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The Incredibles (2004)
249 Plays2 years ago
A few episodes we covered Incredibles 2 and this week, we get around to The Incredibles! Author John Bruening returns to the show to talk about what has often been called the closest thing we've gotten to the best Fantastic Four movie. We reflect on the film's legacy and how it holds up almost 20 years later.
Visit John's Amazon page to check out his books.
Next week is Christmas and the week after is New Year's, so the show will be taking the next two weeks off. Hope you enjoy your holiday season, regardless of what you celebrate (if anything). Stay safe and we'll see you in 2024.
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PARAGONS OF EARTH is a comic book project I’m developing with Thomas Deja and Eric Johns. You can support the project by visiting crowdfundr.com/paragonscomic.
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Transcript
Introduction to Paragons of Earth
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey guys, before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you a little bit about Paragons of Earth, the exciting new superhero comic I'm working on with Thomas DJ and Eric Johns. For this comic, we've unearthed a number of obscure and forgotten Golden Age superheroes, plucked them from the depths of the public domain, and completely redesigned and reinvented them for the modern day. It's an exciting cast of characters, and we're throwing them up against the threat of a Lovecraftian apocalypse.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's got action, it's got drama, it's got alternate dimensions and alien worlds, and it's even got a giant shark and Hawaiian shirt. What else could you want? But in order to make this comic a reality, we need your help. The comic is crowdfunding now, and you can help support it by going to crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic.
00:00:42
Speaker
That's Crowdfunder Without the E dot com slash Paragons Comic. You'll be able to find that link in the show notes, so please double check if you didn't quite get it. Please help make this comic a reality. We are counting on your support. And now, on with the show.
Guest Introduction: John Bruning
00:01:12
Speaker
Yes, things are going quite well, quite well, my God, no complaints. But, you know, it is not the same, not the same at all. Weren't you just in the news, some show-and-preg, prog? Milan, darling! Milan! Super models! Ha! Nothing super about them spoiled, stupid little stick figures with poofy lips who think only about themselves. Pfft! I used to design for gods!
00:01:38
Speaker
Hmm, but perhaps you'll come with a challenge, eh? I was surprised to get your call. E, I just need a pass job. Hmm, this is Mega Mash, outmoded for very sturdy, and you've torn right through it! What have you been doing, Robert? Moonlighting hero work?
00:01:56
Speaker
Must have happened a long time ago. I see. This is a horrible suit, darling. You can't be seen in this. I won't allow it. 15 years ago, maybe. But now? What do you mean? You designed it. I never looked back, darling. It distracts from the now. You need a new suit. Not much is certain. A new suit? Where the heck am I gonna get a new suit? You can't! It's impossible! I'm far too busy, so ask me now before I again become sane.
00:02:20
Speaker
Wait, you want to make me a suit? You push too hard, darling. But I accept. It will be bold, traumatic, heroic. Yeah, something classic. Like, uh, Dina Guy. Oh, he had a great look. Oh, the cape and the boots. No capes.
00:02:40
Speaker
Isn't that my decision? Do you remember Thunderhead? Tall storm powers. Nice man. Good with kids. Listen. November 15th, the 58th. Always well, another day, say, when his cape snagged on a missile wind. Thunderhead was not the brightest ball snowman. Stratogale. April 23rd, 57. Cape Cotton eject turbine.
00:03:04
Speaker
Hey, you can't generalize about this. Melt a man, express elevator. Diner guy, snag on tape off. Splashdown sucked into a vortex. No kicks. Now go on, your lawsuit will be finished before your next assignment. Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming back returning guests, although it's been a while since last time we had him on, and that is John Bruning. John, how you doing today?
00:03:31
Speaker
I'm good, Perry. Thanks for having me on again. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming back on. I was glad to get your email. But before we go too far into the movie or any other stuff, why don't you remind people a little bit about yourself?
John Bruning's Writing Background
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Okay. The name is John Bruning. I am a lot of things. I am primarily a writer of
00:03:54
Speaker
fiction. I am one half of a small press called Flinch Books. The other half is Jim Beard, also in the Ohio area, and we publish long fiction and short story anthologies in the spirit of the old pulp fiction in the 1930s and 1940s. We've been doing that for about eight years now. I also have various stories, short stories published in other anthologies from other publishers, so I try to just
00:04:20
Speaker
Get my stuff out there as much as I can in as many places as I can. That's sort of that's that's my plan right now, such as it is. Very cool. And again, just to remind people about a little bit about yourself, how did you get interested in superheroes, superhero movies, anything like that? Boy, that goes back almost as far as I do. I can't remember a time. I think I think it started with the animated cartoons on Saturday mornings in the late 60s.
00:04:47
Speaker
My memory of that goes as far back as about 1968. That was sort of my gateway drug to comics when I started actually reading. I was reading comics pretty much from first grade onward. I have since drifted away somewhat from mainstream comics and more into just prose fiction.
00:05:08
Speaker
I fell in love with the whole superhero concept when I was probably four or five six years old and I don't think I've ever quite shaken it in the 55 plus years since so yeah, I I've been I've been an avid follower of the whole MCU in the last what 10 12 15 years Yeah, I just it's sort of
00:05:30
Speaker
somewhere along the line I got in my blood and I'm approaching senior citizen status and it's still very much a part of my DNA.
00:05:39
Speaker
Well, that's that's good to hear. Like when I was a kid, everybody always would tell me it's like, oh, there's going to become a day when you're not interested in all this superhero crap. And, you know, I just celebrated my 40th birthday and that doesn't seem to be waning at all. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm coming up on 60 in just a few weeks. And and yeah, I just it if it hasn't gone away yet, it's not going to. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:00
Speaker
And other thing I asked guests is what are they interested in lately? What kind of things are kind of grabbing your interests? It could be doesn't have to be superhero related, but it can be movies, books, TV, whatever.
00:06:15
Speaker
Having said what I just said about the MCU, it seems to be stalling somewhat based on what I see and what I've read in the recent media. I think I'm gravitating more these days towards noir fiction, specifically, modern day writers like say, Max Allen Collins.
00:06:36
Speaker
I'm a big fan of, a lot of my favorite authors are deceased, big fan of Robert Parker, Ed McBain, Mickey Spillane to a lesser degree, but it seems like lately I'm gravitating more towards noir fiction, modern day as well as some of the classic stuff, certainly Raymond Chandler, Dash O'Hammett, pretty much across the board.
00:07:01
Speaker
So it's more, when you say nor fiction, more stuff in like, in the prose novel space as opposed to like TV shows. Right, exactly. Yeah, right. Yeah. Although, you know, certainly, let's see, I don't do much TV, really. We have a couple of streaming services coming into the house, but I don't spend a lot of time in front of the small screen. I'm trying to, it's funny, I'm trying more and more these days to put the phone down and just pick up a book and just stay focused on reading prose fiction. Yeah.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I, I've got such a big TBR pile, both, both prose books and comics. It's just with Yeah, with two toddlers, it's so hard to find the time. And usually by the time they go down to sleep at night, it's, I'm just too tired to do anything other than watch TV or something. You're going down 20 minutes later. Yeah, I know. Exactly. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And no, my next to my TBR book, my TBR pile is just it's, it's,
00:07:57
Speaker
It's beyond hope. I mean, it's it's bottomless at this point. I think it's I'm I mean, which pile are we talking about? The one immediately next to the bed or the one in my office or the one in the other corner of the office or the other in the, you know, it just it's it's it's probably well past 100 at this point. So, yeah, it's I don't have enough years left in my life to actually read all the books I want to read. So yeah, I know. I just I just resign myself to that fact. Yes.
00:08:20
Speaker
In fact, just the other day, I, I finally put them both down to sleep. My son's actually pretty good. He usually goes down about eight o'clock and he usually just goes to sleep right away now. But my daughter, she'll, she's more of a night owl. So she'll stay up as late as she can. And usually by the time she goes to sleep and the other day I'm like, okay, she's asleep now. Now I can break out my Kindle. I can read some comics. And I was just too exhausted. I fell asleep in like 10 minutes. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I, I have bad news for you. I'm not sure that goes away once they grow, once they've grown up because like,
00:08:49
Speaker
you sort of train your body to start like, you know, falling asleep 10 minutes after they do and next thing you know, you're like, you know, you're, you're middle aged and you're going to bed at 930. So yeah, so just have just a warning for you right now. Yeah, yeah, I just need to I need to find a way to engineer more hours in the day.
00:09:06
Speaker
Good luck with that. I've been working on it for the last 30 years. It's just not working for me. Beyond that note, there's not really much I've been able to keep up with myself. I'm almost up to date on Loki.
Balancing Reading and Parenting Responsibilities
00:09:20
Speaker
I think the fifth episode is the one that just came out that I haven't seen that yet. People who are listening to the show week to week, they know that I mentioned the same thing.
00:09:29
Speaker
Like the last episode of the episode before that Not a lot of time has passed between those recordings and I just haven't had time to watch anything different or or consume anything different between I'm sorry, go ahead I was just say between you know between the kids and and work and and this comic book project I'm working on it's just it's hard to find time to do anything else No, I know it just and I've got I think I told you before we started recording I've got my kids are older. They're off in college
00:10:00
Speaker
now my wife and I are starting to figure out how do we sort of like live together in this house by ourselves, the whole empty nest thing. We do certainly have more time for our interests now, but the question is now do we have the energy? So yeah, I watched the first season of Loki. I have yet to dial into the second. I'm hearing good things, but I have not yet dialed in. So I'm curious to dig into that soon. Yeah. What I love so far about it is
00:10:29
Speaker
I'm never sure on the pronunciation of his name, but Kehu Kwan, who was short-round in Temple of Doom, he's in it too. And he is great. He plays this character, Obi, Ouroboros, and he is just
00:10:45
Speaker
He's on fire. And I also saw him, it finally, I got to the party late, but I finally saw everything everywhere all at once. And he was amazing in that. And it's just like, you know, I, I, I loved the movie. Don't ask me to explain it to you. I just, I remember, I remember watching it like, you know, and oftentimes I'll, I'll, I'll watch a movie and if I really like it, or even if I don't like it, I'll post something on social media. Just, Hey, I just saw this blah, blah, blah. Here's my, here's my two sentence review. And I think I just wrote something like,
00:11:12
Speaker
What I just said, you know, great movie. Don't ask me to explain it. I can just just get on the ride and hold on for dear life. That's pretty much that's pretty that was that was pretty much my take on is very good. But I just, you know, it's multidimensional and just just like.
00:11:28
Speaker
There's there's an overriding message, but you really have to get all the way to the end to really grasp. Yeah, definitely. Well, we'll be talking about that actually later on in a few episodes. So for anybody who wants to hear more in depth about that, we'll be talking about that. We got to get we had an episode scheduled for I think a few months from now, actually. So we've already got that scheduled. Great, great.
00:11:49
Speaker
But anyway, today we're talking about something
Discussion on The Incredibles Movie
00:11:51
Speaker
different. Today we are discussing the Incredibles. It's funny, the timing on the recording of this actually worked out very interestingly because we had you come up want to come on to talk about the Incredibles and then we had someone else who wanted to come on to talk about Incredibles too.
00:12:08
Speaker
And originally the recordings were scheduled where it would have been perfect. We would have had Incredibles and then Incredibles 2 like back to back and then it didn't quite work out that way. So the Incredibles. So people listening Incredibles 2 episode will already be out. So and now we're going to talk about Incredibles 1. Interesting. OK.
00:12:28
Speaker
But anyway, what was your history with this movie? You know, 2004 animated film from Brad Bird. 2004. I was not familiar with Brad Bird, although he had done a fair amount of stuff prior to this.
00:12:44
Speaker
I was familiar with the whole Pixar experience because at the time my kids were very little, so I was kind of, you know, I was kind of dialed into the whole story thing and everything. I had seen Iron Giant a few years prior. He did Iron Giant, I think, and I wrote this down.
00:13:01
Speaker
He directed The Iron Man. OK, and and I was very impressed with that movie. It didn't do very well at the box office, but the critics loved it and I loved it too. So that was my probably my first experience with Brad Bird. I saw this in a theater with my wife.
00:13:21
Speaker
And it was like, I absolutely loved it. I'm gonna tell you right now at the outset of this conversation, you're gonna have a hard time getting me to say anything negative about this movie. It just, I absolutely loved it for so many reasons on so many levels. And I'm sure we can get into a lot of it. But yeah, I didn't know a whole lot about Brad Bird prior to this other than Iron Giant. But when I realized he had directed both
00:13:49
Speaker
It kind of made two very different films, but yet it kind of made sense to me. I could see the through line between the two, even though they're very different films. One is a little more serious and darker. The other is much brighter and more lighthearted. But you could kind of see his fingerprints on both movies if you look closely. Yeah.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, so 2004 I would have been I was in university at the time and I had I I wasn't I kind of missed the boat on the whole Pixar thing because you know I watched Toy Story in the theaters and liked it enough but I was like
00:14:22
Speaker
you know, I think I was in, you know, still in elementary school or maybe junior high when that came out. So that was more interesting. And then as I, you know, as, you know, probably a lot of teenagers do, I kind of went through like, oh, Disney animation or Pixar and all that, that's for kids. And so I kind of drifted away from it during that part. Even though I saw it was a superhero film, like it just, it was never really on my radar. Same thing with the Iron Giant. I missed the boat on that one as well.
00:14:48
Speaker
So, but I had heard about it, lots of people talking about this movie like from the time it came out everybody was the, the, the thing that people have the way people have described this movie the shorthand they've used over and over again for
00:15:02
Speaker
you know, almost the past 20 years now, we're coming up on the 20th anniversary next year, is it's the best Fantastic Four movie that's not a Fantastic Four movie. You know what, I honest to God, period, I was gonna I was gonna fire that almost the exact same line at you. I just I totally I thought I was thinking about this prior to this recording. I'm thinking if I could sum this movie up in one phrase, I would say it's the best Fantastic Four movie never made it really
00:15:27
Speaker
I hate to tell tell you this, but it's not the most original idea I guess it's not. I guess it's not. But I will tell you this, though, along those same lines, as I said, I saw what this came out in October of all four. And I think I saw it shortly after it opened. And then you may recall about about seven or eight months later, in July of all five is when the first Tim Story Fantastic Four movie came out from 20th Century Fox.
00:15:55
Speaker
And I remember I went I saw that in the theater by myself. I remember walking out thinking, you know, I saw a much better version of this movie about eight months ago, because if is and some of the scenes are very similar if you watch closely and but but but it was done much better in Pixar. It just just they just.
00:16:15
Speaker
Only the names were changed, but I think it was a much better Fantastic Four film, absolutely. Yeah, I think I was never as anti the Tim Story films as a lot of people were. We actually covered them a while back on the show with Helen Conley.
