I’ve got to disagree a bit there. I read the characters very differently. The story was told from the Ladies’ point of view and thus we didn’t really see too much of the serious male interaction that took place; as was appropriate to keep the focus. Most of the time they were joking around or “off duty”. Fergus in particular had a few moments where he was shown to be a competent leader, a fearless fighter, and loving and protective father and husband. Hell, he fought Mordu* twice* and didn’t hold back or agonize about it. He hopped in to defend his family knowing full well he might be going to his death. During the chase scene, they were all laughs and boasts until they actually caught their quarry, then shit got real. The other lords and sons were used for comic relief, but even then if you think about it, we only really saw them in “dad/ festival manners” mode. At the end where we actually find out that those old goofy men were really ferocious warriors and good leaders it makes you pause a moment to consider what we missed while we were focused on Merida’s story. Fergus was up to his eyeballs in trying to keep the peace among violent, capricious and politically powerful Lords. Rather than incompetent, I got the impression that the men *didn’t listen *either, paralleling the main story line. The movie was about the need for communication.
Did anyone else get the impression that the movie was heavily cut and we missed ten minutes of something important?
Yep, good point. The movie seemed overly focused on the mom and what happens to her, as though material that would balance out the story had been cut.
As for overall impression, I thought it was a decent kids movie. My six-year-old daughter loved it. I thought it was pretty boring overall, but I’m not sure why everyone here is analyzing it as though it’s supposed to be equally entertaining to adults and children. Perhaps because it is Pixar? I think <i>Toy Story</i> was equally for adults and children, but most of their movies have not been.
Until recently, most of their movies worked very well for adults; “Wall-E,” “Ratatouille,” “The Incredibles,” all three “Toy Story” films, “Monsters Inc.” and “Finding Nemo” were all written with adults in mind. Arguably “A Bug’s Life” was not. That’s eight out of nine.
“Cars” was probably written with adults in mind, too, though not especially successfully; a lot of the story and jokes would be over a kid’s head.
I think you are right. I really enjoyed the Fantastics. Seems like a long time ago…
But there’s also nothing wrong with just making a movie for kids. I can see why people would expect more from Brave based on past Pixar movies, however.
I just saw it and this is my problem with it. I guess I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough to buy that the mother would all of a sudden decide you don’t have to marry a suitor for political alliance for the sake of the Kingdom simply because Merida finally grew up and realized she needed to do so for the realm. It just doesn’t seem in the Queen’s character, even if she’d been a bear for a week.
That and the clan folk getting all teary eyed and immediately agreeing that the kids of nobles should get married for love.
I think that it would have been more powerful, frankly, if Merida decided that while her mom may have had a change of heart, that for the benefit of the country that she would marry one of the sons of the clan leaders. Not becauser her mom and dad wanted to, but because she knew it was right. Though, then again, I’m sure that would have made my fiance really angry - so perhaps not the greatest of endings. Maybe it’s the anti-monarchist in me that wants movies to show that being a royal isn’t all about fun and love, but about service and doing what you are told/expected.
Warning: Spoilers. We seem to have abandoned the spoiler tags. SPOILERS!
Your point is a valid one, though. The speech in the Great Hall is the movie’s turning point but it doesn’t work, either logically or in terms of characterization, and so it fails, and the movie fails, at that point.
It logically fails because, as you point out, there is no reason for the Queen to suddenly change her mind at that point in time. We’re given no advance warning at all that she will suddenly change her opinion on Merida’s betrothal, and there is no reason for her to have changed her mind. In fact, there is now even more reason for her to be even more determined to see Merida do her duty. Merida has demonstrated appalling judgment, she has demonstrated very little to convince Elinor that her own strengths are of any use to anyone, and the disruption of the process has led to exactly the problem Queen Elinor predicted would happen; the clans’ rivalry has erupted. The Queen was indisputably correct in the facts of the matter, even if she could have done a better job explaining it to Merida.
Furthermore, the major backstory revelation that happened only minutes before that speech simply reinforces the Queen’s being correct about everything. Had there been a discovery that following tradition had once resulted in catastrophe, Elinor would have a reason to change her mind. But what they found says precisely the opposite.
So Elinor coaches Merida to say exactly what Merida wanted all along. Merida says it, and, conveniently, the three eldest sons all say “why, sure, sounds great” and turn down the chance to marry the hottest chick in Scotland. So what has Merida learned, exactly? What’s her arc here? She didn’t want to marry one of the kiltists, she screws up big time, and her Mom completely caves and Merida gets what she wanted; now the only thing left to resolve is the action part of the story. We learn she loves her Mom, but shit, I already knew that; teenagers getting pissed off is par for the course, to use a Scottish phrase.
The speech for me was the real “WTF?” part of the film; it just totally ends the movie’s character arcs halfway through the movie and does so in such a silly fashion that I, like someone else in this thread who I can’t remember, was left wondering if they’d dropped ten minutes of footage in the editing room that we really should have seen.
I think you said it far better than I did. Nothing in Queen Elinor’s story shows that she would have thrown the peace of the realm away to find love. In fact she says earlier in the movie that she didn’t exactly marry for love (a great scene when King Fergus is like ‘wha?’) but it was the right thing to do - Heck, without her the Kingdom would be lost.
