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Brave is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated fantasy adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It was written by Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman, and Irene Mecchi, directed by Andrews and Chapman and co-directed by Purcell. The film's voice cast features Kelly Macdonald, Julie Walters, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane, and John Ratzenberger. To make the most complex visuals possible, Pixar completely rewrote their animation system for the first time in 25 years. It is also the first movie ever to use the Dolby Atmos sound format.

In Brave, set in the highlands of 10th century Scotland, a skilled archer named Merida defies an age-old custom, causing chaos in her kingdom. After consulting a witch for help, her family becomes cursed and Merida is forced to undo the spell herself before it is too late. Brave premiered on June 10, 2012, at the Seattle International Film Festival, and was released in North America on June 22, 2012, to positive reviews.

Preceding the film is a short film entitled La Luna, directed by Enrico Casarosa.

Plot

In Scotland, King Fergus of Clan DunBroch presents his young daughter Merida with a bow for her birthday. While practicing with the bow, Merida briefly encounters a will-o'-the-wisp as a giant demon bear named Mor'du attacks the family. Merida escapes along with her mother Queen Elinor while Fergus fights off the bear alongside his men at the cost of his left leg. Years later, Elinor has since given birth to identical triplet boys, and Merida has become a free-spirited and adventurous teenager. One night, her mother informs her she is to be betrothed to one of her father's allied clans: Dingwall, Macintosh, or MacGuffin. Despite her mother's attempts to appease her by telling her a legend of a power-hungry prince who broke off from his duty and caused the ruin of a kingdom, Merida is dissatisfied with the arranged marriage.

The clans arrive with their first-born sons to compete in the Highland Games for Merida's hand, and the princess chooses archery as the main event. During the competition, Lord Dingwall's son wins by accident. Entering the competition, Merida says that as the first-born of Clan DunBroch she is eligible to compete for her own hand, and later has a falling-out with Elinor. When Merida destroys a tapestry depicting her family and Elinor burns her bow, Merida flees to the forest. While there, the Will O' The Wisps lead her to the hut of an elderly witch who insists she is a wood carver. After some bargaining, the witch agrees to give Merida a spell, in the form of a cake, to change her mother.

Merida returns to the castle and gives Elinor the cake, transforming her into a bear. With the help of her brothers, Merida helps Elinor escape from the castle. The pair return to the witch's cottage, finding the witch gone for the season. Through a potion-controlled automated message, Merida discovers that the spell will be permanent unless undone by the second sunrise. The witch leaves Merida a riddle, mentioning that a pride-torn bond must be repaired. The next morning, Merida and her mother begin to reconcile their relationship while gathering fish and playing in a nearby river. However, Merida observes the spell to be slowly becoming permanent, transforming Elinor into a wild bear. The pair encounters the wisps again and follows them to ancient ruins, learning that Mor'du was once the prince of Elinor's legend, and received the same spell from the witch. After fleeing an attack from Mor'du, Merida theorizes that the repair of the tapestry will turn her mother human again and prevent her from becoming like Mor'du.

At the castle, the clans are on the verge of war because of Merida's actions, but the princess quells their fighting and declares that the children should be allowed to get married in their own time. Her suitors second her and the lords agree. Merida then sneaks into the tapestry room with Elinor, who once again loses her humanity for a few minutes. Fergus goes to his bedchambers to find Elinor, but mistakes her to be dead after seeing the room destroyed. Elinor attacks both Merida and Fergus when he steps into their room. On regaining human consciousness, she races out of the castle in desperation. Thinking that Elinor is Mor'du, Fergus detains Merida and follows her. With the help of her brothers, now transformed into cubs from eating the cake, Merida races after her father while fixing the tapestry. As the clan members and Fergus capture Elinor, Merida intervenes; however, Mor'du attacks Merida, Fergus and the clan members. Elinor kills Mor'du by luring him towards a broken masonry, setting the spirit of the prince free.

