Brave -- Pixar's 2012 release

wow, how shitty was this. what a terrible, terrible film.

sort of Cars for girls I guess. tons and tons of talking, no honesty, would be explorations of gender roles that pivot in on themselves foolishly, bad emotional manipulation, ugly anachronisms, LOOK A BAD GUY. The real shame is that somewhere in this would-be-Tangled mess there's a really compelling, complex myth: mom loved you and was your advocate and now she's being lost, becoming an unknowable beast and mom and dad are going to kill each other over you and you're to blame. Real interesting opportunity and they piss it away on bad shuck and jive and musical montages. Deeply disappointing. Probably my new least favorite pixar.

really wish i couldn't point at and blame steve purcell but i think he's somewhat culpable here.

utterly disposable secondary characters. inappropriate comedy pieces thrown in at the wrong moments. out of control pacing. a "time for the audience to cry" scene that felt devoid of feeling. forced character development. you can absolutely see where this thing got beat to pieces in rewrites and lost its heart.

the opening cartoon was, per usual, utterly wonderful but man i left this all but furious.

stupidly predictable plot twists. one of the best things about pixar is that they always step to the table smarter and more considered of their story than you are. This is the first time I saw the entire third act in my head before it played out. so much audience pandering!

I wonder, though, whether any of the foregoing critics who’ve tolerantly yawned at Pixar’s latest effort could name a Disney princess besides Mulan whose mother is alive, let alone named.
It’s almost as if the critics have missed the constitutive element of the Princess Story in its capacity as cultural and commercial myth. As if the omnipresent witch/evil stepmother doesn’t capitalize on precisely that fictional hole—the vacuum left by an absent mother. e.g. Bambi, Star Wars, Star Trek, Hugo, you name it.

And yet, in Brave, there is a live mother, named and all. And then a remarkably boring thing happens: this interloping mother who has no place in this ordinary, predictable princess story suddenly becomes central to it. She gets turned into something that keeps on getting misread as a monster, something her loving and well-meaning husband has dedicated his life to tracking down and killing for the sake of his own story, which is built around victory and revenge.

It’s a bit as if, having heard the word “princess,” the reviewers all stopped listening and missed Brave’s real project, which is to quietly but determinedly recuperate the “princess story” from some of the qualities for which it’s been so universally condemned.

From this review, which I'm still read ATM.

*reading

I'll read that but can't help but think that the intention of this is less important than the impossibly flawed way it was presented

If you mean that you found the execution of the narrative poor (a notion which I disagree with vehemently), I'm not sure you'll be persuaded...

yeah i did and no i wasn't

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/sep/06/disney-challenges-uk-film-company-misleading-releases

I've seen this twice now and I have to say I think I adore it

It's not perfect by anymeans, and it's sorta clunky...but the first time I saw it the mother/daughter schism storyline just really threw me for a loop. I was not really expecting it and it really delivered on a v emotional level for me.

Definitely harkened back to my early teens and the hard-fought road my mother and I had to come to the friendship that we have now. Even more so her and my sister.

Not that you have to be a daughter to get it but that is a story that was definitely written by a mother, no question. I still got very weepy on my second viewing, so I guess I can't even really talk about whether this was 'good' or 'bad' because all that deep emotional heartstring tugging makes me an unabashed fan of this movie.

Also it has an added bonus of giving me an excuse to walk around for the rest of the day saying everything in a terrible Scottish accent. HAV YA SEEN BRRRREEEEVVVE, IT'S GRRREEEEEET :D

Most people that behavior = automatic groin punch, but for you we'll let it slide.

(The accent thing, not the emotional stuff.)

OCH, HAVIN' FEELINS ARE YE, WE'LL TAKE CARE O' THAT, LASSIE!

http://www.tmnttoys.com/reviews/misc/mortalkombat/series2and3/2410.jpg

Despite my mother being from Glasgow I am completely incapable of doing a Scottish accent. Not even a terrible one!

