Frankly, I have been trying to galvanize myself to write articles. Honestly, this is a “task” for me, because I know myself way too well. I analyze everything that comes into my life: events, relationships, people, movies, books, etc. I know that this is a quirky habit that makes me irritating to some people, especially when I emerge with tampilan that are clearly not the ones that others have. However, I am going to freely offer up my opinions, even if they are completely different from the opinions of the masses. I'm not going to agree on certain things. Everyone has to live with one another and "adjust."
    In the last article, which was written lebih than a tahun yang lalu now, I spoke of my encounter with Frozen ( link). In it, I spoke of why I had such difficulty understanding that movie. I spoke of my real disconnect over the furor surrounding Elsa. I spoke of my complete disgust at Jennifer Lee’s horrible screenwriting, and my chagrin over the Lopezs’ inane rhymes, and their pedestrian lyrics to their Broadway-esque songs. My feelings on most of this has not changed at all. I do not, however, hate Elsa as much as I did before. I merely just dislike her, and I greatly dislike what she now represents to the world of the disney Princesses.
    At the end of the last article, I mentioned that I would do a review of Brave, selanjutnya time. This is that selanjutnya time. So, without further delay, I am going to delve into my thoughts on this movie. I’m going to talk about my first impressions, how my personal feelings about Merida have evolved, and the lasting impressions I have about brave and Merida in general. Ready?
    To do this, I will have to step back in time…
    There was tremendous hype about this movie, back in the day. Not the INSANE level of hype that was achieved with Frozen-- but there was definitely a lot of hype about Disney’s newest princess, and her “adventure” which was cloaked in mystery, and involved the Scottish Highlands.
    The two brave cuplikan clips that were shown, showed a girl with a fiery red mane, a bow and arrow, and an equally fiery personality. What was telling about both cuplikan video was the “idea” that these video planted. They established that brave would be about girl going on a quest to fight an ancient evil and to “find herself.” The princess would be unlocking an old legend… atau that was what the “teaser” trailers led me to believe.
    The actual movie was way different. This is an example of how “misleading marketing” for a movie can leave anda quite deceived as to the true nature of the actual film’s storyline.
    Brave, the movie, was not an adventure, nor was it a quest. It actually turned out to be a hotly contested mother-daughter battle-of-wills over the trajectory of a kingdom. The mother wanted the daughter to marry to carry on the kingdom lineage. The daughter didn’t really care about the family’s legacy at all, and wanted her single life. And the “old legend” thing mentioned in the trailers? Well, that actually turned out to be a “tacked-on” side-plot involving a man becoming a beruang because of his own personal greed.
    This left me feeling quite confused.
    Whatever “this” was…this was not the “adventure” that had been tantalizingly dangled in front of the audiences (such as myself). So, right from the get-go…I didn’t quite like brave (the movie itself) because I felt I had been “lied to.”
     This was not an auspicious start, all things considered.
    The movie opens in Dun’Broch, a fictional kingdom located in the Scottish highlands. The immediate family starts off as three people. The king, Fergus, and his wife the queen, Elinor, have a spirited little girl oleh the name of Merida. This little gal has the most adorable ringlets of cascading red hair that I have ever seen on a CGI child. That part was truly cute. So was the hide-and-seek game between mother and daughter establishing the “closeness” of their relationship.
    The father presents the daughter with a bow and panah set for her birthday. The mother, Elinor, scoffs at this. But the father, Fergus, thinks that this is a valuable skill, just like any other. The mother states that Merida is “a lady.” The subtext that isn’t repeated aloud, though, is that her husband should not be encouraging this.
    Merida, the child, takes to the bow and panah immediately. She misses the target, and shoots an panah into the wilderness and goes scampering after it…encountering glowing will-o’-wisps during this escapade. Merida mentions these wisps to Elinor. Elinor explains to Merida that the wisps are “rare entities,” and that legend has it that they lead one “to their fate.” It’s clear that Elinor believes both in the wisps and in magic, itself. Call it a highland superstition, but I consider it fit for the time period and the setting.
    No sooner than the family becomes reunited, a shadow falls over the small encampment in the forest clearing. A big old ugly beruang looms up ferociously, and begins terrorizing the inhabitants. Elinor and Merida immediately take to horse. Fergus, the father, stays behind to give his family a fighting chance to escape…. And the screen cuts to the movie title: Brave.
    My brain processed all of this, and thought, mmm, so far so good.
    The main titles clear away, and we find that something like twelve years have passed oleh since the events in the opening sequence. In this amount of time several things have occurred. Merida now has three triplet brothers, Harris, Hubert, and Hamish. Merida maintains that her brothers can do no wrong, while she herself gets “called out” on everything she does “wrong” every waking moment. Already, I mentally began thinking about this. Wait…this princess is already antagonized? She’s already jealous of her brothers, and we don’t know why, really. We are only 10 menit into the actual film. I wonder why this princess is already a very irritable girl? Hmmm.
     Along with having sons, Merida’s dad now has lost a leg. Fergus talks a big story about the beruang from long ago… the one he fought that took his leg, and from whom he took an eye in exchange.
    Elinor, meanwhile, has withdrawn from ventures outside of the castle, and does not go out into the wilderness anymore. She has taken up duties fit for the queen of Dun’Broch. She rises early, does embroidery of the King’s lineage, practices her harp, teaches her teenage daughter diplomatic matters and geography, and maintains that her daughter needs to be gracious, a good public speaker, and to walk in a measured gait to kindle the respect fit for a future queen.
    Merida herself, during this time lapse of twelve years-- between the ages of four (I’m hereby approximating her age in the woods at the beginning of the film) and her current age of sixteen-- has become a skilled archer. Merida abhors waking up early, needlepoint, practicing instruments, learning about geography and diplomacy, and is the opposite of a gracious young adult. Merida doesn’t like her days “planned out” oleh an authority figure (her mother). Merida thinks she covers lebih ground without walking so slowly (she slides down banisters, and jumps onto lampstands and such). Merida does not like public speaking, so she grits her teeth and rolls her eyes during practice. The very impression the audience is diberikan is that Merida scorns all the activities her mother attempts to teach her. Merida basically just wants the freedom to do whatever she wants. This is the typical teenage mentality.
    I did not really mind the “teenage” montage at the beginning of the movie. I had watched other film featuring other young adults who acted just the same way as Merida does. Does Spiderman ring a bell? It’s all the same deal, really. Teens are extremely hard-headed at that age. I remember flipping my mother’s saran off, simply because I hated the mounting pile of adult responsibilities. Oh, I’ve been there. I remember totally and obstinately not wanting to learn to drive a car. I just did not want to do it. Period. But that frame of mind was not where I stayed.
