honestly tho that scene in the incredibles where mr. incredible sees the names of all the old super heroes that used to be his friends / that he knew from Back in the Day and how every one of them has been killed by syndrome is such a chilling scene for so many reasons
like for one, everyone he knew is dead at this point and has been killed on the same island he’s at now and two, its heartbreaking bc that means that almost every hero wanted to try out being a hero again despite the laws against it and wanted to try and help someone out and relive their glory days, only to be straight up murdered like fuck that scene is just so fuckin intense
I think the core of that scene for me is, when you’re insane like me and you go through it frame by frame, you can work out that Gazerbeam defeated the omnidroid twice - the only super we have enough information to confirm did so. I always wondered about his body in the cave, how and why he got the password… But it makes sense. This thing goes haywire, gets an upgrade, and goes haywire again? He must have been hella suspicious! So he does what any good superhero would do - tries to get to the bottom of what’s really happening on Nomanisan Island. During the process he’s clearly caught and wounded but has just enough time to get himself somewhere he can leave a final message, just praying that the next super to come along will find it and break the cycle. Gazerbeam is my hero.
Incredibles 2 has a lot to live up to
All of this and…
I’m just realizing that the name is No Man Is An Island???? As in, everyone needs someone to depend on and connect with, no one is ever completely alone or should act all on their own.
Also Gazerbeam probably has X-ray vision–so he not only survived long enough to defeat the Omnidroid, he had the ability to see Syndrome entering the password.
Holy guacamole! I should pay more attention, I don’t think I got any of that stuff!
does anyone think about the fact that now mr. incredibles has to live w/ the fact that all his friends getting killed by syndrome could have been avoided if he had just been nicer to syndrome from the beginning
^I was thinking that from the beginning reading this and was shocked it went through so many comments before anyone pointed that out.
Syndrome waited until his machine was almost ready to go before asking Bob to come to Nomanisan. He also was surprised to find out that he was married to “Elastigirl”, which means he likely built his list and went through everyone else before finally deciding it was time to kill Bob.
Also, Syndrome literally didn’t find Bob until the start of the movie. He found Frozone and was stalking him. If Lucius hadn’t hung out with Bob, then Frozone was going to be the next one lured. There’s literally a scene of Mirage realizing that the guy in the car with her target is Mr. Incredible. He wasn’t going through the list, he was stalking and finding every former Super he could, luring them to the island, and then killing them, for the sake of improving his robot. Finding Bob was just a happy accident, and Syndromes obsession with him meant that upon finding a bot that could beat Bob, he figured he’d hit perfection and was ready.
and like, let’s be real here in the intro Buddy was crossing the line the second he showed up, Mr. Incredible mentioned he’d been very nice to Buddy, via signing a ridiculous amount of autographs and doing pictures and stuff, and that he was not going to risk a childs life as a sidekick (albeit in less words). Buddy literally showed up by breaking into his car, and then stalked him all evening until he was arrested. That’s disturbingly obsessive behavior, there’s no amount of niceness that would stop Syndrome, it was an impossible situation. No amount of nice was going to appease Syndrome, the second he faced any sort of rejection from Mr. Incredible he was going to lose it and go supervillain. After his arrest he should have gotten put into therapy, but yknow, set in like. the 50′s. so it makes sense he fell through the cracks when the cracks were a goddamn canyon. Don’t victim blame Mr. Incredible.
reblogging for the last comment because blaming mr incredible for the deaths of his comrades is honestly such a weird take and i dislike how it’s framed as “fact” when it’s not. it’s syndrome’s fault and syndrome’s fault alone. full stop. he murdered them because he was selfish, entitled, and obsessed with mr incredible to a fanatical degree.
You know what’s really great
In the beginning when Mr. Incredible says, “Go home, Buddy. I work alone.” He’s holding up Bomb Voyage
In Syndrome’s flashback, he’s looking down on him, no bad guy in sight
Do with that info what you will
oh
damn
This is such good analysis, but it’s also worth mentioning the difference between these two scenes which, supposedly depict the same thing. In the first, Bob is clearly busy, trying to keep his eyes on Bomb Voyage (a fantastic supervillain name!!!), so he is distractedly telling Buddy that he is busy and that he doesn’t need help. The lighting is realistic, and although he is CLEARLY fed up with dealing with this obsessive and toxic fan, he keeps an even tone and doesn’t snap at him.
