SnoopyStyle
The Witch recounts the story of four prince brothers to Wee Dingwall. Their family had ruled an ancient prosperous nearby kingdom. The youngest prince was wise, the second youngest was compassionate, the second oldest was just, and the eldest was strong. When the king died, the kingdom was split among the four brothers hoping a blend of their traits would create the best rule. The eldest expected to be the only king and battled the others to take the entire kingdom. He came to the Witch for magical strength. She offered him tenfold his strength but he's also turned into a black bear. Instead of letting go and make peace, he murdered his brothers destroying what's left of the kingdom.This is a 7 minute short from the Brave franchise. It tells a fitting fable that teaches something. It also has a fun joke to wrap it up. It's a well made animated short.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
Brian Larsen's only directorial effort so far, "The Legend of Mor'du", is a 7-minute animated short film that features the Witch from Pixar's "Brave". She tells us, her crow and a customer a story about a power-hungry heir to the throne. I must say this was really random. First of all, it would have been nice to have the protagonist from 2Brave" in here, even if I have not yet seen that movie. It's not 100% necessary, but if they do without her, at least they should have made this story all around the witch. Instead we get a metaphoric tale that is fairly generic in terms of the story and has absolutely nothing to do with the "real" movie, so that, with the exception of brief scenes at the beginning and end, this is basically a short film that stands alone. I wasn't impressed. Not really worth the watch, not even for great fans of "Brave".
bob the moo
Having enjoyed the film Brave I was looking forward to seeing this supporting short, not sure what it would provide. This short focuses on the story of Mor'du, which is a story we already know from the main film since it is the tale that sits behind the path of Merida as a warning to her in the main film. Here we don't have more detail of this story but instead just longer spent telling it. The device of having this delivered by the Witch is reasonably nice as it allows for some humor, but mainly it is a straight telling.The animation is not the full Pixar computer generated effects of Brave but a more stylish approach with rougher edges. I liked this as a look and felt this helped the short as a story being told – but I did have an issue with the story itself. I was hoping for it to do something I hadn't heard already but it never did, which made me wonder why it had been selected to be the supporting short that Pixar so often produce to accompany the DVD release of their film. There were many good characters in the main film which could have been used to make an interesting or funny short, so I'm not sure why they just repeated in this way.It still has entertainment value and is well made, but it is covering ground the film did and feels disappointing and unnecessary as a result.
TxMike
We watched 'Brave" on DVD. In that film one of the characters gets turned into a bear when a witches spell goes wrong. During that spell is an encounter with a very large, evil bear and the audience is told it is Mordu, but we really know nothing else about it.This short, 'The Legend of Mor'du', is one of two film shorts included in the extras of the DVD version of the feature length, Oscar-winning movie 'Brave'. In it we find that a king had 4 sons, each wanting to be the heir, and through a process Mordu had the spell placed upon him, in his greed to have it all for himself. This spell had turned him into the bear.SPOILERS follow. In Brave we see the battle between the bear that was the queen under a spell, and Mordu. When a large stone monument (think Stonehenge) fractures and falls on him, we see the ghost of Mordu rising from the remains, finally upon his death released from the spell.
AD
