Pixar's Brave

Pixar's latest film, Brave, hit theatres last Friday,  and as of this writing it holds the number one in the box office, making 66.3 Million dollars. But, it also has a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes right now... 1% less than Madagascar 3. (You know... Circus Afro. The one with that song...)
How on earth is this possible? I mean, just two years ago, Pixar put out Toy Story 3, which rocketed to the top of IMDb's animated movies list as the number one animated movie of all time, beating out Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away! How could this happen?

Well, here's a quick run down... This section is spoiler free, and there will be a warning when spoilers are coming.


First off, Brave is an absolutely beautiful movie. Everything is rich in detail, and the animation is of course fantastic. (Not that we actually have a baseline for bad animation...) Brave is a great sight, and is quite enjoyable to watch as well. You'll have fun, and you'll end up liking it like the vast majority of Pixar's other works. The problem with the movie is the after taste... And what I mean by this is, when you start to think about the movie after you've seen it... Your opinion starts to shift... And this is due to the story, and a certain character...



Spoilers beyond this point. But I'll give a quick summation for those who don't want to read the nitty-gritty of the review:
Go see Brave. It is a good movie, and worth your money. Treat it like you would Independence Day or any other popcorn movie, and enjoy the ride.


SPOILERS!!!!!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






Brave has 4 plots running at the same time, each vying for the spot as the main story-line. We are introduced to two of them right at the start:
1. The relationship between Merida, the main character, and her mother, Elinor, who is the queen of Scotland- Ireland- She's the queen of Landland; and as such Merida is the princess.
2. Mor'du, the immortal bear. In the opening scene, it attacks Merida and her family, and her father, Fergus, fends it off. It ends up taking his leg for the trouble. (Off-screen of course. Can't be any blood in a film that features swords, pikes, or bow and arrows.)

Then, after a brief exposition by Merida about fate, we are shown a montage of Merida's daily routine in being trained to be a princess, and later a queen. Of course, Merida, being the free-spirited warrior girl she is, doesn't like this. She prefers to ride her horse through the glen and practice her bow and arrow shooting, and endanger her life climbing a giant rock in a dress (or at least I think she was wearing a dress at the time... You'd think I'd remember if she wasn't wearing one) to drink from a waterfall. This is primarily to show that she's brave, and living up to the title...
But, in the next scene we get another plotline:
3. The clans are coming together for a competition to see who's son gets to marry Merida.

Merida, being the rebellious princess archetype, doesn't want to get married, and thus uses a loophole to try and make it so that she doesn't have to...
You see, she gets to choose the contest that the suitors would compete in. Naturally she chooses Archery, and when all three have made their shots (one being lucky enough to hit the dead center of the target) she steps up the plate and beats all three of them, embarrassing all three of the clans. This is plotline 4...
4. Merida wants to change her fate. This plot doesn't actually get a resolution, and you'll find out why in a bit.
At this point, we are still in the first act. The first plot point isn't even here yet.

Needless to say, Elinor is furious with Merida. The two of them fight, and the problems with Merida start to seep to the surface... While neither one of them are really willing to listen, Merida comes across more as a whiny teenager, rather than someone with an actual problem. More-so when she, in a rage, calls her mother a beast, and rips a giant gaping hole in a beautiful tapestry depicting their family... That Elinor made. That a flashback reveals that she had been working on since Merida was a little girl. Elinor, in a similar rage, takes Merida's bow and throws it in the fire. Merida is distraught, and flees to run off into the forest... But, before we leave Elinor, she hears a twang in the fire place, and, realizing what she's done, quickly removes the bow from the fire place, hoping to save it... Only, the cord has snapped, and Elinor starts crying over what she's done to her daughter's bow...
Elinor has my sympathy. And it only gets worse form here folks...

Merida rides off into the glen, and, after calming down a little, follows some wisps to a witch's house... Your guess about what she's going to ask the witch for is likely wrong, because you expect something nicer than what she actually does.
You see... She doesn't wish for something to change her fate, or ask for something that would make it so that she wouldn't have to marry... Nope, she asks for a spell to change her mother. To change her fate.
Now, if this was a genie type of wish, where it is granted and we just don't see the effects of it until later, this might not make Merida look as bad. The fault would be on the witch for granting a wish that Merida could come to regret. But this is a Disney witch... Do you remember Snow White's Apple?
Yeah. The witch gives Merida a cake to feed to her mother in order to change her. To change Merida's fate.

