Fridge / Sky High (2005)

Fridge Brilliance

• Every time Gwen Grayson is onscreen, the soundtrack plays a cover of a song from the 1980's...which is basically what happened to her body!
  • Not just an out-of-Verse thing, either. All the songs that play at the Homecoming Dance are from that period, which makes perfect sense: Gwen organized the Homecoming Dance and compiled the playlist by choosing all her favorites from her previous high school years.
• At first glance, Layla's usage of her powers to grow a flower in the film's beginning seems hypocritical—when tested at Sky High, she refuses to display her powers for petty reasons like that. When one thinks closer, this seeming contradiction is actually perfectly in line with Layla's compassionate personality. Making people happy, as she did with Will's mom in the flower scene, is important to her. The power test was (from her perspective) useless because it did not make anyone happy, or fight against evil, or protect her friends. It may not have been intentional, but props to the writers!
  • Her exact words were that she only uses them when "the situation demands it", and she points out that she has issues with the hero/sidekick division, finding it flawed. So, it is completely intentional from the writers: using her powers for good (even if it's as small as spreading a little happiness) is appropriate, while supporting a flawed system is not.
• Why back in the 70s or 80s being a technopath was considered only sidekick material—technology was nowhere near as advanced back then! Some technopaths might not have even known they had powers if they lived far away from cities. Meanwhile, in the modern day, it could be a Game-Breaker.
• "Save The Citizen" is in fact an awful thing for a supervillain to do. It lumbers right into Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? territory. It's a supervillain cliché that leads to ample opportunities for the hero to "Save the Citizen". That's how and why Sky High makes all the supervillains—they make up the things that make them recognizable bad guys. The stupid costumes with ineffective capes, the overly elaborate execution schemes, the constant desire to prove yourself against the hero... it all stems from high school sports. The bad people who didn't go to Sky High probably just made money from their powers or committed crimes stealthily with as few people knowing about it. Sky High produces people who want to get back at the people they didn't like from high school.
  • To elaborate (and more clearly tie in with the related Fridge Horror point below), Sky High's apparent training of villains alongside heroes actually makes villains who follow their training much, much easier to catch, mostly by incorporating a degree of Genre Blindness into the kids who would go on to be villains. The "Villains" in this scenario are trying to prevent the "Heroes" from rescuing a dummy (representing a citizen) from a generic Death Trap. Compare this to successful criminals, who generally don't pull that kind of stunt and get away without being badgered by superheroes. This strongly implies that, while aware that they're training heroes AND villains at Sky High, they're deliberately setting up anybody who'd choose to be a villain to fail. Looks like the staff's competent after all!
• Ron Wilson, Bus Driver being 'highly qualified' seems to just be a running gag but when you think about it, you'd have to be pretty highly qualified to drive A FUCKING FLYING BUS.
  • Or to be entrusted with the daily coordinates for where Sky High will be hovering overhead, information which supervillains would love to get hold of. Too bad this film's Big Bad knew where it'd be, because she was a student and organized the dance.
  • Or to be entrusted with the safety of about 20 passengers on said flying bus, who are also still teens.
• Warren Peace, if said correctly, sounds like War and Peace—a good way of foreshadowing his conflicted nature and that he's not entirely evil.
• Warren can take a lot of damage without being harmed. His father, Baron Battle, is mentioned as having multiple lives. Being hard to kill must run in the family.
  • Baron Battle is mentioned as having multiple life sentences.
  • Yes, he has no chance at parole until this third life.
  • This is a superhero world. Death Is Cheap. In comics, people die and come back all the time. The multiple life sentences may be just to make sure.
  • Even in Real Life, one can receive multiple life sentences (which can run concurrently or consecutively) based on how hard the DA wants to throw the book at someone. A "life sentence" is really more like 25-to-life, and with parole, good behavior, etc, one could be out in much less than 25 years. Consecutive sentences merely extend it to 75-to-life, and in Baron Battle's case, no possibility of parole until he's served at least 50 years (minimum of two 25-to-life sentences), putting parole into his "third life (sentence)."
    • More importantly, multiple life sentences ensure that if a convict is found guilty of multiple crimes, then even if one of the convictions is overturned on appeal, the other sentences will keep them locked up.
• Look at Gwen Grayson's actions over the course of the film: while friendly enough to Will, she's disdainful of those in the Sidekick role and encourages Will to hang out with her instead of his "loser" friends. Basically, she acts like a typical Alpha Bitch. How would such a person likely be described by those she mistreats? A royal pain!
  • Knowing the implication that Steve used to bully Sue/Gwen, that seems like an appropriate thing he would call her... add that to the fact that Gwen called Steve her "dear Commander", it would appear as though she has a thing for big, super-strong guys. This just makes it way creepier than it already was.
    Layla: He's strong!
    Gwen: He's super strong~
• Even though Layla's refusal to join the Hero class is a product of her principles, there's another reason as well: as Will's best friend, she knew he didn't have his powers and would be sorted into the Sidekick class, and she wanted to be with him.
• The heroes' powers are all attributed to the classical elements, while the villains' are more Personality Powers:
  • Will is a Flying Brick, with super strength, flight and presumably super durability. Will spends most of the movie not knowing how to use his powers, which statistically are the most common powers out there. He is the standard Wild Card hero, who fights on instinct rather than training. His element is Air.
  • Warren has pyrokinesis, which he weaponizes into fireballs to launch at his opponents. He also presumably has super durability, as he takes hits from Will and Speed like a champ. While he is nicknamed 'Hothead' by Boomer for his aggressiveness, he is shown to be a gentle and caring man, nurturing and bringing out Layla's crush on Will throughout the second act. Not to mention he is intelligent enough to know when his powers would actually be a hindrance rather than a help. His element is Fire.
  • Layla can control virtually any plant life, from instantly rejuvenating a dying pot plant to growing a full tree in seconds to attacking people with poison ivy. She's a hippie-archetype who is a pacifist at heart and hates the social dichotomy, but like Mother Nature, she is one of the most powerful forces to get on the wrong side of. Her element is Earth.
  • Ethan melts into a puddle, which at first seems useless and cowardly. When used tactically, this can be incredibly powerful. He can slide under doors, is virtually untouchable when melted, and can perform sneak attacks to complement other heroes. His element is Water.
  • Magenta can shapeshift, albeit currently into a guinea pig only. While that seems useless, she can use her small size to infiltrate behind enemy lines and disable things. Her best power is infiltration. Her element is Darkness, because of these tactical applications of her powers rather than her powers outright.
  • Zach glows in the dark. While this isn't inherently useful in a fight, Zach's charisma and bravado allow him to get out of situations others probably couldn't. His element is Light.
  • Gwen is a Technopath and able to control technology with her mind. This makes her a star student in 2005, but in the late 70s, she was nothing more than a nerd. This makes her born in the wrong decade. It was this justifiable shortsightedness from the faculty that she couldn't stand and what ultimately pushed her towards villainy.
  • Lash is a shapeshifter like Magenta, only his powers manifest as elasticity, which suits him to a tee as he is a classic trickster, and his abilities would augment that.
  • Speed is blessed with Super-Speed, and while normally it would not be suited to someone with such bulk, his weight actually turns him into a Lightning Bruiser instead. Throw in super durability, and he doesn't need super strength to take people on when he has physics do it for him. ^note Newton's Second Law: Force = mass x acceleration; meaning the faster he runs, the stronger his hits become.
  • Penny's shapeshifting is in the form of self-duplication, and all of her clones have a Hive Mind but still have some individuality. As an Alpha Bitch Cheerleader, she is all about perfection (both in the popular clique and in cheering). which is why she is the entire cheer squad by herself and can basically control the flow of quality in her group.
• When Gwen kisses Will on the cheek, he was so ecstatic that he jumped really hard and broke a lamppost. This could possibly have been his super strength, but later it is revealed that Will inherited his mother's flight too. This means that he could have previously activated his flight powers(via his emotions) and then his super strength, which is why in the earlier scene he twirls around the lamppost a couple of times before it breaks(super strength wouldn't allow even one turn).
  • Also, he was so happy he felt like walking on air.