I liked the mother/daughter issues in Brave, but thought the bear part of the story a big distraction/goofy/annoying.

aw I kinda liked the bear stuff. Like all those fairytales I read as a kid. And I got lols out of Queen Mum learning how to eat and catch fish, all that guff

OCH AYE I deserve the groin punch, Phil, ME LADDIE

My daughter loves the bear stuff, so I am probably in the minority. I think she is slightly resentful towards me for not turning into a bear.

lol

Bear stuff is necessary for the Brechtian alienation effect that facilitates the reconciliation, no?

Ergo, find a bear costume.

count me in as loving the bear stuff and finding the rest to be subpar Dreamworks-level. the physical animations alone for those bits!

i suppose i shouldn't be surprised theres no ilx consensus on this, but i thought there was one and only one conclusion to make after watching this movie: disney has taken over pixars animation infrastructure for their own megamarketing purposes, and replaced pixar's excellent writers their own lame princess-story-factory hack department. ugh, and those lame songs they kept randomly inserting for no good reason except to sell cd's of the stupid soundtrack! i mean, how exactly was this movie any different from every other 90's-and-on disney princess movie ever made? do we really need to turn pixar into disney II?

i mean, ok ok, brave wasn't the worst movie i've ever seen. i liked the queen-trapped-in-a-bears-body stuff at least. but this seemed sub-sub-par for pixar, even compared to cars 2. sigh. pixar films have been a yearly dose of awesome for like a decade now, and i'm v sad to think it's all shot to hell now

:_:

1000% how i felt

eh i think the problem with brave had more to do with problems at the top wrt shifting roles and direction? the director got canned halfway thru right

also 50% of the complaints would've been calmed by keeping the original title (the bear and the bow) and NOT hiding the fact that the movie is about a bunch of fucking bears in the commercials

Yeah it's nothing to do with Disney. Change in directors was quite a shift. I liked that they kept the bear bits out of the trailer!

the fact that Brave isn't universally liked makes me wonder about the Animated Feature Oscar category this year. I enjoyed Brave and really liked the mother/daughter emphasis, but at the same time I'd love to see ParaNorman win and Laika get some recognition + prestige boost.

and replaced pixar's excellent writers their own lame princess-story-factory hack department. ugh, and those lame songs they kept randomly inserting for no good reason except to sell cd's of the stupid soundtrack! i mean, how exactly was this movie any different from every other 90's-and-on disney princess movie ever made?

i like how the word "princess" is repeated twice here

i must admit i haven't seen much pixar but since I've seen Toy Story, Up and most of the Incredibles - supposed highpoints the more mouth-foaming "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY PIXAR?" complaints seem really dubious.

like, is there someone who doesn't like brave compared to other mother/daughter movies? or is it just dudes who are like WHAT'S A PRINCESS DOING IN MY MAGICAL SEMI-SILENT CHILDHOOD SHIT?

if you're going to clown on this for being a re-tread of old disneys, the princess comparison is hardly the one to make -- disney has literally already done a movie where someone gets turned into a bear!

Xp nah, because Tangled was actually really good as Disney princess stuff goes, much better than Brave.

"not as good as tangled" is possible, never seen it.

though that's one of those "old witch hates young beauty, young beauty teams up with action dude" movies, right? mom dies in the first reel?

again, i feel like most of the people mad at brave couldn't give half a fuck about the aspect fans seem to like the most

forks upthread actually sheds a tear for the wasted mother/daughter story, but he seems disappointed with every aspect of brave to a ridiculous extreme, i.e.

stupidly predictable plot twists. one of the best things about pixar is that they always step to the table smarter and more considered of their story than you are.

toy story ended with the moral that you have to be nice to your toys, basically equating an irreverent but creative kid with dr mengele. up ended with a character being made into a threatening murderer just so they could have an action climax. it's a credit to these films that i didn't predict how they'd end, because they were shitty endings.

