Interview: Brian Larsen, Brave Story Supervisor and The Legend of Mor'du Director

A while back now, I had the chance to interview Pixar's Brian Larsen, a frequent Genndy Tartakovsky collaborator, who worked on Ratatouille and most recently acted as Story Supervisor on Pixar's 13th feature film, and awards-hopeful, Brave - as well as directing the new Brave-based short film that was attached to the film's home video release, The Legend of Mor'du.

Unfortunately, due to me having a heck of a lot of work to do as of late, it's taken me rather a while to get transcribed. That said, I'd like to, once again, extend my sincerest thanks to Pixar's PR mogul Chris Wiggum for taking the time to deal with me and set these interviews up. Thanks also to Brian for being so courteous with his time and generous with his responses. Brave is available on DVD and Blu-ray now and you can purchase it from Amazon here.

Topics covered in our interview include the inspiration for the short and its distinctive visual style, Brian's reaction to some of the criticisms levelled at Brave, what working on the film was like, including reactions to its high-profile directorial change, and the new project he's developing (we assume, a feature film) with Brave director Mark Andrews - could this be the PG-13 rated Pixar film Andrews spoke about wanting to make recently? Check out the transcription below.

Brave Blu-ray Review

Pixar have had a rough deal of it as of late. It seems as though people were determined to hate Cars 2 no matter what, so it never really stood a chance - despite being an actually really fun film. That attitude has led many to foreseeing the, entirely fictionalised and false, fall of Pixar, which ultimately led to some unnecessarily harsh reviews of Brave. Saying "if this was a DreamWorks or Disney film, it'd be great. But it's Pixar, and we expect better" and giving it a harsh score is stupid; if it's a good film, it's a good film. And Brave is a good film. Rant over, for more, read my review of the film.

Watch: Clip From The Legend of Mor'du

Disney UK may suck at releasing films in decent time, but their YouTube channel is top notch. Today, Walt Disney Studios UK brings us the above clip of the new short film that's on the Brave DVD and Blu-ray, The Legend of Mor'du.

We got our first look at the feature-based short a couple of weeks ago, and you can really see the distinctively different visual style mentioned then in this clip. The short, which is directed by long-time Pixar storyboard artist Brian Larsen, (Ratatouille, Brave) is narrated by Julie Walters' Witch and follows the story of demon bear Mor'du more closely. It looks great and I can't wait to check it out with the fantastic Brave very soon!

The Legend of Mor'du arrives in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray with Brave this coming Monday - and is already out in the US. You can pre-order below.

First Look at Brave-Based The Legend of Mor'du Short

Another story I didn't get round to posting before my mini-break over the weekend: Entertainment Weekly have got the first images from Pixar's Brave-based short film, The Legend of Mor'du. The short film, based on the demon bear from Pixar's latest feature, will be a bonus feature on the Brave DVD and Blu-ray when they're released, and features Julie Walters as the Witch.

According to EW, the short goes "a little deeper into the backstory of the movie’s fearsome, snarling villain.". They also tell us that the short is (continuing Pixar's recent run of shorts) directed by a first-timer, Brian Larsen. Larsen worked as a storyboard artist on Ratatouille, and was story supervisor for Brave. Larsen describes The Legend of Mor'du as "like Grimm’s fairy tales" saying there's "not always a happy ending.”

The short is apparently in a different style to Pixar's norm; it seems it'll be like Your Friend the Rat, with CG sequences featuring the characters from the feature, and then more traditionally animated animation for the bulk of the short, more in the style of Mary Blair:

"The short is book-ended by Brave‘s cheerful witch (voiced by Harry Potter’s Julie Walters) recounting the tale of Mor’du for another, unseen customer seeking a potion that might change his fate. But as she flashes back to the savage prince’s backstory, we see it depicted in a kind of hand-painted, paper cut-out style."

Brave arrives on home media on 13th November in the US, and 26th in the UK.

Via The Pixar Post.