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The Incredibles 2

I enjoyed it a lot... but it wasn't as good as the first one. It was very much a "The Movie 2" that failed to do enough to justify a sequel. Maybe we're just spoiled now that superhero movies are far more common? When the Incredibles came out, it was a few months after Spiderman 2, a year before Batman Begins, and 4 years before the MCU kicked off.
 
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firefossil said:
I enjoyed it a lot... but it wasn't as good as the first one. It was very much a "The Movie 2" that failed to do enough to justify a sequel. Maybe we're just spoiled now that superhero movies are far more common? When the Incredibles came out, it was a few months after Spiderman 2, a year before Batman Begins, and 4 years before the MCU kicked off.
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I don't know. It'll take a while to untangle, but there could be something said about sticking a stick in the general direction of model minorities, poking at current media trends *Coughrealitytvcough* and the absurd lengths minorities have to go before people say that they should probably stop oppressing them.
 
firefossil said:
I enjoyed it a lot... but it wasn't as good as the first one. It was very much a "The Movie 2" that failed to do enough to justify a sequel. Maybe we're just spoiled now that superhero movies are far more common? When the Incredibles came out, it was a few months after Spiderman 2, a year before Batman Begins, and 4 years before the MCU kicked off.
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The Incredibles was good partly because it was nothing like the modern superhero movie, though?
 
Baron Ouroboros said:
But it's fun.

A better point would be if there's be a clearer framing of "the philanthropist" as the real force of social change. Here it's an interpretation, because nothing muh was said or shown on the issue. I'm just taking the negative juxtaposed with the positive of topdown philanthropy/ political action as proof of an unintentional Classist take.

As said, stretching it out is indeed quite the fun: you should try it too!
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Why is it fun?
 
It was good but not great. The racoon scene was absolutely beautiful though.

MJ12 Commando said:
The thematics of the film are very um... something, yes.

R a n d i a n u b e r m e n s c h
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They vaguely waved at dealing with this from the opening scene where the Incredibles just make everything worse but didn't really follow through. Same with the Screenslaver rant; setup but nothing afterwards. Definitely a more interesting topic than high school English level analysis though.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The thematics of the film are very um... something, yes.

R a n d i a n u b e r m e n s c h
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Mutton said:
They vaguely waved at dealing with this from the opening scene where the Incredibles just make everything worse but didn't really follow through. Same with the Screenslaver rant; setup but nothing afterwards. Definitely a more interesting topic than high school English level analysis though.
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In truth I don't think the Incredibles is really concerned with society-wide issues at all. The core message of the series is "being a family is Incredible", with the films drawing a direct line between the trials of being a family (especially a parent) and the trials of being a superhero, how they both ask you to make sacrifices and require compromise, but are a fundamentally worthwhile endeavor, a labor of love. In the sequel Edna Mode explicitly outlines this, saying "Done properly, parenting is a heroic act. Done. Properly". Their powers are even just exaggerations of stereotypical family roles, the mother who has to be flexible, the hyperactive boy, etc etc.

That said the villains of each movie contrast each other:
Syndrome: My name is not Buddy. And it's not Incrediboy either. That ship has sailed. All I wanted was to help you. I only wanted to help! And what did you say to me?! [...] That tore me apart. But I learned an important lesson: you can't count on anyone. Especially your heroes!

Syndrome: See, now you respect me. Because I'm a threat. That's the way it works. Turns out there are a lot of people, whole countries, who want respect... and they will pay through the nose to get it. How do you think I got rich? I invented weapons… and now I have a weapon that only I can defeat.

Syndrome: And when I'm old and I've had my fun? I'll sell my weapons, so that everyone can be super. And when everyone's super...(chuckles darkly) no one will be.

Syndrome: Shhhhhh.... the baby's sleeping. (chuckles evilly) You took away my future. I'm simply returning the favor. Oh, don't worry, I'll be a good mentor. Supportive, encouraging. Everything you weren't! And in time, who knows? He might make a good sidekick.


