Not actually dead!

[animate_mush]

So, first off - Happy 4th of July everyone! I'm not actually dead - I've just been without power for the last week and a half. I'm actually still without power, but we're camped out at a friend's house. They have air conditioning. It's amazing

Comments

[sahiya]

I don't understand people who've been calling Brave conventional. It was a mother-daughter adventure story. Name me any other mother-daughter adventure story. ANY OTHER. They don't exist. So no, NOT the standard Disney princess shtick at all.

[animate_mush]

This is the problem with the half-a-line blurb summary rather than the full-post review I had planned. The following is written with the assumption that you actually want an explanation for my reaction. If you want to simply agree to disagree, feel free to skip it - I have no desire to tell anyone why they shouldn't like something they happened to enjoy. But I'm happy to tell you why I didn't like it, if that is in fact something you are interested in.

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First off, there were things I thought the movie did very well. One of those was the mother-daughter relationship that you mention - well, no. It was the mother. She was remarkably sympathetic. It would have been easy to make her just wrong, and they didn't do that (at least not in the initial characterization). I thought the scene where they're having the conversation (just not with each other) one of the best in the movie

thoughts on Brave continued - don't read if you're not interested

[animate_mush]

I did like that she eventually used the skills that her mother had been trying to teach her the whole time, and that she seemed at least willing to marry one of the princes for the good of the realm. For me the fact that she was ready to take the plunge made up for the fact that she didn't actually have to - for the others with me it felt like kind of a cop-out. I also liked that it was the princes who were like "well, we're not exactly okay with this either." The trouble is that by writing themselves into a Marriage Plot of this kind, they had to find some sort of a way out - modern audiences would never have stood for her actually going through with it. Which left them basically stuck in terms of where they could go with the story

Re: thoughts on Brave continued - don't read if you're not interested

[sahiya]

I realized tonight, after talking with jarsofwind's J, that I actually do want to respond to this.

I think we watched different movies. I watched a rollicking mother-daughter adventure and a coming of age story that did not end in marriage, which, sadly, is anything but conventional (and is also not a story that Disney has ever told, to my knowledge, much less 40 times). The marriage plot, in the movie I watched, was incidental. It was a catalyst to bring the simmering annoyance between the mother and the daughter to a boil and to incite the rest of the events. But there was never any question for the audience that Merida might actually have to marry one of the bozos she was presented with, and so the marriage plot wasn't really a marriage plot at all

Re: thoughts on Brave continued - don't read if you're not interested

[animate_mush]

These are fair points. And, as I've said, my object is not to attack the movie, but to come to grips with why I didn't love it. But I do think that, as you say, we saw different movies. And, you're right - the marriage plot was just there as the catalyst, but for me it still raised the question of why a marriage plot at all? Why a princess? After something like Up, which had some of the most real people I've ever seen in a movie, pulling out one of these stock situations felt like a step backwards. And, as you say, there was never any question for the audience that she might have to marry one of these bozos. (Although she is going to have to eventually, it seems). But the fact that one of the main plotlines had a foregone conclusion, rendering it a non-plot, was a bit of a disappointment. The fact that the actually main plotline more or less did as well, even if it was unconventional in itself, didn't really help things.

But you make a good point that there isn't actually a romance anywhere here, where there is in the other

Re: thoughts on Brave continued - don't read if you're not interested

[sahiya]

Nah, it's cool.

I think it's a fairy tale through and through, which is not something Pixar has done before. It's hard to say if they decided they wanted to tell an unconventional fairy tale and then went ahead and did it, or if Disney told them, "Dudes, we want a fairy tale from you, chop chop!" and they went, "Well, fine. But we're going to do it OUR WAY!" (I say this because I have no explanation for Cars 2 beyond "Disney made them do it." Because clearly, if any of the earlier Pixars need sequels, it's The Incredibles.)

[animate_mush]

You know, that's a really good point. And also, I've been saying that this is the first Pixar movie that failed to wow me, but I had very similar reactions to Cars 2 - specifically, that, while a fine movie taken on its own, it didn't really have that Pixar sparkle at all. I was impressed that they didn't break the Aesop from the previous film, but that left them nothing to do with McQueen's character, which meant the movie couldn't really be about him, and left the whole thing kind of pointless. I think I was less disappointed in it only because it was already a sequel and therefore subject to sequelitis.

I could stand to see an Incredibles sequel. Yeah, I agree that that's probably the only of them that really calls for one. (Toy Story 2 seemed pretty unnecessary as well - that said, Toy Story 3 made up for it). But that's the thing, Pixar is so good at telling complete stories. That said I'm kind of looking forward to the Monsters, Inc. prequel. And for once I'm glad that it's a prequel not a sequel. And, of course, I

[sahiya]

Yeah. Pixar makes Cars 2 and a Cars-themed ride opens at California Adventure eight months later. Coincidence? I think not.

You see, Pixar, this is what happens when you get in bed with the Mouse.

(But I agree, I think the Monsters prequel will be cute, especially since it won't mess with the ending of the original.)

[animate_mush]

No, certainly not.

Put this way though - if Cars 2 is the price you pay for things like Up! and Wall-E, it's totally worth it.

And, yeah, my thoughts exactly on Monster's U