    The audience is then greeted with what Merida does when she does not have “an agenda” planned oleh someone else. Merida spends the hari riding her horse, Angus. She shows off in the saddle (standing up in it, like a jockey would in a horse race), and sends arrows zipping from her bow into targets left and right. Afterward she sits atop a bukit, hill carving designs into her bow with her pocketknife, while Angus wallows around in the grass. Eventually, she climbs the side of the cliff called the Crown’s Tooth, and drinks from the waterfall called “the Firefalls.” All in all, it’s a satisfactory hari of relaxation for Merida, where she tosses all her responsibilities and worries to the wind… She does only the activities she likes to do.
     Then Merida comes home, and breaks in on her father’s umpteenth retelling of how he lost his leg to Mor’du, cheerily scaring her triplet brothers in the process. Merida sets her bow on the table, and Elinor tells her to remove it (a normal motherly request akin to the standard “don’t track mud into the house, please”). Merida makes a face and drapes her bow over the back of her chair. Fergus and Elinor have a minor tiff over whether females should be allowed to be taught weaponry for the zillionth time, lol, lol, lol. Then the family settles down for dinner.
    Merida tells her mother about her personal achievements for the day. She says, “Mum, you’ll never guess what I did, today. I climbed the Crown’s Tooth and drank from the Firefalls.” Fergus and the boys look up excitedly at this, while Elinor keeps her head buried in sorting the letters in her lap. Fergus jokes that only the bravest of the ancient kings were able to “drink the fire.”
    Elinor then says, “What did anda do, dear?”
    To which Merida balasa in a grumbly undertone, “Nothing, Mum.”
    Elinor looks up and sees Merida’s plate covered in a pile of sweet treats and announces that her daughter will have stomach cramps if she continues to eat that sort of food. Elinor looks at Fergus to back her up, and he simply shrugs and says, “So what?” Elinor then reprimands Harris, Hubert, and Hamish for not eating their haggis. ( Ew. Yeah. I would not eat that, either, diberikan that I know what it is comprised of—a domba stomach with entrails: lungs, heart, liver, suet, oatmeal with spices, etc.) I’ll pass. Nope. I’m never going to be a true Scot.
    Merida points at her brothers and slips the entire plate of sweet treats down her rok and under the table. Her brothers immediately jump off of their chairs and go for the stuff that tastes good.
    Elinor never sees this action, because she is absorbed in the fact that the clans have replied to her letters. She gleefully tells Fergus that “they have all accepted.” Merida and Fergus exchange puzzled faces, and then Merida asks, “Who has accepted what, mother?”
    Elinor excuses the triplets, who happen to dump their sweet treat heist on the floor as they scamper away.
    Merida cautiously asks, “What did I do now?”
    Elinor tells Fergus that he must explain to his daughter what is going on. But before he can open his mouth, Elinor interrupts with glee. She says that the lords are presenting their sons for Merida’s betrothal. The clans have accepted and are on their way to Dun’Broch. Merida understandably looks extremely shocked and confused, as anyone would be…to suddenly receive news that was not discussed with her at all.
    Elinor says that this is what Merida has been in “preparations” for her whole life. Merida retorts that no-- this is what Elinor has been “prepping her” for her whole life, and announces that she “won’t go through with it.” And she storms off, saying, “You can’t make me!”
    Merida retreats to her room, and begins slamming her sword into her bedposts, haphazardly. When her mother comes in, Merida gasps two words: Suitors? Marriage?
    Elinor ignores this and proceeds to tell her daughter a story about a time long in the past when a “fair and just king” had four sons. The king knew he was advancing in age and he divided his kingdom up between his four sons. The oldest son wanted the kingdom all for himself, though, including his brothers’ share. So the eldest son made war on the whole land, and the whole kingdom fell into chaos and ruin. To which Merida interrupts, saying snippily, “That’s a nice story.”
    Elinor then says this line which is so eerie and accurate that it echoes throughout the whole movie even when the last frame fades away.
     It’s not just a story. Legends are lessons, they ring with truths.
    Merida is aggravated and covers her ears. Elinor says that “marriage is not the end of the world.” But Merida slams the door on Elinor’s exit.
    This first of many lengthy exchanges between these women taught me two things. Yes, I could relate to Merida who had little experience in the world at large, and was only interested in what was happening in her life in the present context: riding her horse, shooting arrows, finding larger mountains to climb to prove herself even less of a lady. Merida—above all-- does not want to be defined as a lady. Merida associates being “a lady” with her mother, and her mother’s long daftar of strict requirements. Fun is not on that daftar at all, atau so Merida believes.
    I also realized, from my own experience with a very strict mother who gave me an upbringing that largely forbid doing the things that I wanted to do… that my mother was only trying to look far enough ahead in time. My mother was attempting to protect me from future consequences, and to ensure that I had the skills to survive the problems that would arrive at my door.
    So, the first time I watched this movie, I related to both characters, the daughter and the mother. But I did not see much of a future in not learning to drive. I also did not see much of a future in constantly shooting arrows and riding a horse for the rest of one’s life. That part did not seem realistic to me at all.
    Also, it was really unsettling to me to hear Merida scoff at her mother’s story. I take “stories” lebih seriously than most people would (mostly because I tend to cinta stories in general, and whoo-whoo ones grab my attention the most). This long yang lalu prince was so obstinate and full of the desire for personal freedom at any cost, that it led the entire kingdom to chaos and destruction. Heavy stuff, your personal wants.
     This was probably a very thickly painted foreshadowing of what was coming. I, as an audience member, took away the message that a man overthrows a kingdom because of his personal wants and greed. Check.
    Then there is the deliciously funny scene where Fergus decides to role play as Merida to give Elinor courage as a parent. I cinta this scene to bits! <3<3<3 Fergus’s facial expressions, his effort at a high-pitched girl voice, and his keterangan of what Merida plans to do with her whole life are spot on. “I don’t want to get married. I want to stay single and let my hair flow in the wind, as I ride through the glen—firing arrows into the sunset.” I laughed so much at this, because it perfectly described Merida’s state of mind. And it also showed that what might be fulfilling to Merida initially, would not always have that luster. One’s older self might not always think this same way. As we age, our moods change, our thoughts change, and even our tastes change. There seriously came a time when I really-- really, really, insanely wanted to go to the thrift store-- and NOT have people like my mother tell me what I should buy for myself while I was at the thrift store. Hence, the need to be able to drive a car, myself. Alone. Yes. We do not stay children forever. Merida does not know this, though….
