On Brave and Disney Princesses

One day, there will be an animated movie with a non-human female protagonist who is not physically defined by her hair and whose weapon of choice is not the bow and arrow. This movie will explore themes that are not about love, marriage, or chafing against arbitrary societal bonds that the protagonist eventually learns to work within instead of break. But unfortunately, today is not that day.

( Thoughts about Disney princesses and plot spoilers. )

In general, though, Brave did not seem like a movie made by Pixar. It seemed like a very well-made movie created by Disney. I’m not going to judge an entire studio’s future based on one movie, but I hope in upcoming projects, we’ll have more movies by Pixar that actually feel like they were made by Pixar. (But hey, at least it was better than Cars?)

As a side note, the short film, La Luna, was absolutely breathtaking and in my opinion actually better than the feature film that followed. I haven’t enjoyed a Pixar short this much since the delightful Geri’s Game (ahead of A Bug’s Life), in which an old dude with multiple personalities plays chess against himself for the right to wear his teeth.