When I saw Pixar's The Incredibles in the theater, I came away feeling that I had seen something extraordinary.
I have just watches a video on the movie, titled 'when a director breaks all of Pixar's rules' , and I now understand why.
First of all, the movie looks amazing. This movie apparently attempted to do all the difficult things to animate with computers that no one had computer-animated before, and had about four times as many locations as most computer-animated movies.
And so yeah. The movie looks amazing.
But that was not what I came away with.
I came away with something amazing on an emotional and intellectual level.
And now I believe that this movie was the beginning of Pixar's legendary serious filmmaking- the road to things like Up and Wall-E.
First, this is not just a superhero movie. It is a movie about its characters. It is a character movie, and we get to know those characters well.
And so when the hero work happens, we Really feel it deeply. Because we Know the heroes as characters, and we Know some of the people they are trying to save- namely each other, alongside millions of people we don't know.
And so when the hero work happens, we Really feel it.
And we feel it deeply.
The second is that The Incredibles takes on some big ideas.
Some real philosophy.
Some difficult, and very important, questions.
Such as- what does a society do with gifted people when it is only fair to treat everyone equally?
The movie does not have the answers. But it begins a real educated discussion on the question. Search for the answers in Confucius and Plato perhaps. But opening up the question and beginning the look for an answer is valuable even if you do not have the answers.
And the movie does not have the answers, but it has things to add to the discussion. Like, how unfair it is to hold the gifted back in the name of equality, and on the other side how unfair it is to dismiss those without gifts unfairly- especially as, like the future Syndrome, they might turn out to have gifts after all. In his case his intelligence.
In Syndrome you also open up the idea that it is not enough to have intelligence. There needs to be morality as well. Intelligence without morals ends up horrible.
Finally, the movie looks at what it truly means to be a hero- and what it does Not mean. This is one place where the movie Does have an answer for us.
Syndrome sets it up to get all the glory for himself. But he does so while hurting people.
Being a hero is not about getting the glory. It is about putting others first, about saving others.
And this is why this movie so blew me away when I saw it. It is a movie partly about its characters- and so I felt the heroism so, so deeply and powerfully.
And it is a movie that discusses great ideas.
This was the first legendary Serious Pixar movie, before Wall-E and Up.
I love this movie!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. I have the answer to the question of whether everyone is special. Which is whatever gifts, whatever superpowers or intelligence you may or may not have, there is something about you that means far more than all that
Life.
Life is precious.
And this is why we are all special. Because we are Life, and that matters more than all the intelligence and superpowers in all the world!
That is why we are all special!