History WesternAnimation / BrotherBear

* AnimalTalk: Bears are able to communicate with moose and (presumably) other animals, but not with humans. Lampshaded by Tanana, when she realises it's Kenai trapped in the bear but, "You know I don't speak Bear!"
** The above sentence implies that it ''is'' possible for humans to learn to speak bear...

** The above sentence implies that it *is* possible for humans to learn to speak bear...

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: What our hero thinks of his totem at first ("Bear of love!?"). His CharacterDevelopment is learning that HeartIsAnAwesomePower.

* ARealManIsAKiller: After finding out that his spirit animal is the "bear of love", Kenai left to prove himself a man by killing a bear.

The story tells the tale of Kenai, a young man growing up somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness about 10,000 years before present. He is busy preparing for his coming-of-age ceremony along with his two older brothers, Sitka and Denahi, but when said ceremony occurs, he is... less than thrilled with the totem, or "spirit animal" that he is assigned, which turns out to be "The Bear of Love." To prove his toughness, he attempts to track down a basket dragged away by a bear who had stolen some food during the ceremony, and angrily provokes the bear after finding it. His brothers rush after him to find him cornered by the bear, and the three try to ward it off. Kenai and Denahi get out okay, but Sitka dies saving them. Later, Kenai hunts down the bear alone and slays it out of vengeance. The spirits of the land - Sitka now among them - are greatly disappointed with Kenai's needless violence, and, in an attempt to teach him a lesson, turn him into a bear.

* GhostlyAnimals: When people die, their spirits take the form of their totem animals; Sitka's spirit, for example, takes the form of a bald eagle. Some of the spirits are also shown to be of deceased animals ([[BearyFriendly Koda]] notes that his grandparents are spirits during the "Night on the Mammoths" sequence and [[spoiler: at the end of the movie, Koda briefly reunites with the spirit of his dead mother before she leaves for the spirit plains.]]

* DiegeticSwitch: The first verse of "On My Way" begins with Koda singing, then Phil Collins takes over, with Koda taking over on the last line. On the album version, Collins sings the entire song himself.

* PopStarComposer: Like Disney's earlier ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}'' film, this one has songs by Phil Collins.

* SoundtrackDissonance: Kenai starts to tell Koda what happened to his mother. [[TheReveal This is arguably the most important part of the film.]] What does Phil Collins do? Sing over it. A deleted scene shows the entire story without singing, averting this trope. In the introduction to said deleted scene on the DVD, co-director Aaron Blaise explains that the filmmakers felt that the confession scene and the song were basically the same beat in the story, so they were merged for simplicity. YMMV on whether keeping the song over the confession was the better choice, but ''one'' of them had to go.

* LanguageBarrier: Kenai transforms into a bear and gains the ability to talk to animals, but also loses the ability to talk to humans. This becomes an issue when Denahi mistakes him for the bear who killed him and tries to avenge him.

** In the German dub, the moose are ''supposed'' to have a Swedish accent...

* BalefulPolymorph: Considering what happens to Kenai as a mixed curse/blessing, you can see it this way.

'''Kenai:''' Well... it's [[BalefulPolymorph kinda about a man... and kinda about a bear]], but... mostly [[HeelRealization it's about a monster]]...

* SomewhereAMammalogistIsCrying: Kenai is portrayed as weak for having troubles ''wrestling'' a human, in both the original (Denahi) and sequel (Atka). In real life, just a pounce of a grown bear's paw is enough to knock the average man unconscious, and don't even try to think you can outmuscle one; [[CurbStompBattle you can't.]] [[BalefulPolymorph The unusual circumstances makes this more understandable.]] Kenai is still new to being a bear, and not fully grown, and since he was originally human, doesn't really want to hurt Atka.

* StockDinosaurs: Pretty much the only indication that this movie takes place in the Pleistocene is the obligatory appearance of some woolly mammoths who give our heroes a lift. A saber-toothed tiger is also briefly mentioned by Kenai. All the other animal characters belong to living species.

