I loved the Incredibles! The kids deffinitely were more powerful than their parents. And Did anyone catch what power the baby had?
I totally knew that "Incrediboy" was going to turn out to be the villain you can see it a mile away. It's so sad how many heros he annihalated (sp?) I also liked his line "Incredible and Elastigirl? And you've been busy!" *giggles*
Oh... And if you annalyze the movie pollitically, it's just no fun!!
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Did no one else notice the Start Wars homage? I nearly died laughing when they were speeding through the forest on the hover-machines.
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Third best film I've seen in the theater this year -- behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Spider-Man 2. It was certainly a different tone than the other Pixar films, but after adjusting, I loved it!
quote:Newsreel footage opening the film depicts an age of superheroes that coincides with the United States just post-WWII, when the country, fresh from saving the world, was filthy with heroes and ready to buy big cars. But reality intrudes: depression and fatigue and litigious weenies drive the "supers" underground into government-sponsored witness protection programs, where Bob Parr--a.k.a. Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson)--is now an insurance adjuster forced to tell little old ladies that insurance companies are more interested in protecting their shareholders than they are their clients. The Incredibles takes aim at this country's appalling insurance crisis, but it takes closer aim at the way that an institutionalized policy of force-feeding self-esteem to our kids (no child left behind, indeed) leads to self-loathing, the eradication of gifted and talented programs, and the insanity of celebrating mediocrity. (A sickness that reaches its apogee/nadir in a President who's fond of reminding folks of his "C" average in school.) The oft-repeated mantra of The Incredibles is "If everyone is super, no one is"--and if there's a more important message for a nation of kids who regularly test highest in confidence yet lowest in everything else (the only demographic testing higher in self-confidence than high school kids belongs to convicted felons), I'm not sure what it might be.
. . .
The Incredibles is an extraordinarily brave film. Suggesting that not all men are created equal is something like attacking the fabric of the American dream--going farther and suggesting that technology and its mass consumption is neither substitute nor salve to the howl of unfulfillable dreaming is close to Commie-talk. What Bird has made, in fact, is an extremely wide-reaching and populist entertainment that speaks frankly about the shape and the texture of the cancer of self-esteem metastasizing at the heart of these increasingly puzzling United States.
quote:Interesting review, Godric. I am inclined to agree with him, for the most part.
Yeah, his point about the acceptance of mediocrity in our culture immediately reminded me of the ending of Amadeus when F. Murray Abraham's character absolves everyone in the asylum of mediocrity.
I don't know what to say because I think everyone ought to be given the chance to succeed -- we should be treated equally, yet there are people who aren't living up to their potential because we're making sure those behind can keep up (although, in our education system, that's hardly the truth of the matter). It's an interesting paradox of sorts...
quote:I really loved the short at the beginning - Boundin'. The whack-a-moles were so awesome.
The whack-a-moles were great -- but I wasn't nearly so happy with this short as with their previous ones...
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Another theme that is woven is is the idea that an interdependent group is fundamentally stronger than the individual. We see this at the very beginning, with Mr. Incredible working (unknowingly) in concert with Elastigirl, and throughout the movie Mr. Incredible's old catch phrase about working alone is shown to be misguided. While it's true that the film puts forth the idea that people are unequal, it also puts forth the idea that just being exceptional isn't enough; it's by banding together, forming a cohesive unit, that we find out true strength.
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Anyone here ever read "Harrison Bergeron" by Vonnegut?
Incidentally enough, Vonnegut once said something along the lines of, "No matter who you are, or how talented you are, or how long you've practiced, you will always eventually meet Amadeus Mozart who will then proceed to rip you a new ***hole."
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"The whack-a-moles were great -- but I wasn't nearly so happy with this short as with their previous ones..."
Same here. Boundin', in conjunction with Cars, suggests a truly terrifying detour into the realm of the hick. *elitist, black-turtlenecked shudder* Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Boundin' didn't do a lot for me, I have to say. I found it more tiresome than anything else. I liked it, though, when the little kid sitting next to me leaned over to his mom and whispered "what's taking so long?" about midway through the short.
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I saw A Bug's Life, but I don't remember that short at all. I'll have to rent the movie at some point just for the short.
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quote:Mr. Incredible was only concerned with himself, even when he was concerned with other people, it was still out of concern with himself.
Irami, there is no such thing as altruism. If you break it down far enough, all concern for other people is ultimately concern for ourselves.
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quote:Irami, there is no such thing as altruism. If you break it down far enough, all concern for other people is ultimately concern for ourselves.
Yes and No. Of all of the superheroes, Spiderman dealt with this the best. After his uncle died, he didn't become more altruistic. He didn't stop being concerned with himself. It's that he gained a deeper understanding of what it was to be him-in-the-world. If that's all that altruism is, an awareness of the bonds which are already there, then that's enough.
Man, it's really hard to take myself seriously when I'm talking about a cartoon.
quote: Mr. Incredible was only concerned with himself, even when he was concerned with other people, it was still out of concern with himself.
Right, that was the point, that it was for selfish reasons. Mr. Incredible says that late in the movie.
quote: The mom was better, but still lacked a sense of heart. She was turned on when she thought that he went to a job he hated everyday. There is something righteous about going to a bad job to bring home the bacon for your family, but then again, there is something distinctly unrighteous if your wife finds that the sexiest part of your relationship.
