Whoopee! I just saw Brave today. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I agree with most of the criticism. (1) Yes, the human-into-bear plot screams Disney's Brother Bear. So what? How many totally original plots are there in movies? Pixar has had a longer run of originality than anyone expected. At least they haven't claimed "this is our own totally original idea that nobody has ever done before", like Disney did with The Lion King.* And they picked a theme that hasn't been done to death, which is why everyone has locked onto Brother Bear. Not that many human-into-bear transformation movies out there. (2) It is Pixar's first movie with a strong female lead. (Not counting Elastigirl in The Incredibles, and she shared the lead with Mr. Incredible.) Of course Disney has had a lot of movies with strong female leads, as have other studios. At least Brave features a daughter-mother rivalry. Most strong female leads are orphans or at least motherless. (3) All the men in Brave are idiots. Actually, it could be argued that everyone in Brave is an idiot. Certainly Maudie the maid and her staff are as idiotic as any of the men, and Queen Elinor is totally oblivious to the obviousness that Princess Merida is just not going to abide by any of her "a princess does not ..." rules when Elinor is not around to enforce them any longer. Actually again, this struck me as a serious anachronism; Elinor is insisting on 12th or 13th-century standards of court etiquette in a vaguely 9th- or 10th-century Scottish laird's court. Merida is an idiot for her willful refusal to recognize the realities of her position. As a king's only daughter, she is going to be thrust sooner or later into having to accept some political responsibility whether she wants it or not. She is the only one who has a reasonable excuse; she is a teenager who is naturally self-centered. The Witch is off in a world of her own. Brave is Pixar's first movie in which the story advances because everyone acts like an idiot. It will be too bad if this is the first of many. (4) The graphics are simply awesome. Pixar has outdone itself. Aside from being beautiful and beautifully detailed, it feels real. I briefly visited the Scottish highlands in 1991, and I can personally attest that moss and lichen cover everything; there are drifting fogbanks all over; and I saw a ruined castle (from the outside) just like the one that Merida discovers the giant bear Mor'du in. It was posted with a Scottish government sign that said basically, "You are warned not to go into these ruins. They are unsafe and very dangerous. Explore at your own risk; the government does not accept any responsibility for your safety." (5) The Witch is the real jarring note in the movie. She is a figure of deliberate slapstick humor, full of in-your-face anachronisms, totally different from all the other characters. Were the Pixar writers afraid that a realistic/scary witch would be too much for audiences? Fortunately, she only appears briefly. (6) The ending feels phony. Merida, who spends the whole movie arguing for the right to live her own life without the inherited responsibilities of King Fergus' kingdom, apparently convinces her parents to agree that she should be "allowed to gallop free into the forest, her hair flowing in the wind, shooting arrows into the distance" (or whatever the line is). Sure, and how long will that last in a 10th-century Scotland rife with clan politics? Merida appears to have learned nothing, making Brave a true Disney Princess movie with a "happily ever after" ending.
*I attended a press preview screening of Don Bluth's All Dogs Go to Heaven in 1989. Right after the screening, Bluth exec Gary Goldman gave a pep talk about how no other animated feature had ever been set in 1930s New Orleans; they had researched the location and period thoroughly to make sure that their background was scrupulously accurate, etc, etc, etc. After his speech, one of the invited guests said that she hadn't planned to say anything, but after being told at length about how accurate their 1930s New Orleans was, what about the scene where somebody phones out for pizza? They didn't have take-out pizza in the 1930's. Goldman immediately blathered about, oh, well, it's only a cartoon, it's full of fantasy about talking dogs and singing alligators, it's for kids and they'll never notice a little detail like that. Yeah.
Whoopee! I just saw Brave today. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I agree with most of the criticism. (1) Yes, the human-into-bear plot screams Disney's Brother Bear. So what? How many totally original plots are there in movies? Pixar has had a longer run of originality than anyone expected. At least they haven't claimed "this is our own totally original idea that nobody has ever done before", like Disney did with The Lion King.* And they picked a theme that hasn't been done to death, which is why everyone has locked onto Brother Bear. Not that many human-into-bear transformation movies out there. (2) It is Pixar's first movie with a strong female lead. (Not counting Elastigirl in The Incredibles, and she shared the lead with Mr. Incredible.) Of course Disney has had a lot of movies with strong female leads, as have other studios. At least Brave features a daughter-mother rivalry. Most strong female leads are orphans or at least motherless. (3) All the men in Brave are idiots. Actually, it could be argued that everyone in Brave is an idiot. Certainly Maudie the maid and her staff are as idiotic as any of the men, and Queen Elinor is totally oblivious to the obviousness that Princess Merida is just not going to abide by any of her "a princess does not ..." rules when Elinor is not around to enforce them any longer. Actually again, this struck me as a serious anachronism; Elinor is insisting on 12th or 13th-century standards of court etiquette in a vaguely 9th- or 10th-century Scottish laird's court. Merida is an idiot for her willful refusal to recognize the realities of her position. As a king's only daughter, she is going to be thrust sooner or later into having to accept some political responsibility whether she wants it or not. She is the only one who has a reasonable excuse; she is a teenager who is naturally self-centered. The Witch is off in a world of her own. Brave is Pixar's first movie in which the story advances because everyone acts like an idiot. It will be too bad if this is the first of many. (4) The graphics are simply awesome. Pixar has outdone itself. Aside from being beautiful and beautifully detailed, it feels real. I briefly visited the Scottish highlands in 1991, and I can personally attest that moss and lichen cover everything; there are drifting fogbanks all over; and I saw a ruined castle (from the outside) just like the one that Merida discovers the giant bear Mor'du in. It was posted with a Scottish government sign that said basically, "You are warned not to go into these ruins. They are unsafe and very dangerous. Explore at your own risk; the government does not accept any responsibility for your safety." (5) The Witch is the real jarring note in the movie. She is a figure of deliberate slapstick humor, full of in-your-face anachronisms, totally different from all the other characters. Were the Pixar writers afraid that a realistic/scary witch would be too much for audiences? Fortunately, she only appears briefly. (6) The ending feels phony. Merida, who spends the whole movie arguing for the right to live her own life without the inherited responsibilities of King Fergus' kingdom, apparently convinces her parents to agree that she should be "allowed to gallop free into the forest, her hair flowing in the wind, shooting arrows into the distance" (or whatever the line is). Sure, and how long will that last in a 10th-century Scotland rife with clan politics? Merida appears to have learned nothing, making Brave a true Disney Princess movie with a "happily ever after" ending.
*I attended a press preview screening of Don Bluth's All Dogs Go to Heaven in 1989. Right after the screening, Bluth exec Gary Goldman gave a pep talk about how no other animated feature had ever been set in 1930s New Orleans; they had researched the location and period thoroughly to make sure that their background was scrupulously accurate, etc, etc, etc. After his speech, one of the invited guests said that she hadn't planned to say anything, but after being told at length about how accurate their 1930s New Orleans was, what about the scene where somebody phones out for pizza? They didn't have take-out pizza in the 1930's. Goldman immediately blathered about, oh, well, it's only a cartoon, it's full of fantasy about talking dogs and singing alligators, it's for kids and they'll never notice a little detail like that. Yeah.
Fred Patten