User:SpaceProtagonist/sandbox/Brave

'''Important Note: I do not hate this movie. I just feel like there are a lot of issues that were unaddressed.

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 and co-directed by Steve Purcell. The story is by Chapman, with the screenplay by Andrews, Purcell, Chapman and Irene Mecchi. 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.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Except for Merida and her mother Elinor, most of the characters are pretty much one-note caricatures and side characters for the mother-daughter subplot.
 * 2) *Even Merida's father King Fergus mostly just agrees with Elinor and with society's expectations of his daughter from a personal indulgence and his incompetence in maintaining the status quo, rather than any empathetic views of his own. He's a friendly and fierce man when he needs to be, but he has some issues as king and can't hold up his own opinion.
 * 3) *Merida's three younger triplet brothers Harris, Hubert and Hamish are all just comical side characters who never even speak in the film.
 * 4) The subplot involving the magic and the bear curse on Elinor by a witch is where the film begins to lose its way and turn into a seemingly different film from the first act altogether. They took a very intriguing storyline that was just reaching it's high point leaving the viewers very curious on how it was going to develop, then suddenly introduced this new plot the completely changes everything. There's the initial confusion followed by the slapstick and the escape from the castle; the bear acting like a human; the duo trying to find the witch, getting an info-dump on how the magic works and what they need to do; the low bit when they're emotionally distraught followed by the high bit of them connecting via montage; and another magic info dump with the stakes raising..so on and so on. By the time the climax arrives with the bear being chased, the audience is so far removed from the initial plot, that you can barely tell this is the same film.
 * 5) On top of that, the bear plot doesn't even work for a number of reasons. The three-way relationship set up between Merida, Elinor and society, has the "society" part completely removed with the disempowerment. With the queen's as a bear, the duo's not on equal footing and it's not this game of wit that was initially established. One might say, that Merida would have step up due to her mother being unable to do her duties, but Merida was going to have to do this anyway, the bear thing just needlessly complicates things. One might say, the duo bonds over the struggle of the mother being a bear and have to adapt to it, but that still doesn't justify the bear subplot since they could have bonded over anything as themselves. All the bear-plot does is shift the focus from this conflict where Elinor and Merida held fundamentally opposing views, into a generic McGuffin (pun unintended) scavenger hunt to find clues to turn the mother back to herself.
 * 6) The rules of this world's magic are never made clear and leaves us with more questions than answers.
 * 7) Why does the witch's spell turn everyone into a bear? Because the people of the film hate bears? Because it what the victim's most afraid off? It's never properly explained.
 * 8) What does the ripped tapestry have to do with the witch and her curse? Again, it's left extremely vague. They're mutually exclusive for the whole film, until a connection is made between Merida and the film's villain, who was also a rebellious royal who destroyed a family portrait. And that was not a symbolic connection either, just a key plot element that makes absolutely no sense in terms of a cure.
 * 9) Despite the Elinor's tapestry symbol being given so much significance, the film's other major symbol -- Merida's bow and arrow-- gets completely forgotten about, and Merida suddenly has a new bow and arrow that barely even gets used despite all the advertising. This is some serious wasted potential as if the bow and arrow played a significant role, that means Queen Elinor would also have to go through a "grow to accept the other's role in the castle" arc, and then not only would Merida be more forgiving of her mother's queenly manner, Elinor would also have been more willing to accept her daughter's wild side and allow her to show it off. It would have brought the duo even closer together.
 * 10) The plot and characters feel very incohesive. Despite the two plot lines being connected to each other, the transition makes no sense and the story's developed in different almost contradictory ways. The character arcs for each plot only prove this point.
 * 11) *Merida: In the first plot, she's the one being wronged by her mother and society by extension. After trying and failing to solve the problem with her usual full force, she must adapt her methods overcome her flaws and find viable solution the combines her own traits with some of her mother's methods. In the second plot, feeling Eleanor was never there for her, Merida wrongs her mother and makes a "big mistake" and in the process of undo that mistake, she must learn that she was wrong all along about how she saw her mother. On their own, the two serviceable plots with functioning character arcs are fine, but by trying to put them together, the arcs counter each other. For example, in the climax, Merida states her mother was always there for her, even though earlier she said the exact opposite. As a result, it's suggested that she's in the wrong, even though she's made some valid arguments.
 * 12) *Queen Elinor: In the first plot, she feels compelled by tradition to force her daughter into marrying. Despite her efforts, she's unable to connect with her daughter. At the end, after she sees Merida take what she's taught her and give it new life, she reconsiders how she saw her. She's filled with pride for her daughter, and comes to terms with how she had been unintentionally oppressing her. In the second plot, the closest she has to an arc is she's mean and old-school, then gets turned into a bear, then becomes more friendly afterwards. Her change feels very forced without proper development, and she basically morphs into a grown version of her daughter. It would have been a lot stronger to continue in the direction the first plot had set up, showing that the difference between them is fundamental to their characters, and how you can't just get someone to change, but you should learn to accept their differences. Parents go through that route with their children all the time.
