Trivia / Brave

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• Actor-Inspired Element: The writers originally intended Young MacGuffin's lines to be gibberish. However, his voice actor, Kevin McKidd, suggested that they instead use Doric, a Scots dialect from his hometown of Elgin. He then spoke in the dialect, confusing the writers. This trait was then implemented into the film.
• Acting for Two: Kevin McKidd voices both Lord MacGuffin and Young MacGuffin. The brogue he uses for them is a riff on his native Doric accent.
• Billing Displacement: In an interesting example that's both intuitive and counterintuitive, Fergus is second billed and Elinor third, despite Elinor being the film's secondary protagonist. However, since Elinor spends much of the film as a bear, it's probably fair to say that Emma Thompson has less of a speaking part than Billy Connolly. In a straighter example, the Witch is billed fourth despite having only two scenes, beating out the three lords.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • In the Japanese dub, Merida is voiced by Yuko Oshima from AKB48.
  • In the French dub, Merida is voiced by actress Bérénice Bejo.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In some of the foreign versions, they used Merida's name as the title, while in some, it was "Merida the Brave".
  • In French, it was Rebelle ("Rebellious" — feminine form of the word.)
  • In German, it was "Merida - Legende der Highlands" (Legend of the Highlands).
  • In Japanese, it was "メリダとおそろしの森" (Merida and the Terrifying Forest).
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Meta. Several fans are convinced that "Merida" is a variant of "Meredith", but this cannot be true unless Pixar were uncharacteristically sloppy in their research. Brave takes place in Scotland, sometime in the Middle Ages; "Meredith" is a Welsh name, and until the late 20th century was exclusively male. The name is likely intended to be a variant of Mairead, the Scottish form of Margaret, or on one of the several Scottish forms of Mary (e.g. Mhairi).
• Creator's Oddball: Brave is a fairy tale fantasy film that stars a princess, which is the kind of movie you would expect from Disney rather than from Pixar of all studios, who are typically more known for having more grounded and contemporary stories. (This was also released the same year as Wreck-It Ralph, whose plot line would not be too dissimilar from a Pixar film.) Because it is such a departure from the norm, it is not uncommon for people to mistakenly claim Brave to be a Disney movie as opposed to a Pixar movie, which is not helped by Merida's later induction into the Disney Princess line.
• Defictionalization: The DunBroch tartan is registered as a real tartan in the Scottish Register of Tartans. But you can't use it without Disney/Pixar's permission. Admittedly, this is also somewhat played with in terms of authenticity as the DunBroch tartan literally can't be made in the traditional methods. This is not the first time Disney registered a tartan, having previously registered the one for Clan McDuck in 1942 for Uncle Scrooge.
• Descended Creator:
  • As the film's co-director and one of the four scriptwriters, Steve Purcell voices the Witch's pet crow.
  • Patrick Doyle, the composer, also voices one of the guards.
• Executive Meddling: The original director Brenda Chapman was replaced for having ideas that the suits didn't agree with, which many have assumed had something to do with the film's feminist message. She notably thought the final product was faithful to her vision.
• Fake Scot:
  • John Ratzenberger (who's an American) voices Gordon, one of the guards at Castle DunBroch.
  • Julie Walters (an English actress of Irish descent) voices the Witch and faked a Scottish accent for the movie. Amusingly enough, the next time she did this would also involve a bear.
  • Elinor's voice actress Emma Thompson has Scottish ancestry through her mother's side of the family and spent part of her life living in Scotland. But she's technically a citizen of England and naturally speaks with an English accent, so she ultimately had to fake a Scottish accent for the movie.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Not much Scots dialect was actually in the script, but the Scottish actors were encouraged to add as much as they could think of.
• He Also Did: One of the co-directors is Steve Purcell, who is best known for Sam & Max, a Black Comedy multimedia franchise centering around a Heroic Comedic Sociopath duo.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to Steve Jobs, the iconic Apple founder who also played a major role in getting Pixar to where they are today. The clan Macintosh is also named in his honor.
• Orphaned Reference: Merida was originally supposed to end up with Young MacGuffin, hence his name being a reference to the plot device. In the final film, his name no longer has any meaning.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Susanne Blakeslee voiced the Witch in the video game adaptation.
  • For her appearance in Sofia the First, Merida was voiced by Ruth Connell instead of Kelly Macdonald.
• The Other Marty: Reese Witherspoon was originally cast in the lead but was replaced during recording with Kelly Macdonald.
• Reality Subtext: Brenda Chapman based the story on her relationship with her daughter.
• Referenced by...: In Both Can Be True, Brave is Daniel's mom's comfort movie. She watches it a lot after her husband leaves.
• Role Reprise: Kelly Macdonald returns to voice Merida for the tie-in game and for Ralph Breaks the Internet.
• Scully Box: When Bear!Elinor is standing, she is more than twice Merida's height. To fit both characters into the same shot, the animators sometimes sunk Bear!Elinor into the floor a bit.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: Dolls and plush toys for the film blatantly revealed the identity of some of the bears seen in the trailer as Merida's mother and brothers.
• Troubled Production: The film had title changes, the dismissal of director/co-writer Brenda Chapman, and many scenes being rewritten and/or dropped during production.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Much of the film was originally to be set during the winter, with snow being the big technical challenge for the film but when Brenda Chapman left the project, so did the weather. What's more, according to the DVD Commentary, they were going to turn the setting into an Endless Winter as an addition to Merida and Mor'du's bear curse, but in the end chose not to. This may have been done to avoid being too similar to Frozen, which also featured an endless winter curse and was released the following year.
  • The first summary released online stated the three Lords actually aided Merida in breaking the spell! That did not happen, to say the least.
  • Another summary implied that the three Lords were direct antagonists to Merida.
  • Mor'du's backstory was supposed to be more prominent in the earlier draft, thereby making the film much darker than it already is. Inevitably, executives made Pixar tone it down.
  • The movie's official artbook confirms that originally, Young MacGuffin is the one Merida ends up with. This was probably cut out of the final product since the filmmakers wanted to focus more on the mother/daughter relationship. It's also not particularly surprising that this was the original plan, since he's the only one of the three suitors that Merida, at any point, expresses even just the tiniest interest in, and the only one to actually take her feelings into account.
  • The film in general gets this; as revealed in a number of the home release featurettes, although every film Pixar (and any studio for that matter) makes always has sequences that get dropped, Brave specifically has an immense amount of scrapped and altered scenes that just didn't make the final cut, made harsher in that a lot of the sequences were nearly finished.
  • Sean Connery was offered the role of King Fergus at one point, before it ultimately went to Billy Connolly.
• Working Title: The Bear and the Bow. This was actually used as the title of a Merida-centric episode of Once Upon a Time, in a pretty neat Mythology Gag.
• Write What You Know: Brenda Chapman drew inspiration from her relationship with her daughter.

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