Merida places the tapestry over Elinor, professes her love for her mother and reconciles. Elinor is transformed back along with the triplets, and the family is reunited once again. A few days later, the clans depart for their respective lands and Merida and Elinor ride their horses together, sharing a closer relationship than before.

In a post-credits scene, the witch's crow asks a castle guard to sign for a delivery of bear carvings that Merida bought in exchange for the spell.

Voice cast

• Kelly Macdonald as Princess Merida
• Emma Thompson as Queen Elinor
• Billy Connolly as King Fergus
• Kevin McKidd as Lord MacGuffin and Young MacGuffin
• Craig Ferguson as Lord Macintosh
• Robbie Coltrane as Lord Dingwall
• Julie Walters as The Witch
• John Ratzenberger as Gordon, the guard
• Patrick Doyle as Martin, the guard
• Peigi Barker as Young Merida
• Steven Cree as Young Macintosh
• Callum O'Neill as Wee Dingwall
• Sally Kinghorn and Eilidh Fraser as Maudie
• Steve Purcell as The Crow

Non-speaking characters include Mor'du, Angus (Merida's horse), and Harris, Hubert, and Hamish (Merida's triplet brothers).

Production

Announced in April 2008 as The Bear and the Bow, Brave is Pixar's first fairy tale, and is somewhat darker and more mature in tone than its previous films. Brenda Chapman considers it as a fairy tale in the tradition of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. Chapman conceived the project and was announced as the director of the film, making her Pixar's first female director, but in October 2010, she was replaced by Mark Andrews following creative disagreements.

Merida is the first female protagonist in a Pixar film. She was originally to be voiced by Reese Witherspoon, who declined due to scheduling issues. Instead, the character was voiced by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald, recently acclaimed for her role as Margaret Schroeder in HBO's Boardwalk Empire.

John Ratzenberger (who is Pixar's "good luck charm") having been in every Pixar film to date, was cast in Brave, voicing Gordon, a guard in a Scottish accent.

The end credits include a special tribute to Pixar co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011.

Music

The film score to Brave was composed by Patrick Doyle. To bring some of Scotland's native flavor to the music, Doyle used native Scottish instruments such as bagpipes, a solo fiddle, Celtic harps, flutes and the bodhrán, with an electronically treated dulcimer and cimbalom to give it a more contemporary feel. "I employed many classic Scottish dance rhythms such as reels, jigs, and strathspeys, which not only serve the action but keep it authentic," said Doyle. Doyle had also written a drinking song for King Fergus and was traveling back and forth to Scotland for research. The composer has also been recording "unaccompanied Gaelic psalm singing."

Soundtrack

The soundtrack also features two original songs performed by Scottish Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis and written by Alex Mandel, and one original song performed by Birdy and Mumford & Sons. Walt Disney Records released the soundtrack on both CD album and digital download on June 19, 2012.

For the Spanish soundtrack, Indie-folk singer Russian Red performed the Spanish version of "Touch the Sky" (Volaré) and "Into the Open Air" (A la luz del sol).

Commercial performance

The album debuted at number 70 on the Canadian Albums Chart.

Track listing

All music composed by Patrick Doyle, except "Touch the Sky" (music by Alex Mandel, with lyrics by Mandel and Director Mark Andrews), "Into the Open Air" (music & lyrics by Alex Mandel), and "Learn Me Right" (music & lyrics by Mumford & Sons):

Release

The film was initially set for release on June 15, 2012, but was later changed to June 22, 2012. On April 3, 2012, Pixar screened the first 30 minutes of the movie, and it received a positive reaction by its screeners. The film premiered on the last day of the Seattle International Film Festival on June 10, 2012. It had its Australian premiere on June 11, 2012, at the Sydney Film Festival, and had its domestic premiere on June 18, 2012, at the new Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival, its European premiere was at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicilly on June 23, 2012 and its British premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 30, 2012.

In the United States and Canada, Brave is the first feature-length film to use the Dolby Atmos sound format. Almost half of the 14 theaters set up to show the film in Atmos are located in California (Burbank, Century City, Fremont, Hollywood, San Francisco, and Sherman Oaks), with the others located in seven states (Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Kansas City, Missouri, Paramus, New Jersey, Las Vegas, Nevada, Chicago, West Plano, Texas, Vancouver, Washington) and in Toronto, Ontario. It was released in other theaters with Dolby Surround 7.1. In total, it was released in 4,164 theaters, a record-high for Pixar, which was previously held by Cars 2 (4,115 theaters). 2,790 of the theaters will include 3D shows.

Reception

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 76% of critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.8/10 based on 162 reviews. The consensus statement reads, "Brave offers young audiences and fairy tale fans a rousing, funny fantasy adventure with a distaff twist and surprising depth." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 70 based on 26 reviews, or "Generally favorable." The film was also well-received among general audiences, earning an "A" CinemaScore.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and wrote, "The good news is that the kids will probably love it, and the bad news is that parents will be disappointed if they're hoping for another Pixar groundbreaker." He said that the film had an uplifting message about improving communication between mothers and daughters.

Peter Debruge of Variety gave a positive review of the film, remarking that the film "offers a tougher, more self-reliant heroine for an era in which princes aren't so charming, set in a sumptuously detailed Scottish environment where her spirit blazes bright as her fiery red hair." Debruge also said that "Adding a female director to its creative boys' club, the studio has fashioned a resonant tribute to mother-daughter relationships that packs a level of poignancy on par with such beloved male-bonding classics as Finding Nemo."

Conversely, Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said that the film "diminishes into a rather wee thing as it chugs along, with climactic drama that is both too conveniently wrapped up and hinges on magical elements that are somewhat confusing to boot."

Box office

The film has earned an estimated $108,002,000 in North America, as of June 29, 2012, and $13,500,000 in other countries, as of June 24, 2012, for a worldwide total of $121,502,000.

In North America, pre-release tracking suggested the film would open around $55 to $65 million in North America, which is slightly below average for a Pixar film. Tracking suggested the film didn't appeal to the male demographic, whereas the female protagonist was expected to draw females of all ages, and 3D was expected to boost earnings.

It opened on June 22, 2012 with $24.6 million. It finished its opening weekend with $66.3 million at the upper end of the numbers analysts predicted. This was the fourth-largest weekend in June and the fifth-largest for a Pixar film. Despite pre-release tracking indications, the audience was estimated to be 43% male.

Outside North America, the film earned $14.0 million from 10 markets on its opening weekend, finishing in third place behind Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and Snow White and the Huntsman. Its highest-grossing territory was Russia and the CIS, where it topped the box office with $5.37 million.

Video game

A video game based on the film was published by Disney Interactive Studios on June 19, 2012, for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC, and Nintendo DS. A mobile video game Temple Run: Brave (a Brave variation of Temple Run) was released on June 14, 2012 for the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android.

References

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6. Pixar Rewrote Their Animation System For The First Time In 25 Years For 'Brave' - Disney Vault
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40. Brave (2012) - Daily Box Office Results
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44. Brave (2012) - International Box Office Results
45. Rizvi, Samad (April 24, 2012). "Exclusive: A Chat With The 'Brave' Video Game Producer". The Pixar Times. Retrieved May 5, 2012.
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47. Tong, Sophia (June 4, 2012). "Temple Run: Brave announced, coming to iOS and Android devices". Games Radar. Retrieved June 4, 2012.

External links

• Official website
• Brave at IMDb
• Template:Bcdb title
• Brave at Rotten Tomatoes
• Brave at Metacritic
• Brave at Box Office Mojo

• 2012 films
• 2010s 3D films
• 2010s adventure films
• 2010s animated films
• 2010s fantasy films
• American 3D films
• American adventure films
• American coming-of-age films
• American fantasy films
• Computer-animated films
• Fictional bears
• Films about bears
• Films featuring anthropomorphic characters
• Films set in Scotland
• Films set in the Middle Ages
• Pixar feature films
• Shapeshifting in fiction
• Walt Disney Records soundtracks