Incredibles 2 Asks Are Superheroes Relevant?
The new Incredibles movie has been a long time coming. Fourteen years have elapsed since the original and very successful movie was released. Brad Bird, the original creator of the Incredibles had long expressed interest in shooting a sequel. He just couldn’t formulate a worthy sequel for years.
Things have only become more complicated in Hollywood since 2004. Superheroes are now big business. In the Marvel Universe alone there are already dozens of movies with more in the works. It took ten years for Brad to extract a unique theme for the sequel, and do it without reinventing the characters.
The final film is still a reinvention of the original. The technology has changed so much in ten years that it was necessary for Pixar to recreate the characters from scratch.
Spoilers ‼️
You really don’t want to read this.
Seriously!
Okay.
The movie orbits around these 3 themes
The Illusion of Truth
In the Incredibles Superheroes get a bad reputation. They are like the modern day police, but even less accountable to the public and importantly politicians. Unsurprisingly this is causing problems. Crime fighting is notoriously dirty and collateral damage is a real problem. Even the most well meaning superhero can cause serious damage to a city, like when the Parr family battled the Underminer. Yes, it’s all about the money. Insurance premiums are rising and vigilantes are illegal.
Enter Winston Deavor, the Incredibles best superfan and media mogul. He is interested in ending the longstanding ban on supers and he has a plan, manufacture the truth. Fake news is back, but then it never left. Winston goes on to record every action of Helen on the road and craft it into a narrative favorable to supers, or fabricate the whole story. You decide.
Morals vs Justice
Life is complicated, just as it always is. The supers have to choose between what is moral and what is legal. Helen decides to take up the torch of responsibility by taking the fight to the streets on Winston’s behalf, and she is successful. She is still technically a criminal, but it is up to you to decide what that means. Helen succeeds at saving possibly hundreds of people that would have otherwise died.
Personal Responsibility
The supers have their critics too. One of them is Evelyn and she is a colleague of Winsten. It is her belief that the supers cause more problems than they solve, and they distract people from taking personal responsibility. You shouldn’t have to count on other people to rescue you, unless they are the police. Evelyn formulates a plan to discredit the supers, but I’m not talking.
Character Development
Both Bob and Helen have dramatically changed from their original roles. Helen is now a much more confident mother. She is fighting crime in the limelight, and also gaining much fame and fortune with the contributions from Winsten. Bob is in the backseat in this story, finally learning how to be a real father. He fails spectacularly at first, but with help finally learns how to tame his children.
The children have not changed much from the original film. Violet is still obsessed with a boy, and she orbits around him throughout the story. Then things get complicated. Dash is growing to be more bold, and you don’t even want to know what Jack-Jack is up too. I can only say that his involvement proves pivotal at the end. Still at the end the children are still children but with the added confidence of more superhero work.