In the flashback, it’s a different scenario completely!! The lighting is all focused on Bob as if he’s under a spotlight and it is only the two of them. Bob’s pose here is also ridiculously condescending. He has his hands on his hips like a superhero and is looking down at Buddy with contempt and scorn. In addition, when he turns to leave, he dismissively waves his hand as if saying “Get out of here.”
It’s also interesting to note Buddy’s position here. His arms are extended either in worship or as an expression of all he has to offer in this relationship. He sees himself as a victim because he thinks he gave all of himself to Mr Incredible, just got him to reject him.
It’s also amazing to me how much Buddy’s suit is a reflection of himself. Everything from the black and white color scheme representing his black and white way of thinking, to the huge S because here only thinks of himself.
Bob’s suit, however, is blue. In addition to being associated with a calming and rational thought process, I think it’s also to represent that he’s on the side of the police. He’s not here for his own glory, he’s essentially working as an extension of the police force
Also, let’s not forget when Bob is catching Bomb Voyage and trying to keep Buddy from yeeting himself towards almost certain death, he’s on his way to his own wedding.
That makes two things abundantly clear:
Bob doesn’t have an aversion to working with other people. Remember when he runs into Elastigirl earlier in the day? She reminds him not to “forget”, and he promises he won’t. They were standing over a thief they ended up accidentally nabbing together, or so we thought. They bantered back and forth about working alone, yet they nabbed that thief so seamlessly, you’d think they’d done it before. Then you find out later, Elastigirl is the woman at the altar. Making it clear that they had to have worked together, very frequently, enough to end up trusting each other to the point that they revealed their secret identities and had a romantic relationship outside of Super work, culminating in literally marrying each other. Bob is more than fine with a partner because he marriedhis.
The other is that, Bob is trying to protect Helen. She may be more than capable of handling herself, as she flirtatiously reminds Bob on the rooftop just hours before their nuptials. But the one thing that’s priceless to the Supers are their secret identities. With Syndrome following Bob begging to partner with him, it puts Helen in danger. A fanatical fan like that can end up possessive, meaning once Syndrome discovers her, could see her as a direct threat stealing “his” position working with Bob. And because he obviously has a knack for following people undetected (he was right on Bob’s heels all over a huge metropolitan city for literal hours), he could very well stalk Helen, discover her secret identity and expose her in order to eliminate her, putting her directly in danger. Bob isn’t an idiot, he knows working with this kid doesn’t just put this child in danger, but also his own wife and their identities. It’s better to say he works alone and let this kid down as gently as possible, hoping to finally shake him off for good so he can work in safety and peace.
Which leads me to my next point. Blaming Bob for all his friends getting killed is buying directly into Syndrome’s revisionist history of Bob “rejecting” him. Remember, if Syndrome hadn’t shown up to Mr. Incredible busting Bomb Voyage, none of the ensuing chaos with the bomb on the rocket boots getting dropped on the train tracks and blowing them up, causing Bob to lose Bomb Voyage, then forced to stop a speeding train, resulting in the passengers getting injured, the attempted suicide being thwarted which injured the guy, and everybody suing Bob for it, ultimately culminating in the Super’s fall from public grace and forced retirement. All of those consequences are because Syndrome refused to listen to Bob and meddled in dangerous affairs, making everything indescribably worse. If he had never showed up, none of the above would have happened and Supers would have never been forced into retirement, meaning none of Bob’s friends would have been lured from said retirement by Mirage and Syndrome’s private contract offers which resulted in their deaths.
this post got SO much longer AND better
Not sure if this matters by now but
This post inspired me to rewatch the Incredibles
First off, I love posts like this.
Second, I also love this because the Hero Syndrome thing perfectly ties into Syndrome/Buddy’s whole plot in the movie.
Cuz think: why would he want to kill off all the other supers in the first place? I mean, Buddy definitely hates Bob, sure, but what about the others? What was stopping Buddy from just using his technical knowhow to become his own superhero like Batman or Tony Stark? Honestly, the only difference between him and the Supers is that they had their powers naturally, whereas he created his.
But that’s just it: the supers were born super. And Buddy wasn’t. And he didn’t like that. So he crafted a plan to destroy the Super Hero. Not just a superhero - the superhero. The concept of a “super” hero itself. He killed off supers to test his robot, yes, but also to remove competition for his spotlight. And once he gets too old, he’d retire and mass-produce his gadgets to the public, making them forever outshine and outpace any naturally-born supers.
Cuz like the man said: once everyone’s super… nobody is.
