Braves (Dreamworks Movie)

Braves is a 3D animated fantasy action film Produced by Dreamworks Animation in asaociation whit Aries Creative, Pearl studio and BigCat Studio and Distribuited By Universal Pictures. The film is directed by Pendleton Ward (creator of the Adventure Time series) and produced by Yang Tzu Ting in association with Pendleton Ward, Rebecca Sugar, Ben Bocelet and Fred Seibert. The film is based on the Taiwanese comic book series of the same name by Yellow Book and serves as Pendleton's directorial debut. The film stars Jaeden Matel, Ron Perlman, Hailee Stenfield, Richard Steve Hortiz, Zazie Bets, Jacob Hopkins, Mark Whalberg and Jennifer Laurence and tells the story of a boy who decides to stop the king of demons and his entourages, but when faced with They realize that they are not what everyone thinks and that their group is not on the true side of justice.

Braves was released on September 7, 2024 in the United States and Taiwan by Universal Pictures. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, praising its story animation and characters considering the film as "A Great Leap For Ward".

Sinopsis
A Brave Youth named Arthur who lives in a fantasy RPG world decides to join the Braves to stop the threat of Morewant the king of demons along with his retinues, but after coming face to face with him he discovers that Morwant is not as evil as he seems to be and that demons are not evil entities, so he must stop King Gabriel while he unravels the origins of demons.

Plot
A long time ago there were three races: Humans, Demons and Dragons which lived in organized war between The Brave and The Demons led by their king "Morewant", Some three brave called Alon (Fair Brave) Fideus (Loyal Brave) and Morpheis (Brave black) decide to go to the Morewant Tower to defeat him where on the way they get the sad news that the king was killed by an unknown assassin, Fideus blames Alon for letting the king die fighting him when they meet with goblins that were protecting the place by hitting Fielus in the right eye, in another place Alon meets Morewant and discovers that he is not as evil as he believes and that demons are like humans, in that Morpheis arrives and faces Face to face with Alon, he is badly injured so when Morpheis launches an energy sphere towards him, Morewant decides to sacrifice himself to stop him, in that Alon awakens his Heart of Darkness battling to count Morpheis and defeating him.

When he tries to help the demons Morpheis decides to stab him with his sword and blame Alon for his murder calling him the new Morewant before dying, causing Alon a huge sense of guilt.

20 years later the war ended and a new king was elected, this being Gabriel Artemis Morling III, on the day of the election of a new brave Arthur, a young peasant who is a nobody for society, decides to enlist for the brave and thus be able to defeat Morewant.

Arthur decides to go to the castle to meet his new companions, among them this other rookie who arrived before him, Dracaris, a hybrid between a human and a dragon who was separated from her parents, Arthur introduces himself with her and says that it is his first day as Brave, Dracaris doesn't seem to care, when they arrive at the castle they meet other brave ones, these being Robert, a self-centered Brave who thinks he's famous, and Katranis, a feline swordswoman who is very good with Dracaris.

In that Fideus arrives and asks the brave to do some chores to receive experience, Robert had to face some giant mosquitoes, Katranis had to guard the borders of the city and Arthur along with Dracaris will have to kill goblins, Arthur doubts if the government is really doing the right thing and if it is really on the side of justice, so fideus will give him twice the experience, thus convincing Arthur while Dracaris sees in the background and thinks that Arthur is quite naive.

On the way Arthur tells Dracaris more about his life, saying that he never knew his parents because they died in an attack by demons, so he spent his entire childhood in an orphanage, when he turned 18 years old managed to get a home of his own even though he was quite alone without anyone bothering him, talking to him or making him pancakes for breakfast.

Dracaris also tells about her past saying that she is the daughter of Venatorus in brave dragon slayer who retired years ago after falling in love with a blue dragon named Halerris, she was born thanks to a forbidden magic made by her parents, when the King found her home he asked her to join the brave, however she did not want to, so the king threatened to end her family if she did not join them, so without any other option she decided to join the brave so as not to see their parents die.

Along the way they run into a brave man with a somewhat peculiar appearance, although Arthur is surprised by his appearance, in the end he does not care and they continue on their way.

When they arrive at the goblins' village they decide to prepare to attack them. But a Goblin named Marlix along with his slime partner named Baba and an elf named Mobs, Arthur without thinking twice decides to finish them off in a battle while the brave one they ran into before They watch them while they fight. When he manages to knock them out, the Brave wounds himself to sacrifice himself and explode.