00:16:31
Speaker
And especially when I first saw it in the theater, I really kind of enjoyed the first one. And I really liked the second one the first time I saw it too. Over time, my opinions definitely cooled on both of those. But I could find good things about them in each one. But I think one of the reasons why I didn't have the same negative reaction that a lot of other fans had to that first movie was because I hadn't seen The Incredibles. So I didn't have that comparison in mind.
00:16:56
Speaker
Right. Like my only comparison was the other superhero films at the other live action superhero films at the time or the Roger Corman one. Right. And they weren't terrible by any means. I just I would just wouldn't say they really just lit a fire under me. And I know they were more disappointing than anything. Lots of missed opportunities, I think. Kind of lukewarm, I guess, is the word I would use. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
But if we had the Josh train for comparison at that point, though, I think it would have been much better received as well. Right, right. That's yeah, exactly. So.
00:17:30
Speaker
But my first exposure to Brad Bird was really Ghost Protocol, the Mission Impossible movie. That was the first movie that I actually saw. And when I saw his name and I looked him up and I'm like, oh, he also did The Incredibles and Iron Giant. Those are two movies that I've heard a lot about and I should get around to watching at some point.
00:17:50
Speaker
And it was still a few years before I actually did. Iron Giant actually first watched I think like maybe last year and it was for this show. But The Incredibles, I had watched that for the first time a few years ago. I think it was probably before the second one came out and
00:18:09
Speaker
And you know how when you watch a movie that's been hyped up for years and you sit down and you finally watch it and you're like, ah, that wasn't as good as everybody said it was. That happens to me a lot, but that did not happen to me with The Incredibles.
00:18:25
Speaker
The Incredibles, I saw it and I'm just like, okay, I get why everybody has been raving about this movie for like the past 10 or 15 years. Like you said, it is hard to say anything bad about this movie. It is so well done. It is clear that Brad Bird is a huge fan of superheroes, right? But also not to the point that he can't have fun with it. Like he can't make fun of the concept. And that was a point that I wanted to make. He pulls off the very
00:18:54
Speaker
difficult trick of being both reverent and irreverent at the same time. Yes. And it just and does both successfully. I mean, you know, it's it's
00:19:04
Speaker
He honors the genre when he's supposed to and he kind of winks at you or winks at it when he has the opportunity to do so. And it's seamless all the way around. And you hear this a lot about animation, especially from the Warner Brothers tradition, about how
00:19:25
Speaker
The really great animated films or shorts or whatever are the ones that appeal to both the adult and the child on different levels. I think this movie does that brilliantly. I mean, I think, you know, at the very least, this movie is clever. I would go so far as to say that Bird is, at least in the context of this film, is a genius. I just think he's just, he walks such a fine line and does it so expertly and so deftly that it's hard not to love this movie. I really think so.
00:19:55
Speaker
No, yeah. And I was thinking about that too, like, cause I canceled the subscription now because of the price hikes and all the, all the crap that Zazlaw has been pushing. But, but when I had HBO Max, I started watching some of those old Looney Tunes shorts and, and yeah, it is.
00:20:12
Speaker
It is amazing when you go back and you watch those as an adult and you realize like how many levels they were really working on. Whereas as a kid, it was just kind of like the slapsticky stuff. I remember sitting on my couch again on Saturday mornings and I'm watching this stuff and I'm laughing hysterically as a five or six year old. In walks my dad and he stands there watching with me for like five or 10 minutes when he's in the middle of like doing something else. And he's laughing too. And at the time I didn't realize that he and I were laughing at two totally different things.
00:20:39
Speaker
But that's really, you know, that's very smart filmmaking for a shop that's just making short eight-minute animated films. But yeah, I think Bird does that perfectly. He definitely dives into that tradition and just carries it on perfectly.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he does, I mean, this movie, it's got so many things going for it. And you know, it's funny, because I was thinking, I can't help but compare this to the second one while I was rewatching it the other night, because that one was so fresh in my mind. And how, I think one of my biggest criticisms of the second movie, as much as I enjoyed it, was that I felt like they were trying to do too much in it. Whereas this one, it feels like,
00:21:21
Speaker
Bird knew exactly how much he could fit in the film without pushing it too far and losing sight and losing focus. Yes. I also think I agree with what you're saying, but I also think, you know, you can't let's face it. I mean, OK, he made he made a sequel 14 years after he made the first. That's that's I mean, that's that's pretty risky because, you know, as we all know,
00:21:48
Speaker
The zeitgeist, not just of American film, but American culture, it can change in a matter of four or five years. So the idea of trying to do a sequel of a movie you made 14 years ago and hope that you can
00:22:07
Speaker
Cash in on the same magic that you created the first time out. That's that's a pretty that's a pretty big gamble I think he pulled it off, but I think you're right. I think he he tried to cram a little bit too much in there The second time around but to his credit though. He didn't what he didn't do like what was smart was like I
00:22:25
Speaker
go back and look at all the things that worked in the first movie and just amp those things up because that's a lot of times that's what a sequel does. It's just like, OK, what worked in the first movie? Let's do more of that. Right. To his credit, he didn't do that. He came up with a fresh story, I think. So although it's a story that it starts 10 minutes after the first story ends. Yeah, that was and you know, speaking what you said about the you know, you don't making a sequel 14 years after the original one, usually when that's done,
00:22:53
Speaker
they show that passage of time. Right. And it's like, let's pick up with these characters, you know, 14, 20 years later and see what they get where they are now, as opposed to him. He said that, no, I want to pick up right after the first one. So, yes, that's right after the first one. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit. It's a little bit even just from a, you know, from an artistic standpoint, it's it's kind of hard to go back into that mindset you had 14 years ago. So it's so it's a different feel that way. Right. And I think like
00:23:24
Speaker
Sorry. So yeah, getting back into that mindset is a difficult thing to do. And I don't think he quite nailed it as much as he did with this one. I don't think that the second one quite feels like it's in that same mindset. But I mean, it's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. Not at all. I just watched it yesterday, as a matter of fact, the sequel. Oh, yeah. The funny thing is I actually saw it once before I saw it at a drive in and it was like
00:23:54
Speaker
You know, I think it was I'm gonna say it was August. It was hot. The line of sight where we were parked was not good. I was sitting outside the car. So my experience of the sound with soundtrack was not good. I was getting eaten by mosquitoes. I really I had no memory of the movie. I was watching it last night thinking I don't remember any of this. I remember none of this. So it was like seeing for the first time last night when the truth is I saw it once before shortly after it came out. So yeah, but you know, I agree. I think
00:24:22
Speaker
I think probably not quite the same magic as the first film, but certainly quite good in its own way.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah,
Exploring Family Dynamics in The Incredibles
00:24:31
Speaker
yeah. And going back to this one, I thought it's funny when I'm watching it now because the first time I watched it, it was before I had kids, before I was married or any of that stuff. And it hits so much differently when you've had some semblance of those experiences. Even just like him and his job, right? The whole midlife crisis thing that he's obviously struggling with, it brings so true.