So Merida returns to the castle with the cake, while Fergus is entertaining the clans with the bard song Mor'du. Merida prepares a tray full of food, akin to a breakfast in bed tray, to give to her mom... Her mother then runs into her in the kitchen. She has softened remarkably, and actually seems willing to listen to Merida, at least somewhat. But, Merida says she baked her a cake... as a peace offering... and Elinor takes a bite of the cake...
Now, this is a very, very unsympathetic action on the part of Merida. Now, a wish is a power you can't control. It forms from your desires in one moment of time, and you aren't thinking of the consequences. However, for poisoning someone, you have to be thinking about it every single second of time. Yeah, Merida poisons her mother. Why do I use the word poison? Well, let's just say that the witch was feeling less "Disney" and more "Valve's Team Fortress 2"
"Hey you shape-shifted into a dead guy!" -The Scout.
The witch could have done just that, given Merida a poison, and when Merida tries to complain simply say "You wanted me to change your mother. Well being dead is a change from being alive, isn't it?"
But nope, Elinor is turned into a bear. Only now are we getting into act 2...

They spend a long time, (and I do mean a long time, through several overly long comedic sequences...) getting out of the castle to go and find the witch and set things right... And it is at this point that the whole idea of Merida changing her fate is completely gone. Hell, it was probably her fate to poison her mother.
Merida and Elinor find out that they have to mend the bond in order to return Elinor back to normal... Obviously this means the bond between mother and daughter, but the characters never figure that out.

Act 2 is mostly shenanigans... There's a scene where they catch fish... Elinor is turning into a bear completely... They find an old castle that was in a legend told earlier (It's rather forgettable, like the villain that it forebodes) that has a broken tablet separating one member of the family from the others... And this gives them the idea that the tapestry has to be sewn to mend the bond. And they go to do that after an encounter with Mor'du. Oh, and Mor'du is immune to arrows, so Merida is fairly useless here.

 Then they sneak back into the castle... Emphasis on 'they.' They are sneaking Elinor the bear back inside the castle. Stupid isn't really accurate enough.
Inside Merida distracts the clans (who are so angry over what she did that they are wanting to go to war) while Elinor starts to sneak back upstairs... But Elinor lags behind to tell Merida through signs what to tell the clans so that she doesn't have to marry them.
But surprise surprise, bringing the bear back into the castle that is looking to kill a bear and hang its head on the wall isn't that wise, as Elinor is discovered. Fergus attacks, and Merida tries to stop him, unsuccessfully. Elinor escapes, and Fergus chases after, locking Merida in the room ala Cinderella. And like Cinderella, a couple animals steal the key for her and free her.
Then Merida rides on horseback to save her mom, and do a terrible job sewing the tapestry back together (scotch tape would've looked better.)

Just as Fergus is about to kill Elinor the bear, Mor'du attacks, forcing the clans to focus on it. Merida tries to shoot Mor'du, but like I said earlier, Merida is useless. Thus Elinor fights Mor'du, become the true definition of a mama bear. She fights him off, and crushes him under a mystical rock that frees a prince's wispy-souly-thingy.

Merida then apologizes to her mother, FINALLY stating that it was all her fault, as the deadline approaches for the spell and Elinor is still a bear.
But, after a few seconds of the sun being up, it is revealed that Elinor became human again. Thus the bond between mother and daughter is fixed and everyone lives happily ever after...


"Bear and the Bow" the working title for the movie, fits a lot better than "Brave."
Why?
Because Merida isn't brave! She doesn't do anything! She climbed a rock in the beginning, but that's the pinnacle of her bravery. Everything else is done by other people. Elinor kills Mor'du, her brothers enable their escape from the castle (both times), Elinor tells Merida what to say to make the clans see things her way... and, not to mention, Merida is worthless against Mor'du.
Merida... she is not a good character. She doesn't have any real desires... As her father puts it, "I don't want to get married, I want to let my hair flow free as I ride through the glen shooting arrows into the sunset!"
Yeah... She wants freedom, but isn't going to do anything with it. She doesn't have a goal, there is nothing she feels compelled to do...
And her personality... Ugh, petulant teenager is a fairly accurate assessment I think... She doesn't recognize the consequences of her actions, and doesn't actually take any real responsibility for them. (When her mother is turned into a bear, she blames the witch for interpreting her vague wish as something she didn't want.)

The story is a mess. The most prominent plot is the relationship between Merida and Elinor, but that story is full of padding and is fairly dull. The story that one would assume is the main one, the changing of Merida's fate, is forgotten about midway and abandoned. Mor'du's plot is fulfilled by a supporting character, not by the protagonist. And the most interesting plot, the one with the three clans, gets very little screen time.
The most amusing thing about this? There are four plots... and four people wrote the screen play. Gee, I wonder if four is too many... Or too little, considering that all four thought it was a good enough script to make into a movie.

The thing is, the movie has A LOT of ways one can repair it... Some simple changes, some big... But there are so many things they could have done...

First off, they could've given a reason why Merida didn't want to be married. Like, say that she didn't want to marry one of the clan leader's sons, and instead was more interested in a commoner boy whom she's friends with. That would be perfectly reasonable, and would make her actions much more sympathetic; instead of not wanting to marry in general, she would be fighting for who she wants to marry. It'd also make the scenes where she is arguing with her mother work better, since her mother truly isn't listening.
As it stands, Elinor is in the right 100% of the time in the movie. She is only doing what is right for Merida since she will one day end up being the queen and the ruler of Landland. But, if Merida had a love interest, then Elinor wouldn't be correct about what Merida needs, and our sympathy would stay with Merida.