When they are taken out of combat they decide to leave, the brave man who was still alive thanks to his resurrection ring decides to go to his home in the Morewant Tower, taking off his helmet revealing that it is nobody else than Morewant himself when he decides to rest, Aquaris arrives the second in command of Morwant and queen of demos, when she sees Morewant's wounds, she asks him in alarm what happened to him, so he tells her that he was only doing brave things, she reproaches Morewant that he cannot I was sure of this since the demon people can no longer bear to see their king die.

In that Alverus the brave boss arrives telling Morewant that he must pay the monthly rent for the tower, so Morewant nervously tells him that he had been quite short of budget but tells him that the other week he will pay him, Alverus decides to accept but before Leaving notices that Morewant's resurrection ring was missing, worrying Aquaris and asking Morewant what killed him, without finding an answer from him.

After their first mission Arthur and Dracarys return to the castle to receive their pay, Katranis, knowing that there was nothing wrong while guarding the borders, decided to also receive the pay and for his part Robert returns with too many stings saying that he managed to defeat the giant mosquitoes (when in reality he ended up being pathetically defeated by the insects) to also receive his pay, Fideus, as he is a man of his word, decides to give everyone their pay and tells them to go home, Arthur asks if he too he knows other Braves such as Morpheis, Venatorus or Alon, so Fideus yells at Arthur not to mention Alon's name so he decides to stop talking and go home but when he tries to ask Fideus again he tells him He closes the door in his face, Arthur decides to go home to rest, plans to go to the Morewant tower to finish him off, in this Dracaris decides to follow him home and ask him if he thinks he is going to work to which Arthur tells him if he thinks it will work, so Dracaris also says goodbye to Arthur and leaves.

The next day Arthur decides to prepare to look for a legendary armor of the fierce king, when he arrives at the door to leave, Dracaris who was in front of the door tells him to accompany him so that he does not get hurt, to which Arthur agrees and goes towards the realm of Ignitus to get the armor.

When they arrive at Ignitus's lair, Maliz and Baba arrive to get her first but due to Arthur's Stupidity, he and Maliz fall into a cave where Ignitus is who is talking to Robert to give him the armor because he doesn't want him to the blood reaches the lava, Later Robert breaks his part of the deal and says that who cares about morality. Arthur who was watching this decides to stop Robert but Katranis arrives to beat him up, in the middle of it Maliz puts on the armor to stop them being very powerful and getting Katranis out of the way and saving Arthur, Dracaris together with Mobs decide to stop the Brave that had them surrounded but they are subdued and when they were about to finish off the Mobs Maliz arrives and defeats the guards, Dracaris seeing Arthur badly injured asks Maliz for help to heal him but Ignitus arrives and helps Dracaris to take Arthur to someone who can heal him.

Arthur wakes up in an unknown room and decides to check the place discovers some food and drink, but in it he meets Morewant causing him to panic and try to leave the place, but after a while he meets Dracaris again and she tells him that Morewant will not harm him and discovers that he is not as evil as he thinks.

After helping Arthur with his wounds, Morewant introduces him and Dracaris to his companions: Ignitus the fire demon and Morewant's best friend, Aquaris, the water demon and queen of demons and Kirus, the sick demon. and the youngest member of the group, Arthur, seeing them from the front, realizes that they are not as evil as they seem and realizes that they are peaceful. Arthur, seeing that the demons are not evil entities, doubts if he is really doing the right thing, Dracaris and Mobs talk about what the Brave do to the demons, and also tells him that the brave only take advantage of them to gain experience, Arthur, knowing what the brave really are, decides to go with the demons to the brave kingdom while helping them to give a good image about them, which will not be easy.

Arthur decides to go with Dracaris and the others to the castle to show the king that they are not monsters, Morewant is not sure about it, so Aquaris decides to speak alone with Arthur, She tells him that she doubts if the king is really convinced of that the demons are not evil, to which Arthur tells her that everything will be fine convincing her, so Aquaris said that if they go to the castle they will see the king to convince him.

Hours later on the road they run into a group of braves who were looking for demons to hunt and have experience, in it One runs into Morewant who was hiding in a bush, and just when a brave was about to check Maliz decides to face them in front to the front, to which the group of braves laugh at his height and call him "Little" causing Maliz to get angry and shout "NOBODY CALLS ME LITTLE" and start attacking the brave group with his sword becoming more powerful and throwing them into the Sky, Arthur and the others seeing the power that Maliz has They are impressed and continue on their way, Meanwhile King Gabriel Talks with some brave men to carry out his evil plan, in it comes the group of brave men who were defeated by Maliz and they are told that a Goblin took them out of the way, Malefariz using a spell decides to show the king what happened using the memory of the attacked Braves and discovers that Arthur and Dracarys are together to Morewant, so Gabriel decides that he has to take his troops to stop him and that Arthur doesn't know his plans.

