Finally, here's what I really didn't like: the message was that Super people should be able to do whatever they want. And who doesn't think they are super? Do you see yourself as the protagonist or an extra? Do you see yourself as special? Then go ahead, do whatever you want! After all, only you are qualified to decide what's right to do! Helen advises Violet to fight to win, and win everything, but that's not the liberal Democrat stance.

I started to respond point-by-point but honestly, the connection between "super people can do what they want" representing a rightward propaganda against "liberals believe you should accept less so that others may have more" is far too tenuous to be credited. Because from that pretty much every narrative of "individual vs. group" becomes rightward propaganda if the individual asserts his rights against the greater good and succeeds.

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I thought it was made quite clear that Syndrome was excluded from the Super Club because he wasn't born with powers.

I've only seen the movie once, but I thought Pre-Syndrome was excluded from being Mr. Incredible's partner simply because Mr. I "worked alone" and possibly found the annoying boy, well, annoying.

Going after Syndrome later on I thought was because he was evil in his actions, not because he had created his powers.

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Thanks, Sean, but any suggestion of intelligence on my part is all smoke & mirrors.

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Whoa...your smoke and mirrors kick ass, then. Is it that good Colombian stuff, or what?

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Raq, what makes The Incredibles more Scientological than your average superhero outing?

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Oooh, just saw the trailer for Good Night, and Good Luck as well as a bunch of other fall films over at comingsoon.net. That looks like a definite must-see film, as well as The History of Violence and possibly Jarhead.

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Is it that good Colombian stuff, or what?

I use only the finest Colombian mirrors.

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Finally, here's what I really didn't like: the message was that Super people should be able to do whatever they want. And who doesn't think they are super? Do you see yourself as the protagonist or an extra? Do you see yourself as special? Then go ahead, do whatever you want! After all, only you are qualified to decide what's right to do! Helen advises Violet to fight to win, and win everything, but that's not the liberal Democrat stance.

I started to respond point-by-point but honestly, the connection between "super people can do what they want" representing a rightward propaganda against "liberals believe you should accept less so that others may have more" is far too tenuous to be credited.

You're right; I didn't intend to link those ideas. There should have been a paragraph break before "Helen advises..." with the second paragraph expanded. I got sloppy while posting; I'll deliniate my thought process better in my actual review.

This is where my disconnect happens. I didn't get that as the message at all. I took it to be Supers should be able to use their powers, just as anyone else should be able to perform to their ability at whatever it is they choose to do, be it physically or mentally based.

I agree with the first part, but not the second. There's nothing in the movie to indicate that non-supers should be able to perform to their ability; nor is there anything in the movie to indicate that anyone, super or not, should be able to perform to their mentally-based ability.

Syndrome could have gone in a number of directions with his genius. He chose to go evil.

How do we know? You are inferring something that might or might not be true. All we know from the movie is that Syndrome, the one character with a super-intellect but no physical superpowers, was evil.

The Supers were quashed in what they were able to do because of their inherent powers, which, in thinking about it at length, screams to me as discrimination.

I completely agree. My disquiet comes from the source of the discrimination. It seemed to me the movie was blaming a society that was described like the way the right-wing describes left-wing societal goals. (Corwood's point is good, that no rational liberal society would enforce these goals, but that hasn't prevented right-wing propagandists from saying that a liberal society would artifically restrict the haves to artifically gift the have-nots.)

Just as Syndrome should have been able to do what he was able with his genius for invention, Supers should be able to use their powers as well. For good. They use them for evil, they should be punished like anyone else.

This is completely your inference and isn't textually supported. I applaud you wholeheartedly for feeling this way, but I didn't see any support for either statement in the text.

but do you have the same issue with the kids in X-Men and the adults around them?

Not Jessica, and I have only read 2 X-Men comics, but I understood from the X-movies that the idea that mutants were superior to normals was the bad guys' stance, not the X-Men's stance. It also seems to me that super-smart characters have been good guys in the X-verse (Professor Xavier, Beast), not just bad guys.

That kid totally needed to be shut down. Maybe Mr. Incredible didn't do it in the smoothest way possible (if he had, and Syndrome hadn't had the craxxy brewing, where would the story be), but he did do the right thing.

