Pixar’s Brave Trailer Has Arrived!

I have chills. Chills!

My in-laws and I have a running competition on who can take my daughter to the better movies.  We have to call dibs on movies we want.  Sometimes my wife and I get the better movie, sometimes her Mom does.  Even though they view the internet as a dark medium of mystical horrors, I am putting this comment here so I have it in writing that I call dibs on Brave.  If they argue I can show them this comment.  I haven’t been this excited about a Pixar movie since Wall-E (which btw, I called dibs on and they took her to see…thus the need to have dibs in writing).

Seriously, she has the best crazy hair. The fact that they weren’t afraid to animate it is brave in and of itself! Can’t wait!

I can’t wait for this movie!!!

Oh, you TOTALLY have dibs on this!!! Hope you can get your in-laws to read this online…

OH Myyyyyyyyyy.

This is without a doubt the best week to be sick. I get the Hunger Games and Brave trailers first!!!! I’m so excited for this movie!!

This looks freakin’ amazing!

There’s nothing even slightly original here.  Does that no concern any of you?  Not a single fresh idea or character.  I’m extremely disappointed.

LUV IT. And I can’t stop laughing at some of the jokes on there; good times!!! 

This looks like it’s going to be everything I hope it to be.

Though, I must say that I hope the bear really is an evil bastard and will have to be outfought and put down. That seems a bit more refreshing than it just being misunderstood and making friends with the heroes.

Hot damn.

this looks awesome but I can tell that much like How To Train Your Dragon I will spend a good portion of the movie being intensely distracted by all the meticulously animated hair. D:

I am so excited for this! I have goosebumps galore just watching it!

I’m literally trying REALLY HARD not to jump up and down in my seat. At work. I’m 33. *blush* :)

For some reason I was a little underwhelmed. I know the movie is still over half a year away, but this first preview didn’t sell me the way I hoped it would.

Dat hair

Nothing original? Do you know when the last time an animated movie (or really any movie) had a decent female protagonist?

Mulan. And that was in 1998.

Even if this isn’t “original” (I disagree) I think we can give it a pass two decades later.

Irrelevant question: Is there singing? Because I feel like that could ruin the atmosphere of it somewhat.

SQUEE!

So you’ll settle for crap to have a female protagonist? Okay.

Nothing? Please enlighten me – what’s the other movie about a tomboyish scottish princess who must choose between what she wants and what is right for her kingdom with a dash of magic and animation thrown in?
…No suggestions?
I thought so.

Okay, this looks amazing.

How was Rapunzel not decent? :(

It’s a Pixar movie, so most likely not.

Well, that looks pretty damned cool. Strong redheaded female protagonists are more than alright in my book.

My only “gripe” is I can’t work out how old she is. One minute she seems 10, the next she seems late-teens/early 20s, and it’s confuddling. Has it ever been stated or is that currently unknown?

It’s a movie about a girl who does something other than obsess over a boy. There’s no hint that she’ll fall in love with an incompetent manchild, sparkly douche, or the High School quarterback at the end. That’s not only original and fresh for Disney, it’s revolutionary for the entire damn industry.

I fail to see what you call “crap.” Especially because NOBODY HAS SEEN THE MOVIE YET. Wait to judge what is crap until you have seen ALL of it.
And no, just because a movie has a female protagonist doesn’t mean its ok to be a not so good movie. For example: Twilight – Female Lead + Crap = Bad Movie whereas with Brave – Female Lead + ??? = ???

Could be that the movie takes place over several years worth of time. 

Also, I’m super pumped to see this movie. I just hope and hope that there will be no love interest. I feel like having a love interest will completely undermine anything they do right because it will feel very much like, “You can be free and independent and awesome… But does that really matter if there isn’t a man?”

Print it. Then it’s on PAPER ;-)

I absolutely agree. I hope they won’t screw it up. I am ridiculously excited about this movie btw.

That’s not really original and fresh for Disney. 

Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Megora, Esmeralda, Pocahontas, Mulan, Jane, Tiana, Rapunzel… the self-liberating female protagonist has been a staple of Disney animated films for decades. While the details change, the basic foundation about being “a girl who does something other than [only] obsess about a boy” remains static. It’s this empowerment angle that has garnered both praise and disdain for Disney, yet seems to come as a surprise and novelty with each successive film.