00:24:57
Speaker
Whereas, you know, if you watch this movie when you were a kid, right, that would have just been, you know, a funny scene. But here now you can start see you can under like we're saying about the Looney Tunes stuff, you can start understanding it on that deeper level as well. Right. Right. To a to a to an eight year old, it just looks like a grumpy dad to you or me. It's like that's not far from my life at all. You know, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the thing I think that this movie does so well. It just and maybe this maybe this is a blinding flash of the obvious. I don't know. But it just
00:25:27
Speaker
it you know it it does a very clever uh light-hearted but interesting look at um traditional family roles i mean like it's just you know the the dad is the you know the the breadwinner the head of the family or at least he perceives himself as such and he feels like the weight of the world's on his shoulders so that's that's the guy who's the strong guy
00:25:47
Speaker
you know the matriarch is trying to you know is trying to do a million things be a good wife be a good mom be a good homemaker maybe she has a career so she stretched in a million different directions and you know and then you've got the adolescent daughter feels marginalized or invisible so of course you know and then you've got the what i'm going to say dash is like eight or ten years old he's just a bundle of energy with very little impulse control so her
00:26:10
Speaker
right so that it would make sense that he'd be that you know the super fast kid who can move it at the speed of light practically so it just it's um you know again maybe that's obvious but watching that sort of that layer of the story unfold was was interesting it's just like you know these people are very much you know their personalities are very much manifest in their powers
00:26:31
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it's it's a bit on the nose on on the surface, but the way Bird executes it, like if you look at that just on paper, like you said, becomes like, well, yeah, that's obvious. But but the way it's executed is it doesn't it doesn't seem ham fisted or it doesn't seem, you know, too obvious at all when you're watching the movie. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I noticed it till the second time I watched it. I've seen it like four or five times, but I don't think I really noticed that until the second time. Maybe I'm just.
00:26:59
Speaker
Maybe I'm just dense, I don't know, but it's just like, but when I did notice, it was like, of course, that's exactly what he's doing. So yeah.
00:27:05
Speaker
And I think he does. He does some of that in the second movie, although it's it's more about like the gender roles in a marriage in the second movie. He's like, you know, again, you know, he's like I'm competing with my own wife, my own spouse. And I want to I want to be the lead guy. And I, you know, I love my wife, but I I I still want to be the captain of the team. And I'm feeling resentful when she's out there in the spotlight and I'm not. And which is, again, is sort of like a kind of a dynamic that you see in a lot of marriages sometime or another. Right.
00:27:35
Speaker
although what i think bird did good about that in the second movie is he he didn't portray it as antagonistically as it usually would be in that kind of scenario right exactly yeah he was still um uh he was still thinking you know bob was still thinking like you know i
00:27:52
Speaker
I yeah i'm jealous but i still want to be supportive of my wife so i'm still gonna you know stick it through so i like the way that they handled that dynamic in a mature in a much more mature and realistic way as opposed to the the this the more sitcom he won i'm jealous of my wife and everybody's gonna know about it type of way right right right he's trying to take the high road but he's still feeling some of those feelings he's
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Which is totally understandable because obviously if your spouse or even your friend or someone in your circle is having more success than you, especially if it's in a field that you enjoy doing, you're going to feel some degree of resentment, even however illogical it might be. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So he did a good job of exploring those dynamics, family dynamics, marriage dynamics in a movie that you really wouldn't expect to see that in.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. In fact, it, you know, it's funny that I'm watching this now. And I'm just looking at the Wikipedia page, and I found something interesting, because fairly recently, I'd covered the recording of Princess Mononoke, the Miyazaki film for my other podcast, Japan on Film. And I see here during
00:29:02
Speaker
production, Miyazaki actually visited Pixar and he saw like the film's story reels. And when Bird asked him if the reels made any sense or if it was just American nonsense, Miyazaki said, I think it's very adventurous. I think what you're trying to do is very adventurous for an American film. Hmm. Interesting. Okay. So that was a nice little aside there.
00:29:25
Speaker
It's it's there's a lot going on in the Incredibles that you wouldn't expect to see from an animated superhero film. There's a lot, right? A lot of like character development.
00:29:36
Speaker
that you wouldn't expect in a film of that nature? Well, I think in general, that's one of Pixar's strengths, is they seem to be adopting kind of the Studio Ghibli model, where you can have something that is, you know, primarily geared towards children, but is also exploring these deeper and more adult themes without going into adult territory.
00:29:59
Speaker
And without having to go too dark either. Yeah, exactly. It's always lighthearted. There's it rarely. I mean, I think there's that moment when Bob thinks that his entire family has been wiped out by this by this missile has been launched at the plant. That's kind of dark, you know, when he and when he takes a mirage, the female character by the neck and basically threatens to break her neck because he's got nothing left to lose. That's a little dark. But but for the most part, it explores a lot of those dynamics without having to go too far down that road.
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. My son is taking all my papers that I need to grade out. Yeah, they've already drawn on the walls. My daughter, she loves taking crayons and using them on the walls instead of the paper. So I also wanted to talk about some of the other stuff in here because one of the things that strikes me about this movie and the way that superheroes are
00:30:55
Speaker
portrayed in like their their changes is it kind of reminded me of the the setup for the for Civil War for in Marvel Comics very similar kind of idea although yes handled in a much better way I'd say yes I was I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to myself I went back and looked at the timeline this movie predates the Civil War saga in Marvel Comics by two years yeah and which
00:31:25
Speaker
I can't help but wonder, and I don't want to, you know, suggest any kind of, you know, I just, it struck me as a huge coincidence that two years after this movie came out, Marvel took a very, very, very similar concept and built like a what, a 14 month multi part multi
00:31:43
Speaker
character saga around basically the same premise. And I'm not suggesting anything was stolen, but I just wonder if, you know, if if somebody saw something and said, hey, that's kind of a cool idea, maybe we can riff on that a little bit. I don't know, because it just seems like it's very close in time. What's your take on that?
00:32:01
Speaker
I think it's very likely that they, I mean, cause you see this kind of stuff happening all the time in comics or in movies where something does well and some other studio, some other creator thinks, oh, that's cool. Let me try, let me take that basic idea and do work in it and rework it in like my own style type of thing. So, I mean, there's the, what's that old axiom? Like all artists steal, but you know,
00:32:28
Speaker
But some are just better at hiding it, something along those lines. I would almost say that that wasn't a very good job of hiding it. It just seems like, given the short amount of time that transpired between the film and the comic series, and the premise was very similar, it's almost like, wow, it's hard to believe that
Influence on Marvel's Civil War?
00:32:52
Speaker
that idea came to the Marvel creators out of nowhere because it's just, you know, it's just a matter of like, what, 24 months between the release of the film and the launch of that series. But you also had something similar where I think you could also say that Brad Bird also, you know, could have stolen this kind of idea because you saw very similar ideas in Watchmen with the whole idea of, you know, because the differences in the Civil War comics, it was just we want you working with the government.
00:33:18
Speaker
Whereas in the, in this movie, it's, you know, we're outlawing superheroes and we want you to go away and we'll help you relocate as a thank you for your service. That's kind of a more polite version of what happened in Watchmen with the, with the Keen Act, or even in, you know, the Justice Society, and I think it was the 80s or 90s, they did that series that, you know, saw the Justice Society, you know, breaking apart because of the, the McCarthy hearings. Right, right.
00:33:47
Speaker
It's an interesting, I mean, and it wasn't the last time we heard that kind of concept either, just the idea of like, you know, a government entity interceding with the whole superhero initiative. At what point is it determined that they are doing more harm? Okay.
00:34:08
Speaker
So yeah, we had a bit of a technical difficulty there, but you just finished saying that when you figure out the heroes are doing more harm than good. Yeah, that's an idea that's played with here. Let's talk about some of the ways that it kind of pokes fun or criticizes some of the traditional tropes of superhero comics. I mean, right from the main villain, right? This whole idea of a young, overeager,
00:34:38
Speaker
sidekick who wants to be like the hero and ends up getting his life ruined because of it. Like he wasn't actually his sidekick, but it's definitely that kind of idea they're playing with there a little bit. Yeah, the whole idea of the character whose intentions or whose original intentions are good, but he becomes so soured by circumstances where he's spurned by his hero. So it turns him in a direction where he's much more dark and angry.