Syndrome throws a tantrum when his father superhero doesn't give him what he wants, and thinks that by gaining powers, he earns respect, and thus become a father superhero himself, completely missing the point of what makes parents superheroes heroic. His understanding of adults and authority is that of a petulant child whose never grown up and can sociopathically see only the power in relations.
Screenslaver (the second time): Screenslaver interrupts this program for an important announcement. Don't bother watching the rest. Elastigirl doesn't save the day; she only postpones her defeat. And while she postpones her defeat, you eat chips and watch her invert problems that you are too lazy to deal with. Superheroes are part of a brainless desire to replace true desire with simulation. You don't talk, you watch talk shows. You don't play games, you watch game shows. Travel, relationships, risk; every meaningful experience must be packaged and delivered to you to watch at a distance so that you can remain ever-sheltered, ever-passive, ever-ravenous consumers who can't free themselves to rise from their couches to break a sweat, never anticipate new life. You want superheroes to protect you, and make yourselves ever more powerless in the process. Well, you tell yourselves you're being "looked after". That you're inches from being served and your rights are being upheld. So that the system can keep stealing from you, smiling at you all the while. Go ahead, send your supers to stop me. Grab your snacks, watch your screens, and see what happens. You are no longer in control. I am.


Screenslaver is the reverse angle, arguing that parents superheroes smother and infantilize us by taking away our agency, also drawing some interesting comparisons to how capitalism tries to do the same by offering us prepackaged 'safe' and 'fun' experiences on a predictable schedule over independent thought and agency, trying to make us into eternal children. Screenslaver's point about people living vicariously through superheroes also somewhat reminds me of how some parents try to do the same through their children. Where Syndrome just doesn't get it, Screenslaver has some more realistic concerns and critiques, and is problematic mostly because of their pessimistic perspective on it.
TLDR version: It isn't important for the heroes to directly confront the supervillain's ideology because the ideology is really just a metaphor for families and parenting, being an adult and growing up as a child, that sort of thing. They defeat the ideology by being, well, Incredible.
 
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I'm just going to say, heed those epilepsy warnings theaters are putting out about it. In a dark IMAX theater with those 3D glasses, if you are prone to migraines or seizures, odds are you are not going to have a fun day.

You'd think Porygon would have burned that potential issue into the collective subconcious, but apparently not.
 
I think the both films thematics work on the personal level, but when you start to extrapolate them to the societal (which is really, really easy given that the main characters are superheroes) they get dicey. The first film is very much about being the "best version of yourself" you can, using whatever gifts you're born with and believing in yourself (with some good stuff about what makes a good relationship layered in). What trips it up is the fact that Dash wanting to go out for sports isn't about him needing to believe he's good enough for them, but the fact that he can run at super sonic speeds and the competition doesn't stand a chance.

Meanwhile, the sequel is ostensibly about celebrating cooperation, celebrating diversity, and how society should focus on those that inspire us to be better (while also layering in stuff about challenging traditional family dynamics). This is great stuff; we've got a film that celebrates flipping the patriarchy on its head and helps to normalize men taking the domestic role, the "new supers" are fairly clear stand-in's for Queer people who are inspired by the previous generation of Supers to live "out", etc. It's just that things get a little murky because it's all tied into the Randian idea that some people are just inherently better and we owe them deference.

I think the sequel handles it a bit better than the first, since Syndrome's villainy is explicitly tied to his desire (even if it's malicious) to make everyone "super". Here, the Screenslaver's motivations are more personal and less ideological; it's pretty easy to frame her hatred of Supers and the idea that "they make us weak" as being motivated by her grief and anger and not the nature of the world itself. Basically, Syndrome want to dismantle the very idea of superhoes, while the Screenslaver is just upset that superheroes failed to save her parents.

Honestly, I think the reason that the films both trip over these issues while other superhero films don't (unless they engage with them directly, ala Man of Steel and BVS) is that the Incredibles lack some kind of mentor figure to be the voice of moral authority and to push them to only use their powers for good. In basically every other superhero story, there's some kindly old figure (usually the heroe's parents/surrogate parents) who imparts on them the idea that while they may have abilities far beyond normal people, they're ultimately public servants who should use their gifts to benefit the average person.

On the other hand, the Incredibles use of their powers is almost always positioned as just them existing and "being themselves". There's some lip service paid to how using them for good is the "right thing to do" in the sequels, but it's really just lip service (and IIRC it comes in the middle of Mr. Incredible talking about how Elastigirl needs to help make Supers legal again so he can get back to being one) and the film never really seems to acknowledge it. Even the X-Men, who are probably the closest to the Incredibles in terms of superpowers being a metaphor for expressing yourself/disenfranchised minorities (they go back and forth every few years) still make a point of presenting the X-Men as being aligned with cooperation and integration with non-powered people.
 