    Merida just wants her mother to call off the gathering, the contest, the betrothal, and the impending marriage. Merida thinks Elinor is capable of doing this, simply because Elinor has the power (as queen) to do so. Merida states that, “Tell the lords that the princess is not ready for this, and she might not ever be ready for this…so that’s that. We’ll expect your declarations of war in the morning.”
    Wow. This girl does not understand the true gravity of what she is saying. anda never want a war. Wars are awful. People get hurt. People lose their lives, their jobs, their property, their belongings, and their family members!!!! No, I thought. Merida, that’s not a good option. Letting people go to war because anda simply don’t feel ready to do something is not a good idea… That’s lebih selfish than selfless. Think of the other people involved, besides you… At least, Aurora from 1959, could see the big picture…
    Hmm. But Merida has a truly small picture of everything it would seem.
    Is Merida willing to pay the price her personal freedom will cost? That is what Elinor asks in a nutshell.
    And little did I know-- but that becomes the whole major plot point of the movie. Merida pays the ultimate price for her personal freedom.
    I’m going to skim over the selanjutnya section of the movie. I enjoyed the triplets running around like mad men with the frantic maid, Maudie, puffing behind them. When the clan chieftains arrived, they were funny, Fergus was funny, and it got even funnier when Elinor grabbed her husband oleh the ear, and all of the other chieftains, too.
    Suffice it to say, that Merida exploits the portion of the competition where only the firstborn of each clan’s chieftain is allowed to vie for her hand. Merida chooses the method: archery, where she excels.
    All of the sons of the chieftains are lousy shots with a bow and arrow. The one son from Dingwall who does hit the bull’s eye of the target, manages the shot only oleh sheer luck. Then Merida sneaks off into the crowd. She sheds her cape, and shouts that she will be shooting for her own hand.
    This is probably the most famous scene in the movie. Everyone is stunned at Merida’s audacity. And Merida basically shoots each target, clear in the center, ignoring her mother’s cries for her to stop. The last panah is shown in slow motion. Ha.
    We then get a close up view of two glaring faces: the daughter’s vs. the mother’s.
    Anyway, because Merida publicly humiliated her family in front of the chieftains and in front of all of the other clans, Elinor feels responsible. She tells her daughter what she has done, but Merida is very angry. Merida declares that her mother has never been “there” for her. Merida thinks the whole marriage is what “her mother wants” and that Elinor never stops to consider what she, Merida wants. Merida is tired of, in her own words---being “told what to do, and what not to do.” Merida believes that Elinor is trying to make her be like her. Merida flatly states that she is not going to be like Elinor.
    Elinor perceives all of this as childish behavior, and states that Merida is akting like a child. Merida isn’t, though…not quite yet. Merida is just desperately trying to articulate herself!
    Merida then becomes lebih enraged, and yells at her mother. She calls Elinor “a beast” and states that she will “never be like Elinor.” Merida points a sword at her mother’s beloved tapestry, while she makes her point. Merida then swipes the sword downward, effectively ripping the tapestry, still yelling aloud, “I’d rather die than be like you!”
    Okay. As an audience member, this overt step Merida took was overkill. Merida basically started out with a legitimate daftar of grievances—hear, hear-- but then she resorted to destroying someone else’s property to make her point? Right then, Merida joined the ranks of King Triton in my mind. (Yes, I have a mental category for characters and people who become so enraged at someone else, that they resort to destroying what does not belong to them. Somehow, in the heat of the moment, it gives them some perverse pleasure to ruin what someone else considers precious. And the people and the characters that do this are diminished in my eyes. Because they exhibit no self-control, they slip from being in the admirable category, and fall into the dishonorable category. I never quite feel the same amount of respect towards them afterward. That impression, unfortunately, is lasting. I never forget what they did, and who they now “are” in my eyes).
    When Elinor throws Merida’s bow into the fire, it’s lebih like tit-for-tat than it is for anything else. And right then, I could not help feeling that Merida totally deserved for her bow to be destroyed. Merida had it coming! Merida deserved that “hurting shock,” because she had—with determination—just “inflicted that same pain on her mother.” Of course, both women are high-strung, and Merida’s unbridled anger just fueled Elinor’s anger. anda could see this happening from simply watching the tension building between them.
    Anyway, the conversation is over, because Merida runs away. Elinor immediately regrets what she has done—because it was a split-second decision. Elinor tries to hurriedly pull the bow out of the fire. But it is too late, and Elinor kneels with the remnants of the bow, and sobs.     
    Meanwhile, Merida is too incensed to think straight. Merida rides Angus out into the forest wilds, and Angus only comes to a screeching halt at the base of a strange lingkaran of stones that kind of resemble Stonehenge. (I think this was meant to look that way on purpose). Anyhow, Angus rears, and Merida is tossed head over heels onto the grass.
    Merida doesn’t know what this place is. However, when the will-o’-wisps tampil up and form a trail, Merida follows them deeper into the forest until she ends up in front of the witch’s cottage.
    The witch is clever. I will say that much for her. She terrifies Merida in the beginning as well (which I kind of liked, too). I also liked the tiff between the sapu and the crow, but I digress.
    Merida is insistent on getting a spell to “change her mother’s mind” about marrying her off to a prince. Ah. And here we arrive at what Merida plans to do next. Merida has decided that yelling at her mother, defying her mother, and destroying her mother’s belongings are not enough. Merida decides that she needs “to change” someone else’s mind, and make them “unknowingly subservient” to her own viewpoint.
    I’ll say one thing for Merida. The girl has a huge ego, and possesses gall.
    I find it really disturbing that Merida wants to “manipulate” her mother into “thinking the same way she herself does.” Honestly, this is the whole point of the spelled cake, right? So, effectively, Merida has “the upper hand” in the situation. Merida believes that Elinor will be made docile, and act like a puppet. Elinor will go back on her word, and tell the leaders and the clans that they will have to leave. Her daughter is not getting married after all.
    Yeah.
    So Merida pays off the witch with the beruang kalung that Elinor gave her, and buys all of the witch’s carvings. Merida trusts the witch’s words, that the cake “will do the trick.” If she feeds the cake to her mother, it will change Elinor’s mind about the whole marriage thing.
    The witch neglects to mention about the fine print of the spell, though. So Merida goes halaman awal in the dark, without knowing the full extent of what she is doing.
    Merida goes halaman awal and finds that Elinor has tried to placate the clan leaders. But Elinor insists that a decision still has to be made, to which Merida lifts up the cake that she got from the witch and says, “It’s a peace offering. I made it--for you! Special!”
    I almost choked on the saliva in my mouth. Merida doesn’t cook a lick. She never has cooked a thing in her life!
    And how is changing someone’s mental thought-process for them, a peace offering? Yowch.