00:35:07
Speaker
and vindictive. You know, Jason Lee, I mean, he's so good because like his voice is such that he he didn't, as far as I could tell, he did not alter his voice at all between the time he was playing incredible who I'm guessing is like, what, 12 years old, maybe 15 at the outside, and then the adult syndrome.
00:35:28
Speaker
His voice is such that it works regardless it's sort of like, on one hand it's adult. On the other hand it's youthful it's sort of both at the same time, he didn't really have to like make any kind of a leap in terms of you know okay now I'm going to talk like a kid now I'm going to talk like an adult.
00:35:41
Speaker
It didn't matter. I'm just sort of this maniacal character who could be any age. And I think he was a good pick for that role. But yeah, he was. And it's funny, I was when I was watching the movie, I forgot that he had done The Voice and and I kept thinking like, oh, that boy sounds so familiar. And then I looked up like Jason Lee. I'm like, oh, right. And it makes so much sense. He's basically, you know, I mean, a good way of describing syndrome is what if Brody went to the dark side? Right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah.
Character Spotlight: Edna Mode
00:36:08
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and you're talking about
00:36:11
Speaker
send ups and just sort of the way it pokes fun. I mean, you could do an entire episode on Edna mode. I mean, yes, you just I mean, you know that the expression no capes has become like iconic.
00:36:25
Speaker
since the movie came out I mean how many times have you heard that in conversations with fans or fanboys just you know and it kind of like it pokes fun it like when you really step back and look at the whole idea of a cape as part of a superhero a fighting costume it makes absolutely no sense it is like it's more of a hindrance than it than an enhancement and and she just you know and it's bird doing the voice it's just so good I mean it just yes it just she's such a great character and like
00:36:55
Speaker
I think what surprised me was, I mean, I don't know if you're old enough to remember Edith Head. She was a very well known, a very successful Hollywood costume designer in like from like the 40s to the 70s, maybe even farther than that. She was very well known and she has like, she got like eight Academy Awards for costume design over the course of 24 years.
00:37:22
Speaker
If you find pictures of her on Google, she is basically the template for Edna Mode. And she's got that sort of like that haircut, the flat front and the big glasses, the big eyes behind the big round glasses. And I remember watching this thing. And I remember Edith Head when she was still alive. And she was, I mean, costume designers tend not to be celebrities, but she was just such an eccentric character that she was. And I remember watching this movie thinking,
00:37:52
Speaker
Well, this is just riffing on Edith Head and it was obvious to me. And I remember at the time I was reading a lot of reviews and a lot of press around the movie because I liked it so much. And it seemed like no one was noticing that but me. But since then, it's become obvious. But like I kept waiting to read about, oh, yeah, this this Edna character, she's obviously patterned after Edith Head.
00:38:12
Speaker
But no one seemed to be getting it at the time. But now it just like it's like in retrospect, a lot of a lot of what's written about this movie clearly makes that connection. But yeah, such a great character. I mean, she's become just as iconic as the movie itself, I think. I think so, too. I think she's probably.
00:38:28
Speaker
arguably the most iconic character in the movie. I mean, that scene when the no cape scene is one of my favorite scenes in this film. And yeah, to your point, I just looked this up and Bird had actually described her as like a mix of Edith Head and Q from the James Bond films.
00:38:49
Speaker
And yeah, he does that, the voice he gives her is, and I guess this is probably a case where maybe he had tried a bunch of different people to see who could, and just no one could have gotten the voice that he wanted the right way. So I think that's why he just did it himself. And that's just my speculation on it. I read that he actually, he tried Lily Tomlin and she, I guess she tested for it and she said, you know what?
00:39:15
Speaker
bread does it better than anybody it should be bread and she's like she respectfully declined the offer and she just she said you should do this because you know the when you when you sit in the in the writers room and you do this voice it just cracks everyone up you should be the one doing this voice and uh so she backed out of the whole thing and he wound up doing it it just it's just so good i mean i i've never heard or seen
00:39:37
Speaker
I don't know if she has a European accent like that. I have no idea. I think her father was a German immigrant and her mother was from Missouri, but her parents were also German and Austrian. I don't know if she had an accent or not.
00:39:52
Speaker
but just the way he lays it on so thick is just so good. It's just, I mean, she steals every single scene she's in and you could make the case that she actually steals the movie. Yeah, I think you could, yeah. You know, it's funny that you, I didn't know that about Lily Tomlin, but it's funny because in a kind of roundabout way, she eventually did get to play a version of Edna because
00:40:14
Speaker
you know and into the spiderverse she plays the anime who is kind of like the the edna slash alfred to that universe is peter parker yes right right right yeah yeah she's uh yeah she's a talented woman you don't see much of her a whole lot anymore but um
00:40:32
Speaker
I just recently read that she had been considered for Edna, and it made sense, but it also made sense that Bird wound up doing it, because I think he knew exactly what he wanted from that character, and he was the only one who could pull it off. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, it definitely worked out. I mean, that voice is probably...
00:40:53
Speaker
That voice is probably the most iconic voice in this movie. Whenever you say The Incredibles, I think the first thing people probably hear is Edna screaming, no capes. No capes. Well, it's funny because I've read somewhere that there have been a number of magazines and publications have published lists of
00:41:12
Speaker
you know, the the most the most famous supporting characters in the history of animated film. She's always in the top 10. She's always in the top 10. Like I've of four or five different lists I've seen. She's always she always ranks high. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny that the in the line about no capes, it it has a few different criticisms of superhero media baked into their first. It's like you were saying, the whole idea of a cape in itself is
00:41:39
Speaker
Pretty impractical, like the only real purpose of the cape in the comics is just because visually it's a much more striking image on a page. It helps convey movement. Whereas, and the whole idea of no capes too, also can be leveled at a criticism of animation because, you know, one of the things that animators hate to do is to animate capes because it is so difficult to do.
00:42:04
Speaker
In fact, in, you know, in Superman the Animated Series and like all Superman movies since then, he doesn't have the S-Shield on the cape. And the reason why is it's because it's too difficult to animate that S-Shield on a moving cape. Yes. Yeah. I never thought of that. But yeah, I'm trying to remember. I was watching animated Superman cartoons in the late 60s voiced by Bud Collier. And I think you're right. I think there was no yellow shield on the back of the cape now that you mention it.
00:42:31
Speaker
I'm not sure about the older ones, but I definitely know on Superman the Animated Series, there wasn't one. And then I remember when Superman Returns was in production, they said that they weren't using the shield on the back of the cape, and that's the reason why. And so... You mean the live action Superman Returns? Yes, yeah, yeah. Because a lot of the cape scenes were done with CGI.
00:42:52
Speaker
And I know it wasn't, there was no, there was no insignia on Man of Steel either. No, no. Same, and also same reason. Yeah. So that's why they don't do it because it's just, it's just too difficult to animate and they just don't want to deal with the hassle. Right. Which makes sense, but it's also so that, and if you know that that knowledge of that animation, that no capes line also has a, has another layer of
00:43:16
Speaker
met a meaning to it. It's like somebody in a production room might have said that those very same words, like, no, we're not doing any capes on these characters. Yeah, exactly. Although still, they do keep the other very impractical superhero trope in the costumes, which is the underwear over the pants.