i'm also under the impression that most people like the first half of wall-e way more than the second

tangled has its own weird mother/daughter issues, as the witch is pretending to be rapunzel's mother and has raised her from infancy, but is of course selfish and evil and doesn't have her best interests at heart. but the witch's selfishness is played for laughs at the beginning (she's modeled after a broadway diva), and rapunzel is frustrated by her life but pretty tolerant of her mother as a person, so it's kind of jarring when the end of the movie gets all traditional and trope-y -- kidnapped princess realizes she's been kidnapped, "defeats" evil fake mother, lovingly reunites with parents she's never known, etc. a friend of mine hated the movie because she thought the message was irresponsible, like "defy your overbearing mother because she's probably evil and entrust your safety to strange dudes."

croup i get where you're going with this but imo the real tragedy of brave is that there is a genuine and powerful mother/daughter story buried under a pile of cheap hackwork, and the final cut seems to genuinely believe that the hack crap is the Important Part.

but "cheap hackwork" compared to what? there's definitely a lot of broad comedy (and i personally like how every dude in this movie is an obnoxious but well-intentioned oaf) and familiar climax, but christ, how "tragic" is that?

i'll admit i'm a pixar agnostic but i really don't see how the sillier aspects of this make it such a horror compared to the movie where a rat teaches a critic that you can't judge art

comparison would be stronger if you'd gone with the second half of up or wall-e. ratatouille is a masterpiece and the lack of any distinctive vision is exactly what's wrong with brave.

(nb i'm a brad bird stan tho i'd also concede he's never topped the iron giant and i'd grudgingly take brave over his sole venture into live action)

alright i admit i haven't seen ratatouille (though i already ref'd up and wall-e), in part because the message seems gross. in general i'd rather see a kid's movie that lacks "distinctive vision" if it's funny, touching and doesn't have a weird agenda

cool just sayin' the princess angle is not the problem bravewise and history will judge it only slightly more kindly than Cars 2

may not be your problem, but dude there are PLENTY of reviews that suggest many a guy's unsympathetic reaction to brave has something to do with not being able to tell the difference between an affecting mother/daughter story and the "princess angle" - just a little up this thread even - i mean, how exactly was this movie any different from every other 90's-and-on disney princess movie ever made?

hrmph that is a bit damning. i stand corrected :p

croup, you seem kinda focused on the plots and MORALS (which are basically where pixar plays to the kids) as opposed to the craftwork, turns of emotion (the mom in incredibles telling her kids they could be killed, the first ten minutes of up, the moment of joined community before the inferno in toy story 3) and occasional worthwhilesubtext

"princess" is shorthand in some ways for "underdeveloped and unrealized character aspirations masquerading as empowered heroines"; it's a disney hallmark and not unrealistic to want to lump this in with those many, many character driven animated films. I have no issue with strong female protagonists in cartoons; kiki and totoro jump to mind immediately. this is, again, wasted opportunity caked with multilayered bullshit when the company is capable of much better. frankly, you don't seem to much care for the studio or, to a lesser extent, the form so i'm curious why you're arguing your point so forcedly

brave's most meaningful "mother daughter relationship" moments actually happen when mom is a bear, so not sure how meaningful that really is.

anyways, i really disliked this film on a gut level.

it's ironic you're asking why i'm arguing so forcedly when you're throwing a million absurdities (brave's most meaningful "mother daughter relationship" moments actually happen when mom is a bear, so not sure how meaningful that really is - why would her form matter?) out and then copping to some "gut level" distaste for it. I really enjoyed the movie and it's getting a lot of bile that feels absurd and misguided.

also are you really arguing there's no "turns of emotion" in Brave, when plenty of people have said they felt affected by it? and i acknowledged the plots of earlier pixar films because YOU did, i literally cut and pasted your praise for pixar plots and contradicted from my own experience of them.