    Elinor smiles, impressed. She takes a bite of the cake. Then she says it tastes “hot” and “gamey.” She quickly reaches for water and swishes her mouth, in order to menelan the bad-tasting mouthful.
    Elinor then steers Merida toward the takhta room. Just as they reach the entrance, Elinor begins clutching her abdomen and complaining that she doesn’t feel well. And here-- is the clincher. Instead of asking how she can make her mother feel better, Merida asks her mother how she “feels” about the marriage. Callous. Totally callous. Merida doesn’t seem to care about her mother’s very real, physical discomfort. She only cares about her own interest: no marriage.     
    Elinor glares at her, and tells Merida to take her to her room so she can lie down. Merida guides her mother to the bedroom. And there, in the room, while tucking her mother under the covers…Merida keeps going on and on about how Elinor should take all the time she needs “to get right, and then she might have something new to say on the marriage.” Ugh.
    Elinor looks like she is about to vomit, and asks, “What was in that cake?” Then she rolls off of the tempat tidur and flops onto the floor.
    Instead of helping Elinor, Merida just stands there and says, “So I will just tell them that the wedding is off, then?”
    There is an indistinct growl emitted from the other side of the room. Then the bedsheet rolls off of Elinor, revealing that Elinor is no longer a human. She is a huge bear. Merida cowers, and Elinor is puzzled and scared. Once Elinor gets a mirror and figures out what she has become…she flees around the room, breaking the bed, and bumping into all kinds of stuff.
    Merida doesn’t accept responsibility for this mistake. NO, she doesn’t. She quickly blames the witch for giving her a “bad spell.” Merida says she didn’t want Elinor made into a bear. Merida explains that she just wanted Elinor to be changed….
    Elinor roars her anger directly at Merida’s face. Merida deserves that. hehehehahahaha.
    While Elinor tries to settle herself, Merida continues to blame the witch for causing all of the trouble. AS IF.
    Meanwhile, below in the takhta room, Fergus has caught the “scent” of a beruang in the nearby vicinity. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention this earlier, but ever since Mor’Du bit off his leg, Fergus has developed this extreme bloodhound dimension within himself---a bloodlust for killing bears and collecting their heads. And now that Elinor is a bear…well…you know…
     Things have now come to a head. Literally.
    So…now comes the interval where Merida must try to spirit her mother away/out of the house right from under her father’s nose. Merida has to elicit her triplet brothers’ assistance in this endeavor. Merida tells her brothers that it’s quote-not-her-personal-fault-&quote for their mother being a bear, because Merida is still going around blaming the witch for the spell, instead of blaming herself for the poor choice she made! Harris, Hubert, and Hamish still remain unconvinced. Merida finally has to BRIBE her brothers using the promise of giving them all of her desserts for the selanjutnya year. LOL. Even Merida’s triplet brothers think Merida is at fault for their mom being turned into a bear…. anda can see it in their twisted little facial expressions, and in the extortion tactic they use against Merida.
    So the triplets divert their father, Fergus, and the houseguests, leading everyone on a merry angsa chase around the residence, which allows Merida and Elinor (albeit in beruang form) to slip out unnoticed.
    Merida and Elinor wander out into the woods, and Merida explains how she saw the wisps and met with the witch. Merida says that she does not remember the way. Elinor brushes this off and wanders off in the direction Merida pointed. Merida chases after her mother, and finally recognizes the span of trees. Then she runs meneruskan, ke depan and finds the clearing with the cottage in it. It is obviously night now, and the place is deserted.
    This does not deter Merida atau her mom, for they enter the cottage even though no one is home. Elinor believes that Merida is lying to her, and Merida keeps opening the cottage door back and forth in desperate disbelief. But the cottage remains empty, and eventually Merida and Elinor go inside and find the cauldron the witch used, with an assortment of bottles nearby. Merida dumps the third one in, and the witch’s face appears as in “answering-machine” mode. Like, leave a message and I will get back to anda when I get the chance. LOL, again. Merida does not find this amusing, and the angrier and lebih frustrated Merida gets, the lebih and lebih grating her gestures and behavior become to me….
    The witch does leave Merida with this riddle: ‘Fate be changed, look inside, mend the bond torn oleh pride.’ Which, automatically, made me remember the tapestry that Merida RUINED. I told anda I didn’t like Merida for that action? Yup. That’s because I notice all details like that. But Merida is confused oleh the riddle and doesn’t know what it “means.” Merida gets angry and desperate, and upends all of the bottles into the cauldron. The spells boil up all at once and the cottage explodes! Luckily, Elinor grabs Merida and shields her from the flying debris.
    With that option scratched off the list, Merida doesn’t know what to do next. The first time I watched this movie, I propped my head onto my hand during this point in the film, and sighed. It was boredom. I could see that this was going to take forever for Merida to figure out, simply because she is so bullheaded and unwilling to change her own behavior. Merida thinks that she ‘is in the right.’ Merida is unconvinced that her ‘stance about marriage’ is wrong. Simply put, Merida is too blinded oleh her own personal righteousness, that she doesn’t see the answer that is staring her directly in the face. The answer, Merida, is your obstinate pride and your flat refusal to say anda messed up. Yawn.
    Elinor basically makes a tempat tidur for them in the forest, lies down, and goes to sleep. But Merida stays awake for a while, mulling over this disaster. Then she falls asleep and dreams of herself as a little girl, when Elinor used to cuddle her on her lap, and used to sing Merida a lullaby during stormy evenings.
    The selanjutnya morning, Merida awakens to find that Elinor has rummaged around the forest and made up a rustic “breakfast.” Merida is quick to point out, though, that the berries Elinor found are nightshade berries = poisonous. To which, Elinor coughs up and spits them out in an exaggerated fashion. Elinor tries to wash her mouth out with water, but Merida tells her that the water she collected is full of worms. The audience laughs at Elinor.
    Merida then goes to a river, and does a bit of spearfishing (a skill Elinor once considered uncouth for a female to do, because a female should not have weapons). Merida reminds Elinor of what Elinor had berkata about her bow and arrows. Merida then roasts the ikan over a api until it is nice and flaky. Elinor finds this tasty and gobbles it down, then insists on two more! Ha. Merida catches two lebih fish, roasts them, and gives them to Elinor. Elinor falls to, and then asks for four more. Exasperated at Elinor, Merida points at the river.
    The two then spend the hari splashing in the water, laughing, and learning how to “be around one another” without screaming at each other. But, alas, part of the spell kicks in. Elinor’s “wild beast rage” takes over and drives her “human consciousness” out of her for a while.
    A scared Merida tries to get her mother “to remember” who she is! Elinor’s human consciousness comes back, but it seems only momentary to me.
    Then a wisp appears, and Elinor angrily dives for it. Merida tries to tell Elinor not to hurt the wisps, but Elinor’s is angry about being a bear. Merida insists that they must keep each other from getting upset, and points to the path that the wisps have made in the gloom of the darkening woods.

