Brave
or
The Bear and the Bow
or
Change Your Fate
or
The Great Black
or
The Bear King
or
Mor’du
Plot
Brave is the 12th Pixar film which was released in 2012. Set in Scotland in the 1000’s, the story follows the teenage Princess Merida who is being forced to pick a husband by her mother and father. Merida refuses and with the help of a witches spell, she changes her mums view on the situation, just not in the way she expected she would.
The story was inspired by Brenda Chapman’s relationship with her own daughter Emma.
Release
Brave was released back in 2012.
This is, currently in 2017, the only Pixar feature film where the protagonist is a female, she is also the first and only non Disney character to be included in the Princess line.
Cast
Brave is set in Scotland so obviously you would pick Scottish people to voice the characters and that it was the Pixar team has done. Merida is voiced by Kelly Macdonald, originally Reese Witherspoon was going to voice Merida but she had to decline the offer due to time conflicts it would have created with other work. Merida’s father Fergus is voiced by Billy Connolly, and her mother Elinor is voiced by Emma Thompson whose mother is Scottish.
All three of clan leaders were Scottish with Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid from Harry Potter) voicing Lord Dingwall, Kevin Mckidd voicing the Lord and young MacGuffin and Craig Ferguson voicing Lord Macintosh.
Kevin Mckidd was especially happy to take on this role because it was the first time that he would be able to use his natural speaking voice for a role and it gave him the chance to speak the misunderstood dialect of Doric which is spoken in the north east of Scotland that his grandfather spoke in.
In fact, the only non Scottish voice actors are Julie Walters who voiced the witch/woodcarver and John Ratzenberger who voiced Gordon the Guard. He was specifically chosen to be in the film because he is in every Pixar film, he is there good luck charm. It is because of this Scottish accent that it is one of Ratzenberger’s most unrecognisable roles.
The triplets, Merida’s brothers (only Princess who has biological siblings) are called Harris, Hubert and Hamish and don’t speak throughout the movie, so don’t require a voice actor.
Merida
Pixar really didn’t want to create the stereotypical princess that you normally scenes so they made some deliberate choices when designing her look and giving her a personality and role in the film.
They specifically gave her the big, curly and unbrushed hair for a couple of reasons, firstly to be a strong comparison to her mother Elinor’s brushed and perfectly braided hair and because it is a way to show her personality. Merida isn’t concerned about her appearance, she is more busy riding through the forest shooting arrows rather than brushing her hair. In order to create realistic hair movements they created a new computer program as the old one was roughly 25 years old and needed updating. It was named Taz, after the Looney Tunes character, to develop more realistic animation of her hair because before the computer programme just made her hair bounce which looked unnatural. Instead the new programme allowed for her 1500 different strands of hair, that were copied again and again to move and look like real hair. In the end she had over 100000 hairs. This really was a hairy film.
Her outfit too reflects her personality, whereas Elinor has a very beautiful flowing, and layered dress, Merida’s is tighter so as not to get in the way during activities and with space for her to move her elbows freely for shooting.
Another thing they wanted to show the audience was Merida mucking out Angus’s stalls to show that not all Princesses are afraid of hard work and getting messy. May I just point out that Cinderella, before she met the prince, had to cook and clean for her stepsisters and step mum, Mulan had to learn to become a warrior and defend her country and Tiana is possibly the most hardworking person in all Disney and Pixar films, so don’t go thinking she is the only princess not afraid of getting mucky.
Merida is the first Princess to not have a love interest, however this wasn’t going to be the case, there was a scene that was cut from the film where she shows interest in the young MacGuffin, they bond over Merida showing him how to shoot an arrow. Pixar decided not to complicate the film so they took this out and kept it about a mother daughter relationship.
Due to the fact that Merida is 5ft 4inches tall, and that her mother in bear form is 9ft when standing, they couldn’t easily be in a scene together so on occasion they would have to sink Elinor into the floor, in order for both characters to be seen on screen. This isn’t that uncommon, they had the same problem and use the same solution with Woody and Buzz in Toy Story.
Mor’du and Mamma Bear
From the beginning the bad bear in the film was called Great Black, then when crew went to Scotland they found out that it translated to Gaelic is “Mor Dubh” which they obviously thought sounded right as they ended up naming the bear “Mor’du”.
There is a short film titled The Legend of Mor’du which you can see on Disney Life or on the DVD of Brave which gives more of a back story to Mor’du.
When Mor’du dies at the end of the film you see that he has turned into a will o’ the wisp, which explains to the audience that they are spirits of the dead. (More on this later).
Bears have been done repeatedly in animation from Winnie the Pooh, Brother Bear, The Jungle Book and a lot more, so Pixar needed to find a way to make a different kind of bear that wouldn’t echo these bears. They decided to go down the route of making a realistic looking bear so they looked at Polar, Grizzly and Kodiak bears for research.
For the audience to remember that Mamma Bear is actually Queen Elinor they needed to keep several qualities, for example they made her a very sleep, smooth and elegant bear with the same brown eyes as she did when she was human.
One change between Elinor knowing she is a bear and her becoming an actual bear is the position on her head and whether she is standing or on all fours. So when Mama Bear is aware she is Elinor she is standing and her head is held high, when she is a bear and thinking she is a bear she is very low to the ground.