Very good point, but we either needed the central conflict to come from elsewhere, or we needed to see a super-smart hero to not come away with the message that Physical = Good and Mental = Bad. Also, when the family showed up on the island, there was no recap of Mr. Incredible saying "I work alone" which reinforced the idea to me that he only worked with supers. If they didn't want him to come off as an elitist prick, they could've had a line or two on that topic.

It was about the motivation. Syndrome only wanted to help people so he could get the glory and the (continued...)

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( continues...) admiration. He wanted to be looked at as special.

I can't whole-heartedly say that Mr. Incredible's motivations were any different. It certainly looked, from the scene where he looks at all the memorabila in his "I Love Me" room, that he wanted the glory and the admiration. I think he had an altruistic core (the mugging scene), but I can't say for sure that it was the altruism or the admiration of those he saved that rocked his world.

That never pinged me. Huh. I always see/saw it as "Trying to be something you aren't + cape = bad, bad things".

This is exactly my problem with the movie: I agree that the message was that you shouldn't try to be something you aren't. By that argument, slaves should stay slaves, minorities should stay disenfranchised, women should stay out of the workforce, the lower classes should never aspire to the educational and economic means of the upper classes. It's a very conservative and elitist world view.

I also loved that the "mental stimulation" was what brough Jack-Jack's powers out.

I didn't get this from the movie.

ita, I think that maybe only the "some people are more valuable than others" part of Scientology maps onto The Incredibles. Now that I look at it closely, I'm not getting any traction for saying it had a Scientological flavor, any more so than any superhero story. I probably just have Scientology on the brain.

This discussion is great - it's really helping me pinpoint my thoughts about this movie. So nice that there are still movies worth thinking and talking about!

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And let's make it a three-fer.

Well, there is "I am different and you exclude me, that isn't right" and then there is "I am Superior and you don't acknowedge that, that isn't right." The first, you'll get school assemblies about in the sixth grade. The second, you'll write papers about while studying Nietszche.

Can you explain your second example?

Not Nutty, but the Nietszchean overtones of many superhero comics are pretty well covered by college students. For The Incredibles in particular, as one review1 puts it, "The strong, the movie suggests, should be allowed to thrive outside the false laws and values of the weak, acting according to their own superior, self-generated code."

The applicable passages from Nietszche would be from his writings Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathusa. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( [link] ) "Nietzsche believes that living things aim to discharge their strength and express their "will to power" -- a pouring-out of expansive energy which, quite naturally, can entail danger, pain, lies, deception and masks. As he views things from the perspective of life, he further denies that there is a universal morality applicable indiscriminately to all human beings, and instead designates a series of moralities in an order of rank ranging from the noble to the plebeian: some moralities are more appropriate for dominating and leading social roles; some are more suitable for subordinate roles. So what counts as a preferable and legitimate action depends upon the kind of person one is. The deciding factor is whether one is strong, healthy, powerful and overflowing with ascending life, or whether one is weak, sick and on the decline."

And from another .edu site ( [link] ) "Superman is constantly changing and in a state of rebirth and growth. He determines what is good and what is evil, not allowing religion or society to determine these things for him. The Superman finds his happiness in this way. He uses a reason that is independent of the modern values of society or religion. He determines his own values. This creation of his own values gives him joy. He feels that human compassion is the greatest weakness of all because it allows the weak to restrict the growth of the strong."

Please note, I'm not presently arguing anything about connections between Nietzsche and The Incredibles, but others have, thus Nutty's comment, I presume.

1The full quote:

And, precisely as Nietzsche told us, the only weakness of the strong in The Incredibles comes from their decision to allow themselves to be hemmed in by the artificial constraints created by the weak. >Superheroes in this world are ordered to blend in, to hide, to not stand out -- and the movie's message, again in line with Nietzsche, appears to be that this is unambiguously wrong. The strong, the movie suggests, should be allowed to thrive outside the false laws and values of the weak, acting according to their own superior, self-generated code.

Born a superhero? Be a superhero.

Not born a superhero? Get out of the way.

Gerry Canavan, BackwardsCity [link]

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