Blu-ray Review: BRAVE

Merida is a headstrong Scottish princess. Her father, King Fergus, boasts of tales of how he lost his leg to the evil bear Mordu while Queen Elinor tries to make Merida act more like a lady (instead of a free spirited tomboy who takes after her dad). Fergus and Elinor decide to call on the clans to get suitors of Merida's hand, but things don't go as planned and Merida's encounter with a witch leads her on the race to undo a curse.

BRAVE is a fun adventure for the whole family. It has humor in addition to message about responsibility and growing up. The central heart of BRAVE is the mother and daughter relationship. The animation shows off the beautiful landscape of Scotland while tell this tale you don't want to spoil the surprises.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

DISC 1 extras-

Audio commentary for the film

Short Films- LA LUNA and THE LEGEND OF MORDU (the better of the two)

Featurettes:

BARVE NEW WORLD- a chronicle of the animation team’s visit to Scotland to take pictures and sketch Scotland before they started work on animating the film.

MERIDA & ELINOR- actors and filmmakers discuss the central mother./ daughter relationship and how they animated Merida

BEARS- how they approached bears differently for this film and broke away from the mold of the bears you usually see in a Disney film

BRAWL IN THE HALL- talk about the light-hearted brawls in the movie

WONDER MOSS- how mathematics went into creating moss for the movie

MAGIC- how they approached magic and magical creatures for BRAVE

CLAN PIXAR- a day in the life of how Pixar mixes it up at their headquarters to engage the animators while working on the latest animated movies from having a kilt day to eating haggis.

ONCE UPON A SCENE- a look at the various deleted bits they excised from the movie as they developed BRAVE into what was released in the theaters and for blu-ray/ DVD

The extended scenes show extra bits animated but cut from the final film for pacing reasons, but they are interesting to see and they feature introductions by Director Mark Andrews (one of the directors of BRAVE).

DISC 2 extras-

The deleted scenes montage is very entertaining and it is listed under FALLEN WARRIORS and the Alternate Opening is included (and ultimately cut to focus the story on Merida sooner).

The Promotional Pieces feature a very self aware animation reel of the characters being aware of the camera and promo spots and trailers for BRAVE.

Featurettes:

DIRTY NAKED PEOPLE- Pixar animators had a challenge when they decided to have the characters looks like authentic Scots beginning with the hair and facial hair.

IT IS ENGLISH..SORT OF- a look at how Pixar and the voice actors incorporated real Scottish words into the script and movie.

ANGUS- a focus on the horse Angus and how they brought characterization to this horse while being careful not making it human

THE TAPESTRY- a behind-the-scenes look at the tapestry in BRAVE and how they created it for the movie

The Art galleries show various artwork designs for the film and characters which is worth browsing if you’re interested in the pre-production process of BRAVE.

Disc 3- DVD featurettes the Audio commentary and the two short films

Disc 4- Digital Copy

Disc 5- 3D version of BRAVE on Blu-ray plus LA LUNA in 3D.

FINAL ANALYSIS: BRAVE is a fun adventure film about responsibility and growing up with characters you would love to meet again and again. The extras provide some insight in the making of the movie with the pre-production process and deleted scenes being the best extras.

This review is (c)11-12-2012 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com