Another way the movie could've been repaired without changing anything of the plot or the characters... would be to make Elinor the protagonist. She's the most sympathetic, and is the one character that does something and succeeds in it. Instead of the main character poisoning someone they should love, it is the main character being poisoned by someone they love. Sure it'd basically be Brother Bear... But Elinor is just the better character out of the two. Plus, it'd be the first queen protagonist in an animated movie.

But, altogether, the movie needs a different script. There are too many plots, and need to be changed or removed entirely.
Mor'du serves almost no purpose in the story. The prince that turned into Mor'du would've made a better villain than the bear. But, there is a way to keep this plot and make the movie better with it...

First off, remove all the other plots from the story, stick to one of them. I'll give details on how each one can be a full story, with all four of them revolving around Merida.


Let us start with Mor'du... Let's say that the beginning stays as is, minus the clans meeting and the wisps. Fergus loses his leg to Mor'du, and grows to hate him. Merida is being trained to be a princess, but she wants to be a hunter/warrior. To prove to her mother and her family that she shouldn't be the royal and prissy princess, she sets out to hunt down Mor'du. Her family finds out she's gone and they freak out, calling for the guards to go and help search for her in the woods.
Meanwhile, Merida is tracking Mor'du through the forest, using many survival skills to locate him. When she finds him, she is overconfident in her abilities and attacks him. She fails to kill him in one arrow, and he attacks. She barely gets away from him by the skin of her teeth, and she realizes she's way outmatched. So she starts thinking strategically, how she can attack Mor'du without being in danger...
The movie then follows from there, on how Merida figures out that just being a skilled archer/warrior isn't enough, that she needs strategy and allies...
In this story, Mor'du is a threat, and Merida has a goal in mind, that being the death of Mor'du and proving to her family that she isn't just a princess, but is in fact a ruler.


Now, the story that all the trailers and commercials and posters say is the real plot... The changing of Merida's fate.
Now, follow me on this completely, it will all make sense in time...
At the beginning, make Merida a boy. Have the plot follow the same (minus Mor'du and the relationship with Elinor), only make the clan leaders present their daughters instead of their sons. Boy!Merida protests this, as he isn't at all interested in marriage (Oddly enough a boy not wanting marriage is more acceptable than a girl... A terrible double standard I know, but just continue to follow me on this. This isn't the reason for the gender switch). He wants to be a warrior like his father was in the war, not like the King he is now.
So, Boy!Merida runs away into the forest like in the movie, and comes across the witch. He asks for a spell to change his fate, and she grants it. She gives him the cake like in the movie, and tells him to eat it after an hour, and his fate will change... He follows the witches instructions, and an hour later, he eats the cake, and falls asleep from the contents... when he wakes up, he is no longer Boy!Merida, but is now the real Merida. She freaks out, not expecting that at all, and goes to the witch to get her to correct it. Like in the movie, she tells Merida how to undo it, and like the movie it is to teach her a lesson that she disregarded... (This one being "one does not need to be strong to be a warrior." or something along those lines.) The solution to the curse is to locate three herbs to make the counter potion, and so she goes on an adventure to find them...
The genders can be inversed, starting out female and changed to a male... The reason why I chose start as male and end female is because then we are with female!Merida for the majority of the film, and see her as the girl and not the boy. It's a story thing, don't read too much into their meanings or the nitty-gritty.


Now the story the trailers promote... The four clans coming together... In this, there is an entirely different plot... The three clans aren't just coming together to find who will marry Merida, but also because an enemy nation is getting ready to attack Landland, and the clans need to be united. They thought the celebration and the marriage would bring them together, but Merida refuses the marriage (Insert a reason. She can't just object to marriage, especially not under this circumstance.) and ends up ruining the celebration, driving a wedge between the clans...
Then the enemy attacks the castle, and with the clans divided they are having difficulty in fending them off. But, then Merida enters the fight, and rallies the guards around her, and they fend off the attack. Her parents are angry that she risked her life, but are thankful the attack was ended... Merida decides then to unite the clans herself without the marriage, and goes to rally them.
They take some convincing, but they agree to unite under Merida's banner. In the end, Merida leads the armies into battle to protect the highlands... She fights bravely, but loses her leg in the battle, like her father.
As soon as the battle is over, and the enemy has been driven away, the clans hail Merida as a hero.


Do you note anything with those three suggestions? They all involve Merida being brave. If one of these was the story, the movie would have the right to be called Brave.


Now, again, Through all my nit-picking and insulting of the character flaws... Brave is a good movie. It has problems like any other movie, flaws that could be repaired if more though was put into the planning phase of the script... But it is still enjoyable. I'd say it is like Disney's Oliver and Company; a good movie, but not one you'd like to see often.




This has been Fixer Sue! Remember, if you disagree with what I've said, I'm just a Sue messing with your favorite story. ^^