Disney's French YouTube channel (via Bleeding Cool) has debuted a new, minute-long featurette for their upcoming Disney/Pixar fairy tale "Brave." The piece seems to be part of a larger marketing scheme called "Brave Stories" that we'll probably see in America on the Disney Channel or ABC's Saturday morning programming (and, of course, online). Despite its brief running time, the featurette offers some new footage and some plot specifics.
It opens with a lot of footage we've already seen from the trailer – glimpses of our heroine Merida (Kelly Macdonald) as she deals with the stuffy court of her parents, the king and queen (Emma Thompson and Billy Connolly), and ultimately rebels against the sexist, antiquated notions that her family has tried to instill. After that, though, we get a bunch of new stuff, only slightly marred by some pretty horrendous, extremely forced voice-over (like stuff about her "mop of hair").
We see Merida venturing out to start her quest, including a staggering shot of her climbing atop a rocky outcrop near a waterfall; some more stuff about her life inside of the castle (there's a great moment where her mom scolds her for "no weapons on the table"); and, best of all, some stuff involving the movie's actual plot. "I wished for things to change, and that was the problem," Merida says in voice over. "It seems I've unleashed a wee tiny ancient curse." We see a swirling cauldron (but still nothing of Julie Walters' witchy Wise Woman) and some additional shots of Mordu, the monstrous bear that plays a pivotal role in the film.
The more we see of the film the more excited we get, despite its many creative hiccups. It looks to be a rousing bit of you-go-girl fairy tale fun, and the visuals are absolutely striking (Pixar recently screened thirty minutes of the film for select journalists, and the responses involved many exclamation points).
"Brave" opens on June 22nd. We've also included a new international poster for the movie below courtesy of Recent Movie Posters.