After our latest activity check, the following canons have become available! Snag one today! If you see a fandom listed here but not the canon you’re interested in, don’t hesitate to check the site - chances are the canon you want is available and was available before the activity check, and therefore doesn’t warrant an update on their status. :)
Cruella de Vil - 101 Dalmations
Fifi/Babette- Beauty & the Beast
Persephone - Class of the Titans
Elsa- Frozen (on reserve until 3/23)
Mandy-The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
Rocket Raccoon -Guardians of the Galaxy
Izumi Sano-Hana Kimi
Mr. Incredible-The Incredibles
Twilight Sparkle-My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
Honestly though, the scene in Incredibles where Dash gets called into the office for putting a tack on his teacher’s chair gets 100x funnier when you consider that the teacher almost certainly knows what’s going on with Dash.
I mean, he probably doesn’t know that he has super speed specifically— “I don’t know how he does it!"— but this guy is fully aware of the existence of supers.
This isn’t a Harry Potter situation where the muggles don’t even know that magic exists— supers were lauded public figures and a key part of the criminal justice system until just fifteen years ago. This dude was definitely an adult and probably already teaching at the time. He may have been expected to include lessons on supers and their role in society in the curriculum.
And while we don’t know exactly how supers get their powers, Edna mentions in Incredibles 2 that "it’s not unknown for supers to have more than one power when young”, so Dash, Violet and Jack-Jack evidently weren’t the first people to develop them as children.
This guy lives in a setting in which he knows— with 100% certainty— that there are people out there who are born with special powers that enable them to do impossible things. And, from observing Dash, he knows that what this kid seems to be doing shouldn’t be possible for a normal kid.
Heabsolutely knows this boy has powers. It’s the most logical explanation, and it makes perfect sense within the laws of the universe he lives in. He may think that the kid is teleporting the tacks onto his chair, or turning invisible, or shifting reality or whatever, but he knows that some sort of super power is at work here.
The problem is… he can’t openly acknowledge it.
Now the supers are in hiding, normal civilians aren’t allowed to know of their existence. Even if there is no formal law against it (and there might be a formal law against it), everyone who figures out that their coworker or friend or whatever is a super, and doesn’t keep quiet about it, gets black-bagged by a government agency and has their memory erased. There’s no way people aren’t at least vaguely aware that it’s best not to talk about who you think might be a super, because bad things happen to people who do.
When the Principal ushers Helen and Dash out of the room and starts trying to calm the teacher down, he’s not doing it because he thinks he’s crazy. He’s doing it because he’s just seen video evidence that this kid is a super, and is trying to keep his friend from being taken away for Re-Education.
Dash is fully exploiting the fact that people like him legally don’t exist to pull pranks on his teacher, knowing that the guy can’t actually call him out without getting his mind wiped.
Went to see Incredibles 2 today- at one point, the little girl behind me shouted, “I want to be Elastigirl for Halloween!” That’s such a mood, I couldn’t even be mad
Guys, I’m literally so sorry. I forgot I had a tumblr cuz I haven’t been on since The Incredibles came out. I’m working on requests now! Be prepared for art throughout the day!
I headcanon that when Violet was born she came out on time after 9 months. Violet gave her mother your usual pregnancy pain n shit but when born she wasn’t crying. She didn’t come out crying but she sure came out definitely invisible. Dash was born 5 months early yet fully developed because of his speedy powers. Jack Jack is the one who caused Helen to gain some real weight in her breast and hips (mostly hips). Her pregnant belly would seem to look like it would get bigger a day but somehow smaller the next day. Everyone assumed it was just Helen’s powers malfunctioning they guessed but it was really Jack Jack “using” his growth abilities.
All of the births were done by a super who was a doctor specifically for supers.
!!!HEY I’M TAKING THE INCREDIBLES (mostly Hevelyn) ART REQUESTS SO PLEASE GIVE ME SOME REQUESTS!!! This account was made years ago with a fake email cuz I had a diff account so if you want a request reblog this post with the request in the caption or message me
If you know me, you know I don’t really care about end-of-year lists. So instead of looking at 2014, I’ve decided to look at 2004. No, I will not be posting a list, I’m just glancing at stuff. There is no list here.
I always find it interesting to see how well a film holds up years later, which I think is the only real judge of quality in filmmaking.
Earlier on Twitter, I posted two images. One is a comparison of 2004 worldwide box office to the 2004 Village Voice aggregated film poll: http://imgur.com/03HhFAO
The other is a bunch of individual American film critics’ lists from 2004: http://imgur.com/DWWpHsA
After checking out some 2004 films again, I (completely unscientifically) made these conclusions:
1) Important Movies / Oscar Bait Do Not Last
If somebody tells you a film is capital-I Important, you can bet we’ll have forgotten it by next year (see also: Argo) (see also also: Stanley Kramer).
