Media Essays: The Bear Fight Shot-By-Shot Analysis

It's that time again, time for another shot-by-shot analysis essay!

And I feel today's subject will be the perfect movie scene to do a shot-by-shot analysis for. For today's post, I've chosen to do a shot-by-shot essay of my favourite scene from Disney's The Fox and the Hound, which is among my favourite Disney films. That scene...is the bear fight.

Years ago, I placed this scene at Number 2 on my Top 10 Most Memorable Disney Scenes list, and for good reason! Because it's such a memorable scene! When it comes to The Fox and the Hound, this scene is always the first one I think of, and I also think of it as an example of a scary Disney scene too. Animated by animation legend Glenn Keane himself, the bear fight is among the best examples of Disney Animation at its finest due to how intense and frightening it is, as well as how animated it is from start to finish. So what makes the bear fight so memorable? What makes this scene so effective and why it sticks with the viewer so much? Let's being our analysis and find out...

The Build-Up

The scene itself follows on from another intense scene earlier as Tod and Vixey are pursued by Amos Slade and Copper. Up to this point, we've seen Amos and Copper chasing the two foxes down, Copper and Tod actually fighting each other and Amos setting fire to the duo's den to try and smoke them out. Miraculously, Tod and Vixey made it out without even a bit of singed fur on them. As they try to outrun Amos and Copper, the two enter the scene from stage right and Tod jumps around to leave his scent everywhere to confuse Copper. The two then exit stage left as Copper enters the scene and starts sniffing about for them. Thanks to Tod's little trick, he's confused and has no idea where they actually are. Oh and before I continue, pay close attention to the background you see in the picture above. That rocky cliff with the waterfall and the tree are a huge Chekov's gun that gets fired off later in the scene. I also love how for the moment, everything's quiet aside from the sound of the waterfall and Copper's barking, which stops when he starts sniffing for Tod and Vixey. The music doesn't start up again until about 22 seconds into the scene, and when it does, it sounds a little ominous. This is our first clue that something is about to happen...and it's not good.

Copper reaches up to the bush and tries to smell out Tod and Vixey. He does catch a scent...

...but it clearly isn't Tod or Vixey's. In fact, the scent he's picked up is enough to make him hesitate. That look on Copper's face is the next clue to the audience that something's coming, and it's clearly bad if Copper's looking worried. And when you consider Amos and Copper have been the big threats up until this point and now Copper's feeling threatened, the audience can only wonder "What's happening?", thus keeping their attention fixated to see what's about to unfold...

As Copper backs away from the bush, Amos now enters the scene, gun in hand and ready to shoot. Given he's approaching from behind, he can't see the fear on Copper's face, so he's unaware of the danger that's right in front of him. Thinking Copper's found Tod, he prepares to open fire and finally kill the fox he's been so desperately pursuing this whole time.

Unfortunately for Amos, it ain't no fox that Copper smelled out in that bush. Our first visual indicator that it's something even worse is when a huge shadow falls over Amos. And to emphasize how big it is, the shadow literally covers him completely as whatever's in the bush reveals itself! Amos' face quickly changes from a confident hunter who's got his prey cornered to feeling like the prey himself as he's now face-to-face...

...with an enormous, snarling, pissed off black bear! To further emphasize how large the bear is, it's storyboarded and animated so that as the bear rises up in front of Amos and grits its teeth at him, it's blocking out the sun behind it. That I feel is a great little detail that adds so much to this single frame of the scene. This image alone speaks volumes of how the tables have turned in this scene. Amos and Copper were the hunters chasing after a pair of foxes. Now THEY are about to become the hunted as they're faced with an animal bigger, stronger and more ferocious than either of them, and certainly more threatening than a fox too! And as if the bear wasn't threatening enough, it LITERALLY has red eyes! Who is this, Death from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish in bear form or something? XD The black fur and red eyes give the bear a somewhat demonic appearance too, as if Amos isn't just dealing with a bear, he's dealing with a monster from the pits of Hell itself! I wonder if it was coloured that way to make it look scarier or something? Oh and I love the growling sounds the bear makes throughout the scene too. They use a mix of bear growls and Brutus and Nero's growling sounds from The Rescuers, which certainly helps in making it sound scary.

