Brave (2012)

Brave is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated fantasy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman (in the former's feature directorial debut) and co-directed by Steve Purcell. The story is by Chapman, with the screenplay by Andrews, Purcell, Chapman and Irene Mecchi as Pixar's 13rd feature film. The film was produced by Katherine Sarafian, with John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Pete Docter as executive producers. The film's voice cast features Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd, and Craig Ferguson. Set in the Scottish Highlands, the film tells the story of a princess named Merida who defies an age-old custom, causing chaos in the kingdom by expressing the desire not to be betrothed. Brave premiered on June 10, 2012, at the Seattle International Film Festival, and was released in North America on June 22, 2012. Preceding the feature theatrically was a short film entitled La Luna, directed by Enrico Casarosa.

Plot
Princess Merida, the impetuous but courageous daughter of Scottish King Fergus and Queen Elinor, is a skilled archer who wants to carve out her own path in life. Her defiance of an age-old tradition angers the Highland lords and leads to chaos in the Kingdom of DunBroch. Merida seeks help from an eccentric witch, who grants her an ill-fated wish. Now, Merida must discover the true meaning of courage and undo a beastly curse before it's too late.

Why It's Brave

 * 1) It does a great job for stays true to Celtic and Scottish culture.
 * 2) Very likable and entertaining characters, such as Merida, Queen Elinor, King Fergus, Angus and the Triplets.
 * 3) An emotional and touching plot with really good morals about family and courage.
 * 4) Brilliant animation is another major step-up from other Pixar films.
 * 5) Amazing musical score by Patrick Doyle, especially "Touch the Sky" by Julie Fowlis.
 * 6) Great voice-acting, with Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, and Emma Thompson.
 * 7) All the characters except for Queen Elinor (though Emma Thomspon has Scottish ancestry through her mother), the Crow, the Witch, and Gordon were played by Scottish actors.
 * 8) Most of the humor works very well and does bring some fun and surprising moments:
 * 9) *Merida's little brothers are pranking everybody, especially their own dad, and Monty's favorite food is pretty interesting. Making them a terrific comic reliefs in the entire movie.
 * 10) *The fight between Team Macintosh, Team Macguffin, and Team Dingwall is pretty hilarious.
 * 11) The film pays tribute to the founder and owner Steve Jobs in the end credits, who died of respiratory arrest in 2011.
 * 12) Awesome and intense action scenes.
 * 13) Merida is one of the few princesses to have an accurate accent, as well as one of the few to be voiced by someone of the same nationality as her.
 * 14) Mor'du is a pretty decent and menacing villain.
 * 15) Good characters development, for example, Merida started off as a selfish and rebellious brat who treats her mother horribly, and vice-versa in the first act (aside from the scenes involving with young Merida), but later she found out that she apologizes to her mother during the second act for the story progresses.
 * 16) The setting is really good where it takes place in Medieval Scotland.
 * 17) The ending is great.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Overuse of butt jokes.
 * 2) Despite being well-written, the story in the film can be a pretty unoriginal and little bit rushed.
 * 3) False advertising: Despite all of the posters and trailers featuring Merida with her bow and arrow, she only uses it in a few scenes and doesn't use it for any of the action scenes of the film.
 * 4) The movie does teach parents a bad lesson about arranged marriage by suggesting that they should force their children to get married because it is a good thing. The film does this by having Merida face a situation where she is forced to marry one of three suitors and when she does not want this and attempts to get out of the forced marriage, the film makes Merida look like the person in the wrong and deems her selfish for it and that is just because Merida wanted independence for her life, did not want to get married to someone she does not like and she did not want to turn into a clone of her own mother.
 * 5) On top of Merida, she can be unlikable and bratty at times, like it tries way too hard to make Queen Elinor look like the person in the right when she becomes very bossy to Merida and forces her to get married. Even worse is that further in the film after being turned into a bear, Elinor abruptly decides to break the forced marriage tradition and allow Merida to stay unmarried with no proper explanation given.
 * 6) The tone and setting, while good and managed to do right, doesn't exactly feel like a Pixar movie, where it feels more like a Walt Disney Animation Studios film.
 * 7) Mor'du might be too scary for a Kids movie.