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I'm a bit disappointed that they reused the "new employer turns out the be the supervillain" plot, but it was an excellent movie in pretty much every other respect.
 
You know, 2018 had been such a good year with regards to the films I had seen during it. Black Panther, The Death of Stalin, Love, Simon, Endless (yes I know it was first released in 2017 but it only arrived to my local theater this year), Disobedience. I suppose that after some time I had to experience disappointment. With regards to themes, I feel that Bird's theming has been muddled in his recent projects and that this is no exception, but to be honest that isn't really what disappointed me here. I think that overall my biggest disappointment is that the first movie had very clear character arcs that they went through: Bob learns to rely on his family, Helen decides to trust her family more, Violet learns to better believe in herself, and Dash gains just a bit of perspective. It's not exactly a revolutionary example of any of this, but it still does its job well. This movie, by contrast, doesn't really have any major character arcs. At most, Bob learns to be a better parent and Violet becomes more confident in her place in the family. It certainly wasn't anywhere near the level which the first movie enjoyed. The plot also felt a little weak personally--the second act was far too short and there never really felt like there was a moment when the heroes were actually doomed, despite the actual events of the film. And this wouldn't be an issue in another film, but both films are archetypal tales which stick very strongly to 'traditional' (while the three act story structure is by no means traditional and there are huge amounts of variations but for my purposes here I'm going to say traditional) story structure, here to its detriment.

I think that it's a great example of how this film is weak compared to the original that I can't help but think of plot threads that I would have rather seen be made into movies that were instead small little pieces. Violet deciding that she doesn't want to be a superhero and how that might let her interact with her family, especially due to her parent's views on the golden days of heroics? Two parents who have always been able to do well because of their powers and find a need to reconnect with a world that they realize they've lost over time in order to support their kids in changing times? Both of these sound like fantastic films, ones which I would have much rather seen. But rather the story here needs to stick with superheroics which muddle themes by slamming them straight into Randian discourse and forces the plot and characters into a specific shapes because that's just what happens to superheroes.

Now, I don't think I'm being completely fair here. This is a movie intended for being a fun action romp. And I'm not at all the intended audience, The Incredibles series has always focused on an 7 to 12 year old market and the ideas which I brought up are ones which those children may not be interested in. Or at least, I think that's the general narrative: I personally don't think that's the case.

Oh, and another example of me being unfair, as someone who has been hypnotized more than a few times, I found it more than a little silly how the villain's abilities worked since that is not at all how hypnosis operates. I understand that's just Hollywood being Hollywood, but it still caused a few chuckles during scenes which I think were supposed to be rather tense.
 
It is sort of interesting that so far the Incredibles villains have been a self-absorbed manchild and a disillusioned alcoholic who both have massive daddy issues. I wonder if that's intentional or just a weird accident.
 
Disparate Dawn said:
This movie, by contrast, doesn't really have any major character arcs. At most, Bob learns to be a better parent and Violet becomes more confident in her place in the family
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What gets me is that even these are basically just vague, rambling retreads of their character arcs from the original. Violet's confusion about her role has gone from her retreating from her family and her own life to what boils down to a very minor case of gloryhound try-hard (which is essentially never portrayed as an actual problem right up until the script randomly decides to have her declare she's over it with all the subtlety of a runaway train), and Bob's failures as a stay-at-home parent stem from the exact same personal/patriarchal insecurities he spent the first movie getting over, with the new context turning out to be largely superficial and adding almost nothing of note to the dynamics. The biggest difference between his character arc in this movie and his arc in the original is how much more muddled and poorly integrated it was.

That kind of sums up my feelings on the movie as a whole, honestly. It was loaded with references and parallels to the original on pretty much every level, from the superficial to the structural, most of which didn't seem to serve as any kind of commentary or add anything to the narrative - they were just there. Normally I'd write that off as the movie being self-referential for reference's sake, which it probably was to an extent, but in this case it straight-up felt like they just didn't have very many new ideas. Certainly not enough to justify a sequel, as much as I enjoyed it.
 