00:43:35
Speaker
Right, right, right. And the domino mask over the eyes that's supposed to just completely fool all of the public. And no one will ever know that this is really Bob and Helen Parr because they have a domino mask over their eyes. So yeah. Yeah. What do you think of Samuel L. Jackson as pro zone in this?
Samuel L. Jackson as Frozone
00:44:02
Speaker
I thought he was great. It's funny because when I first saw the movie many years ago, I thought it was becoming pretty apparent by then that this was an actor who really, in some way or another, wanted to be around superhero
00:44:18
Speaker
for the superhero storytelling. I mean, he, he had done he had done what was it unbreakable? The Shyamalan movie? What else had he done at that point? I don't recall but but but but then and since then it's become obvious. This is a guy this is an actor who really loves the genre loves the medium. Obviously, he became Nick Fury for several movies. Right? He he was, you know, he's he's so good at like,
00:44:47
Speaker
kind of like riffing I mean I when I watch this movie I always wonder how much is this how much is this is scripted and how much this is ad-libbed especially the arguments with his wife you know just it's sort of like you never see her she's always a voice coming from some other part of the house and like it just the way he talks to her it's just very much it's just very much like a
00:45:07
Speaker
you know loving but bickering couple and he's got this sort of side gig that he really loves and can't give up and he plays that so well and i you know i just thought he's a great addition to the cast i think one of the cool things that about him in this movie is it's i think
00:45:27
Speaker
if you're not very clued in to Samuel L. Jackson's voice, you could actually watch this whole movie and not even realize that that's necessarily him because he's a lot more subdued in this movie than he usually is in most of his roles. Yes, yes. And the thing that you don't, well, you don't see it as much here. A lot of times, especially in Pixar, but in animation in general, a lot of times the animators will make an effort to
00:45:54
Speaker
for the character to somewhat resemble the voice actor. Maybe not completely, but somewhat. You don't see any of that with the Frozone character. I would say Frozone looks very little, if anything, like Samuel L. Jackson. I would say Bob Parr looks somewhat like Craig T. Nilsen, and I would say Helen Parr looks somewhat like, oh my God, Holly Hunter.
00:46:17
Speaker
but I would say that Frozone doesn't look, to me, it doesn't look a whole lot like Samuel L. Jackson. So yeah, a lot of times the animators will kind of give you that subtle cue, like, you think you recognize this voice, we'll look at this face, we kind of matched it up, but I don't think you see that as much in this movie. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a good transition to talking about the other actors. What did you think of Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter? I thought they were, I mean,
00:46:45
Speaker
I remember in the, was it the eighties? There was a, there was a TV series that Craig T Nelson starred in for a number of seasons. I want to say maybe four years. He's called coach. He played a football coach. Oh yeah. The nineties. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. And, and, and Bob Parr reminds me a lot of that character, just sort of like this sort of a meat and potatoes. You know, I think, I think that the character and coach was a former athlete himself, just kind of, kind of big,
00:47:14
Speaker
bulky maybe a little too bulky like he got a little soft in the middle but like he's still his heart's in the right place um i think craig t nelson does that real well i think he was kind of i think in some respects bob parr is a bit of a riff on on the on the coach character to some degree i i think so too and i think too because like a lot of
00:47:34
Speaker
when this movie came out, you know, 2004, like I was saying, a lot of people of my generation, maybe a little bit younger, would probably have had that image of Craig T. Nelson, and that voice associated with a fatherlike figure, not only from Coach, but also from, what was that movie? Poltergeist. Poltergeist, yeah, right, right. Yeah, he definitely, he definitely has the dead persona. Yeah. He's, you know, I mean, he's probably like, he's probably
00:47:59
Speaker
He's probably pretty close to 80 by now. But back then, he was in that sweet spot of middle age, not too deep into middle age. He would have maybe a couple of teenage kids, very much down-to-earth dad kind of guy. So it would make sense to put him in a role like this.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, he's got that, you know, that gruff kind of personality, but not to, he's able to do comedy and he's able to do gruff, but he's, but he doesn't like lean too far in either direction, right? Like, you know, for example, if you had like a, like a Tim Allen who was much more slapsticky or, what's the other guy? I'm breaking out his name, but he was in that 70s show. Oh, I know who you're talking about. I can see his face. I can't think of the actor's name, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah.
00:48:47
Speaker
Kurtwood Smith, that's who I was thinking of. Whereas Kurtwood Smith also has that dad persona, but he's much more of a hard ass. And I don't think either one of those types of personalities would really have worked for Bob. You need someone who's able to kind of like toe that line between the two.
00:49:04
Speaker
I mean, Bob is somewhat self-absorbed but not as much as those other two characters you're talking about. Bob knows how to step out of his own head for a minute and kind of check in and like, where's, you know, what's my wife dealing with right now? What are my kids dealing with right now? And at the end of the day, it's about my wife and kids more than it's about me. I think Craig T. Nelson does a better job of that than those other two actors you're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. And Holly Hunter too, like she,
00:49:32
Speaker
you know, I love her in this movie, but she also really impressed me in the in the second one to where we saw her and we saw their roles basically reversed. Yes. Yeah, but you know, she's got this. In some ways, she's you know, she's a more effective hero than the Mr. Incredible is, I think is kind of what the movie seems to be hinting at. Well, is she and again, going back to the whole traditional family roles thing. I mean, she, you know, she's like,
00:49:58
Speaker
like many wives, my certainly my own included, she's the one who has to be thinking a couple steps ahead. Because you know, I'm, I'm right there in the moment, you know, I'm trying to figure out what to do right now. And but she's already like, you know, she's already thinking about what, what do we have to do? What's the next step? Or what's what? What do we have to be thinking about two or three steps from now? And she does a really good job of that. Like she, you know, he's, he's the brawn. But she, and that does not to say that he's dumb, but she's like,
00:50:24
Speaker
she's like the quicker, sometimes she's the quicker thinker than he is. Yeah. And you know, it's funny, I was, because I saw this, you know, I re-watched Incredibles, I watched Incredibles 2 about a week or two ago for that episode. And then I re-watched this one. And I hadn't seen this movie in a number of years. But when we get to the Rick Decker, the Rick Decker, the government agent,
00:50:51
Speaker
Now, because I saw Incredibles 2 so recently, I immediately associated that guy with that voice instead of Bud Lackey, or Bud Lucky, I mean. Because Bud Lucky had died by that point, so they'd had him replaced with the guy from, oh, I can't remember his name, but he was in, you know, the Jonathan Banks he did in the second film.
00:51:17
Speaker
OK, and you know from Breaking Bad. So I had associated that character now with Jonathan Banks is very distinctive voice, so it was kind of jarring to see it to hear a different voice coming out of him in this movie.
00:51:28
Speaker
Right. Well, and that's that's the other, you know, potential potential pitfall with, you know, making a sequel 14 years after the original movie. I mean, your kid actors, they're all grown up. I mean, the guy who played the guy who played Dash, his name was I wrote this down. I wrote Spencer Fox.
00:51:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they they'd get a different actor for it because obviously that guy, you know, his voice, Spencer Fox is now like in his 30s, I think. And I think he's like he's got a career in music now. But I don't know who who Dash is in the second movie, but it's not Spencer Fox. Right. Sarah Vowell is in both. She's Violet Parr in both movies. Yes. Yeah. I think she does stand up comedy, I think.
