The Incredibles is a 2004 computer-animated superhero film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons. It stars an ensemble cast including Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Vowell, Spencer Fox, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson and Elizabeth Peña. The film stars the Parr family, who each have superpowers. After the government orders superheroes to live a normal life, Robert Parr (Craig T. Nelson), who formerly went under the superhero alias "Mr. Incredible" secretly relives his days as a superhero, behind his family's back. At the same time, his kids come to terms with their powers while his wife becomes suspicious of his activities.
The Incredibles was originally developed as a traditionally-animated film for Warner Bros., but after the studio shut down its division for fully animated theatrical features, Bird took the story with him to Pixar, where he reunited with John Lasseter. The Incredibles is the sixth feature film from Pixar. It was presented by Disney and released by Buena Vista Distribution in North America on November 5, 2004, and in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland on November 26 of the same year. It is the first full-length Pixar film to feature an entirely human cast of characters. It was released on a two-disc DVD in the U.S. on March 15, 2005. According to the Internet Movie Database, it was the highest-selling DVD of 2005, with 17.18 million copies sold. It had its network television premiere on Thanksgiving Day 2007 on NBC (usually, Disney movies would air on ABC) and its basic cable premiere on ABC Family as part of The 25 Days of Christmas in December 2007, and its second cable showing on Disney Channel as part of the No Ordinary Friday on February 1, 2008.
Plot
On the night of his wedding to Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) takes enough time to stop crime in the city of Metroville. While he is attempting to capture villain Bomb Voyage (Dominique Lewis) during a bank robbery, Buddy Pine (Jason Lee), a fan of Mr. Incredible, attempts to help acting as Mr. Incredible's sidekick "IncrediBoy". Buddy's interference almost kills him, and Mr. Incredible is forced to save Buddy and let Voyage escape, and barely makes it to the ceremony on time. However, as a result of Mr. Incredible's actions, the public begins to disfavor anyone with superpowers, fearing them and using litigation to stop them from harming the public despite trying to save their lives.
Supers are forced to abandon their heroic roles and adapt to regular life. Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl settle down in suburbia as Bob and Helen Parr and raise a family; their children appear to have super powers as well - the hot-headed Dash (Spencer Fox) possesses super speed, while timid Violet (Sarah Vowell) has the ability to turn invisible and create a force shield. However, their toddler, Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile and Maeve Andrews) has yet to show any special abilities.
Bob has grown tired of his insurance job, and with his best friend and former Super, Lucius Best, aka Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson), sneaks off at night to fight petty crimes. Bob accidentally loses his job when he injures his boss Gilbert Huph (Wallace Shawn) when he is prevented from stopping a nearby mugging. When Bob returns home, he discovers a mysterious message from a woman named Mirage (Elizabeth Peña), outlining an offer for Mr. Incredible to stop a rogue robot, the Omnidroid 9000, on a distant island for a large sum of money. Bob accepts the job, and though the fight is difficult at first due to being out of shape, he is successful and reinvigorated. On the promise of more work from Mirage, Bob keeps up the pretense of still having his insurance job while he spends the days working himself back up into shape. Bob visits superhero suit designer Edna Mode (Brad Bird), who fashions a new supersuit for Bob, but refuses to add a cape as his request, noting that capes have caused the demise of many other heroes.
Bob soon receives Mirage's next offer and returns to the island where he is attacked by a new Omnidroid that lacks the weaknesses of the previous model. Bob realizes he has been misled: the Omnidroid is not 'rogue' at all: it actually takes direction from Buddy Pine, who is now calling himself Syndrome, and is attempting to get his revenge on Bob for having snubbed him as a sidekick years ago. Bob is forced to flee from Syndrome and the robot. Whilst in hiding, Bob discovers the skeleton of a former Super that gives him a clue about Syndrome's plans. Bob sneaks back into the island facilities and cracks Syndrome's supercomputer, from which he discovers that numerous Supers have lost their lives to the Omnidroids, with each engagement ultimately contributing to the development of less vulnerable Omnidroids.
Meanwhile, Helen has become suspicious of Bob's activities and discovers that he has visited Edna. She finds that Edna, in creating Bob's new suit, has created new suits for each member of the Parr family, including a homing device in each suit. Helen uses this to discover Bob's location on the remote island, but its signal alerts Syndrome and Bob is captured again. Helen procures a jet to find Bob, but finds Dash and Violet have stowed away. When Syndrome sends missiles to shoot the jet down as it nears the island, the three are able to escape using Helen's fireproof suit.
