Disney the Brave

Red curly hair and bright blue eyes, incredibly feisty and fierce, courageous, strong and an ace with a bow and arrow..

When you think of a Disney Princess what do you picture? Long gowns, tiaras, long beautiful hair, can-do attitudes and pitch perfect voices? That's what I think of. However, Disney's newest princess is a little bit different. Meet Merida.

  Not exactly your typical Disney princess is she? Star of the upcoming Disney/Pixar movie Brave, Merida is definitely causing some excitement! She will be the first ever Scottish princess (you would never be able to tell from the stereotypical ginger hair would you?) and safe to say we Disney geeks are more than a little excited! The film is centred on Merida (voiced by Kelly MacDonald) a highly skilled archer and daughter to King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) who is determined to carve her own path in life.

In doing so she defies an ancient custom sacred to the kingdom and thus accidentally unleashes chaos. She seeks out a wise old woman for help as they always do. This particular wise old lady is voiced by the amazing Julie Walters (Mamma Mia, Harry Potter and the whateverthetitlesare and Educating Rita to name a few). However, Merida gets cursed and has to race against time to figure out what it means to be truly brave. 

Brave was originally announced back in the April of 2008 but under the original name The Bear and The Bow. It is set during the 10th century in the highlands of Scotland and is a much darker and more mature animation compared to the usual Disney/Pixar films. Quite significantly, Merida will be the first female protagonist in a Pixar film which is a great honour to us Scots for the film to be set here. The film is due to be released on the 22nd of June 2012 and it is scheduled to have its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 30th.