# Pixar's Brave...What are your first impressions? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 13, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737 "2012-05-13T00:11:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/141 "2012-07-06T20:51:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > - They are all kinda duffuses anyway, but in a year or two they should be better. In fact I think the BIG kid, whose accent was the strongest , might not be so bad. He reminded me of Chris Griffin. I half-expected Seth Green to have voiced him! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/142 "2012-07-16T19:29:44Z")
Saw it yesterday with my family and we all enjoyed it. The story was adequate (if not terribly earth-shaking), and the visuals were gorgeous. Good mix of serious and funny. The scene where Merida rides out from the castle one morning and practices her archery while on horseback was simply spectacular. Another highlight for me was the three impish red-haired brothers; I hope Pixar does a short film just about them! I didn’t buy the Queen’s change of heart during Merida’s speech to the quarreling clansmen, and all of us expected that Merida would have to actually repeat the witch’s words about “mending the breach” before her mom would change back into a human. Still, a good flick, and well worth seeing on the big screen. **lawoot** , how did they manage to work in the Pizza Planet delivery truck? I missed it. **CalMeacham** , nice catch about the witch going to the Wicker Man festival (on Summerisle, didn’t she say?). **NAF1138** , good points about the true villain and true hero[ine] of the movie. John Ratzenburger did the voice for the guard who announced the arrival of the three clans, didn’t he? I agree with those who’ve said the new songs were meh. The orchestral music was appropriately sweeping and evocative, though. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > …we not only have bare little boy butts, but big Scottiosh Men, too (After being teased with the “Feast your eyes!” line, they actually _DO_ let us see them). That was pretty funny. I liked how they handled the reveal after the Scottish lords were all back down at ground level again, dignifiedly marching back into the castle. > [@NAF1138](#): > > …I thought Merida was a really well drawn character and one that you don’t see that often in this type of movie. I thought that Pixar’s playing with traditional fairy tale and family movie conventions was really wonderful. You have it all there, the unruly teenager who just knows better than the adults. The doffus dad. The stoney unreasonable mom. The witch. The ancient evil supernatural terror. But none of it was true. The witch wasn’t evil, the Mom was in the right the whole time, the Dad was goofy but actually a pretty fit ruler. The ancient evil terror was really just an analog for the teenage girl and what she could become. And the teenager didn’t actually know better, she was the one causing the chaos. I thought it was great on that level… Well said. I agree. > [@Aeschines](#): > > I think you are right. I really enjoyed the Fantastics. Seems like a long time ago… So long ago… I don’t remember ever seeing it at all! > [@RickJay](#): > > I would also point out that one of the three sons, the wimpy stupid one, actually won the competition. He hit the bullseye dead on. He won Merida’s hand by the rules they had just set out. That fact is completely ignored, virtually the instant it happens, and that clan makes no mention at all of it. Merida competed for herself, and got three bullseyes, so she “won.” But you’re right, that particular clan would probably have made a stink. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/143 "2012-07-16T23:08:37Z")
I thought it was okay, but really the whole mom-turns-into-bear thing didn’t work for me. In a fairy tale/fantasy movie I don’t have a problem with magical spells that can turn humans into animals, but this particular plot point just seemed kind of random. It didn’t have any dramatic/mythical/psychological resonance for me. At one point I was thinking “Is this supposed to symbolize something? Because I don’t get it.” (I did briefly entertain the notion that it represented that awkward time in a teenage girl’s life when her mother “goes through the change”, but that didn’t really work either.) In narrative terms I think it would have worked better to have either the heroine get turned into a bear (although this would make the movie seem even more like a retread of _Brother Bear/The Frog Princess_) or have the dad turned into a bear and the mother and daughter have to work together to keep him out of trouble and figure out how to turn him back. I also thought it was a shame that none of the secondary characters were developed. The witch really only got one scene. The little brothers didn’t have distinct personalities, and I don’t think they even had names. I don’t think the one named servant spoke, she just screamed. We did see something of the three suitors’ personalities in the archery competition scene, but they did nothing of importance for the rest of the movie. Heck, even the cute animal sidekick (the horse) was largely a non-entity. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/144 "2012-07-17T01:58:22Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > …I don’t think the one named servant spoke, she just screamed… She did speak, briefly, when asked by the King in the hallway what she’d seen. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/145 "2012-07-17T02:53:09Z")