Bob tries to grab Syndrome but Mirage puts herself in the way. He threatens to kill Mirage if Syndrome does not let him go. Syndrome doesn't believe him and tells him to do it but Bob, unable to deny his moral code, is unable to kill her. On land, Helen frees her husband from the base while Dash and Violet avoid capture by Syndrome's forces. The four reunite but are re-captured by Syndrome, who reveals that he plans to launch the final Omnidroid to Metroville, using a remote control to act as if he was saving the city in order to gain superhero status. After the robot is launched, Mirage turns on her boss and helps the Parrs to escape and follow on a second rocket.
The Parrs arrive in Metroville to find the Omnidroid rampaging through the city, having used its ability to learn and cope with opponents to separate Syndrome from his remote control. Assisted by Frozone, the Parrs seize the remote control and take advantage of its design to destroy the Omnidroid. They then return home, where Syndrome, having discovered the Parrs' identity, is attempting to kidnap Jack-Jack and make him his sidekick. As Syndrome flies to his waiting jet, Jack-Jack's innate superhuman power manifests itself as the ability to shape-shift into a number of difficult-to-handle forms, the last being a devilish being, causing Syndrome to drop him. Bob throws Helen into the air to safely catch Jack-Jack, then throws his new car at Syndrome's jet, which causes Syndrome's cape to get caught in one of his jet engines, dragging him to his apparent death. The Parrs resume their normal life, albeit more contentedly with their status quo than before. But when the city is threatened by a new villain called the Underminer (John Ratzenberger), the family of supers prepare to fight together anew.
Cast
- Sarah Vowell as Violet Parr: She has invisibility and the creation of force fields. Frequently wishes she was "normal". Her powers are similar to the Marvel Comics superhero Invisible Woman.
- Eli Fucile and Maeve Andrews as Jack-Jack Parr: Jack-Jack is in all essence a shape-shifter, able to configure his molecules into various forms. In the film, he bursts into flames, turns into metal, and turns into a monster. Later revealed in "Jack Jack Attack" (a Pixar short of The Incredibles) to also have the abilities to teleport, levitate, pass through walls, and fire optic blasts.
- Samuel L. Jackson as Lucius Best/Frozone: Best friend of Mr. Incredible. He can create ice and freeze objects by using the moisture in the air, similarly to the Marvel character Iceman except that his body is not constantly covered in ice. Frequently relives the "glory days" with Mr. Incredible, though he is reluctant to take more direct action. Samuel L. Jackson was cast as the voice of Frozone because the film's writer/director wanted Frozone to have "the coolest voice".[2]
- Jason Lee as Buddy Pine/Syndrome: Mr. Incredible's number one fan, but he grows up to hate him due to the fact that Mr. Incredible wouldn't let him become his sidekick. He serves as the main antagonist of the film. Syndrome's facial features in the film were designed and based on Brad Bird's.[2]
- Elizabeth Peña as Mirage: Assistant to Syndrome. She defects shortly after Syndrome shows lack of concern for her life when Mr. Incredible threatens to crush her to death, immediately before she had pushed Syndrome out of the way, being grabbed in his place and saving his life.
- Brad Bird as Edna Mode: Famous designer of super-suits. A little obsessed with her work. During her forced retirement from hero work, Edna hosts modeling shows for supermodels. However, deep down, Edna has a great disdain for supermodels, once describing to Bob that they are "Spoiled, stupid little stick figures with poofy lips who think only about themselves," when, as she says referring to supers, she used to design "for Gods!" Edna had established a "No Capes" rule in her superhero costume designs for safety reasons, which proved true to Syndrome's eventual demise.
Production
Brad Bird's inspiration
Brad Bird, writer and director of the film, was inspired by his own life during the creation of The Incredibles. Brad Bird's situation during the time was very similar to that of Bob's in The Incredibles. Bird wanted to do what he loved, he wanted to make films. Yet each of his films would eventually fall by the wayside at some point during their development. While this was happening, he was also trying to focus on his new family that demanded more of his time. He felt that if he focused too much on one, that he would completely fail at the other. Brad Bird stated, "Consciously, this was just a funny movie about superheroes. But I think that what was going on in my life definitely filtered into the movie."[3]
Problems during production
Upon Disney accepting the project, Brad Bird was asked to bring in his own team for the production. He brought up a core group of people he worked with on The Iron Giant. Because of this, many 2D artists had to make the shift to 3D, including Brad Bird himself. Brad Bird wrote the script without knowing the limitations or concerns that went hand in hand with the medium of animation. As a result, this was to be the most complex film for Pixar yet. It was planned to be 15 minutes longer than anything else Pixar had created.
