Then it was announced that writer-director Brenda Chapman (one of three directors on The Prince of Egypt and head of story on The Lion King), slated to be the first woman to direct a Pixar film, had been removed over creative differences and replaced with Mark Andrews. Pixar's willingness to take a film from one director and give it to another has worked in the past (moving Ratatouille from Jan Pinkava to Brad Bird was, I'm convinced, the right move), but taking Pixar's first woman director off their first girl-centric film seemed off to many.įinally, the American trailers, alas, made Brave look like yet another retread of the overworn theme of a headstrong, rebellious young protagonist resisting a domineering parent's vision of the child's future - a theme all too familiar from everything from The Little Mermaid to How to Train Your Dragon. Speed bumps on Brave's path to the screen raised further concerns. First came word that the original title, The Bear and the Bow, had been scuttled for another one-word concept title like Up or Tangled. I thought The Bear and the Bow lovely and evocative, and while Up struck me as a daringly unconventional title, a trend toward such terse titles could quickly become dull. (Have minimalist names like John Carter, The Muppets and Winnie the Pooh helped or hurt those films at the box office?)
Toy Story 3 and Cars 2 were both products of post-purchase Pixar - and, as well done as Toy Story 3 was, the willingness to keep going back to the same well (combined with the mediocrity of Cars 2) raised disquieting questions about whether a Disney-owned Pixar still had the vision and daring for unconventional projects like Wall-E or Up. For Pixar fans, Brave marks a crucial watershed. The studio's first fairy-tale film and first feature with a female protagonist, it's also Pixar's first non-sequel since being bought by Disney.
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