Took the Kid (13 y/o) at the weekend. We loved it. Sporadic applause in the theatre at the end. Friend’s son (10 y/o) has been twice with his mates. The Triplets (Hamish, Hubert and Harris) were great, it was nice to see younger siblings portrayed as friends and allies instead of nasty nuisances. They were called by name at various points, but were also talked to as a group. The only one I could remember offhand was Hamish, but I knew they had specific names. Maudie (the servant), while a screamer, showed real bravery in hiding the key when threatened by the bears and even got a sweetheart at the end. The Kid liked how the suitors were all happy with Merida’s solution - she thought they’d all been pushed into the competition for her hand as much as Merida had been. Someone said upthread that the ‘winning clan’ should have kicked up more of a fuss, but I thought that’s why they were all fighting - the tradition had been broken and the bonds (of family, clan and wider alliances) were breaking as the spell gained strength. I liked Merida’s mum threatening to ‘catch her and eat her up’ as they played on her birthday, nice foreshadowing. And I could happily buy into the bear myths that formed the clan symbols and legends and which turned out to be true. As Merida’s mum kept saying; legends are based on truth. The witch was brilliant, a fully formed comic relief character in two scenes (the meeting and the ‘out of cottage’ autoreply). If she’d been in much more than that, she’d have stolen the movie. Not evil, but neutral chaos as the gamers say. “Change your fate? Sure, dearie.” Bippity boppity _ka-blammo!_ Me and the Kid have a very easy relationship (touch wood), but we totally got the mother/daugter frustration. Their relationship and the mirrored conversation before Merida went to the woods seemed spot on to us. It worked. We laughed, we cried, we cheered at the end. What more could me and my red-headed daughter wish for? ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/146 "2012-07-18T01:28:01Z")
I loved it too. My kid loved it and on the way home, she asked for the dvd. We weren’t home 10 minutes before I was fashioning a bow from a broom and yarn. I liked it better than Up, The Incredibles, and Wall-E and I haven’t seen Cars 2. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/147 "2012-07-18T02:59:03Z")
My vote for “Sucks Balls.” Unlike some others, I do think its story failigns make it a bad movie. It’s lame, filled with plot holes and mischaracterization, and bluntly misses chances that I could see coming a mile away. As another poster said, normally when movies blow my expectations away, they do so because they drastically improve upon cliche stories. This one honestly falls short of that mark by a country mile. Take a comparison with Tangled: Every character is competent at what they do. (OK, except the city guards, but it’s sort of a running gag that the poor sods can’t catch a break and end up outdone by a _horse_). Every character has clear motivations, but also display subtleties you didn’t expect. They have conflicted motives or emotions, and within the bounds of their personality and brains, they pursue their goals more or less rationally. Brave does _not_ have this. _Every_ major character except the three boys breaks character, or acts in ways contrary to where the story naturally leads. These character breaks don’t make things interesting or reveal new facets of the character; they just happen for no reason. There _are_ good scenes - way more of them than the movie has a right to - but the movie undercuts them afterward. At the end of the day, the movie is insultingly stupid, as if halfway through they’d stopped trying to appeal to adults. Now, I can buy the first half of the movie, Merida being a spoiled dumbass brat and all. But the last half descends into shallow mockery of the first. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/148 "2012-07-18T18:13:46Z")
> [@Fair\_Rarity](#): > > I liked it better than Up, The Incredibles, and Wall-E… :eek:😕:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/149 "2012-07-18T23:27:48Z")
> [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](#): > > :eek:😕:dubious: I liked _Brave_ but I, too, am stunned. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/150 "2012-07-18T23:42:04Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I liked _Brave_ but I, too, am stunned. Yeah, me too. ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/151 "2012-07-19T01:42:43Z")
I didn’t dislike Up, The Incredibles, or Wall-E, but I related to a mother-daughter story on a different level than I could those three. That emotional connection was part of the reason I like Brave more (although it wasn’t the only reason). When it comes out on dvd and I watch it every day for month, I might change my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/152 "2012-07-19T01:51:17Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > Yeah, me too. I liked The Incredibles better, because I’m a comic book geek - but I liked it better than Wall-E and Up. Wall-E and Up were manipulative - possibly better movies, but I didn’t LIKE them as well. I’ve watched each of those movies once and really have no desire to ever revisit them. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/153 "2012-07-19T03:52:06Z")
> [@Fair\_Rarity](#): > > I didn’t dislike Up, The Incredibles, or Wall-E, but I related to a mother-daughter story on a different level than I could those three. That emotional connection was part of the reason I like Brave more (although it wasn’t the only reason). When it comes out on dvd and I watch it every day for month, I might change my opinion. For that comment, you must change your username. Rarity has class and style and would never approve of Brave. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/154 "2012-07-20T01:26:38Z")
Rarity would LOVE her dresses and want to do her hair. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/155 "2012-07-22T03:00:17Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > **lawoot** , how did they manage to work in the Pizza Planet delivery truck? I missed it. I missed it as well but there’s really only one place it wood be. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/156 "2012-07-22T03:15:21Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > she has to simultaneously fix the tapestry and keep her father from killing her mother. If she doesn’t ride off, the men will get to her mother and kill her. She also seems to believe that the tapestry must be thrown over her mother to make the spell work (which makes some sense in the “way magic works in fairy tales” way). No, I think she simply believed the Queen would need to cover herself and the tapestry made a dandy blanket. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_News_Baboon)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737/157 "2012-07-22T06:56:11Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > I missed it as well but there’s really only one place it wood be. indeed! [http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news/31707/Pixar\_Easter\_Eggs\_Brave\_1341323970.jpg](http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news/31707/Pixar_Easter_Eggs_Brave_1341323970.jpg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pixars-brave-what-are-your-first-impressions/621737.md?page=7)