‘Once Upon a Time’ season 5 spoilers: Where will Merida’s story pick up?

Through the first few seasons of “Once Upon a Time,” there was a very particular tradition when it came to giving characters a unique twist on who they were in some of the fairy tales / Disney movies that fans have come to know. Since that time, however, the show has definitely changed things up to a certain extent. Gone are the days of loose adaptations (at least partially), and in their place comes an opportunity to see characters who are based directly on some of the feature films that preceded them.

Is this a case of Disney pandering? We know that it would be easy to think so, but the difference is that it is easier to adapt characters like Belle and Snow White into creative characters, given the fact that there are so many other versions of them out there. It is a little bit different for someone like an Elsa or a Merida, who are really defined in the eyes of many by the events of the Disney movie more than anything else.

Merida (played by Amy Manson) marks the first Pixar character to appear on the show, and based on what executive producer Adam Horowitz had to say about her to Entertainment Weekly, the story here will pick up following the events of the “Brave” movie:

“We’re going to give you a little taste of where she’s been since then, what’s happened to her since the end of that movie, and then we’re going to see that that somehow crosses with our people and with our Once Upon a Time mythology.”

Therefore, anyone who loves “Brave” can still treat that particular movie as canon, though we’re sure that the show will explain just enough that viewers who have never seen it will still be able to understand.

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