Brave -- Pixar's 2012 release

I have some guesses as to what this involves based on the trailers.

yeah, it seems fairly obvious

If you watch enough kids shows, the toy commercials have some pretty big spoilers so I already know the twist.

Some of the promo images for this are just teal_and_orange.xls to the fkin max

neg reviews oddly making me anticipate this quite a bit where i wasn't at all before

This was not the story that I was expecting or hoping for. Without giving anything away, bears figure prominently into this, more so than I would have liked. And I'm a fan of bears.
-Mark Ellis, """""Schmoes Know"""""

i mean the title was originally "the bear and the bow" so it seems like this is more a advertising-related problem

Reviews on this one are starting to rival Cars 2.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/critics-notebook-has-pixar-gone-the-way-of-the-simpsons

"All good things must come to an end."

hard left turn into batshit during 2nd act-- involves bears-- I'm intrigued!

6 or 7 bear tops.

bear say hi to me

Ha, forgot about the real thread. I had posted on the "Up" thread, too, that this one seems to meet a derailing digression mid-movie. Which is a shame, because the images released so far in clips and whatnot look gorgeous.

Would be interested to great your plot predictions! Although as usual, the 'art of' book probably gives things away. I don't get why they release these so early

Or maybe you could just watch http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cgi/meet-indias-answer-to-brave-called-kiara-the-brave.html

XP *to HEAR

the bear and the bow is a better title than brave, which they had stuck with it. I have a hard time believing this movie is bad at all. will see it.

i was a lot more excited about this when it was called the bear and the bow!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/06/20/merida_in_brave_and_the_fiery_redhead_trope_why_does_hollywood_think_all_women_with_red_hair_are_the_same_.html

Brave Passes the “Fiery Redhead” Stereotype to a New Generation
By L.V. Anderson | Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2012, at 8:38 AM ET

this movie was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous to look at, but there was a distinct whiff of focus-group throughout. they leaned on madcap comedy/slapstick very hard, i fear in an effort to give boys something to watch in a "girl" movie, but it was still very fun and funny and the audience i was in laughed a lot.

as for the plot -- it did feel like they started out telling one very traditional kind of story, and then they swerved and did another, different kind of very traditional story, and in doing so it gave both halves less punch and power. the beginning of the movie sets up the various ways in which merida has non-traditional power, like her athleticism and weapons skills etc, but those don't really factor into the resolution of the story. the original title of "the bear and the bow" made me think of some kind of quest movie, where merida needs to use her misunderstood skills to save the day, but really "the bear" and "the bow" are more like symbols representing the two main characters. the bow is more a representation of who merida is. it's interesting, but it wasn't what i expected, and it wasn't what the first half of the movie kind of set you up to believe.

but (SPOILER) she doesn't fall in love with any guy in the end, so huzzah for that, anyway.

This is really good. The criticism above that says the plot twist is a needle off the record moment that sends it into a dumb direction is completely, totally wrong.

So many  reviews say that it doesnt conform to the expectation the trailer sets up - for me if this happens in a movie it is nearly always a very good thing. I like to be surprised and it's quite rare these days that a trailer is made that deliberately doesn't tell the whole story.

yes exactly.

Yeah, this was pretty good, not top-tier Pixar like the Toy Story movies or Wall-E, but perfectly enjoyable. (i.e., not Cars.)

Does anyone here remember Jane and the Dragon?

http://raspwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20061210-janeflag.jpg

yeah it was weird

this isn't weird. and yeah, this isn't the best pixar film ever made but it's so much better than either Cars film, maybe better than Monsters Inc too. That Gawker review is ridiculous.

welp. the craft is intermittently brilliant asyou might expect: what the pixar magicians achieve with the hair and the horse alone is actually worth the price of admission.

the rest is what might have been a fine story, poorly told. title is more than a little ironic given that you can see exactly where the disney/pixar braintrust that greenlit a "darker and more mature" story lost their courage in the face of poor testing with families. the darkest moments end up getting played for laughs in a way that's not only tone-deaf but sort of morally troubling, and the tale proceeds more or less by the ancient device of "stuck? here just follow these will o'wisps to the next act"

I refuse to believe that Pixar focus-groups anything!!!!