So in the end, Merida “grows up” to realize that she needs to put her country’s needs above her own, only to be told by her mother, nah… just kidding, marry for love like you wanted to in the first place. And the other clan leaders, who were just prepping for war against Fergus suddenly get their hearts melted? Just a whole lot of disbelief being asked to be suspended there in the span of 2-3 minutes.
(also the whole I turned mom into a bear thing was kind of silly to me, but I guess I could have lived with it if the ending had been done right).
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.
OTOH I see Elinor’s arc quite clearly. It was, in a derivative from “Brother Bear” way, the idea behind the transformation. She experienced the value of Merida’s unladylike skills and, as a bear, saw the importance of breaking with traditional behaviors sometimes. She heard how her child actually had heard the lessons she had been teaching her (and much of the end showed the importance of what she learned from her mother, even sewing skills) and put those together. Doing things a different way is sometimes not allowed; it is necessary. Marriage to one of those apparent dweebs* (and I doubt Mom’s assessment was much different than Dad’s, none was good enough for her) was not what was required; Merida’s growing into the role of ruler was. And since the change of tradition was only to be done with the assent of the other clans “peace in the kingdom” was not placed at risk; just one established tradition was.
The point was that both mother and daughter learned from each other. And learned respect for each other and each other’s perspectives as well.
Wimpy son at most tied to another arrow going through his and most warriors would say three bull’s eyes with one going through the other’s arrow wins.
*One can easily imagine getting to know these boys and finding that first appearances are deceiving.
Except the Merida was able to demonstrate that the clans would respect her as a Queen, and that Merida would be able to stop the men from their endless bickering- all without getting married.
And who is to say she won’t? But marrying her off to a dude she’s never met by a contest? No way.
She did this by giving a speech her mother was pantomiming to her. The Queen has to have made this decision before the words were out of Merida’s mouth. Why did the Queen decide this BEFORE Merida started her speech?
That’s what makes the writing of the scene so bizarre; the logical, albeit a bit hackneyed, approach would have been for Merida to give a speech SHE thought of; have her stumble over her words and have to cover over a few errors, but speak from the heart about her own feelings and what she’d learned, combine that with her sense of duty into a convincing argument, and have that as part of what convinces the Queen that breaking with tradition is okay. But that isn’t what happens. The Queen decides before walking (well, shambling) into the room that she’s changed her mind, and then coaches Merida through most of the speech. But to that point she has little reason to make that decision; most of what happens should, in fact, convince her of the opposite.
I’m not suggesting this movie is the logical storytelling disaster “The Phantom Menace” was. It’s not a bad movie. But it’s just not correctly tied up in a lot of little ways that other Pixar films are.
It appeared quite obvious that that established tradition was indeed tied to “peace in the kingdom” as the clans were basically acting out a war in the Great Hall. I guess it all depends on whether you can actually can suspend disbelief that the clans would immediately fall for a “let us marry who we love speech” (especially for Medieval nobility!).
One can easily imagine this tenuous alliance falling quickly after the 2nd generation decide to do things their way instead of acting to solidify the alliance. And in medieval times, the most clear cut way to solidify alliances was… intermarriage.
I was really disappointed with the movie, and I think Pixar has slipped off my list of “must-see” products now. There was just no real compelling plot - girl is told she wants to get married, doesn’t want to, turns her mom into a bear, realizes it was a bad move, gets mom un-beared. That’s pretty much it, and there isn’t enough to fill in the blank. None of the characters had much of a personality (all of the three suitor’s dads were interchangeable, for example) or made enough of an impact for me to remember their names. The witch just disappears, the other bear isn’t a real villain and the ending seemed to deus-ex-machina for me.
All in all, a very forgettable movie, and this is coming from someone who got teary-eyed at Toy Story 3 and Up. But hey, the CGI on the hair looked nice.
Is anybody… confused by the merchandising for this movie? I mean, I saw it coming, but it seems like nobody heard any word other than “princess” at the marketing meeting for this movie. The movie has problems, as we’ve banged on about in this thread, but about 95% of the toys (the only exception being a couple sets I saw only at the Disney Store) are pretty Dress Me Up and Do My Hair pretty princess dolls. Oh, but they package it with a cheap plastic bow the doll can’t even hold so it’s okay I guess :rolleyes:.
I mean, I’m not really surprised, but it seems kind of really entirely stupid to make a movie that would theoretically appeal to girls who DON’T like the traditional pretty princess model and then go ahead and market all the toys to the people the movie wasn’t (ostensibly) meant for.
Speaking as the father of a little girl, I assume you they know what they’re doing. And there’s no conflict. Girls want an action heroine whose hair they can style. A six-year-old sees nothing illogical or wrong with getting all pretty with sparkles and stickers before going out into the forest to kick some ass.
I agree that the sets I saw at the normal retails places were pretty cheap looking, but I was really suprised at the high level of quality for a similar set at Disney.
Parents, if your little girls wants some toys from this film, get them at the Disney store.
All I noticed about the toys is that they (and were widely available before the movie was released) spoiled what the advertising had gone to great lengths to keep veiled.
I saw it this week, and the only aspect that riveted my attention was the hair/fur texture, and sort of in the same vein, all the tartans and tapestries. (I’m a weaver.) The queen’s green dress made my fingers itch to see how it was woven.