That said, Brave looks interesting, but so far it’s no Secret of Kells. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.

Looks interesting. I get the sense she decides to NOT kill the bear based on what it shows in the trailer. :P Just a hunch. The trailer was kind of less than I expected but I still look forward to seeing the movie.

All of those characters you mentioned, with the possible exception of Mulan- Their ‘reward’ at the end of the movie was a guy. Well done, you saved the town/world/jungle but MOST IMPORTANTLY you got your man! Going by the trailer, this isn’t even a factor in Brave, and I’m really hoping that’s the case.

Could you break down what about it looks like crap to you? At the moment this is a baseless argument about opinions, otherwise.

What about Rapunzel? She got her family back, and she was free of the “curse” of her hair. Yeah, she did get a guy, but the romance was never as much a focus as it has been in other Disney films.

That is true enough. I suppose she’ll be about sixteen to eighteen for the most part, it’d allow her fit in with most protagonists from the Disney stable.

Yeah, actually, Rapunzel was pretty ok. I wish she’d cut her hair herself, though. Heal him, THEN cut it, daaang lady!

Very interesting trailer. First things first : it’s magnificent, and I adore those Scottish accents (I’ll let real Scotspeople decide if they’re sufficiently authentic or not).

Second thing : the whole beginning, plot-wise, makes the story look like a typical rebellious princess story (and I know I said that on the other thread, but seriously : “not your typical princess” because she isn’t into nice clothes and stuff is not revolutionary. I’ll give them that it might be slightly more revolutionary in animation than it is in written fiction, but that’s not saying much), but there are hints… Like the mother coming across as a smart woman who knows what she’s talking about, or that “changing your fate” thing at the end where she seems to hesitate in shooting that target… Of course God knows what she’s actually shooting at in that shot, so this is all very tenuous.

So color me intrigued.

(I should note that although “rebellious princess” has been done to death, it’s still a fun conceit and even if they played it straight, with that magnificent setting they’d have their work cut out for them to actually mess it up. So either way I’m totally looking forward to the movie)

Well… It’s AR (After-Rapunzel), so… :)

It concerns me a bit but I trust Pixar. I think that as far as the ability to tell a good story goes they’ve earned that trust over the years.

Oh, the accents!! I’ll see it for them and the flaming red hair alone. Though I can’t listen to Kelly McDonald’s voice without seeing her character from Boardwalk Empire.

It’s Pixar – who would doubt them? I can’t remember ever being disappointed by something they made.

I don’t suppose you could at least tell me what movie you think this is copying from?

Well… there’s “Jane and the Dragon.” It’s not a movie, it’s a TV show, and the heroine is an English lady-in-waiting not a Scottish princess… but she is a red-head tomboy who breaks with convention to become a knight. There’s lots of magic. And it’s animated.

I don’t know if I’d put Ariel in that list. She sold her voice to a sea-witch for legs, not to become a liberated female but to get closer to the prince.

But her getting closer to the prince wasn’t her initial, and underlying motivation. As expressed in “Part of Your World”, she wanted to get out and explore; to liberate herself from the traditional daughter roles that all of her older sisters kept to.  Eric just provided the manifestation or catalyst for this exploration; I think that her real connection/love to him only came after she spent some time with him and developed past the “love-at-first-sight” infatuation/illusion.

I don’t know that most importantly applies to most of these, though. Tiana got her restaurant. Esmeralda got her societal structure change (ridding Frollo from his persecuting the Roma). Pocahontas got her non-settling life; heck, she didn’t even ultimately get the guy.  

The getting of the guy hasn’t really been the primary aim of most protagonist Disney female characters, but they generally do end up with the ancillary benefit of also getting the guy. Much like Danny’s list in Cats Don’t Dance, getting the guy (or girl, in his case) wasn’t really on the list, but it happened anyway. BONUS!

And who among us wouldn’t like a relationship bonus on top of our accomplishing our dreams? 