After spending several hours walking in a desert, the group feels quite hot, except for Ignitus, which for him is normal because his body is 56% fire. Maliz thinks that they are wasting time and argues with Arthur since he thinks that they were walking in circles, meanwhile Mobs and Aquaris notice that some things mysteriously disappear and feel that the sand moves, in this Mobs warns Dracaris that something is causing things disappear in the sand and behind him a gigantic sandworm comes out, causing the group to escape, after running from the monster they find a gigantic opening in the earth, because the Worm was approaching, Maliz decided to charge to the group, however the giant worm comes out behind them and when it was about to devour them Maliz gives a boost jump which makes them reach the other side of the abyss and thus manage to survive, after the encounter the group resumes its path.

Meanwhile, King Gabriel recruits a group of Braves to finish off Arthur, being these: Bruter (the general solitude), Asferatu (the King of Blood), Halaris (Female Boss) and San nu, at first they reject the idea but later After the king blackmails them to give them a lot of money for what they accept and join Fideus, Katranis and Robert, the king tells Malefariz that he should not tell him about his plan since it will be executed very soon.

The group decides to rest and camp in the forest after their encounter with the giant worm, Arthur somewhat curiously asks Aquaris, Ignitus and Kirus how their past was, Ignitus says that due to the strong war that took place years ago, his town was injured by the brave, so he had no choice but to leave his town to avoid being hunted, Kirus tells Arthur that before he lived in peace with his family and his people, however the town was attacked and his relatives they were massacred by the brave being Kirus the only one who managed to escape, and Aquaris says that she belonged to royalty and that she was the future queen of her people, however due to the great pressure of the war she had to abdicate the throne and leave him the position to another person, after she left her village she met Ignitus who was being attacked by a crocodile, and later she met Kirus who was being attacked by the braves who killed his relatives, after After being saved Kirus and Ignitus became invincible, then Kirus says that if something good happens to him, it is because of his relatives who take care of them from beyond, Arthur hugs Aquaris and asks if he knows anything about Morewant's past but Aquiaris tells him that he knows almost nothing about him, so they decide to rest, because tomorrow will be a long trip, while Morewant listens to everything Aquaris tells Arthur.

The next day, the group decides to continue on their way to go to the castle, Arthur decides to help Kirus with his equipment, Kidrus thanks him, Dracaris tells Mobs that maybe Arthur is not the best but he does have something that the others brave not... morality.

Meanwhile Fideus along with the brave follow the tracks of the group to hunt them down and finish Morewant, in this Bruter speaks privately with San Nu since he thinks that the king is lying to them so that he ends Morewant and that he is not going to to give money for their benefits but to kill them as well as Morewant, in this Robert intervenes and asks him what they said, so Bruter lies to him that he was talking about apples and pears, to which Robert believes him and leaves him in peace.

The group, which was in a place that was too snowy and cold, think that they are lost and that they will die of hypothermia, but then they find a tavern in which there may be Braves, so the group decides to find a disguise to avoid being detected. for the brave, the disguise technique works and they manage to enter to find that the place is full of brave, so they should be cautious but due to the large population Arthur and Dracaris come out of the suit and fortunately they are not seen, but then Fiedus and along with the other brave ones they arrive at the place and when they were about to be detected the lights go out and then the song "Bones" starts playing making the brave ones Dance so Arthur and Dracaris decide to join them so as not to be detected, but because the demons were too influenced by the music they take off their costume at the exact moment where the music ends.

This makes the brave try to go for them so the group escapes, in it they use a log to escape down the mountain, Fideus was not going to let Arthur and the demons escape and uses a giant rock to go for them without knowing what accidentally caused an avalanche, the demons face many obstacles such as trees and rocks and accidentally destroy a snowman's partner, in this Fideus ties a rope to his sword in order to capture Arthur, Kirus, Maliz and Mobs They try to cut the rope without success but when everything was not going to be worse, they realize that at the end of the mountain there is a cliff which would lead them to death, so they decide to rush to cut the rope, they finally manage to cut it but due to that they were too close to the cliff, Dracaris manages to get an idea and tells the group to hold on to her, just as they fall to the cliff Dracaris manages to transform into a dragon, (this because it is a hybrid) managing to escape from Fideus and the other braves.