00:52:09
Speaker
I'm not sure. Yeah, she does. I've seen her I've seen her on like appear on The Daily Show. And no, not only that, but she's also like, she's like a social commentator. She's like done a lot of essays and like books and that kind of stuff. Okay. Yes. Is that is that is that is that sort of like, you know, squeaky voice? Is that like her the real deal with her? I mean, I'm not familiar with her outside of these movies. I believe Yeah, from what I what I remember. Yeah, it's very, very, very similar. Yeah. Okay.
00:52:35
Speaker
I think she might go like a little bit different, like it's slightly different from her main voice, but that is basically what her voice is like. And I don't know how old she is, but she does the adolescent, the teenage girl very well, just in turn, not just the quality of the voice, but just sort of the whole shy, withdrawn, awkward. It's just, as I said before, it's just perfect that they cast her as the invisible character because
00:53:03
Speaker
You know, like so many adolescents, it's like they feel completely marginalized. I don't belong here. I don't want to be here. I just pretend I'm not here. I'm going to fade into the woodwork. So she does that very well, just with her voice.
00:53:15
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, she's also done a lot. She's she was also a editor on This American Life for over 10 years, too. So, yeah, she mostly I think most of her career is in stuff that is not at all related to acting. So it was kind of surprising when I saw her name in the credits and I'm just like, wait a minute. Don't that's not what I associate that name with. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be curious to know how Bird hooked her up with that role, because, as you say, it's it's not it's not her typical
00:53:45
Speaker
wheelhouse. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what are some other things that, uh, really kind of stood out to you, uh, on rewatch?
The Incredibles Soundtrack
00:53:53
Speaker
Uh, you know, the, the, the music score I think is brilliant. Um, uh, what's, is it as Mike, Michael, Michael Giacchino, I wrote this down, um, who, uh, has done his, I mean, it's, it's interesting because he, like, you know, while this is a superhero movie, it's definitely like, he brings an element of like,
00:54:15
Speaker
cold war james bond to the to the whole experience just with this i was thinking the soundtrack and it's so good i mean it just it's like it's it's it's like you're halfway through and you realize not only is this a superhero movie this is like a spy movie too it just sounds like one between between the between the music score and the gadgets and the in the hardware and the planes it's it's just as much james bond as it is fantastic for
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah, Syndrome's whole island base, right? That's straight out of like Dr. No or Honor Majesty Secret Service, right? It's very evocative of both those two movies. And if you think about when Fantastic Four premiered, 1961, that was a sweet spot for all that stuff. So it just, you know, it's not only a fun movie to watch, it's a fun movie to listen to. And I'm not just talking about the dialogue either. I mean, just the soundtrack alone is just so
00:55:09
Speaker
The only word I can think of is cool, smooth, you know, just very, very Cold War espionage. Yeah, I was thinking about that too, when you mentioned that, and I had almost forgotten to mention that about the soundtrack and how much it felt like I was watching a James Bond movie, especially in the sequence when Holly and the kids go to the island, or Holly's, Helen, go to the- Helen, yeah. Got it mixed up with the actress's name.
00:55:34
Speaker
But yeah, it has that very evocative feel to it. And it's, you know, and just like the whole design of it, right? It's like this very like retro futuristic. Yes. Right. Exactly. Right. Right. Again, the whole Cold War like, this is what the future looked like 50 years ago or 60 years ago. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought it was a it was a really cool choice. It reminded me kind of how
00:55:58
Speaker
know, the Batman the Animated Series or Superman the Animated Series, how they had incorporated those kind of like retro almost like, you know, in Batman, it was kind of like this almost like 1930s kind of style aesthetic where as Superman, it was more of like the art deco type of thing into it. And they tried to incorporate those styles into the city alongside like modern technology and all that to create this kind of timeless setting. And this movie does something very similar or
00:56:25
Speaker
you know, if you're a video game fan at all, the Fallout series had that very kind of same idea where it's like this, you know, this 1950s, 1960s version of the future just in an apocalyptic wasteland type of thing. Right. Well, and at the same time, a lot of this movie looks very pedestrian, like the car that Bob drives, you know, he's too big for the car. But it's like, I think it's like, it looks like something sort of like a station wagon, but not quite. It looks like
00:56:53
Speaker
You know, it just it looks like something out of like maybe 19, you know, a family of four would be would be riding around town in 1972 or 1975. It just it looks just very generic. You know, he's working for an insurance company. It just it's sort of an interesting juxtaposition of like edgy and futuristic in a retro kind of way, if that makes sense. And yet at the same time, a lot of a lot of the aspects of this family's life is just very like just traditional and just very, you know, suburban.
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that bird does a good job of drawing those contrasts between the, you know, the more
00:57:29
Speaker
the more exotic superhero trappings and like the more futuristic type of world with these very mundane activities and the banality of their everyday existence type of thing. I mean, you know, with him in the office there, like, you know, you see all these stacks of paper around him, but I do love that they show us something really interesting about his character, how he is trying to do good in some small way even as he's working for this insurance company where he's, you know,
00:57:57
Speaker
he's trying to teach his clients like how to navigate the bureaucracies that they can actually, you know, get the help they need. Right, right. I think he even says that at some point, I think the character even says, at some point, I'm like, I'm just, I'm still trying to do good. There's some kind of a line, it's very brief, I think, where he says something like, at least I'm doing some kind of good or something like that. But yeah, yeah, but like, yeah, clearly, the whole concept of like,
00:58:24
Speaker
selling insurance, no matter how mundane it is. It's like it's some it's a tenuous connection to what he was doing back in the day. Yeah. Also, I love Wallace Shawn is his boss, right? Another, you know, iconic voice coming out of that character there. And just like that's a voice. Sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I was just like the yeah, the perfect casting for that type of role.
00:58:46
Speaker
It's funny because it's a voice I recognized immediately, but I could not picture his face in real life. I think I've heard that voice probably for many, many years, but I don't know that I could even put a face on that voice.
00:59:01
Speaker
There's a documentary. It was on Netflix. I'm not sure if it still is, but it's called like, I Know That Voice. And it's like all about like these iconic voices that you hear in movies all the time. Yes. Right. Right. Right. And and a lot of times in animation, they look nothing like what you expect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in fact, it was funny. I was looking at him and he almost the the character's design kind of looks like William H. Macy. Yes. I thought the same thing. Yes. I agree. I agree.
00:59:27
Speaker
So that's where my mind went first. I'm like, that looks like William H. Macy, but it does not sound like him. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. There, you know, there is, or I, I seem to recall, last night I said, I was watching the, the, the second one and.
00:59:42
Speaker
my wife said is there is there are there plans for a third one and i said i don't know and she looked it up and apparently there are are you familiar with that um there bird has talked about it but he i don't think he's exactly you know quite settled on it yet um but i i know he i think i i think we had mentioned this in the other episode i can't remember exactly
01:00:06
Speaker
He hadn't ruled it out, but I don't think he had found his way to get into it yet. Yeah, I worry that anything, no matter how good it is, can be milked too long and become stale. I would hate to see that happen to this franchise.
01:00:27
Speaker
Like I said before, it was a gamble to do a sequel 14 years after the first movie. I don't know how much longer you can do that and still be as fresh as you've been in the first two.
01:00:39
Speaker
So what had happened with the second one is that it had a truncated production schedule. So in 2016, Pixar decided to swap the release dates of Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2. And so because of that, Incredibles 2 lost like a full year of production. And so Bird actually had a lot more plot lines and ideas that he wanted to put in the second film, but he had to cut them out.