There have been many female protagonists in animated movies since Mulan.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_feature_films

Pixar doesn’t do original.  Here are Pixar’s movies, and the stories they ripped off:

Toy Story — Velveteen Rabbit, Old Bear and Friends, Raggedy Ann & Andy, Corduroy, Winnie the Pooh, The Mouse And His Child, Babes in Toyland, The Indian In The Cupboard, Pinocchio etc. (toys that come to life)Monsters Inc. — Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Little Monsters (M Inc. is also a little like the Little Nemo stories).Cars — MGM Tex Avery toon “One Cab’s Family,” and “Little Johnny Jet”Ratatouille — add one part Ralph S. Mouse, and a dash of The Elves and the Shoemaker. Also, Rizzo the Rat is the chef, with help from his rat friends, at Pete’s Luncheonette in “Muppets Take Manhattan”Finding Nemo — typical animal journeying home, or animal separated from family story. Talking fish stories are typical in folklore. And the more recent “Pierrot Le Poisson Clown”WALL·E — Most people said Short Circuit, but I’ll go slightly obscure for ya: “For a Breath I Tarry’ by the great fantasy author Roger Zelazny. Also, the humans in the story remind me of Mojo from X-Men, and the Mad Magazine short bit called “Blobs” (though that was probably homage).Up — Above then Beyond. Also, search Seattle Times + Edith Macefield. Any number of stories involving balloons tied to something or a person to be swept away, Dug the Dog, and his single-minded fixations, is a rip-off of the talking dog from Dexter’s Laboratory.

phlpn.es/7x9vmd

It’s been said a few times, but I don’t think it looks like Merida is going to be treading new ground for a Disney female protagonist. Mulan, Pocahontas, Jasmine, etc. all had “young woman is repressed by parents/society, who are trying to force her into marriage/femininity” as a plot line. 

What I think would be really revolutionary is if Pixar didn’t present Merida as “not like other girls”, a trope which empowers the main character at the expense of putting all other women in a box of stereotypes. It would be revolutionary if Merida had female friends who were just as complex as her. The trailer does make it look like her mother will play a large part, which I look forward to seeing. A healthy mother daughter relationship, as opposed to an abusive one, or an essentially non-existent one, would be pretty fresh.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl FTL. Plus, more bloody Blonde Princesses.
(Okay, so didn’t hate Tangled. Particularly not frying pan moments. But it really didn’t rate with me at all.)

By that standard nobody “does original”. Of course Pixar stories will use motifs, plots, settings or characters that were done before. There is no such thing as total originality, and insofar as it exists it’s not enjoyable for the audience because you need something to hold on to. For example, the only reason you seem to have for Toy Story not being original is that “toys come to life” has been done before. Sure, yet all those examples you mention are very different in their tones, themes and plots. “Toys come to life” is a conceit, not a story, and just using that conceit isn’t enough to be labeled “unoriginal”. You have to show that conceit was used in an unoriginal manner.

I’d say Pixar is fairly original. Finding Nemo for example is different the typical “animal journeying home separated from family” story in that it focuses on the family member’s search for the lost child as much as the child’s own story. Up is also original with its main character being an old man dealing with grief and loss and dreams. WALL-E is stylistically and structurally different.

Besides “originality” is context-dependent, and look at the wide net you’re casting here. Pixar is a blockbuster movie company making blockbuster movies, the kind that everyone sees and become part of the language of popular culture. “Originality” here is measured against other blockbuster movies that are part of popular culture; I’d say ripping off an obscure Zelazny story and bringing it to the masses counts as “original” when they could just as easily have ripped off a well-known fairy tale.

I felt the major reward for Megara wasn’t ‘a guy’ but getting redemption.  She is one of the better female leads as she isn’t ‘good’ she has conflict and initially we doubt her motivations whereas with all the other Disney female protagonists (that I’ve seen), we don’t think for one second about whether or not they are in the right, they are usually oppressed in some way and we feel that they are the wronged party. 

Not so for Meg. 

I can’t wait to take my will be 7yr old to see it. However, would it be too much to ask for a major movie storyline to have a kick a** female main character in amazing story and not go though the whole “oh your a girl rebelling against society blah blah blah? I would rather my daughter see a strong well written female lead solving her own and the world problems as normal and not the exception to the rule. We can only watch Matilda, Nausicaa, and Coraline so many times.