Bird Karma (2018) User Reviews

Perfect design

[BehzadRezayi7500 · 7/10 · 29 June 2019]

Colorful and perfect design but terrible writing and story line.

Disappointing from almost every perspective

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 17 February 2019]

"Bird Karma" is a 5-minute animated short film from 2018 by Dreamworks, which means its looks aren't too bad, but basically everything else is. The director here is William Salazar and he gives is the story of a greedy long-legged bird who is pretty talented at catching fish and frogs, but he just stops caring for the "normal" ones when there is a golden fish that catches his attention. What begins as a Moby Dick / Captain Ahab story line and feels almost a bit too much for 5 minutes, eventually turns into a King Midas tale. The good thing is that nothing really about this short film feels predictable, the bad news is that nothing really makes sense either. Like why would the apparently carnivorous fish not attack the bird earlier. What was with these bizarre rainbow references. Why would the golden fish be willing to jump into the bord's hands/wings and laugh, not even struggling because he isn't in the water. Many questions can be ask here and the fact that it is fantasy/animation cannot make up for any of these. It also isn't a funny film honestly, which could have saved at least some of it. I am surprised this made the list of ten potential Oscar nominees, but at least it did not get nominated. I think it is the worst potential nominee we have from this year. Some of the nominees aren't great either, but still better than this one here. Dreamworks also came short with Bilby, but still that one is while not being great either infinitely superior to Bird Karma. Birds are frequent characters in all kinds of animated movies, long or short, but here you see how it shouldn't be done. I also did not like the static camera to be honest. It is not a negative deal breaker and you can do it, but then you have to deliver in other fields. Good news is there is no spoken language, so you can watch this film without subtitles no matter where you are from, but honestly why would you? I give it a definite thumbs-down and there was no moment of hesitation for me. Not recommended.

Bird Karma (2018) Review

[seasidesail · 4/10 · 29 December 2022]

Gathered from the always correct and never wrong Wikipedia; Karma is defined as "Good intent and good deeds contribute to good karma and happier rebirths, while bad intent and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and bad rebirths." This short-short, at 5 minutes long ends with a bird being re-incarnated as a fish, to be swallowed by another bird, thus not following any of the rules of 'karma, laid out in the many teachings of the fictional ideology. But, boy-o-boy does it have high SEO rankings on Google.

Water moves with motion and life, becoming the real star character. There are so many subtle effects and movements, something not seen often in animation, which must have taken quite awhile to render. Its sad that the subject, the bird is rather timid. One becomes too distracted by the Deviant Art looking background, often too bright and stark to focus on the bird and the fish.

The title clearly does not fit the story and it really takes away from the rather cute animation. Its distracting and frustrating. What's the moral. That a bird, who's life depends on eating fish, his legs designed and evolved to stand still in pools of water, his beak pointed and sharp to catch quick fish, can not eat fish. That all the birds adaptations lead to his death, not to his survival. Evolution does not work that way.

Don't name your movies based on search engine optimization choices.

Hits

• Wonderful water animation, rain drops, pools.

• Old-school, no voices, just action.

• Does not over-stay its welcome.

Misses

• Title, see above.

• Background art looks like something from Deviant Art.

• Background too bright, takes away from bird and fish.

Lessons Learned

• Birds get high before they try to catch fish.

• Goldfish have rainbow filled tails shooting from behind.

• Evolotion is not real.

Final Grade = D.

Some pursuits won't lead to a happy ending

[Rectangular_businessman · 8/10 · 7 June 2022]

More than allegory about greed, I see this as a small fable about the dangers of obsessing to achieve a certain goal to an unhealthy degree: The bird becomes obsessed to catch the beatiful goldfish, and ultimately catching it causes its death.

It's not a happy message, and it doesn't have a happy ending which I guess it's the reason of the low rating, but I think this was a pretty good short, mostly due its amazing animation, being almost on par with many classical shorts.