Every week at SiftPop.com, we challenge our writers to come up with their favorite answer to a movie-related prompt tied to a recent release. This week, with the release of Kung Fu Panda 4, we’re discussing some of our favorite movie bears! Let us know your favorites @SiftPop!
Movie bears are at their best when they operate in the extremes of heartwarming or horrifying, and Paddington and Annihilation’s Mutant Bear are at those extreme opposite ends of the spectrum. If you want cute and charming, it doesn’t get any better than Paddington. If you want to be scared senseless, Mutant Bear is the way to go. There is something about horror scenes with slow but inevitable antagonists that hit different. The scene in Annihilation would have been bone-chilling even with a standard bear. But when that creature rears up and reveals its grotesque, deteriorated face, it becomes nightmare fuel. It’s terrifying to the point I first wrote this thinking its name was Nightmare Bear. (Jason Mack)
Before the CGI explosion, things had to be practical. So if you were shooting a survival thriller starring Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, and a bear, you needed to… get the bear! And not just any bear; this is the best-known bear ever, Bart the Bear, who starred in 21 feature films, and The Edge may just be his peak. He was the Daniel Day-Lewis of bears, and never got the credit he deserved. Anyway, The Edge is as simple as it gets. Two men get stranded in the wilderness trying to survive and must learn to trust each other. Or maybe they must learn to trust each other so they can survive? Yeah, that’s a twist. It is an entertaining movie that nowadays would not be shot on location with a real-life bear, and that fact alone is what makes it so special. You can feel the cold throughout the film. Sometimes, all you need are two A-listers, some snow, and one talented bear, and the rest is history. (Luke Burian)
Perhaps no film I watched last year gave me the warm and fuzzy high that Ernest & Celestine did. Based on the Belgian book series by Gabrielle Vincent, the story follows the unlikely bond between a mouse, Celestine (Pauline Brunner), and bear, Ernest (Lambert Wilson), who have to go on the run after leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. This movie is absolutely adorable, and the friendship between bear and mouse at the heart of it is a big reason why. Aside from the cuteness overload and the gorgeous animation style, the film also has something to say about overcoming biases. Society has drilled into our main characters’ heads that bears and mice are sworn enemies and the friendship that develops between the duo should be impossible. They not only overcome that, but create one of cinema’s most heartwarming friendships… (Jake Bourgeois)
Who (or what) is the worst possible house guest on your family vacation to the woods? Obviously, your brother-in-law! Well… at least until a bear decides to mess your time up. In The Great Outdoors, John Candy’s Chet might find his brother-in-law, Roman (Dan Aykroyd’s), unrelenting and obnoxious, but when that big brown bear strolls in, all bets are off. This legendary bear with fur missing from its head becomes a looming fear in this otherwise silly ‘80s comedy. But the payoff is extremely satisfying — there’s some funny slapstick humor, including the sight of the big, threatening bear running away scared with a bare bear bottom. There might not be personalization or charisma to make this bear stand out, but the implication of its arrival is tension-inducing. Candy had a knack for making ‘80s vacation comedies, and this one will certainly make you question if you want to go out into the woods for any reason. But maybe the search for the bare-bottomed bear might be a worthwhile venture. (Shane Conto)
In The Jungle Book, Baloo, the fun-loving, down-to-earth bear, has a more balanced attitude towards Mowgli’s safety, which makes the young man warm to him far more than Bagheera. He fully believes Mother Nature will give him all he needs to get by. But later, he learns he is an easy target for Shere Khan, leaving him in two minds about whether Mowgli should leave the jungle. He’s centered in probably the two most iconic sequences from the film: the fruit-picking sequence during the “Bare Necessities” song and the dance he has with King Louis during “I Wanna Be Like You.”He also shows real bravery at the end in fighting Shere Khan and almost sacrificing his life to protect Mowgli. I also love his pretending to be dead to keep Bagheera going with his eulogy of him. (John Tillyard)
I love Po because of the positivity, joy, and awesomeness he brings to the table. The love Jack Black pours into this character makes him truly special. Po is a panda, who dreams of being a Kung Fu master, but because of his size he is often looked down upon by society, even when he’s named the Dragon Warrior. Po doesn’t let that stop him, and that’s one of the reasons I love him. Kung Fu Panda’s message is that despite your differences, you can still be awesome; it’s key and important, especially in our world where if you don’t fit the status quo, you are pushed to the side. Being an overweight individual myself, Po resonates with me on every level. Despite growing up watching tons of Jack Black’s movies, this role will always be my favorite, simply because Po doesn’t need to ever change what he looks like on the outside to still be the Dragon Warrior. He proves time and time again that you can still be yourself and do all these awesome things. (Austen Terry)