* AnimalTalk: Bears are able to communicate with moose and other animals, but not with humans. Lampshaded by Tanana, when she realises it's Kenai trapped in the bear but, "You know I don't speak Bear!"

* ArtShift: The film begins with an aspect ratio much closer to Academy than to Cinemascope, the colors are more drab, and the subject matter presented more seriously. Once Kenai becomes a bear, the film goes to full-blown widescreen, grows more colorful, and takes on a more comedic tone. As a result, the bear who Kenai hunted and killed looks gradually less and less fearsome as he spends more time as a bear.

* RaisedByHumans. A variant. Kenai (after being turned into a bear) becomes something of a surrogate brother to Koda. Ironically, [[spoiler:Kenai is the very reason why Koda is orphaned, since he killed Koda's mother as an act of vengeance for killing Kenai's brother]].

* FurryConfusion: Rutt and Tuke look a lot more cartoony than the caribou do. When Kenai is tracking the bear early in the movie, a moose also briefly appears looking more realistic than either of the moose brothers.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Rutt and Tuke point out in the AlternateDVDCommentary that whole movie might never have happened if Kenai had done a better job tying up the fish.

* FurryConfusion: Rutt and Tuke look a lot more cartoony than the caribou does.

* StockDinosaurs: Pretty much the only indication that this movie takes place in the Pleistocene is the obligatory appearance of some woolly mammoths who give our heroes a lift. All the other animal characters belong to living species.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: While Kenai and Denahi are hunting the bear, they hide from it as it sniffs the air nearby, grunting. [[spoiler:Once Kenai has learned that it was Koda's mother, he flashes back to that moment, and it's recontextualized to show that she was anxiously looking for Koda to protect him.]]

* VerbalTic: Rutt and Tuke stick [[CanadaEh "eh"]] onto the ends of their sentences a lot.

* AnimalTalk: Bears are able to communicate with moose, but not with humans. Lampshaded by Tanana, when she realises it's Kenai trapped in the bear but, "You know I don't speak Bear!"

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: All four of the brothers. Sitka was the responsible and his younger brothers were the foolish. After his death, though, Denahi became the responsible to Kenai's foolish and finally, Kenai became the responsible to Koda's foolish.

* TranslationConvention: We get to hear what the human and animal characters are saying. We don't get to hear what the spirits are singing, but Kenai does.

* WhiteAndGreyMorality: Almost GoodVersusGood--an unusual and refreshing approach for a Disney movie. Despite furiously hunting Kenai, Denahi isn't actually a villain and is more driven by heartbroken anger from thinking his only remaining brother was killed. What's more, he comes to his senses when he realizes Kenai ''was'' the bear he was hunting.

** During storytime among the bears, Koda tells a story about his mother fighting human hunters on a glacier, making Kenai realize [[spoiler: that the bear he killed was Koda's mother, who was only trying to protect her cub.]]

** After running away from the salmon run party, Kenai tells a story to Koda, [[spoiler: confessing his guilt over killing Koda's mother]].

* AdaptationInducedPlothole: When Kenai [[spoiler:finds out the truth about the bear he killed and flashes back to the fight along with the conversation he had with Denahi, the lines ''"Sitka wouldn't have wanted this!" -- "Sitka isn't here because of that monster!"'' can be heard]]. These lines were never spoken in the film; however, they are lines from the junior comic.

* CoughTropeCough: Tuke tries this to call Kenai crazy, but Rutt [[TooDumbToLive seriously can't understand him]], and Kenai knows ''exactly'' what he's saying.
* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: The whole movie might never have happened if Kenai had done a better job tying up the fish. Rutt and Tuke even point this out in the DVD commentary.

** In the DVDCommentary, Rutt and Tuke comment that if Kenai had bothered to tie up the basket with the fish properly, [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot it's possible that most of the movie would never have happened.]] [[invoked]]