Seeing what he's now up against, a terrified Amos Slade shakily lifts up his gun and makes the incredibly foolish mistake of opening fire. It's very quick, but in those few seconds of animation, you can see how fast Amos' composure has changed. He. Is. TERRIFIED of the bear! Whenever he was hunting and trying to kill Tod in previous scenes, he had total confidence, was in complete control of the situation, showed no signs of fear with what he was up against and pursued his target to the ends of the earth. Here, he literally can't take aim and shoot straight because he's so scared witless of what he's facing! His hands are trembling as he fires the gun! And this proves to be his undoing...

His shot doesn't kill the bear, but it does scrape past its shoulder, in for a brief couple of seconds, we can see a bit of blood there to show that the shot really bloody hurt the angry bear.

The bear doesn't take it well.

In a matter of seconds, the stakes have escalated rapidly. We've gone from an angry bear to and ENRAGED bear that now has a reason to attack since Amos wounded it! This is why I said it was a foolish mistake on Amos' part to shoot at the bear. If he backed away and kept that gun away from the animal, it likely would've left him alone. Now Amos has hurt the bear, it certainly won't leave him alone now as it'll want to make him pay for that. This is true to real life as in the wild, animals can SERIOUSLY hold a grudge if you mistreat them in any way. Some animals have been known to pursue and hunt down humans and take revenge just for injuring them, so the bear's actions are incredibly believable and realistic in this situation. This isn't something that happens because we're watching a movie, this is happening because that's what happens in real life! This in turn makes an already scary scene even more so, because we could easily find ourselves in a situation like this, being confront by a wild animal that wants to rip us to pieces because we invaded their territory or attacked them.

The bear goes on the attack, and we get a further example of how ruddy huge the thing is as it towers over the bushes and makes its way towards Amos and Copper. Just look at it! IT'S ENORMOUS! Amos is barely any bigger than its HEAD! Obviously, as animation is wan to do, the bear's size is exaggerated for dramatic effect. Bears are huge, don't get me wrong, but not that huge! But hey, it works since the bear being as large as it is only further adds to the terror of the situation as we see just how big the threat is. Unless Amos can get that gun aimed straight, he and Copper are done for! Speaking of the gun...

...it was a very smart decision on behalf of the writers and storyboard artists to have Amos lose it as a means of further increasing the stakes. We see Amos shakily try to reload his gun, but with how scared he is, his hands shake and he drops some bullets before finally loading one up. But he doesn't get the chance to fire as the bear swats him with a large paw and sends him rolling down the hill. The gun gets stuck on a branch out of Amos' reach and the bear follows Amos down, not even noticing the discarded weapon. In that one single moment, the stakes are higher than ever. Now Amos is confronted with an enraged bear and has lost his weapon, thus leaving him completely defenceless against the angered ursine! Could this day get any worse for him?!

I SAID THAT AS A JOKE!!! XD

Yet again, in a matter of seconds, the stakes have escalated ever further as now Amos is confronted by an angry bear, he's completely defenceless AND he's trapped and unable to flee! Talk about one bad thing after another!

As much as I love the scene, I do kinda scratch my head at that one random bear trap just there in the middle of nowhere so Amos can conveniently step into it and get trapped. Like...why is it here and who put it there? Certainly not Amos! He was nowhere near that part of the forest when he was setting traps up for Tod! The Game Preserve is a protected area with no hunting allowed, so nobody on duty at the Game Preserve would've put it there, that's for sure! It really feels randomly placed there with no logic as to why. Had I written the movie, I would've had Amos step into a hole or trip on a rock and twist his ankle instead, that way you get the same result, only it makes more sense. Still, this one weird moment doesn't take away from the rest of the scene whatsoever.