You know I just realized that not a single villain in these films has superpowers. Even the older villains like Bomb Voyage and Underminer use tech. That's got some rather unfortunate implications.
 
VolantRedX said:
You know I just realized that not a single villain in these films has superpowers. Even the older villains like Bomb Voyage and Underminer use tech. That's got some rather unfortunate implications.
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It's especially weird considering the ability to invent obvious super-tech really seems like it ought to count as a superpower under this setting's paradigm, but very conspicuously isn't treated as such.
 
Review:
The Incredibles 2
The latest The Incredibles film by Pixar, picking up from where the first one left off. The Incredibles find themselves in trouble with the law after they defeat the Underminer, but that is only the beginning of the story. The reasons behind the illegality of their activities are expanded upon, but that isn't the primary focus of the story. That is more the family aspects, specifically, Bob trying to parent the kids while Helen is out of town (but more on that later.) Edna Mode's comment "Parenting, done properly, is heroic work. Done Properly" is quite apt.
Helen's story is about her getting back into superhero work, due to a tycoon trying to make superheroics legal again, but the villain she needs to ultimately confront is someone unexpected (albeit there is some set up, storywise, in the right direction). The Screenslaver, as a villain is an interesting concept, and executed rather well. The scenes in which the villain takes control of people (via the obvious route) are done rather well. Helen solving the 'riddle' of the identity of that villain is also done rather well.
But the heart of the film is in the interactions between Robert and his children, in his attempts to hold things together while Helen is away. His attempts to solve the problem he causes with Violet and her prospective boyfriend are quite relate-able, as is Violet's teen angst. His struggles with Dash's Mathematics homework, not so much, but Dash's impulsive nature plays a role in the climax of the story. But most vexxing for Robert is Jack-Jack, but rather his powers, which make trying to look after a baby infinitely harder.
But this aspect of the film was done rather well. The climax on the ship was done rather well too. 8.5/10.
 
VolantRedX said:
You know I just realized that not a single villain in these films has superpowers. Even the older villains like Bomb Voyage and Underminer use tech. That's got some rather unfortunate implications.
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That's actually a common thing in older stuff. Lex Luther vs Superman, Dr. Sivana vs Captain Marvel, Dr. Doom vs Fantastic Four, Dr. Octopus vs Spiderman, most of Flash's rogues are inventors rather than genuine metahumans, etc...
 
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Arawn_Emrys said:
That's actually a common thing in older stuff. Lex Luther vs Superman, Dr. Sivana vs Captain Marvel, Dr. Doom vs Fantastic Four, Dr. Octopus vs Spiderman, most of Flash's rogues are inventors rather than genuine metahumans, etc...
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This needs to be remembered . Incredibles is stylistically and visually first and foremost homage to a specific era of comic books. It does it rather well and the unfortunate implications of people with powers good was not big issue in those days as the hero had the power and he was unique. It clashes with, being born that way, that is from latter comic books. But the stylistic homage is consistent in that thetre is no reason for villains to have powers. The powers are just so rare and unique.
 
I'm mostly interested in what kind of 'infrastructure' the government supposedly has to deal with people like The Underminer. It's one of the biggest unanswered questions from the first film, and it's not really any clearer here.
 
VolantRedX said:
It is sort of interesting that so far the Incredibles villains have been a self-absorbed manchild and a disillusioned alcoholic who both have massive daddy issues. I wonder if that's intentional or just a weird accident.
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I've also noticed that all of the villains don't seem to have powers, just use tech.

Kind of seems to imply that only 'good' people get powers in this universe.

SeptimusMagisto said:
I'm mostly interested in what kind of 'infrastructure' the government supposedly has to deal with people like The Underminer. It's one of the biggest unanswered questions from the first film, and it's not really any clearer here.
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Pretty sure it's implied the protection is literally just 'insurance'. Brad Bird seems to have a fixation on the idea of only a select group of people can actually solve issues, as could be seen in this series and Tomorrowland.
 
SeptimusMagisto said:
I'm mostly interested in what kind of 'infrastructure' the government supposedly has to deal with people like The Underminer. It's one of the biggest unanswered questions from the first film, and it's not really any clearer here.
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I think it's meant to imply that they'd leave it up to the cops. I mean Underminer is clearly dangerous but a team of armed SWAT officers could still either force a surrender or kill him.
 
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