So.....Brave, eh?

[Corrina]

The original Wicker Man is great, scary stuff. I think I missed the reference in Brave, however. Probably when I was dealing with one of the kids.

[MacQuarrie]

The original Wicker Man is great, scary stuff. I think I missed the reference in Brave, however. Probably when I was dealing with one of the kids.

It was a double reference. The witch says she's off to "the Wicker Man Festival," referencing both the film and the Burning Man festival. Clever.

[t.c.johnson]

It was a double reference. The witch says she's off to "the Wicker Man Festival," referencing both the film and the Burning Man festival. Clever.

Actually, the Wickerman Festival is something different than the Burning Man festival. The Wickerman Festival is a big, yearly music festival in Scotland.

[MacQuarrie]

I stand corrected.

(Thank God for chiropractors.)

[michealdark]

I think one could say it's a reference to both, depending on location. People in the UK will pick it up as Wicker Man, people in the know in America will probably pick up on it as Burning Man. So it's a triply clever reference

[bert]

For a more thorough reivew...

There were flaws in the movie, to be sure. The moral does not hold up under even minor scrutiny because, despite an explicit statement of what the moral is, it didn't actually happen that way. Mother and daughter say that they have both learned and changed, except Merida didn't change. Or rather, she was willing to, but then her mother said not to worry about it. So, in the end, Merida got exactly what she wanted right from the start. That's not bad, I'm not saying Merida should have changed or that she was being unreasonable (Frak no. She wanted to live her own life and I raised my fist in support right from the start), just that there was no sacrifice on her part in this story which supposedly has a moral about people learning to compromise and understand the other viewpoints.

However, even with that apparently missing lesson, the movie was pehnominal The CGI was beautiful (There were times when Merida's hair looked real. I mean real real. Not all the time, but a few scenes where it just popped) and the dialogue was hilarious (Albeit a wee bit Scottish, which was, I suppose, the point). The actions scenes were intense and I loved seeing Merida kicking ass. I also loved how (relatively) little ass she kicked. Despite how awesome she is she's a teenager who isn't out looking for blood, so they put her into scenes where she needed to be physical, but she's also not waging a war or anything, so they didn't oversell it. The brothers were adorable little devil children and Merida's parents were great (What a jolly fat king he was, and she was the consumate quiet, controlled queen).

The movie was great, with beautiful imagery and great characters. I recommend seeing it, and enjoying it, and make sure all your little girl cousins and boy cousins go see it, because (As we say so often on this board) both genders can enjoy kickass girls being kickass.

saw it today, and loved it.

and also agree with everything you say above (*yeah.. the "moral" really doesn't work).


NOW, I want to see a prequel featuring the original four tribes, and the witch's story!

[bert]

I had a few niggles--I think it tried to be too Shrek-like with the witch's modern take

My friends and I looked at each other, and commented immediately that they seem to have "borrowed heavily" the idea of "Witches" from Miyazaki /Studio Ghibli films (particularly, "Spirited Away").

but still liked the updating from "scary witch" that Disney usually falls back to.

my only "niggle". . is the over use of Will O' Wisps. . . . three times in one film, for something that is supposedly so rare that many don't believe in them?. . . but again, that was minor.

[bert]

Apparently that was real, and I've heard from people familiar with Scotland that if you're familiar enough with the accents that it does make sense, it's just that the Doric accents like that guy's are really hard to understand even among Scots.

Yep, and that voice was done by Kevin McKidd (Grey's Anatomy, HBO's "ROME") in his natural accent.

he toned it down to play the Father, but then the Producers heard him using his natural accent, and asked him to do the kid in that harder to understand voice.

I don't remember where I heard him tell that story, but likely on "the View" .. (yes, I watch the View. . shut-up!).

[Corrina]

I thought Merida did learn, however, that her mother did have a very important job, that keeping order is important because chaos is worse, and that once she saw that, she was finally willing to make a sacrifice to do so.

What the mother learned was that while the problem existed, marrying off Merida wasn't the *only* solution. So no more tunnel vision for her.

Merida eventually choose to address the problem directly and propose another solution, which was accepted.

I'm still hung up, though, on the fact there should have been a scene to resolve the bow issue.

[t.c.johnson]

I think the fact that Meridah was willing to sacrifice is more important than an actual sacrifice.