Brother Bear

Aaron Blaise and co-director Robert Walker built this 2003 feature around a format decision. While Kenai is human the frame is narrow, the palette naturalistic and the drawing restrained; when he becomes a bear the image opens to the CinemaScope ratio of 2.35:1, the colour brightens and the line turns more cartoonish. A cropped copy destroys the idea, so check the aspect ratio of your copy first. The comedy follows the same structure: Rutt and Tuke only start joking after the transformation, leaving the opening stretch slow and preoccupied with death, which is the part small children sit through worst. It was drawn at Disney’s Orlando studio, the third and last feature made mainly there; the studio closed in March 2004, months after release. The opening narration is spoken in Yup’ik, translated by Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who also voiced the elder Denahi. The crew watched bears on Kodiak Island and in Denali in August 1999. At the 76th Academy Awards the film was nominated for Animated Feature Film, credited to Blaise and Walker, and lost to Finding Nemo. A good fit if you treat the frame widening halfway through as the point rather than a glitch. Not for viewers who want the jokes running from the first minute.