After Arthur and the others manage to escape from Fideus the group discovers that they are very close to the king's castle, however due to a goat that was in their way causing Dracaris and the group to fall into a forest, Arthur asks Arthur all if they are fine so the group tells him that if so Arthur decides to help Dracaris, in them they find a large cave on the way, Arthur says that it can be a good shelter, but the group thinks that It is possible that there are braves there, Arthur doubts that a lot because the braves who tried to attack them before were not all since Alverus was missing and says that he doubts that Alverus is here, but he discovers that Alverus is behind him, doing that Arthur gets scared and begs him not to attack him, something that Alverus does not do since he reveals that he is against the king and that he will show them a friend who will reveal everything about the beginning of the war and Morewant's past, so he takes to the group went to the cave.

When the group enters the cave, they run into Libidy, the queen of desire whom the demons have known for a long time, she tells them that Alverus is against the king since he only seeks the same thing as Arthur: to show that the demons are not malignant. Libidy decides to reveal to the group how all the massive hatred towards demons started, so thanks to a spell she decides to show them how it all started.

Many years ago before the war, the ancient king exiled some magicians who believed that the kingdom was somewhat xenophobic with demons. After being exiled, the magicians without any food or drink decide to create a rebellion against the king, but because they were so hungry they decide to kill the leader to eat him (obviously off camera) Arthur and the group were watching this in horror except for Kirus who doesn't seem to care.

Then the magicians decide to use their tribe as cattle to survive turning them into giants and this makes a part of the tribe oppose this and uses a part of the cattle to use their magic and turn them into beasts of pure hatred, the tribe decides to go by the king behind the mountain only to see that there was a fertile paradise making his suffering in vain, This makes the dragons fill even more with hatred and decide to attack the kingdom, however he is stopped by a powerful Blood Knight, who uses his victory to convince the people that they need strong warriors. They form the brave ones, conquer the neighboring kingdoms and try to genocide Dragons and Demons.

Some time later in the war, all of Morewant's past is seen again and how he became the king of demons and how he was betrayed by the brave, Arthur and the group that saw what Morewant's past was like decide to comfort him, in this Alverus Saying he knows it's not his fault but the braves', Arthur decides to help the demons to show them they're not evil, and devises a plan to infiltrate the castle.

on the outskirts of the kingdom Aquaris and Kirus try to get to the other side of the wall using a rope, Aquaris asks Kirus to throw the rope to the other side of the wall, so Kirus takes it literally and throws the whole rope to the other side of the wall, so Aquaris decides to use a plan B: Use Kirus to scale the wall, a plan that manages to work, within the kingdom.

Once inside Arthur and the group decides to go to the castle stealthily to avoid being found and captured, already in the castle they decide to separate to look for the king's room, Aquaris, meeting some guards, decides to distract them so that he can remove their armor and use them as Disguise, meanwhile Arthur and Dracaris, seeing that the door was protected by the guards, decide to distract them to make them enter, already inside the king's room, many discover with Dracaris his true plan which is to extinguish all the demons and dragons until there are none left, King Gabriel discovers them (because they were waiting for them while his bladder was about to burst) and manages to capture them with the demons.

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Menssage
the film is a clear criticism of racial discrimination, totalitarianism and corruption since demons are seen by humans as simple monsters to the point that their villages are attacked is a clear reference to how black people in the 50s was considered as slaves and as white people was racist towards them.

And that King Gabriel does not care about morality or rights because he only cares about money and expanding his territories is a clear reference to how politicians agree to bribe people to win elections unfairly and that politicians totalitarians want to expand until all the land is theirs.

Voice actors
Some of the producers, like Rebecca Sugar and Fred Seibert, did additional voices, other Universal Tales producers like Jason Blum and Jordan Pelee and some actors like Tom Kenny, Internet actors like Michael Kovach, Nola klop, Elsie Lovelock and even the Pendleton himself made voice cameos.
 * Jaeden Matel is Arthur/Main Brave
 * Ron Perlman is Morewant
 * Hailee Stendfield is Dracaris/Dragon Brave
 * Richard Steve Hortiz is Maliz/Goblin of Goblins and Baba/Slime of Slimes
 * Zazie Bets is Mobs/Bunny
 * Jacob Hopkins is Kirus/Sick Demon
 * Mark Whalberg is Ignitus/Fire Demon
 * Jeniffer Laurence is Aquaris/Water demon
 * Liam Nesson is King Gabriel Artemis Morling III
 * Steven Yeun is Robert Lernuis II/Superstar Brave and Asferatu/ Blood Knigth
 * Tara Strong is Katranis/ Sword Brave and Libidy/Desire Queen
 * Bill Harder is Fideus/Loyal Brave
 * Jhon DiMaggio is Morpheis/Black Brave and Bruter/Lonely General
 * James McAvoy is Alverus/Chief Brave
 * Rebecca Sugar is Malefariz/Despair Brave and Halaris/ Female Boss
 * Christian bale is Venatorus/Dragon Slayer Brave
 * Emma Stone is Halerris/Blue Dragon and San Nu
 * Chaning Tatum is Arrakius/ King Of War
 * Mark Hamill is Old Morewant
 * Tom Kenny is Paxerus/ Old King