Bird's story was full of the most difficult things to do in animation at the time. Creating an all human cast meant that they needed to focus on creating believable human characters, which was one of their biggest hurdles. They needed to advance and create new technology that allowed them to animate and create a detailed human anatomy with the inclusion of muscles as well as dynamic clothing and realistic skin and hair. Long hair had never been done before in animation up until this point. Because of all of these problems, Disney, at first, didn't even want to make the movie. They felt that it should be a live action movie if anything. However, John Lasseter, who started Pixar, got behind the project, and it ended up being a major success. Quoting Brad Bird, "Basically, I came into a wonderful studio, frightened a lot of people with how many presents I wanted for Christmas, and then got almost everything I asked for."[4]
Reception
Critics
The Incredibles received universal critical acclaim, receiving a 97% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes[5] which made the movie the fifteenth greatest action film of all time and the only one of Top 20 with more than 100 reviews[6]. Metacritic indicates The Incredibles "universal acclaim" with a 90 out of 100 rating.[7] Critic Roger Ebert awarded the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, writing that the film "alternates breakneck action with satire of suburban sitcom life" and is "another example of Pixar's mastery of popular animation." Rolling Stone gave the movie three-and-a-half stars and called the movie "one of the year's best" and said that it "doesn't ring cartoonish, it rings true."[8] Also giving the film three-and-a-half stars, People magazine found that The Incredibles "boasts a strong, entertaining story and a truckload of savvy comic touches."[9]
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was bored by the film's recurring pastiches of earlier action films, concluding, "the Pixar whizzes do what they do excellently; you just wish they were doing something else."[10] Similarly, Jessica Winter of the Village Voice criticized the film for playing as a standard summer action film, despite being released in early November. Her review, titled as "Full Metal Racket," noted that "The Incredibles announces the studio's arrival in the vast yet overcrowded Hollywood lot of eardrum-bashing, metal-crunching action sludge.
Makers of the 2005 film The Fantastic Four were forced to make significant script changes and add more special effects because of similarities to the storyline of The Incredibles.[11]
Release
Following concerns that the film would receive underwhelming results,[12] the film grossed $70,467,623 in its opening weekend from 7,600 screens at 3,933 theaters, averaging $17,917 per theater or $9,272 per screen, the highest opening weekend gross for a Pixar film. The film was also #1 in its second weekend, grossing another $50,251,359, dropping just 29 percent, and easily outgrossing new animated opener The Polar Express. The film ultimately grossed $261,441,092, the second-highest gross for a Pixar film (behind Finding Nemo) and the fifth-highest grossing film of 2004.[13] Worldwide, the film grossed $631,436,092, ranking fourth for the year.[14] The film was also the second-highest grossing animated film that year behind Shrek 2.
Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2004.[15]
- 1st - Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
- 2nd - Chris Kaltenbach, Baltimore Sun
- 2nd - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
- 2nd - Ken Tucker, New York Magazine
- 2nd - Desson Thomson, Washington Post
- 3rd - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
- 3rd - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
- 3rd - All critics, Film Threat
- 3rd - Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
- 4th - Lou Lumenick, New York Post
- 4th - Glenn Kenny, Premiere
- 5th - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- 5th - David Edelstein, Slate
- 5th - Mike Clark, USA Today
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- 5th - Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle
- 5th - Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
- 7th - Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun
- 7th - Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com (tied with The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie)
- 8th - Michael WIlmington, Chicago Tribune
- 9th - A.O. Scott, New York Times
- 10th - James Berardinelli, ReelViews (tied with The Polar Express)
- top 10 - Ella Taylor, LA Weekly
- top 10 - Ron Stringer, LA Weekly
- top 10 - Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
- top 10 - Shawn Levy, The Oregonian
- top 10 - William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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DVD extras and Easter eggs
The Incredibles two-disc Collector's Edition DVD set was released on March 15, 2005. Like many other DVD releases, there are various extra features available on the two discs including:
- Introduction, an introduction for the extras featuring Brad Bird.
- Deleted Scenes, the film's deleted scenes plus an intro for all but one of them. The other one is only accessible as an Easter egg.
- Jack-Jack Attack, a Pixar short film made especially for the release of The Incredibles about what happened while Kari was babysitting Jack-Jack.
- The Making of The Incredibles, a documentary about making The Incredibles featuring about 30 of the crew members.
- More Making of The Incredibles, another longer documentary also about making The Incredibles.
- Incredi-Blunders. The Incredibles outtakes due to glitches in animation programming, or scenes included for intentional humor.