The Pixar Team and The Crazy Things You Do When Making A Film
When creating the film, the process takes many years and one way that Mark Andrews the director wanted to motivate his team was to invent kilt Fridays which is exactly what it sound like. Silly, but fun and gave the desired effect. Also important to note here that the animators were aware that kilts were not a thing in Scotland back when this film is set, but the animators wanted to include this iconic clothing so they decided to overlook this fact.
Another silly thing they did was throw dirt at each other to see how it would stick to the skin and different kinds of clothing.
In order to animate realistic fight scenes the animators first learnt the choreography of all the fights, including using props like the swords. Mark Andrews came up with the choreography of Fergus’s fight with the clan leaders all by himself through this process.
Easter Eggs
The pizza planet truck originating from Toy Story can be spotted as a woodcarving in the witches house along with a carving of Sulley, which is the basis of many fan theory’s stating that the witch is really Boo/Mary Gibbs from Monsters Inc.
Next time you get a chance, look closely at the title of the film, hidden in the B is a wood carving of Merida and in the E there is a wood carving of Elinor.
Have a look in Merida’s room, you might notice a chess set, this is the well recognised Lewis Chessmen that were discovered in 1831 in Scotland. They can be seen when Elinor is explaining the story of the four brothers.
After the credits the witches crow arrives to deliver all of the wood carvings that Merida bought in order to get the spell from the witch. This is currently only the third Pixar movie to have a scene after the credits. The other two are Finding Nemo and Cars. However I believe that Cars 3 may have a surprise ending, it came out this week and I haven’t seen it yet.
During the fight scene, this isn’t really an Easter egg but it’s something interesting to look out for, and that is the flying sheep.
A113 is in the film, but it’s a bit sneaky because it is written in roman numerals and it is found above the door on the inside of the witches house. Honestly, I would have never realised that it was there, or that it was that if someone hadn’t told me. Also in the witches house, something else that I would have never spotted is a wood carving on a box of the late Joe Ranft. Joe was an employee at Pixar who was there from the beginning, he voiced Heimlich from A Bugs Life and Wheezy from Toy Story 2. He was also a story writer, sadly though he passed away in 2005 after a car accident. Joe was only 45 at the time.
Elinor’s outfit when she is human includes a belt which at the front creates a hidden Mickey.
Steve Jobs
If you didn’t know Steve Jobs was the creator, co-creator or CEO of quite a few big named companies including Apple, NeXT and Pixar which is why when he died in 2011, the Pixar team decided to dedicate this film to him. Several websites have said that Lord Macintosh was named as a reference to Steve Jobs as it the name of an apple, however this could just be a coincidence as Macintosh is also a well known Scottish surname. However one of the more of obvious nods to Steve Jobs is that Merida is constantly being interrupted being interrupted while eating an apple and this is the only thing we see her eat during the movie.
When at the end of the movie we see that this movie is dedicated to Steve Jobs a Will o’ the Wisps appears and glides over the writing, just like they did with Mor’du, this is a representation of how Steve Jobs has passed on but spirit is still around to guide others.
Deleted Scenes and Changes
They created so much footage for this film, there is over 100 deleted scenes which is why some of the scenes in the trailer are never seen in the film. You can see the full unseen scenes on You Tube.
There were several different ideas for how to introduce this movie, one was going to show several hands working together to create the tapestry that Merida would eventually go on to slice with her sword. I think this scene would have been good to show, not necessarily as the opening seen but just to show how important the tapestry is to the family.
Another introduction was going to show a cloaked Merida trying to escape from the castle to go riding and shooting arrows, then upon her sneaky return to her room she would be caught by Queen Elinor.
A different possible beginning was going to have Elinor explaining the history of their clan to Merida. The last possible opening was going to show Fergus’s fighting with Mor’du.
It was decided to scrap the scene showing Elinor’s transformation into the bear and just portray it with shadows because they believed that if they showed the actual change, the audience would become confused and believe that Elinor was turning into Fergus and no one would want that.
The entire film was going to take place in the snow, but when Brenda Chapman, one of the writers for Brave was removed from the film, the snow left with her.
One thing that I’m really happy that they changed about the story was that Merida was going to have to marry one of the three older men, luckily though they realised how wrong it would be for Merida to marry a full grown adult male, instead they gave the men sons all who were the same age as Merida which is much more appropriate.
It ended up that Merida didn’t show any interest in any of the sons but it was planned that she was going to have a moment with the young MacGuffin as they would bond over shooting arrows.
Awards
In 2013 Brave received an award for the best animated feature.
Bits and Bobs
If you listened to Elinor’s story about the four sons whose father dies and decides to split his kingdom into 4 sounds familiar, well that’s because it is based on the French ruler Clovis who split France, back then Gaul, into 4 parts, one for each of his sons, however in this story there are no bears.
The stones where Merida where Merida sees the Will o’ the Wisps are called the Callanish standing stones and are found on the Isle of Lewis, they are a real thing you can see in Scotland and are one of the oldest mysterious of the area.
Kelly MacDonald, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters and Robbie Coltrane have all appeared in at least one of the Harry Potter films.
Disney Inside 
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