    Merida and Elinor follow the wisps through the misty forest until they find the ruins of what looks to be an ancient castle. Merida wanders out ahead of Elinor, into the ruins, and steps onto a weak place. The board doesn’t hold her weight, and Merida literally falls through the ceiling of a cavernous room, which no one has occupied in years and years. It turns out to be a dilapidated takhta room. Merida yells upward to Elinor that she is fine, because Elinor is panicking.
    Merida then proceeds to investigate in the gloom. What she finds is a tablet with the story of the lost prince…the prince who wanted the whole of his father’s kingdom, and obeyed his own personal freedom and wishes. The tablet is cracked, symbolizing both the brokenness of the family and of the whole nation-- a direct result of the prince’s actions. Merida suddenly has a convenient “flashback” to the moment when she took a sword and ripped her own mother’s tapestry, dividing herself from Elinor.
    
Now, it’s abundantly clear to Merida what the witch’s riddle means.

    And of course, as Merida finally takes the opportunity to consider this history lesson Elinor gave her, she backs right up into Mor’Du, the prince-turned-bear whose lair this is. Instead of immediately running away, Merida has to go for her pseudo-tough-girl tactics, again. She fires off two arrows, but that does nothing to deter Mor’Du in the least… He comes straight at her, and Merida trips, leaving me wondering why she spent precious detik shooting arrows. That was dumb. Anyhow, Merida finally does do the common sense thing, abandoning her bow and panah and running away. She scrambles and slides up a plinth of rock that is close to the opening, which is under the hole in the ceiling where she fell through. Elinor stretches a paw downward. But Merida is too short. Mor’Du is right below Merida oleh this point. Merida should have practiced leaping lebih often, instead of shooting arrows…. Merida just throws herself off the plinth in a desperate leap, and fortunately for her, Elinor catches her through the gap.
    Merida and Elinor basically flee the ruins of the kastil, castle in a dead panic, and Merida rides on her mother’s back, like she would ride Angus. They finally crash land in the middle of that weird lingkaran of Stonehenge-like stones. There Merida tells Elinor that they have to go halaman awal and mend the tapestry-- atau Elinor will become a real beruang through-and-through.
    So Merida and Elinor slip back into the house, but they can’t go far, because the passage leading to the bedrooms, involves going through the takhta room, first. The takhta room is full of the clans and the chieftains who are all fighting one another, because they have been cooped up, and humiliated oleh the wedding being postponed. Fergus is no match for calming them down, and is fighting them! Tables have been overturned to make makeshift barricades. The place is a total wreck.
    Merida and Elinor have no choice. Elinor mimes to Merida that Merida will have to do ALL the talking, as she, Elinor, is a bear. Merida groans…. Yes, this spell. It is biting Merida in her behind. Merida should not have been so reckless and “so sure of her own righteousness.”
    So Merida grits her teeth and walks into the takhta room, directly into the midst of the fray. Fergus is surprised to see her, and the clan chieftains corner Merida in the middle of the room, spouting their complaints. Merida yells, “SHUT IT!” The clans stop fighting each other and gape at Merida. Meanwhile, Elinor slips in behind her and begins inching toward the exit stairs leading to the bedrooms.