Reception
Brave received mostly positive reception upon its released. At the time, Brave received a 78% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 248 critics, with an average rating of 6.95/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Brave offers young audiences and fairy tale fans a rousing, funny fantasy adventure with a distaff twist and surprising depth." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 37 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". American audiences polled by CinemaScore in the opening weekend gave the film an average grade of "A" on a scale from A+ to F.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, in his final review on an animated film before his death, gave the film 3 out of 4 stars. He wrote, "The good news is that the kids will probably love it, and the bad news is that parents will be disappointed if they're hoping for another Pixar groundbreaker. Unlike such brightly original films as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and Up, this one finds Pixar poaching on traditional territory of Disney." He said that the film did have an uplifting message about improving communication between mothers and daughters, "although transforming your mother into a bear is a rather extreme first step".

Videos
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Trivia

 * Some reviewers saw the Merida character as a novel break from the traditional line of Disney princesses. There were some dissonance and criticism among viewers and organized feminists when her character was scheduled to be "crowned" a Disney princess, only for artists to render her thinner, with less frizzy hair, and rounder eyes, more like the other princesses from previous Disney movies. This inspired girl-empowerment website A Mighty Girl to file a petition that Disney not alter their character. One of the 262,196 signatories was Brenda Chapman, the director of the film, who felt that Disney had "betrayed the essence of what we were trying to do with Merida — give young girls and women a better, stronger role model", and that the makeover was "a blatantly sexist marketing move based on money". The online petition was considered a success, as shortly after it appeared Disney removed the redesigned image from their official website, in favor of Merida's original film appearance. Disney later clarified the situation, assuring that Merida would remain in her original form.
 * Brave marks the only Pixar film to have two credited directors, more than one.
 * This marks the only film that were created and produced by Pixar to have a Disney Princess.
 * According to Andrews, Witherspoon was on the project for "quite some time. She was getting her Scottish accent down, she was working very hard and it was sounding great but as we were continuing with the movie she had other movies lining up, so unfortunately we were unable to continue with her and had to get a replacement." Instead, in 2011 it was revealed that Merida was to be voiced by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald. In 2017, during a press junket for Illumination's Sing, Witherspoon mentioned that she had to leave the film due to failure to master a Scottish accent.
 * This marks the second animated film to debut with Marvel Cinematic Universe composer, Patrick Doyle.
 * The video game adaptation followed a very different plot involving Merida travelling across the land to cleanse ancient stones of Mor'du's curse.
 * This film marks the first time a different composer than Randy Newman, Thomas Newman, or Michael Giacchino has composed a music score for a feature-length Pixar film. Four others (Mychael & Jeff Danna, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Dan Romer and Ludwig Göransson) followed.
 * This is the first Pixar film to include the 2011 Disney logo, and has been used on all subsequent movies since.
 * Julie Walters and Robbie Coltrane, who voiced the Witch and Lord Dingwall, both appeared in the entire Harry Potter film series as Molly Weasley (Ron's mother) and Rubeus Hagrid, respectively. Also, Kelly Macdonald had appeared as the Grey Lady in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2. And Emma Thompson appeared as Professor Sybill Trelawney in three of the Harry Potter films (Prisoner of Azkaban, Order of the Phoenix, and Deathly Hallows - Part 2).
 * When this film was released in UK cinemas, BrightSpark Productions (that releases Brazillian mockbuster studio Vídeo Brinquedo's films in the UK) released a DVD called Braver, which many consider to be a cash-in on Brave, due to the cover art and name. The content on this DVD, however, is actually from a 2005 Christmas special, A Fairy Tale Christmas.
 * This is the first Pixar film to feature a female protagonist, since Pixar has been criticized for its lack of female protagonists.
 * This is the first film to use the Dolby Atmos sound format, and the Dolby Atmos mix would be later used on the 2019 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release of the film.