First introduced to the world by A. A. Milne nearly 100 years ago, Winnie the Pooh may be one of the most iconic bears in all of pop culture. Alongside Christopher Robin, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and the rest of his friends in the Hundred Acre Woods, Pooh has appeared in countless films, television shows, shorts, and games, teaching generations of children the value of friendship and kindness. Pooh has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember: We had a VHS tape of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh that my siblings and I watched many times, Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger were all part of my stuffed animal collection, and cartoons featuring the delightfully charming voice acting of Jim Cummings as the titular bear played constantly in our house. Heck, my wife and I even included a Winnie the Pooh quote as one of the readings at our wedding! Despite being just a bear of very little brain, Pooh has an abundance of heart and has endeared himself to millions as not only one of the best bears in all of media, but as one of the best children’s characters around. (Jake Hjort)
You don’t see much of the bear in Midsommar. When the main characters arrive at their friend’s remote Swedish commune, one of them asks about the giant brown bear in the cage, but the question is kind of brushed off. In the two-and-a-half-hour movie, there’s already so much other crazy stuff going on that the bear eventually slips your mind until its grand reentrance at the end. Upsetting as it is cathartic, that final scene, and its use of the bear, is as emblematic of the film’s ideas, and Ari Aster as a whole, as anything else you could think of. (Robert Bouffard)
Paddington: the definitive movie bear. Brought to life with adorable effects work and a wonderfully sensitive voice performance from Ben Whishaw, Paddington is a soft-spoken beacon of marmalade-loving optimism for the 21st century. Portrayed with unwavering sincerity over the course of the two Paddington films, you never get the sense that the filmmakers are embarrassed of their films’ concepts. There is no rude humor that goes over children’s heads, nor does the series sarcastically poke fun at itself in the way that so many modern franchise films cynically do. The material is taken seriously, and Paddington’s earnestly optimistic view of the world is able to pierce directly into the viewer’s heart because of it. (Foster Harlfinger)
At first glance, Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear (or Lotso for short) embodies all the positive qualities of a soft, friendly teddy bear, with a calming, almost grandfatherly presence. Though as Buttercup describes him to Woody, “The guy may seem plush and huggable on the outside, but inside, he’s a monster.” A monster in every way allowable in a Pixar film, Lotso was originally meant to appear in the very first Toy Story, but the technology necessary to animate his fur did not yet exist in 1995. 15 years later, however, the world was finally introduced to the magenta pink, strawberry-scented teddy bear who callously, and manipulatively rules Sunnyside Daycare in Toy Story 3. He started as a Christmas present for a little girl named Daisy, but abandonment and the heartbreak that came from being replaced consumed Lotso with negative feelings, cultivating the perfect wolf in teddy bear’s stuffing. In contrast, when Jesse was abandoned in Toy Stoy 2, while she also developed a nihilistic view towards toys, viewing them as disposable and the love of their owners as fleeting, it was the embrace of Andy’s toys that brought her back from the brink. The tragedy that befalls Lotso is that there was no one to steer him back toward the sweetly scented path, leaving behind a tyrannical dictator that has more in common with Warden Samuel Norton in Shawshank Redemption than any of the colorful cast of characters with which he shares the screen, making him a deviously memorable big screen bear. (Jonathan Fedee)
In a version of San Francisco where a grizzly bear, a panda, and a polar bear all live together in cave, somehow the coolest part about this story is the many talents of Ice Bear. The aforementioned polar bear in this group, Ice Bear is a skill coffee barista, assassin, dancer, and chef. He’s everything I personally aspire to be. But what he is capable of is not all of why I look up to this lovable bear. He is also dependable, saving his friends and family when they need it. He is strong, capable of defeating ninjas, cartels, and gangs. He is funny with the most dry and straightforward sense of humor. He is kind by being willing to take care or his loved ones. Without a doubt he is one of my favorite fictional bears. (Sam Nichols)