocal performance, Tug, the de facto leader of the bears at the salmon run, was written into the film.
Brother Bear was the third and final animated film produced primarily at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida; the studio closed in March 2004, as Disney fully pivoted towards computer animation.

Casting

In March 2001, Joaquin Phoenix confirmed he was cast in the film, exclaiming, "Oh, but forget the Oscar nomination. The real pinnacle is that I'm playing an animated character in a Disney film. Isn't that the greatest? I play a Native American transformed into a bear. It's called The Bears. Don't call me a leading man. I don't care about that. I'm a leading bear. I am content!" After the filmmakers heard his audition tapes for Finding Nemo, Jeremy Suarez was cast as Koda.
As is typical for animation voice acting, Suarez and Phoenix voiced their roles separately, although they both did a recording session together at least two times. Voicing the moose brothers Rutt and Tuke, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis performed simultaneously throughout the recording process. Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, an associate professor who taught courses on Alaska Native philosophy at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, claimed he was never given a script, but was instead given "the dialogue that they had written, which was being told by a Native person". For his role as the Inuit Narrator, Kawagley translated the dialogue in written form into Yup'ik and faxed the translation back to the Disney studio. He later recorded his translation at an Anchorage studio while being videotaped for animation reference.