Brave

Brave is Pixar Animation Studios' thirteenth animated feature film. The film is written by Brenda Chapman and directed by both Chapman and Mark Andrews. It is produced by Katherine Sarafian. The score is composed by Patrick Doyle. The film was released on June 22, 2012.

Plot
In the Scottish kingdom of DunBroch, King Fergus presents his young daughter, Merida, with a bow and arrow for her birthday, to the discomfort of Merida's mother, Queen Elinor. During their outing, a giant bear named Mor'du, attacks the family with Fergus fighting off the bear while Elinor and Merida escape, at the cost of his left leg.

Years later, Elinor, who has since given birth to identical triplet boys, teaches Merida in the ways of the court. The princess is determined to practice her archery and explore the kingdom on her horse, Angus. The Lords Macintosh, MacGuffin, and Dingwall present their first-born sons to compete for Merida's hand. Merida chooses an archery challenge to determine her suitor. Lord Dingwall's son wins by accident, but Merida enters herself as first-born of DunBroch and shoots the targets over Elinor's objections. The two have a falling out, resulting in Merida destroying a sewn tapestry depicting the family and Elinor throwing her daughter's bow into a fireplace. Only after Merida leaves in tears does Elinor realize her mistake, tries to save the bow but it is already damaged, leaving her to cry over it.

Fleeing to the forest, Merida encounters a trail of Will O' the Wisps that lead her to an elderly witch's hut. Merida bargains with the witch for a spell that will change Elinor, thus changing Merida's fate. The witch conjures a tart for Merida to give to her mother. In DunBroch, Elinor eats the tart and later transforms into a bear. With the help of the triplets, Merida and Elinor sneak out of the castle past Fergus and the celebrating clans. The pair return to the witch's cottage, where they find a message left for Merida: the spell will be permanent unless undone by the second sunrise. The witch leaves Merida a riddle, mentioning that a bond must be repaired.

Merida teaches Elinor how to catch fish, and the two begin to reconcile, however Elinor for a brief period forgets who she is and acts like a real bear, nearly mauling Merida. They are led by more wisps to the ruins of an old castle. In the throne room, Merida finds a damaged stone engraving with three brothers; a fourth brother had been cut off, just like how Merida had cut her mother off of the tapestry. Merida realizes that the curse had happened before, that the wayward brother was transformed into Mor'du, and Elinor will lose all traces of her humanity like Mor'du if they do not break the spell. They travel back to DunBroch to sew the family tapestry back together. To distract Fergus and the lords, who are on the verge of war after impatiently waiting to know which suitor Merida has chosen, Merida brings the four factions back together and declares that the sons should choose their own brides. Fergus goes to their bedroom and finds Elinor's ripped clothes and broken bed, mistaking his wife for dead. He bursts into the tapestry room where he finds Merida and Elinor as a bear. Elinor, once again reverting to a normal bear, attacks Fergus, and after realizing she has harmed both Merida and Fergus, Elinor flees.

Merida tries to convince her father that the bear is Elinor, but Fergus detains her and sets off with the lords to capture the bear. Merida is freed with the help of her brothers, who have turned into cubs after eating the same tart, and the four follow wisps to where Fergus has captured Elinor. Merida defends Elinor by confronting Fergus, but Mor'du attacks the party. When the bear lunges for Merida, Elinor intervenes and battles Mor'du. Elinor tricks Mor'du into attacking a weakened stone pillar, which eventually collapses onto and kills the demon bear. The group sees a wisp emerge from Mor'du's body, which reveals the human form of the fourth brother, whose spirit is now freed from the curse. He then flies away to join the other wisps. Merida puts the repaired tapestry on top of her wounded mother. When the sun fully rises, Elinor and her sons are turned back into humans. The kingdoms, having rekindled their own bonds, go their separate ways. Merida and Elinor ride their horses around Scotland, with their friendship stronger.

In a post-credits scene, one of the guards in front of the castle is awakened by the witch's pet crow asking him to sign for a large collection of wooden sculptures, which Merida bought from the witch earlier in the film.

Voice cast
Non-speaking characters include: Mor'du; Angus; and the Triplets, Harris, Hubert, and Hamish
 * Kelly Macdonald: Princess Merida
 * Billy Connolly: King Fergus
 * Emma Thompson: Queen Elinor
 * Julie Walters: Witch
 * Kevin McKidd: Lord MacGuffin / Young MacGuffin
 * Craig Ferguson: Lord Macintosh
 * Robbie Coltrane: Lord Dingwall
 * Patrick Doyle as Martin, the guard
 * Steven Cree as Young Macintosh
 * Peigi Barker as Young Merida
 * Callum O'Neill as Wee Dingwall
 * Sally Kinghorn and Eilidh Fraser as Maudie
 * Steve Purcell as The Crow
 * John Ratzenberger : Gordon

Production
Brave was first announced under the title of The Bear and the Bow. Other titles that had been considered include, among others The Bear King and his Daughter, Brave and the Bow and Bravehair.

The film, Pixar's first fairy tale, is a combination of Brenda Chapman's love of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, as well as a reflection on raising her daughter.

The film departs from the traditional fairy tale storyline, neglecting the romance that has been associated with these stories. It focuses on the relationship between Merida and her mother Queen Elinor, which was inspired to Chapman by her own relation with her daughter.

Chapman was supposed to be the film's sole director - and Pixar’s first female director. But last October, it was reported that Pixar had replaced Chapman with Mark Andrews. Now, although Andrews is presently in charge of guiding Brave across the finish line, both Andrews and Chapman will be credited as the movie’s directors, according to a Disney spokesman.

Following his involvement as director, Mark Andrews did a heavy lifting to the story, to focus down on the core story. Among others, he cleared away many magic elements, which he found affected the environnement.

The film was initially set for release on June 15, 2012 but was later changed to June 22, 2012.

Although the production of the film started in 2008, Brenda Chapman had already began work years earlier. As early as in 2006, several members of the crew made a research trip in Scotland. They made a total of two trips to Scotland for the film. Among others they visited the Eilean Donan and Dunnottar Castles, as well as the Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis, which inspired the circle of standing stones that appears in the film.

For Brave, Pixar rewrote its animation system for the first time in 25 years.

To reproduce the lush and texture look of the landscapes of the Highlands, Pixar animators and designers created around 350 custom brushes in Photoshop, so that they could layer different designs, patterns and shapes in layers other to achieve a realistic and invisible look to all of the environments.

Animators were introduced to the weapons used in the film, in order to understand their working: some went into archery classes, while Mark Andrews taught swordfighting to animators.

Originally, Reese Witherspoon was planned to voice Princess Merida, but she was unable to work on the film due to scheduling issues and was replaced by Kelly Macdonald as a result.

Celtic and Pictish design and patterns have been integrated everywhere throughout the film, on Merida’s bow, on clothing, walls, as well as to natural elements like snowflakes, moss or tree branches.

The original idea had 80 % of the scenes taking place in the snow. In the final movie however, very few snow scenes remain.

The end credits of the movie include a special tribute to Steve Jobs.

Rating
Brave is rated PG by the MPAA for some scary action and rude humor, making it the third Pixar film to recieve this rating.

Reception
Brave currently as a score of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 156 reviews.

Attached short film
Attached to Brave is the Academy Award nominated short La Luna, directed by Enrico Casarosa, which was premiered in June 2011 at the Annecy International Film Festival.

Promotions
The film has been promoted in the Zynga game CastleVille where Merida is a guest character: