Brother Bear is a 2003 American animated musical fantasy adventure comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. It was directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker, and written by Tab Murphy, and the writing teams of Lorne Cameron and David Hoselton, and 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 Alaskan boy named Kenai (Phoenix) who kills a grizzly bear in revenge for his brother’s death and is transformed into a bear himself by the Great Spirits as punishment. To become human again, he must travel to a faraway mountain, and he befriends a cub named Koda (Suarez) along the way. The film features original songs written by Phil Collins, and an original musical orchestral score composed by Mark Mancina and Collins.
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 their shaman Tanana. The particular animal it represents symbolizes the trait he must achieve to claim himself as 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 feral and thieves, and believes his opinion is vindicated when a female brown 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.
Kenai finds the bear and provokes it into a fight. His brothers find him, but the 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, slaying it upon a rocky cliff. The Spirits arrive and transform Kenai into a brown grizzly cave bear in the sky, lifted by Sitka's spirit in the form of the bald eagle, after the dead bear's body evaporates itself into the golden river of light 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 as a result.
Kenai awakens as he is healed by Tanana and discovers his transformation in panic. She advises him to go to the mountain where the lights touch the earth to find Sitka and the Spirits and be turned back into a human, but only when he atones for his actions. Kenai quickly discovers that he can now understand the wildlife, meeting an outgoing bear cub named Koda whose 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 moose brothers Rutt and Tuke, riding on the backs of the wooly mammoth herd, all while being chased by Denahi.
Kenai and Koda eventually reach the salmon run, where a large number of bears live like a family. Kenai adjusts to his surroundings and becomes comfortable with the other bears. During story time, Koda tells a story about his mother recently fighting human hunters on a glacier, making Kenai realize that Koda's mother was the bear he fought and killed the entire time. He later 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 when Koda intervenes. Kenai goes to Koda's aid out of love, prompting Sitka to appear and change him back into a human. However, upon realizing that Koda needs him, Kenai convinces Sitka to transform him back into a bear with Denahi's support. In the end, Kenai lives with the rest of the bears, gaining 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, Kenai and Denahi's oldest brother. Joan Copeland as Tanana, the shaman-woman of Kenai's tribe. Michael Clarke Duncan as Tug, a wise old black 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 (1994), 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 [he] 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 (1996), Tarzan (1999), and Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), 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 [with the story], 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 (for Gladiator). 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 (2003), Jeremy Suarez was hired to voice the role of 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.
Design and animation The film is traditionally animated but includes some CG elements such as "a salmon run and a caribou stampede". Layout artist Armand Serrano, speaking about the drawing process on the film, said that "we had to do a life drawing session with live bear cubs and also outdoor drawing and painting sessions at Fort Wilderness in Florida three times a week for two months [...]". In 2001, Background supervisor Barry Kooser and his team traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and studied with Western landscape painter Scott Christensen, where they learned to: "simplify objects by getting the spatial dimensions to work first and working in the detail later."
According to Ruben Aquino, supervising animator for the character of Denahi, Denahi was originally meant to be Kenai's father; later this was changed to Kenai's brother. Byron Howard, supervising animator for Kenai in bear form, said that earlier in production a bear named Grizz (who resembles Tug in the film and is voiced by the same actor) was supposed to have the role of Kenai's mentor. Art Director Robh Ruppel stated that the ending of the film originally showed how Kenai and Denahi get together once a year to play when the northern lights are in the sky.
Music