- Vowellet: An Essay by Sarah Vowell, a documentary about the life of Sarah Vowell, a writer who did the voice of Violet Parr
- Character Interviews, actor and actresses interview the characters (possibly Region 1 only; see talk page)
- Theatrical Trailers, The Incredibles film trailers.
- Mr. Incredible and Pals, a Mr. Incredible cartoon spoofing cheesy superhero cartoons from the 1960s, as well as Synchro-Vox cartoons like Clutch Cargo.
- Mr. Incredible and Pals With Commentary, the cartoon with the characters' commentary.
- NSA Files, info about the supers.
- Boundin', a Pixar short film written, directed, composed, production designed and narrated by Bud Luckey.
There are also several Easter eggs in the menus[16]; the one on the main menu shows every door, button and explosion in the movie. Some of the other menus have more than one easter egg movie; which one plays appears to be a random choice. One of the eggs on the first Index menu is a short sockpuppet version of the movie.
The film was also released on UMD for the Sony PSP and in a limited edition VHS version, and was the last Disney/Pixar film to be issued in the VHS format. All future Disney/Pixar titles beginning with Cars would only be released on DVD and Blu-ray.
Merchandising
Several companies released promotional products related to the movie. Dark Horse Comics released a limited series of comic books based on the movie. Kellogg's released an Incredibles-themed cereal, as well as promotional Pop Tarts and fruit snacks, all proclaiming an "Incrediberry Blast" of flavor. Furthermore, in the weeks before the movie's opening, there were also promotional tie-ins with SBC Communications (using Dash to promote the "blazing-fast speed" of its SBC Yahoo! DSL service) and McDonald's. Toy maker Hasbro produced a series of action figures and toys based on the film, although the line was not as successful as the film itself.
In Europe, Kinder chocolate eggs contained small plastic toy characters.
In Belgium, car manufacturer Opel sold special The Incredibles editions of their cars.
In the United Kingdom, Telewest promoted blueyonder internet services with branding from the film, including television adverts starring characters from the film.
In all merchandising outside of the film itself, Elastigirl is referred to as Mrs. Incredible. This is due to a licensing agreement between Disney/Pixar and DC Comics, who has a character named Elasti-Girl (a member of the Doom Patrol). The DC Comics character is able to grow and shrink at will from microscopic size to thousands of feet tall.
In July 2008, it was announced that a series of comic books based on The Incredibles would be published by BOOM! Studios in collaboration with Disney Publishing by the end of the year.[17]
Video game
A video game based on the film was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PC, Apple Macintosh, and mobiles.
Awards
The film won the Academy Award in 2004 for Best Animated Feature (the second out of four Pixar Animation Studios feature films to do so) as well as Best Achievement in Sound Editing. It also received nominations for Best Original Screenplay (for writer/director Brad Bird) and Best Achievement in Sound, but did not win.
The film was awarded the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.
These and other awards place it among the most-honored animation films in recent history.[18]
References
- ^ "The Incredibles (2004)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=incredibles.htm. Retrieved on 2009-02-05.
- ^ a b "The Incredibles (2004)". IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/trivia. Retrieved on 2009-03-22.
- ^ Paik, Karen. (2007) To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios, Chronicle Books LLC, pg. 236-37.
- ^ Paik, Karen. (2007) To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios, Chronicle Books LLC, pg. 238-51
- ^ The Incredibles - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ ROTTEN TOMATOES: ROTTEN TOMATOES: Top Movies: Golden Globes
- ^ The Incredibles at metacrtic.com
- ^ Travers, Peter (2004-11-25), "The Incredibles". Rolling Stone. (962):100
- ^ Rozen, Leah (2004-11-15), "The Incredibles". People. 62 (20):31
- ^ The Incredibles | AccessAtlanta
- ^ Patrick Sauriol (2004-12-24). "SCOOP: Stretching the end of FANTASTIC FOUR". http://www.mania.com/scoop-stretching-end-fantastic-four_article_43221.html.
- ^ Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com - Studio Briefing - 4 November 2004
- ^ 2004 Yearly Box Office Results
- ^ 2004 Yearly Box Office Results
- ^ "Metacritic: 2004 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/awards/2004/toptens.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
- ^ See eegs.com for more information about the Easter Eggs on these DVDs
- ^ "The Pixar Blog: Pixar comic books coming". http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/pixar-comic-books-coming.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-25.
- ^ "Honor roll: Animation films". Award Annals. 2007-09-16. http://www.awardannals.com/wiki/Honor_roll:Animation_films. Retrieved on 2007-09-16.
External links