    Merida has to buy her mother some time. So Merida launches into the story of the lost prince. The clan chieftains begin to roll their eyes, but Merida declares that this is not just a legend anymore! It’s a truth. Merida says that she sees now how one selfish decision can impact a whole kingdom. Merida reminds the clans of the battles they fought in, together, which united them as a people. Then there is lebih cheering and less dissent among the crowd.
    After this speech, Merida begins admitting that she was soooo selfish. Merida explains that she has decided on the matter of her betrothal. But Elinor frantically waves at her in the background and mimes to her the words that she needs to say. Merida says that she is going to break tradition. Elinor tells the clan chieftains though Merida that they all should be free to “write their own stories,” and not be tethered oleh old traditions. Elinor says that Merida should be free to find cinta on her own timetable.
    This is not immediately acceptable to the older generation, but the clan chieftains’ sons all cinta this idea! They thought this whole process of a betrothal and a marriage to someone they didn’t love, was annoying as hell after all. The chieftains finally come round, and Merida suggests that they all roti panggang each other and the new tradition. The men are only too eager to drink and be merry. They vacate the takhta room for the cellar, and leave Merida and Elinor alone again. For once, Elinor has cause to be truly proud of Merida.
    Mother and daughter find the tapestry in the room where it was left. Merida begins frantically searching the premises for a needle and thread. During this time, Elinor begins losing her human consciousness again. So time is ticking down…. And, to add to the pressure on Merida, Fergus has come back upstairs from the cellar to tell Elinor about the wonderful speech Merida made. But Fergus finds Elinor’s room a total wreck and her gaun torn in two. He assumes the worst, and starts banging on doors all the way down the length of the hall.
    Fergus bursts into the room with Merida and Elinor. Fergus only sees the bear, and since Elinor’s human consciousness is gone, when Fergus takes a ayunan at her, Elinor begins fighting back. Merida desperately tries to stop her father, and to tell him to listen to her, but he won’t listen. After a tense bit, Elinor is able to throw her husband up against the dinding and knock him out.     
    Then Elinor’s human consciousness suddenly returns to her. Elinor sees that she scratched Merida while she “wasn’t all there,” and she feels ashamed of herself. Elinor backs away from Merida, and out into the hall, only to find the chieftains blocking the passage. They all yell “BEAR!!!” Elinor plows her way through them, and runs pell-mell out of the castle. Elinor is headed in the direction of the stone lingkaran in the woods.
    Meanwhile, Fergus does not believe the beruang is Elinor, his wife, despite what Merida tells him. Fergus is worried that Merida will be killed so he locks her in the room with the tapestry for her own safety. Fergus gives the key to Maudie, the maid, and then he organizes the clans to form a cari party out to the stone lingkaran in the woods. This leaves Merida to stare and strain through a narrow window as she watches Elinor being hunted down as an animal. This is the first time Merida actually cries for her mother’s sake. I remember feeling angry that it took this long for Merida to truly cry about the predicament she put her poor mother in.
    Merida strains at the locked door, throwing herself against it, until…three tiny bears appear at the base of the door. Merida stares in surprise at them, realizing that they ate the remainder of the witch’s spelled cake, and it changed them, as well. Merida hisses at her brothers to “get the key” from Maudie. Merida’s brothers do this, in their own hilarious fashion. Merida, meanwhile, finds needle and thread to mend the tapestry back together with the best sewing she can do. When her brothers drop the key in the door, Merida eagerly takes it, grabs the tapestry, and lets herself out. Her brothers follow her, and Merida and her brothers all pile onto Angus, so that they can reach Elinor in time. On the gallop through the darkness, Merida sews the rip in the tapestry back together with huge stitches.
    In a devastating turn of events, the hunting party lassoes Elinor, pinning her down and stretching all four of her limbs apart. It’s gut-wrenching to watch, because anda know how terrified Elinor is right now…and she can’t utter a single human word to help herself—she is unable let anyone know that she’s human. It really galls me what Merida did…
    Just as Fergus strides up and brings back his sword to slice off Elinor’s head…Merida arrives and shoots another arrow, which knocks Fergus’s sword from his hand. Merida steps in front of Elinor, and blocks Fergus from his intent. Fergus knocks Merida and her bow and panah aside, and Merida grabs a spear and uses it to disarm a bystander to take his sword. When Fergus brings his own sword back down, Merida blocks it with her blow, then swipes low and slices his wooden peg leg out from under him. Fergus lies stunned on the ground. As he makes to get up, Harris, Hubert, and Hamish all run up and clamber over him, doing their best to warn their father. Merida says, “Boys!” in a warning voice, and her brothers scatter. Fergus is clearly stupified about this turn of events.
    And guess who pops up at this glorious moment to attend the festivities? Ah, yes. The lost prince, Mor’Du. Of course, Fergus barks that Mor’Du should be killed. The clans all run up to the beruang and he swats them aside like so many flies. They are so ineffective, lol.
    Fergus tries to block Mor’Du himself, and Mor’du bites his tartan and kilt and throws him around like a ragdoll. And what does Merida do? Merida goes right back to her bow and arrow…which was no lebih effective when she used it in that ancient takhta room than when she uses it here. She shoots Mor’du and he pins her to the ground. Yeah. That’s definitely not badass.
    Elinor sees what is happening to her daughter, and with a mighty yank, pulls up all the restraints that the clan men have used to tie her down. And then Elinor proceeds to fight Mor’Du. It is a nasty, grappling affair. Elinor doesn’t seem to be a match for Mor’Du’s girth, and she keeps getting thrown about, even as a bear. But Elinor finally maneuvers to place Mor’Du’s back to one of the stones of the circle, and hammers him against it… This creates a large splinter up the rock, and then as Mor’Du sends Elinor flying forward, and he pursues her…the rock crumbles and pins him down crushing him to death.
    So dies Mor’Du, the ancient selfish prince from the long yang lalu legend.
    The sun comes up over the horizon, and Merida quickly grabs the tapestry off of Angus’s back. She runs up and drapes it over where Elinor has fallen. Merida clearly expects the mended tapestry to reverse the spell. But it does not. Merida watches, appalled, as Elinor’s human consciousness leaves yet again…and the wild beruang takes over. Merida begins to cry yet again, mumbling, “I don’t understand. Oh, mum, I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I did this to you, to us!” Yeah, anda could say that again, I thought.
    It takes a while for the sunlight to hit the tapestry…just…so. And then Elinor transforms back into a human. Merida tells her mother that “she’s changed.” Elinor announces that “they both have changed.”
    There is then a happy reunion between Fergus and Elinor, and the triplets want part of the action, too. They run meneruskan, ke depan naked to gabung in the party.
    Basically, the family of Dun’Broch is back together for now. Merida lends some assistance as Elinor creates an entirely new tapestry—this one curiously featuring a girl and a bear. Then everyone gathers to see the clans off, and to wish them Godspeed as they go home. Merida gets her hand kissed oleh Lord Dingwall’s son…who makes it kind of icky. And then there is lebih laughter, as the triplets get on one of the boats and sail away…and Fergus figures out where they are a little too late….
    Meanwhile, Merida and Elinor spend the afternoon riding kuda together. And the movie closes with the two of them riding off into the distance, giggling and laughing, because they are having a horse race.
     The screen shows us one blue wisp, and then fades to black, as Merida’s voiceover announces the following words. “Our fate lives within us. anda only have to be brave enough to see it.”
    And that’s where it all stops.
     The hidden moral of brave is usually sugarcoated oleh the overt moral. In the last scene, Merida says in voiceover, “Our Fate lives within us. anda only have to be brave enough to see it!” This usually is the tagline from this movie and sticks in people’s minds as the moral. Merida chooses her fate. Yeah. Okay. But that’s just really an oversimplified part of what the movie actually said. The advertisements for brave SKIPPED reiterating the contextual moral of Brave, which is much lebih sobering. Based on the sequence of events and the choices that Merida makes over the course of the movie, a political philosopher’s words are way lebih apt (and haunting) as they tug at the very center of Brave’s plotline.

     ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’—George Santayana.

     Truly, Merida’s story is not a novel story about choosing her own “fate.” In fact, watching the movie shows us that Merida’s foolish decisions are really a rehash of the selfish prince’s foolish decisions in the legend of Mor’Du from long ago. Merida blew off her history story lesson as rubbish, and pretty much poo-pooed all of what Elinor had berkata about personal freedom having a very steep cost. Merida had to learn everything the hard way, because she was so hot-headed. Merida repeated the exact same mistake as the legend warned against, and almost lost her mother entirely in the process. One’s Fate is tied to HISTORY! Yes, anda have the power to choose (that’s the part of ‘fate’ that ‘lives within us’). But choose, then, to learn from history. If anda are willing to do so, anda can avoid some pretty awful stuff. If anda are unwilling to do so, anda are going to repeat historical experiences, all the time believing you’re “the exception” to the historical record. The havoc anda unleash, anda will bring down upon yourself and upon others. Then anda will shed tears…just as Merida does.


Impressions: Overall, brave is a middle-of-the-road atau average movie. It’s not terrible, but it’s not really well-constructed, either. The visions of its two different “directors”-- first Brenda Chapman, and then Mark Andrews—kind of clash. The end result is a movie that feels much shorter than it needs to be. On some level it has potential, but it feels unfinished, just like Frozen does. I kept wanting “to see” lebih of ‘an adventure’ unfolding, and what I got instead was lebih bickering back and forth between mother and daughter over an arranged marriage. After a while, the movie introduced Elinor as a bear, and then added four lebih bears in quick succession: Mor’Du and Merida’s brothers. Somewhere in the midst of this, I got incredibly bored, and then stayed bored right up until the credits rolled. All things considered, I give brave a place as an entry in Disney’s pantheon of melodramatic movies. It’s right there with The rubah, fox and The Hound and Bambi. I, personally, didn’t like the melodrama in Bambi atau in The rubah, fox and the Hound. I don’t much like Brave, either, because it is anticlimactic. There’s no accounting for taste, is there? To each his own.

The Princess and The Queen: I like Merida. I like Elinor. (Okay, I used to hate both their guts, so it is saying something that ‘I like them/ tolerate them’ now). Merida possesses a strong “A-Type” personality. Elinor possesses an A-Type personality, too. A-Type personalities are constantly irritable people, who consider every problem brought to them, a reason to become “angry.” (In real life, these people are insanely competitive!! They tend to suffer from high blood pressure and jantung attacks, because they are perfectionists. They only want things done a certain way. Preferably, they want things done ‘their way’ to the exclusion of compromises. Arguably, these people may be somewhere on the OCD spectrum, as they only see “one way” available for them to achieve something, and they become steadfastly loyal to their own thinking. These types of people will likely only grudgingly admit that “they don’t have all the facts.” This is why Merida and her mother, Elinor, are both intransigent. This is why Elinor thinks she has “the say” in marrying off her daughter. This is why Merida thinks “it is okay to foil her mother’s plans.” This is why Merida thinks “war” is nothing-- because it really honest-to-God-means-nothing-to-her-on-a-personal-level.
    
