Sweet story. No doubt about that... but the technical stinkers threaded in the film, particularly having to do with bears just has to be addressed.

Bears are typically herbivores, and occasionally feast on carcasses left behind by other predators, save for the polar bears species.

Bears attacking a horse to satisfy a penchant for horseflesh is next to nil in reality. A horse, who is gaga crazy afraid of bears because of past "killling by a bear" of his mother ---pursuing an attacking bear is pretty much inconceivable. So that violence was completely unnecessary and did little to improve the story.

Had they either a) made it realistic; b) filled out more of the animosity angle between horse and bear instead of pops of action between the two; or c) left it out altogether, the reel time could have focused on the plot ... a boy and his horse trying to save his home, ya da yada...

Too shallow. Nothing really hangs together. It's a sloppily thrown together film that will entrance some, but not the serious movie goer of any era.