The thing about deus ex machina is that it's an inextricable feature of fairytales, which is squarely what Brave is working in.

I'll grant the moral hazard argument, but to me this is definitely competent boutique Pixar, and while my taste level is probably devolving precipitously, I loved this film and am willing to overlook its ethical shortcomings.

this movie doesn't deserve 3/4 of the criticism it's getting.

so what is the big dumb twist that everyone is hating?

she's actually a robot and the robot is male

This is hilarious. Clueless American railing against the oppression and stereotyping of the Scots in Brave.

But the thing about setting this story in some magical version of historical Scotland, in addition to disappearing Scottish people of color, is that it allows the gatekeepers of the Patriarchy to keep telling themselves—and everyone else—that the lack of true freedom for girls and women is a thing of the past.

yeah this is a little bit much

Scottish people of color

Would love to know who they think these people are. There were a lot of Indian sub-continent people came over in the 1960s, and a decent handful of Chinese from about the same era, maybe slightly earlier. That's it.

the argument is that setting this story in "olden times" is motivated (partly) by the will to exclude those people.

This is hilarious. Clueless American railing against the oppression and stereotyping of the Scots in Brave.

― I found him in a Bon Ton ad (Nicole), Tuesday, June 26, 2012

oh dear. i just. sigh.

her undergrad humanities faculty really owes us all an apology. if not ritual suicide.

In other news, talking bears don't exist in the modern world.

so what is the big dumb twist that everyone is hating?

SPOILERS if you don't want to know the twist:

merida's mom, the queen, is transformed into a bear by a spell merida buys from a witch. a lot of the humor comes from her continuing to have very proper mannerisms, only she's a giant hulking bear.

On the Merida hairpiece sold to children:

I can't help but notice the wig is labeled "Merida's Wig," as if she too can just take off her hair when she's done playing "other."

Dear Disney: that's not "Merida's Wig." It's Merida's hair.

weird how this good-not-great movie is being interpreted as the possible herald of pixar's decline, considering how poorly cars and cars 2 were received. so they're allowed to be middling, but not actively bad?

i thought this was really good, if not thrilling. i have no desire to see it again anytime soon, which, with the exception of cars (i never saw cars 2), might be the first time i've ever said that after seeing a pixar movie for the first time.

weird how this good-not-great movie is being interpreted as the possible herald of pixar's decline, considering how poorly cars and cars 2 were received.

Might have something to do with it being the first film with a principal protagonist that's female.

Scottish people of color

Maybe she's thinking of the Black Irish?

A lot of the reviews of Cars 2 seemed to be of the "actively bad" variety, but maybe it is more the case that Cars 2 hit what it was aiming for, and this misses?

Maybe she's thinking of the Black Irish?

i think that's the case. the rest of it is bs but (i'm assuming everyone in this movie is white) the all-fantasy-characters-must-always-be-white thing is a legit/common issue anyway.

"so they're allowed to be middling, but not actively bad?"

whoa i meant to say this the other way around.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/brave-new-hair/

Reticulating splines

Wow, what a tonally muddled misfire that was. Even my kids were kind of meh.

"Enchanted" >>>>>>>>>>>>"Brave"

Two more things, while this is still fresh. Didn't the movie go through a couple of directors, the first female, the second male? Might that have had something to do with its off vibe, let another its thematic ambivalence? People I respect cite the film's strong message, or feminist underpinning or whatever, but I don't really see it. It's all a jumble of themes, none brought to satisfying fruition.

Also, I got a lot of "How to Train Your Dragon" vibes, too, and like "Enchanted," "How to Train Your Dragon" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>"Brave."

(Another aside: how do you focus group/test screen CGI films when it's almost impossible to change them once the story is locked? It's not as simple as reshoots.

So they're allowed to be middling, but not actively bad?

Cars II never seemed like it was supposed to be part of Pixar canon. It was like just a direct to Dvd movie, a greatest hits album to keep the label happy while you take your time in the studio creating a Sgt. Pepper. To have their next "real" movie be a disappointment is discouraging.