With Amos unable to fight the bear and completely at its mercy, Copper steps in to take over, and we can see from his face that he's going at this bear with fearless abandon. He may be way out of his league against the bear and way too small to do any real damage to it, but as if Copper will let that stop him! Like any loyal dog, he's defending his master from harm! And to Copper's credit, he doesn't do too badly while fighting the bear. He bites it on the neck and claws it at repeatedly and despite the bear swatting him away like a fly at one point, he just gets up and attacks again!

He even bites it hard enough on the snout to draw blood! Once again, it's very brief and in the next scene, the bite marks are gone, but it still shows Copper isn't putting up a limp fight by any means. That said, it only makes the bear even madder and more determined than ever to finish the attackers off.

As Copper and the bear continue to fight, Amos takes advantage of the bear's distraction by attempting to reach up for his gun. As we can see, it's just out of reach, but not so far that it would be impossible for him to get it back. Keep in mind, he does get out of the bear trap later on, presumably because he managed to grab the gun and use it to pry the trap open. For now, this is the last time we see Amos in this scene and the focus is squarely on Copper, Tod and the bear from this point onward. Given Tod and Copper are the main characters of the movie, it only makes sense that the climax should be primarily focused on them, and given Amos' situation, it provides the writers a convenient way to get him out of the story for now so we can keep the focus on our leads as they fight against the bear. As for the fight...

...it's not going well. The bear swats Copper down and he yelps in pain. While it's commendable that Copper was brave enough to defend his master and fight the bear, it was ultimately a losing fight for him. A hunting hound was never any match for a bear, especially one that size!

Copper's howls of pain reach Tod's ears as he and Vixey are continuing to flee. A part of me kinda questions how he can possible hear him given he and Vixey were so long gone by the time of the bear attack that you'd think they'd be too far away to hear Copper, but I also remember that animals have insanely good hearing, so maybe it's not that unrealistic. Anyhow, Tod hesitates as he hears Copper's cries and, rather understandably, he actually turns back, intending to carry on running. I mean think about it from Tod's point of view. Copper and his owner have been chasing him and his girlfriend down with intention to murder them! I think I'd be quick to leave them to die as well!

But then Copper howls once more and Tod continues to hesitate. Once again, his reaction is totally understandable since this IS the dog he was once childhood friends with. Copper may have been hunting him down, but that's still his old friend in danger. He can't just turn his back on him, but if he goes to help Copper, he could put himself in danger too. With Tod in the foreground, Vixey returns to the scene in the background and calls out to Tod. Tod looks to Vixey, then back to Copper. The best way to describe this moment here is a visual tug-of-war. We have Vixey trying to metaphorically pull Tod in one direction while Tod's concern for his childhood friend is pulling him in another. He has two choices: abandon Copper and continue to flee, or join the fight and help him. But which way will the metaphorical rope tug him? Let's find out...

We return to the fight and as we see, Copper is at the end of his strength. He can barely even stand now while the bear advances to him, barely even fazed by Copper's attempts to fight it off earlier. And then we get this REALLY damn intimidating shot of the bear as it approaches Copper and its fangs are dripping with saliva. It really stands out from the rest of the scene since it's the ONLY shot in where the bear is animated with dripping fangs. I wonder if it was meant to further show how intimidating the bear is or if it's to imply the bear intends to eat Copper after it kills him.