The Aviator Fahrenheit 9/11 Hotel Rwanda Million Dollar Baby Sideways
2) That Movie with Great Performances? Also doesn’t last
Initially, actors help determine how likely we are to leave a house to see a film, but 10 years later, it hardly matters. I don’t know a single person who would rather watch Jamie Foxx in Ray than Jamie Foxx in Collateral. Because adapt, improvise, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man.
All of these films were nominated/campaigned for acting awards:
Being Julia Closer Finding Neverland Kinsey Ray
3) Comedies Have Crazy Longevity
There’s something about laughter that makes a movie “stick.” Even if you dislike these films, their quotes, jokes and impact are very palpable even today.
Anchorman Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Mean Girls Shaun of the Dead Team America
At the same time, the humor has to be distinctive. Anchorman has jokes that could only happen in the world of that film. Assembly-line comedies do really well their year of release and then die off. Bad animation has the steepest drop:
Garfield the Movie Meet the Fockers Scooby Doo 2 Shrek 2 Shark Tale
4) We Don’t Want to Admit It, but Trilogies/Series Matter (even for art-house films)
If you can group films together, it plays well on a double or triple bill / in a box set. People might not leave the house for one film by their favorite director, but in 2024, those Cornetto Trilogy 6-hour marathons will be sold out, mark my words.
Also people like trilogies b/c they see links between the films and those details pay off in their minds.
2046 (Days of Being Wild / In the Mood for Love) Before Sunset (Before Sunrise / Before Midnight) Kill Bill Vol. 2 (technically one film split into two parts) Shaun of the Dead (Hot Fuzz / The World’s End) Spider-Man 2 (Raimi trilogy is apparently still getting some love)
5) Directors Matter Most
I heard from someone that Netflix has a specific bit of internal user data: the longer you use Netflix, the more likely you are to care about the director of a film, and you gravitate to watching the director’s other films. Loving a filmmaker is the same as loving a band. Once you love someone, it’s about seeing their entire body of work. Even if the individual songs/albums aren’t as amazing as you expected, you’re more willing to go back and revisit them.
These directors already had fan bases in 2004. Every single one has expanded that base over the last decade.
2046 (Wong Kar-Wai) 3-Iron (Kim Ki-Duk) Before Sunset (Richard Linklater) Collateral (Michael Mann) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry) Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuaron) Hellboy (Guillermo Del Toro) Howl’s Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki) The Incredibles (Brad Bird) Kill Bill Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino) The Life Aquatic (Wes Anderson) Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright)
6) Stay true, keep the band together
It is better to make something true that appeals to a small group of people (who will keep it alive) than something a whole bunch of people like but not enough to rewatch it.
Having a distinctive tone, visual style, world, etc. pays off financially and critically in the long run b/c it attracts a following (see: Wes Anderson, a niche economy unto himself). Once the fanbase starts going, it just keeps snowballing. Not everybody’s going to be Wes Anderson, but even the Adam McKay/Will Ferrell partnership’s been doing well.
And if the director is a good leader, then actors, cinematographers, editors, production designers, producers, etc. all enjoy coming back over and over as recurring collaborators.
7) These Are the 2014 Directors
If I had to make a wild guess as to which 2014 films we’ll still be caring about in 2024, I wouldn’t guess the films, I’d guess which directors/studios this year had the most fervent fanbases: Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Bong Joon-ho, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and Studio Ghibli
Less so but some fans care: James Gunn, Jean-Luc Godard, Lars von Trier, Jim Jarmusch, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Mike Leigh, Jonathan Glazer, Lukas Moodysson, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, James Gray, Sion Sono, Luc Besson.
May build a fan base but only one or two movies so far: Dan Gilroy, Damien Chazelle, Richard Ayoade, Jennifer Kent.
Obviously, I’m totally forgetting a ton of people. Throw out whatever names you want.
8) Conclusion: Pick Your Horses
So ultimately I think making a top 10 list is silly. As Steven Soderbergh said last year: “Hollywood thinks its about races, but it’s actually about horses.” In other words, pick the directors that are distinctive enough for people to care about their vision, regardless of material.
Oscar bait is entirely a perception created by marketing to get your ass in the theater between November and February, because the movie isn’t good enough to attract attention otherwise. So always ignore it. Do you really want to watch The Theory of Everything?
So if you like, pick your horses and bet on them for 10 years. Everything else is just noise.