Production
In 2021 Bigcat Studio Released an animated series based in the yellow book (real name Yan Haopeng) comic called Brave Animated series in Netflix Although the series was well received, it did not have a large audience, causing the series to be quite underrated. on August 20, 2022 Dreamworks announced a new movie for 2024 which confirmed that the director would be Pendleton Ward and that the writer would be Yang Tzu Ting Along with Rebecca Sugar. On November 7, the official cast was announced in a panel on YouTube, in this panel when Pendleton was going to say the title, it was always censored according to Rebeca Sugar herself, she said that the reason why dreamworks censored the title was to keep it secret On April 14, 2023, the first promotional poster was released and the title of the film "Braves" was revealed. That same day it was known that Owen Denis along with Daniel Pembelton and Weifan Chang would make the music and it was also confirmed that the film would be based on the comic series called "Brave Series" made by Yan Haopeng.

Animation Design and Inspirations
Inspiration for the design of the film came from Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Being the third movie of Dreamworks to use this style being the second Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The first The Bad Guys (both from 2022). The character design is inspired by various RPG games from the 80-90 era such as Dragon Quest by Square Enix, Fire Emblem by Koei Tecmo and The Legend of Zelda saga by the famous video game company Nintendo. For the battle scenes they were inspired by shonen anime such as Dragon Ball and One Punch Man to give more sensation to the battles however they decided to give the flashes less flicker so as not to cause people epilepsy.

While the animation for the film was provided by DWA Glendale, Jellyfish Pictures, who previously worked with DreamWorks on The Boss Baby: Family Business, How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming and Spirit Untamed, handled the additional asset production services using proprietary softwares like Premo and Moonray, alongside with a new tool called Doodle created for the 2D effects and for allowing the animators to move the lines around the character rigs.

Marketing
On October 26, the teaser trailer for the tape was officially released with the song "Heroes" by Blaze n Vill from the movie The Lego Ninjago Movie, on February 16, 2024 the official release date of the tape was confirmed. And it was confirmed that the film would be a co-production with Bigcat Studios, Pts, Aries Creative and Pearl Studio, on April 1 as an April Fools' joke they decided to release a badly animated fake trailer with a message from Pembelton saying "Happy Fool's Day fool" on May 2, the trailer was officially released saying in the video description that "It's not a joke in bad taste. I'm serious -Ward". on August 14 the second trailer was released along with a translated version of the intro song of the netflix series "Devil and Brave" along with an original song called "Heart of Warriors" song by Hailee Stendfield with Kid Kudi.

Release
The film premiered on September 5, 2024 in Taiwan and on September 7, 2024 (2 days later) it premiered in USA at the AMC center in Los Angeles And the movie was released in Latin America in September 29 On July 3, 2024, Universal pulled the release in Russia in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Reception
The film received mostly positive reviews praising the animation, the story, the character development. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Braves holds an approval rating of 93% based on 346 reviews, with an average rating of 9.15/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "An engaging story, splendid animation, Lots of RPG games References and well-done character development, Braves is for many a great leap for Pendlenton Ward in animation." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, has assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an average score of 4 out of 5 stars.

IGN 's Ryan Leston gave a rating of 9.5 out of 10 and wrote: IGN 's Ryan Leston gave a rating of 8 out of 10 and wrote: An overly exquisite film with great references to role-playing games of yesteryear, The animation of the film is too fantastic and shows that Pendleton Ward still has the spark after so many years since Adventure Time ended. The famous CEO of Nintendo Shigeru Miyamoto gave the film a positive review saying: "A very good satire of my famous games, I see Arthur as a satire of Link and Morewant as a satire of Ganondorf, if your children want to see a movie interesting and are fans of role-playing games, this movie is for you.

Credits
Braves (Dreamworks Movie)/Credits

Transcript
Braves (Dreamworks Movie)/Transcript