Actually, my read was that was about him being rejuvenated and excited, not about her being excited. He starts doing what he wants to do, and he becomes rejuvenated, but later in the movie he realizes it was purely selfish of him, and he didn't realize that until he thought his family had died. She is just responding to his excitement, though she doesn't realize why he's rejuvenated.
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I don't know. It never really felt like he learned anything. I didn't get the feeling that anything changed, even when he admitted he was wrong.
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Irami, don't think this the wrong way, but I think that's because you hate middle-class, workaday white people who don't learn to reject themselves. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Irami, don't think this the wrong way, but I think that's because you hate middle-class, workaday white people who don't learn to reject themselves.
posted
This is why I like Batman- there's nothing altruistic about him at ALL. He's just plain borderline insane, folks! (Which is MUCH more interesting. I mean, really, when you think about what it takes to dress up and hospitalize criminals- you'd have to be nuts.)
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I found the sheepy more grotesque than cute, and have always found jackalopes tiresomely unhumorous. So maybe it's me.
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I *wondered* what he was doing with copies of Mein Kampf and The Anarchist's Cookbook sticking out of his little Spiderman backpack.
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quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Irami, don't think this the wrong way, but I think that's because you hate middle-class, workaday white people who don't learn to reject themselves. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Duh, but I think there is something else.
Edit:
No, that's it.
Why? There is an unrelenting hostility - why?
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I greatly enjoyed the film, but there's something oddly elitist yet (at the very same time) proletariat about it.
In all movies--especially Disney/Pixar--we (the audience) are meant to identify with the main character. The Incredibles, of course, gives all of us a main character to chose to identify with.
So, now the entire audience (all $70 million of them!) have identified with one of the main characters of the film--with one of the Incredibles.
The Incredibles, by their own admission, are all "Supers". They are better than the rest of the people they live and work with. That's fine. Really, there are lots of people out there who really are above average.
They're elitist. By their nature, they're elitist. They're Ayn Rand's super-men (and the women who are beaten with a stick by them). The movie tells us it's OK to have a class of people who are better than the other classes.
Because, by association, by identification, we are all in that uber-class. All of us. All $70 million of us.
And if everyone thinks they're special, then no one is.
The following sentence is true. The previous sentence is false.
[sits back with hands clasped behind his neck, waiting for the sounds of heads exploding]
Do I have to like all dudes? I'm watching C-Span right now, a bunch of insurance company dudes trying to figure out how to turn a bigger profit.
After working in enough offices, taking orders from 55 year-old white guys who have have their assistants tie their shoes, they don't command immediate respect from me. Nice enough guys, but morally, not the most compelling crowd. Apparently, they don't need me, heck, we just elected one President.
De-Mint in South Carolina, dude. Bunning in Kentucky, dude. Coburn in Oklahoma, dude. 80 percent of the Bush Administration, dudes.
I respect Bill Cosby. I appreciate his statement concerning the poor priorities of black youth. But the biggest scam is the illusion that these white guys are any less useless. Mr. Incredible is just another dude, except he is a dude with super powers. His wife does all of the heavy moral thinking, and he blinks.
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Morally, Steve, I agree that the film's "not everyone can be special, by definition" message was extremely muddled. Consider that the bad guy was an ordinary if geeky kid who through sheer determination and brilliance invented gadgets to give himself superpowers, and whose stated motivation was to provide those gadgets to the people of the world -- not out of the kindness of his heart, but to bring everyone to the same level, thus eliminating "specialness."
If you watch the film with the basic assumption, "Well, I'm special," then it's easy to miss. But it's literally kind of fascist -- although, frankly, I'm not sure how you can have superheroes without fascism.
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Because if you are a dude with superpowers, if you don't pay attention, you are a fascist. I imagine it's like being the proverbial bull in a china shop. *thinks* It's kind of like Bush right now.
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The general point of most superheroes in most comic books is that not only are they superpowered, but are also super moralistic, IE Superman, who is super in EVERY way (even to the point of being boring). The trouble this film runs into is that it tries to make superheroes human- wife, kids, dead end jobs, etc. Whereas in the books, they were giants among men- gods of pop culture mythology, if you saw Unbreakable. It DOES make less sense. People are fallible in every way. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Perhaps part of the point of the movie was that without the ability to practice their superpowers, they become normal- fallible to average wants and needs: vanity, pride, self-loathing...
This is what makes a lot of modern interpretations of super heroes interesting. They're either being given darker, more human and complex personalities (ie: Batman) or more inhuman ones. If you read Watchmen, an excellent example of a realistic superhero world (which is highly similar to the Incredibles- superheroes are outlawed and forced to hide among normal people), Rorshach would be like Batman and Dr. Manhattan would be like Superman- literally a god. Unstoppable, unbreakable, and capable of anything. Superman remains the same in the comic book world, however. It's the contrast between him and other heroes (especially Batman) that makes him interesting.
You'll notice I stuck to DC on this one. That's because DC characters seem to have more of a "mythology" feel to them, whereas Marvel tried to make them more human, such as Spiderman and Wolverine. People really liked this for a while, but then they started to turn into soap operas with superpowers. I think DC has done a lot with character development now, though- as you can tell, I'm a Batman fan, and the way they've made him into a tragic hero which we want to sympathize with but fail to is fantastic to me.
[ November 10, 2004, 05:10 PM: Message edited by: Book ]
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