01:01:06
Speaker
which also kind of makes me wonder if maybe that was for the best because that movie already felt overstuffed. So, but he said that he could use those ideas for a third film. Samuel Jackson and Sophia Bush have both said that they would return and John Walker, who was the producer said he wouldn't rule it out. So that's the most recent thing that Wikipedia has about it. I remember watching the second one and like,
01:01:35
Speaker
Frozone's first appearance on screen. He doesn't say a word. And for the first couple minutes, I'm thinking maybe Jackson didn't come back. So we're just going to see a few seconds of Frozone and then we're going to transition him out of the story. But his voice does show up within a matter of a few minutes. But the first sequence, it's just him in action, no dialogue. And I was thinking,
01:02:00
Speaker
is how much of Frozen are we gonna see in this story? Because I'm not hearing Samuel L. Jackson's voice, maybe he just didn't wanna come back for this one, but obviously he did. Yeah, yeah. Any other things that really kind of stood out to you about the Incredibles? It's just, as I said before, I think I've seen it four or five times now, and it continues to be fresh.
Rewatching The Incredibles
01:02:26
Speaker
I just don't,
01:02:27
Speaker
I don't watch it frequently, but when I do, it's always like there's always something new to catch, which is just, you know, usually after the fifth or sixth viewing of anything, you kind of know the story in and out. But there's a lot going on here, both on the surface and underneath. And there's plenty to be looking for every time you watch it. So it's funny because
01:02:53
Speaker
we showed it to our kids when they were real little and they love it and they still love it and you know whether they're around or not and they're not they're both in college now but i you know i i always enjoy just pulling it out watching it just uh there's just so much to see
01:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think this is this is one of those movies that especially if you watched it while you were a kid, like I could definitely see this sticking with you throughout your whole life. I mean, you know, for me, the trying to think of any animated films that really kind of stick like that for me, I mean, live action, I could definitely think of ones like the Batman or the original Superman. Those ones.
01:03:28
Speaker
Star Wars, those ones stuck with me ever since I first saw them. Ghostbusters, another one. In terms of, I guess, in animation, the one that's probably stuck with me the most is not even fully animated. It's Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
01:03:42
Speaker
Right. Right. But like a lot of the lot of the animated films I watched as a kid, they didn't stick with Oh, wait, no, I take that back. Batman Master the Phantasm would be the one then. Okay, okay. I mean, I, I mean, I certainly enjoy animated films, but I can't say
01:04:00
Speaker
Generally speaking, I can't say with a couple exceptions, I can't say that they pack the same emotional punch as I get when I see actual actors in a live action film, but I would say that the exceptions to that would be the Iron Giant and probably to some degree this movie as well. It just there's enough like
01:04:21
Speaker
resonance, you know, in terms of character development that like, I watch these characters unfold. And by by midway through, I'm really rooting for all of them. And you know, just, which is, you don't always get at least I don't always get that with animation, unless it's really this, the story is really well done.
01:04:38
Speaker
No, I totally understand that. I kind of feel the same way. I do my podcast on Japanese movies, and whenever I'm seeking out guests for that, invariably I get a lot of people want to talk about anime films.
01:04:54
Speaker
And I don't want to talk about all anime just because A, you know, there are a lot of other podcasts that do that. And B, I'm much more interested in the live action films instead. So I make a conscious effort to limit how many anime films I'll do per season on that show.
01:05:11
Speaker
And yeah, animation, it doesn't appeal to me as much as live action does either. And it's not a knock on the medium by any stretch of the imagination. No, not at all. No, it's just different experience. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's just more of a personal preference. And that's how I've always kind of felt with it. But there are films that are the exception. This definitely being one of them, I would say.
01:05:38
Speaker
I mean, I I feel like again, we talked about, you know, watching it as a younger person and watching the movie as an older person. I mean, you know, I you kind of feel Bob Parr's struggle when he realizes I can't I can't do that thing that I really used to love doing anymore. I have to I have to reconcile the fact that, you know, circumstances are such now that I can't do that anymore or
01:05:59
Speaker
you know, watching Helen struggle with the I'm trying to be a good mom, I'm trying to be a good wife, and I, you know, it just it's just too much. And I'm trying to build a life after the whole superhero thing is over. And those are the kinds of things you you you start to connect to more as you get older and you watch a story like that. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's a that's a pretty good note to end on, I think. So, John, why don't you tell people where they can find your stuff?
John Bruning's Work and Projects
01:06:23
Speaker
Oh, gosh. Let's see. Most of my stuff is on amazon.com.
01:06:30
Speaker
I have an author page with pretty much everything I have published. You can find me there. There is a website in the works as we speak and hopefully that will be up and running.
01:06:43
Speaker
by the end of the year. That is the plan right now. It's in development right now. Actually, there's two websites. There's a Flinch website in the works, and there's also my own website, and they're sort of happening in parallel. Neither is going as fast as I would like, but I think the Flinch website will be up and running hopefully by the end of this year. So that will be sort of one place where you can find all the Flinch books. We're up to 13 titles now. We're working on 14 and 15, which will be out in 2024.
01:07:13
Speaker
Yeah. So for the time being, you can find my stuff on Amazon. I have an author page. Just look me up there. And and you know, and there's and the list is always growing. I'm always working on something.
01:07:25
Speaker
Okay. All right. So we'll have a link to that Amazon page in the show notes. So please make sure to check that out.
Closing: Support Paragons of Earth
01:07:30
Speaker
As for us, superheroescinephiles.com is the website. We are SuperCinemapod on Instagram and BlueSky. Still technically on Twitter, but you know, it's run by a fascist psychopath now. So I try not to spend much time there. Pretty much just it's just there for like updates for new episodes. But otherwise my thoughts exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:52
Speaker
But also, you know, I've got my comic book coming out soon, Paragons of Earth, which being co-written by myself and Thomas DJ, Eric Johns is doing the pencils and I'm doing the inks and the colors and the letters on that. We are still crowdfunding that and that is at crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic. That is crowdfunder noe.com slash paragonscomic. There's also a link to that in the show notes. Please help support it.
01:08:18
Speaker
We've we the comic is definitely going to come out, even if it doesn't fund to the the maximum amount. But if it funds the maximum out, that will determine whether or not we get a second issue. So please back that comic. You'll definitely get a copy if you do. And that does it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And we'll talk to you next time. Hey, guys, Perry here jumping in after the fact that the right before I upload this episode.
01:08:41
Speaker
I realize that this is coming out on December 18th, which means next week, next week, Monday is December 25th, and the Monday after that is January 1st. So I'm not going to be releasing episodes on Christmas and New Year's. Instead, I'll be taking those two weeks off, and you will hear from the show again in the new year, and I will talk to you once more on January 8th. Thanks so much for listening for this year. Since I've gotten back from vacation,
01:09:11
Speaker
And I'll see you next time.
01:09:15
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Superhero Cinephiles is produced by me, Percival Constantine, with the support of Zencaster. The show is created by myself and the late, great Derek Ferguson, our host, Emeritus. Visit us on the web at SuperheroCinephiles.com to listen to past episodes or find out how you can be a guest yourself. Support the show by visiting our advertiser links or click the Buy Me a Coffee link on the website to make a one-time donation. You can also support us by visiting Crowdfunder.com slash ParagonsComic. That's Crowdfunder with no E,
01:09:43
Speaker
dot com slash paragons comic and help support my superhero comic book paragons of earth We are super cinema pod on both instagram and blue sky. So please be sure to follow us We'd also appreciate if you could rate and review the show on apple podcasts and share us with your friends