Bird Karma (2018)

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**