But help is on its way as Tod re-enters the scene from stage left and pounces on the bear. He climbs all over its back and to its head, then bites it on the ear. I love how the bear's pupils shrink as you can see in the shot above to really emphasize how much that single bite from Tod must've friggin' hurt! I also feel that in that one single shot, we already get an example of how two different characters fight the same enemy. Copper was all just attack-attack-attack with barely any actual strategy behind his attacks. He just kept pouncing on the bear and trying to wrestle with it, but once the bear struck back, Copper was out of the fight. With Tod, there's more to his style of combat than just fighting. He leaps on the bear, climbs all over its back to distract it and then bites it on the ear, a weak spot on the bear that causes so much pain it has to shake him about to make him let go. He also doesn't just keep attacking the bear either. After it shakes him off, he runs back up the hillside to get the bear to follow him, thus driving it away from Copper and Amos, which means they're safe for the time being. It's also at this point that the scene shifts focus to Tod as now he's fighting the bear, and it's after him!

And it's in no mood to play around anymore. As it chases after Tod, we see it LITERALLY RIP A LARGE TREE ROOT OUT OF THE GROUND! I know bears are strong, but wow! This bear's like an unstoppable force of nature at this point as it can casually uproot a tree like that with a single swipe of its paws!

The bear chases after Tod as he continues to lure it away, and as mentioned before, we get that Chekov's Gun I mentioned earlier. Remember where the scene began? Now we're back where it started at the top of the hill by the waterfall. It's a neat way to bookend the scene as now we finish where it started. And it doesn't look good for Tod as the bear swats him and nearly sends him rolling off the cliffside there. He's able to stop himself just in time and pounce on the bear again, grabbing onto its face and then climbing over onto its back so he can bite it on the back of the neck, making the bear roar in pain once more.

We then get this...weird extreme close-up of the bear as it glares at Tod. Seriously, what's with the way the bear was drawn in this scene? It suddenly looks more like a cartoon character and the expression makes it look less like a vicious animal and more like a grumpy character that wants them dang, young hooligans to leave it alone. It feels like we suddenly had a different animator working on that closeup. This single shot just stands out like a sore thumb with how the bear was animated more realistically but then this close-up shot makes it look like it changed art-styles. Just...so weird!

But what's not weird is when the bear lands another powerful hit on Tod and sends him hurling through the air and onto a log. This is yet another case of foreshadowing since we saw that same log at the beginning of the scene and Tod and Vixey crossed it earlier in order to flee from Copper and Amos. Now it's here, serving as the climax of this scene as the bear follows Tod onto the log. Another thing I love about the bear fight is how it's an example of how to have overpowered characters CORRECTLY. I've said before how in some media, characters will just be overpowered in a cheap attempt to make them seem "cool" and artificially raise the stakes when in actuality, it makes the writers look lazy and unsure of how to write proper fight scenes. Shows like RWBY, The Legend of Korra and Pokémon Horizons all have the same problem in where the heroes get nerfed in ludicrous ways just so their opponents can win and their opponents will be ridiculously overpowered just because the plot requires them to be. And in worse cases, the heroes will lose several IQ points just so their opponents can win, or the heroes will train and get stronger and still get their asses kicked a lot, which feels like even lazier writing. Not of that is present here. In this scene, the bear is completely unstoppable, but it makes sense because it's a freaking bear! Bears are naturally powerful animals, so this is only staying true to reality as a result! Also, the bear's opponents are a human who's emotions have impeded his ability to shoot straight and a dog and a fox that are practically tiny compared to it. Of course they can barely do any harm to it! Even Amos technically being nerfed by the plot manages to feel like its handled logically since, you know, he's against a freaking bear! Of course he's going to be scared out of his pants! Also, Amos was never a particularly good shot as the movie showed us anyway, so it's not like he's suddenly losing his competence just so this scene can happen, which the same can't be said for some of the examples I mentioned. This isn't the bear being invincible just because the plot demanded it, this is the fight being dictated logically and as a result, the stakes feel more real and we truly feel the danger our heroes are in since this doesn't feel like a fight being dictated by the plot and the threat being overpowered because the writers said so. So take this lesson for anyone who wants to be a writer someday: if you're going to have an overpowered threat in your story, follow The Fox and the Hound's example.