 * 13) Brenda Chapman (famous for The Prince of Egypt) was the first director for the film as she pitched the film when she joined Pixar in the mid-2000s and based the story on the relationship with her daughter. But 18 months before the film's release, she was fired for "creative differences", and replaced by Mark Andrews, who -- while far from a bad director, and took part in a number of great films -- introduced a new vision the film which was suddenly being framed in a very different way. Gender wouldn't be focused on in the movie. While there are tons of movies where the lead character's gender is interchangeable without consequences, a film that starts off with a mother who feels compelled by tradition to force her daughter into marriage, is a film where gender should definitely be focused on. The central disagreement between Elinor and Merida is, at its core, technically about what it means to be a woman in this world. And as far as the tradition of the marriage is concerned, the only agency Merida gets in this life-altering decision is what challenge she gets to be a reward for. And this is all happening to her not just because she's royalty but more specifically because she's the princess. By trying to be so adamant that gender isn't core to this story, they end up reaching some really bizarre places conceptually, which is too bad considering this is the first Pixar movie with a main female protagonist (deuteragonists don't count).
 * 14) Plot Hole: When Merida unites the four clans through stories about their victories when they were united, somehow she's instantly a master of this without any build-up to that point. Sure Merida's shown to be smart and capable, but she doesn't always think her plans through. So it doesn't make much sense that Merida would be able to please all of the tribes on the first try, even with her mother's aid.
 * 15) False advertising: Despite all of the posters 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.
 * 16) *In fact, all of the trailers are also misleading as well.
 * 17) Mor'du is one of, if not the worst, villain Pixar has ever produced, as he's just your generic evil prince who rebels against his family and wants as much power as possible, but was cursed/blessed with a bear transformation. He doesn't even get a lot of personality of humor moments, and mainly just serves as a dark reflection of who Merida could have became.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Merida and Queen Elinor are decently-written characters in their own contrasting ways among their society, with two opposing views of femininity and two opposing views of power. Though as mentioned above, their character arc do end up taking a dip in the later parts of the movie.
 * 2) *Merida --a hard power of physical skill-- may be rebellious tomboy, but she's never seen trying to be masculine, she just doesn't like some of the things that came with being a princess. She's most free on the off-days she gets where she'll gladly show some feminine qualities while also embracing her wild side. She's oppressed and stifled, while the men have no problem expressing that same hard power. She's clearly shown to enjoy fighting, and physical activity is a release for her. But when it's framed in the context of toxic masculinity, she just rolls her eyes as she has no interest in it this way.
 * 3) *By contrast, Queen Elinor --a soft power of diplomatic skill-- is eloquent, graceful and the ideal version of femininity according to society, and she enjoys her role. She's privileged in comparison to her daughter, because society allows her to take full advantage of this power. Although the film makes it clear that it doesn't place a judgement for her preferred version of femininity. First it mocks Merida's viewpoint, putting it on equal footing with Elinor's view.
 * 4) The first act of the movie is very well set-up and had a great story going for it that was advanced even for Pixar standards. The film tries to use interpersonal relationships within the context of political struggles to discuss larger themes on society and and more intimate themes on opposing viewpoints of life.
 * 5) *The Queen's most central flaw isn't that she embraces and enjoys her role so much. It's that, due to that role basically being second nature to her she's completely blind to the fact that it goes against everything her daughter stands for. She's blind to the fact that she herself is extending the oppression over her daughter. Merida on the other hand is blind to the power her mother actually has and her change must be to embrace some of what she's been taught.
 * 6) *The whole marriage route the film starts to follow actually fits really well. The arranged marriage plot establishes a game of wit and strategy presenting Merida opportunities to show what she is actually learning from her mother. Merida's first scene of rebellion is, in a way, taken right out of her mother's playbook. When only the firstborn of the great leaders are allowed to compete for the princess, she uses soft power tactics to give herself an opportunity to express herself in the hard power abilities she so prefers.
 * 7) Amazing visual storytelling throughout various points of the film -- especially the in first third:
 * 8) *The Queen's power among society is made clear with her indirect power through the king, and how she simply walks forward sternly, resulting in everyone stopping their fight. Grace is power in their world, and the Queen holds all the power. Then later, when Merida rebels, everyone looks to the Queen for guidance rather than the king -- who's not even in the frame at the time.
 * 9) *Three words: The archery scene. It's an absolute masterpiece in nearly every way.
 * 10) **There's symbolism of the stifling wardrobe Merida has been forced into, the power of the moment we finally see her full head of hair -- an iconic marker for her character and a symbol for her freedom after nearly 10 minutes of having it tucked away, and the fact that the only way she can actually shoot an arrow is by literally ripping the symbol of her oppression apart at the seams (i.e.: her tight dress)
 * 11) **In addition to that, the symbolism with the Queen's power just with a stern walk returns here while both her and Merida are armed with their preferred method of power. Behind the safety of Merida's bow - her weapons and particularly her bow being a symbol for her hard power, Merida is able to face her mother's authority, in more ways than one. It's more than just an awesome semi-action scene, it's also super important to Merida learning what's necessary to stand up to her mother and society.
 * 12) *The next scene follow that archery match is also a masterpiece. In the next scene when Merida's still full of adrenaline, she miscalculates her current authority and rips a symbol or even the symbol of her mother's soft power (a mural of the royal family). Then Queen Elinor uses the stern power walk again, and this time it's effective. She uses this moment of power to get rid of Merida's weapon, specifically her bow, the tool Merida just used so effectively to stand up to her. At this point, the film's set up one seriously complex conflict and there's no true villain (useless you count society). And as a bonus, it drops the early hints of both of their character arcs: Merida cower was the moment she realized she went too far and the Queen gets an even more explicit one, as she tries to salvage the burning bow, showing her subsequent regret.
 * 13) At least the animation's is just as brilliant and detailed as you'd expect from a Pixar film.
 * 14) Amazing musical score by Patrick Doyle.
 * 15) Great voice-acting, with Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, and Emma Thompson.