My Personal Feelings about Merida: In the early days after brave was first released, I used to hate Merida. I don’t really hate her, anymore, but I still think of Merida as the “pseudo-kick-butt-girl” in the disney Princess lineup. I continue to believe that Brenda Chapman just got lazy and “ripped off” of Mulan’s storytelling oleh pulling out “the riding of a horse,” “the archery thing,” and “the sword thing,” from Mulan, and made Merida defined as “a badass” solely because she could ride a horse around the forest, ayunan a sword, and shoot a couple of arrows. Seriously? Riding a horse, swinging a sword, and shooting off a round of arrows makes anda “a badass?” Defying your parent’s input makes anda “a badass?” Try sacrificing your own life for that of a friend atau for a family member, knowing that anda could possibly die and never see them, again. Try saving a nation from being overrun oleh a bloodthirsty horde with a penchant for torturing and murdering people. THOSE THINGS make anda a real badass!! Weapons and riding a horse around does not make one a badass! Creating a mess, and then having to clean it up afterward, does not make anda a badass, either. Dun, dun, dun. Oh, no, it does not. It does make anda an incredibly flawed character, though...
    I also kept hearing about how Merida was a “better character” than the Classic princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora. Apparently, Merida was better than ‘these three’ because she defied the expectations that were placed upon her, and the Classic princesses were ‘too submissive.’ DEFIANCE. It seemed (circa 2012) that audiences had ultimately “written-off” the idea of “loving their parents, and bringing honor to their families”—a strong tenet of disney Princesses Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, even all the way out to Rapunzel—in favor of “unlimited autonomy”—the tenet of Brave. Merida’s character traits arguably support this “directly opposite change in respect” that we hold for the nuclear family. We just don’t respect families like we used to do. brave kind of removes the idea of family cohesion. It toys with it…while illustrating what happens when a girl totally throws her parents’ expectations in the trash.
    Merida, Merida, Merida. *sigh* Yes, I outgrew my hatred of her, gradually. It took me watching brave 3 TIMES before I could even begin to “like” her. My truest, lukewarm feelings toward Merida are all tied to her personality, as anda will see.
    To address another issue I have often found attached to Brave: Merida is considered “a role model” oleh the people who cinta her. Because I really don’t agree with this statement, I usually just keep my mouth clamped shut. But here, I won’t. I am totally baffled with Merida being considered a role model. Merida needs to tampil compassion. For most of Brave, Merida shows ZERO compassion to anyone, and displays such venom to her mother. Merida only shows compassion to her mother near the very last minute oleh draping the poorly mended tapestry over her. When I think of the most badass disney characters, they tend to be the ones who tampil a whole lot of empathy (Cinderella, Esmeralda, Glenn Close as Kala in Tarzan, Mulan, Kida, Ariel, Jasmine, Baymax, Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph, Jane Porter, Sadness from Inside/Out, Megara, etc.) Like certain characters found in stories from the Brother’s Grimm, I love, respect, and appreciate the people who are compassionate and empathetic. Merida is the OPPOSITE of compassionate and empathetic. Merida only looks after her own interests. Merida screws up so royally, and then she keeps on denying her own mistake to her mother and to her brothers, while blaming the witch for it all. When she eventually admits to her mistake, it’s all the lebih annoying to me. Merida exercises no moral boundaries during her movie. And this is what stands out the most to me.
    Additionally, I don’t cinta Merida for her decisions. It’s purely that nitty-gritty. I don’t cinta Merida for the extremely lowbrow things she did. The first was destroying her mother’s personal property in a fit of anger. (Elinor retaliated, but Merida was the first to “destroy” something precious). The detik thing I despise is Merida’s decisive idea “to change someone else’s mind for them.” How do anda even attempt to do that? Most of all—isn’t that kind of mean to the recipient, and manipulative? Whoa. I hate those kinds of traits. They flesh out Merida’s ultra-competitive, cutthroat-personality, though.
    People often say, ‘the ends justify the means.’ But this is inaccurate in the long run. Merida did not want to get married, sure, but that didn’t justify the means she used to achieve “not getting married”—the intention to manipulate someone else—followed oleh turning her own mother into a bear. It also sticks like a thorn in my mind, that Merida basically tricked her mother into eating a spelled cake, oleh calling it “a peace offering”--which it certainly wasn’t. This whole thing backfired, and then Merida basically tried all means of damage control, but it was already much too late. Merida had gone way too far. She almost lost her mother’s human consciousness/soul forever….
    There is a GOOD reason why I don’t admire Merida, and why I admire Ariel, instead. I didn’t outgrow Ariel as a character, because even though Ariel screwed up so badly, she retained her own self-control, and she held onto her own integrity during her hardships. It takes effort “to be noble.” It takes effort “to be good.” It takes effort to look at your parent objectively, and to see them as an individual who is both flawed and a human being, and who may hold opposite tampilan from yours. It takes “effort” not to retaliate against your parent and not to hurt them-- even if they are “in the wrong” and are hurting you. Eerily, Ariel had much the same choice as Merida did. Her father, like Elinor, would not respect her needs and was inflexible. But the noble thing was to lay down one’s own psychological weapons and just walk away. Ariel did that. Ariel did not try to fight her father after he destroyed her human possessions. Ariel made a choice, instead. She got legs from Ursula and simply “walked” out of Triton’s life. Ariel did not try to change Triton’s mind for him, nor did she resolve to make her father “a yes-person” via a spell. Ariel just totally removed herself from the constant father-daughter spat. And that is what is missing here! Merida has no noble qualities whatsoever. Merida likes fighting, and then “plays dirty” to get her own way. Merida does not lay down her weapons in her feud against her mother. Merida keeps the feud going, and intensifies the awful consequences. Merida only feels remorse, after she begins to suffer the outcomes of her obstinacy. VERDICT: Do I like Merida? Yes, a little bit. Do I admire her and cinta her? NO, I DON’T. I cinta morally-centered and compassionate people. And that’s the absolute truth.

The Princes: What can I say? They are portrayed as buffoons. The good thing about brave was that it made me appreciate the Renaissance and the Classic film more…because the men in those older film were shown as capable guys: they had humor, they had lives, and they had big dreams of their own. The princes in the older film weren’t portrayed as socially inept dorks all of the time. I can remember, back when disney was treating their male characters with the same precise complexity and equality as their female counterparts. It saddens me that those days are fading away.

The Villain: Mor’Du is a legend and a subtext. He is not the villain in Brave. The villain in brave is Merida’s own decision-making. It comes back to bite her in the arse.

The Comic Relief: I do appreciate Fergus’s facial expressions, and his camaraderie with Elinor is one of the best features of Brave. I liked the extortion technique of Harris, Hubert, and Hamish with Merida’s desserts, and I laughed at how they scared Maudie out of her wits in order “to get the key.” I found the witch to be funnier, and much cleverer, because she outwitted Merida to a “T.”

The music: I like the songs. I think they fit the “breathy feel” of the Scottish highlands.

The visuals: The plastic-looking skin on the characters in pixar and Disney’s current CGI film bothers me. Honestly, it’s distracting, because my brain screams “Barbie!” all the time. But the landscapes in brave are really nice. They remind me (distantly) of the stylized Eyvind Earle landscapes from Sleeping Beauty. I especially liked the “murky feel” of Brave’s deep woods. It made a chill run down my spine. It was spooky. I liked the glowing wisps. Good. What I like most about the landscapes in brave is that they did not have the notorious “contrived” computer generated imaging look. (Frozen’s landscape CGI is so contrived-looking at times, that it resembles Shrek’s to me).

Voice Acting: I have no complaints here, either. I don’t find any of the voice actors distracting to the movie itself.

The Plot: The plot…is…small. There simply is no real adventure in Brave. The story is too short. Waiting around for what I knew was going to be inevitable—was just all kinds of frustrating.

The soundtrack: Again, I like the songs and the score. The whole score is on my ipod, oleh the way. I really do think Patrick Doyle did well, here. I think one of my favorit collaboration tracks on brave is Learn Me Right, sung oleh Birdy and Mumford & Sons. This is where Merida admits that she was very wrong to do what she did.
    ‘So I had done wrong but anda put me right
    My judgement burned in the black of night
    When I give less than I take
    It is my fault my own mistake.’

Re-watch: brave is decent upon re-watch. However, I can think of at least ten other disney movies, though, that I would re-watch instead of it…because, well… frankly they don’t make me feel all melancholy, and they don’t leave a bad aftertaste on my brain cells. This review sort of explains why brave is a melodramatic watch for me, and is definitely not in my puncak, atas twenty daftar of disney movies. Part of me wishes Merida wasn’t such a harsh person to her mother. I do find Merida boring with her glares and her tantrums, and her pseudo-action stuff. I’d rather watch Jane Porter, Mulan, Ariel, Pocahontas, Esmeralda, atau Megara, who all manage to ‘beat the odds they encounter’ while still preserving their moral compasses.

selanjutnya Time on disney Rewind, The disney Princess Edition… Hair. All of that gleaming and glowing hair. Hair that heals.

Thanks for membaca if anda got through all of the review itself ( and my explanations for my life experiences and my dissenting opinions).

anda can komentar below.

See anda selanjutnya time, folks. ;)