Info and thoughts on “Brave” (previously “The Bear and the Bow”)

Witches, a kingdom in danger, and a dark curse… oh my! The Pixar crew are  at it again! Scheduled to release on June 15th, 2012 “Brave” brings you into  the life of a young princess, Merida (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), who  dreams of a greater purpose in life than just mere royalty. Young Merida  wishes to prove herself as an archer rather than as a princess. A wrong  choice leads Merida on a adventure to save her father’s kingdom and even  her mother’s life. Through Merida’s quest she proves herself to be a brave  young girl that can set things right, even when up against forces of nature, magic, and even a dark, ancient curse.

Brave seems to focus specifically on humans as their main characters, unlike previous Pixar movies, which makes me wonder how this movie will compare to past movies. Sure, this won’t be the first production that will feature humans, there’s the secondary characters in TS1, 2 and 3 like Andy Davis and his family, incredibles, and up, but majority of Pixar’s movies have characters that are animals as well as inanimate characters. Pixar has been able to make toys, fish, monsters, even cars and robots come to life. I am just curious to see how Brave stands up to Pixar’s movies of the past with this different approach of having humans as main characters, I know it will be just as good, if not better than Up, and the Incredibles. I am very excited to see Brave, and surely will be as excited as a little kid in a candy store sitting in that movie theatre on opening night.

Brenda Chapman, who also worked on The Prince of Egypt, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, was originally to direct this work of art, but was replaced by Mark Andrews, who also directed the Pixar short, One Man Band (attached to Finding Nemo 2003). Brenda Chapman would have been Pixar’s first female director in the company’s history. This change came as a suprise to me, since Brenda Chapman wrote and developed Brave, it would have been a great feat for Chapman to have been the first female director in Pixar’s history, which brings me to wonder why Pixar made this change. This was decided obviously in the best interest of the movie, and Pixar’s impeccable reputation was surely not at stake in this major change.

This switch in directors that took place in mid-production caused much controversy against Pixar with claims of sexism. My opinion? Of course I do not know the reasons behind Pixar’s change in plans, but I do know one thing: Pixar is most certainly not sexist. Pixar has proven themselves to be wholesome, and respectful towards sexes and different races alike. Very few know what goes on inside the great minds of the big wigs in charge at Pixar who made this change, but the company, itself have proven themselves to not be sexist or racist. Take the production “Up” for example, which featured a cute, lovable, little boy of Asian descent. Russel was portrayed in a non-discriminative way. I know that those in charge at Pixar would never make a major decision just out of selfish reasons discriminating against sexes. So yes, I do disagree with those who spoke out against Pixar negatively in response to the replacement of Brenda Chapman.

Disclaimer: Little has been released by Disney about the plot of this film, and Brave is still a work-in-progress so information above referring to the plot of Brave are subject to change.