Brother Bear is a American traditionally animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures, the 44th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics. In the film, an Inuit boy pursues a bear in revenge for a battle that he provoked in which his oldest brother is killed. He tracks down the bear and kills it, but the Spirits, angered by this needless death, change the boy into a bear himself as punishment. Originally titled Bears, it was the third and final Disney animated feature produced primarily by the Feature Animation studio at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida; the studio was shut down in March 2004, not long after the release of this film in favor of computer animated features. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, but lost against Finding Nemo. A sequel, Brother Bear 2 was released on August 29, 2006.

Plot

Long ago in a post-ice age North America, there are three Indian brothers named Kenai, Denahi, and Sitka. Denahi is the middle brother, and Sitka, the oldest. Kenai, the youngest, hates bears because they fight for the same food, overtake the land, and ruin his coming-of-age ceremony. Each brother was given his own totem when they came of age: Sitka, the eagle of guidance and Denahi, the wolf of wisdom. At the ceremony, Kenai is presented with the bear of love. Kenai questions the totem he has been given with his brother by saying that "[1] don't love anyone, they don't think, they don't feel [...]", calling them thieves when he notices the stolen fish basket.

When Sitka is killed in a battle with the bear that stole the basket, Tanana, the tribal shaman, officiates a funeral rite for Sitka. Suddenly Kenai ignores the village teachings of brotherhood with animals and sets out to hunt the bear for revenge and eventually kills it. To punish Kenai, the Great Spirits, represented by the spirit of Sitka, transform him into a bear. Unfortunately his other brother, who was pursuing Kenai to stop him, doesn't realize what has happened. He finds Kenai's torn clothes and believes the bear took his other brother's life. In grief, he vows revenge.