Anyhow, with Tod too weak to fight back anymore and now clinging onto the log for dear life as the bear climbs onto it, the bear leers down at Tod and raises its paw, then strikes at him for a final time...

...it doesn't end well. This scene is also an example of how a fight against an unstoppable enemy should be concluded, by the only logical way the threat can be beaten. In this case, it was nature itself finally putting an end to the bear's menace as it breaks the log it and Tod are standing on and both plummet down the waterfall. As mentioned earlier, the waterfall was one big Chekov's Gun waiting to be fired, and now it has with the waterfall serving as the way this fight ends. Some may wonder why the bear was such an idiot and caused itself to fall like that, and I feel the answer's obvious. Keep in mind, it's a bear, not a human, and it's being driven by rage, wild instincts and a desire to kill. It isn't going to think very logically or rationally in this situation. It's been dealing with Tod and it has one thought on its mind: to kill him. This in turn makes the conclusion to the fight feel logical and not a lazy deus-ex-machina to wrap it up as a result. You can tell just how much thought went into this whole fight scene from beginning to end. And speaking of the end...

Despite the fall down the waterfall, Tod manages to crawl out alive, as we see in this faraway shot that has him in the centre of the frame. There's no sign of the bear anywhere, thus making it pretty clear the bear wasn't so lucky. While Tod's survival could feel a bit like Plot Armour, there is some logic to the outcome. Tod is a fox, and foxes are very lightweight and don't have so much mass to them. The bear was enormous and as a result, very heavy. You know what they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Tod likely hit the bottom with a light enough impact to make it out alive, albeit badly hurt from both the fall and the bear's attacks, whereas the bear would've just hit the bottom and the impact would've killed it instantly because of how heavily it would've come down. In any case, the bear is dead and Tod, Copper and Amos live for another day. I like how it's not portrayed as some grand victory too since again, Tod is injured to the point he's barely able to walk and there's still Amos to deal with, but that's for another scene to go over. It shows how the fight had consequences, and pretty big ones too since it leads to Copper and Amos letting go of their grudge against Tod at last and they let him live, and Tod and Copper have somewhat rekindled their friendship. It's a sweet, wholesome way to finish off after such an intense fight scene from earlier.

Conclusion

And that was my analysis of the bear fight. If it wasn't evident enough by how much I was gushing over it, I LOVE THIS SCENE SO MUCH! It's beautifully animated, intensely gripping, excellently storyboarded and just about every shot has a lot of weight to it. While there were times you could question the logic behind certain things that occurred and that extreme close-up of the bear at one point looked odd, but none of that detracts from how good this scene is. It's no wonder Glenn Keane became a regular animator for Disney and took part in their legendary Renaissance era, because this was some truly astounding work he did! I only wish I had the kind of skills that man possesses! I doubt I could've made a scene as excellent as this! It also makes me SO glad there won't be a live-action remake of The Fox and the Hound because they'd butcher this scene so badly, or just not have it at all. I'm forever glad we have this scene in all its glory and it'll forever stand as a testament to classic Disney animation at its finest. You'll never see AI make anything like this, that's for sure. =P

Now for my favourite shots throughout the scene:

1: The bear rising up and blocking out the sunlight

2: The close-up of the bear and its dripping fangs

3: The bear's pained expression when Tod bites its ear

4: The bear uprooting the tree

5: Tod debating what to do as he hears Copper's cries and Vixey trying to get him to come on

6: Copper recoiling in horror as he smells the bear

As far as I'm concerned, this scene is one of the best scenes ever animated in Disney history, and a testament to what truly skilled artists can create...

And that's it for this essay. I hope you enjoyed my analysis and I invite you to share your thoughts down below. What's YOUR favourite shot in the bear fight scene? How do you feel about the scene as a whole? Do let me know.

Next week...there won't actually be a new post, because I'm taking a break for two weeks as I go on holiday to Florida. When I get back, I'll do a post telling all about it. See you then media fans!

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