• Most of the names used in the movie (barring code names and the occasional odd one like Magenta) are fairly common: Will, Layla, Penny, Warren, etc. When you take surnames into account, a couple of them become punny and/or meaningful, but otherwise there's nothing too out there. Comparatively speaking, Gwen's name is much more blatantly comic-booky: it's an Alliterative Name and directly references both Gwen Stacy and Dick Grayson. It seems pretty out of place, until The Reveal about Gwen in the film's climax. Then it makes perfect sense: it's a less realistic name because she made it up.
• The movie has a extremely Genre Blind approach to powers, shown not only by Gwen's backstory but also by several other characters having pretty useful powers (think Ethan and Boomer). We also see one kid being considered a hero despite his power, growing six additional arms, being less impressive than Ethan's (perfect for sneaking, and that could easily be exploited for combat) and Boomer's (shown to be able to shatter glass without damaging people; with some training on modulation, he could possibly learn to damage specific materials without harming living beings). It all makes sense when you see the school's training: those are all standard tests and training that never take the specific powers into account, except when it's about already established heroes/villains used as an example. The closest thing to that would be "Save the Citizen", and even then the death traps and environment are generic. It's up to the students to be creative, and only to beat each other. As a consequence, the powers seen as heroic are the ones who give obvious advantages or direct physical augmentation (and that shine in similar environments), while the utility and less flashy ones are discarded.
  • It makes even more sense when considering the Hero-Sidekick caste system: this system is based on how Coach Boomer sees the usefulness or awesomeness of their powers. He places Layla in Sidekick class just because she refuses to showcase her powers, Zach because Boomer thinks he's pulling his leg (he was glowing, but you couldn't see it because the gym was so bright), Ethan because all he does to show his powers is melting and not moving in his liquid form (or even better, him melting to avoid the car Boomer can drop from the ceiling to test a student's strength), and he was originally going to place Magenta in Hero class when she said she was a shape-shifter until she revealed the only thing she can turn into is a guinea pig.
• Just to play with the Hero/Sidekick dichotomy further, Jetstream is hailed as one of the greatest active supers. Yet, what do we see her actually do on-screen as a superhero? Transport the Commander to the battle, dodge one attack, and release him to drop down and destroy the giant robot. In effect, she's being literal and figurative Hero Support in that particular situation.
• So, why are the teachers so incompetent at fighting Royal Pain (a villain), the very thing they said their school was meant to be safe against? One explanation could be that the teachers haven't been in a real fight for so long, their skills have gotten rusty. The teachers did spend most of their years teaching at school rather than fight crime, after all. However, this still doesn't really justify their lack of action, though.
  • Another explanation is that they may have been panicking: Royal Pain first targeted the two most powerful heroes in the world, that would have some emotional impact. And indeed, any time someone she deemed dangerous seemed to recover the fight she Pacified them immediately, keeping the fear going.
• At one point, before the reveal, Royal Pain indicates having trouble with a joystick. Which seems odd when you consider Royal Pain/Gwen is a technopath. However, it's possible that, as a technopath, more analogue technology might be harder to control than modern day electronics. Which is part of why she was so unappreciated in her time. So few proper digital electronics were widely available compared to much more analogue devices, possibly making her attempts at controlling what technology did exist at the time more difficult than the fact that it was rare to begin with.
• Sky High's name isn't just referring to how superheroes fly in the air nor can reach huge amount of power they can reach - it can also refer to the immense amount of expectations placed on the students by their parents.

Fridge Horror

• The school is responsible for training all of the superheroes the universe of Sky High will have right? That's cool. Then all of a sudden you realize that due to the rather prejudiced social system, as well as certain activities such as "Save the Citizen", they are also responsible for training and inadvertently creating all of their world's supervillains.
  • While it cannot be proven they are responsible for all supervillains (or, for that matter, all superheroes), the movie does back this up to a certain degree. After all, of all the villains in the movie (even the ones just mentioned), Stitches is the only one not shown to be or have been studying at Sky High.
    • He could have attended there also, just not at the same time as Steve. He seems a bit older than the Stronghold parents.
    • Maybe, but given that he never uses any sort of powers, he could simply be a regular human guy who for one reason or another ended up working for Royal Pain.
  • It's more just that anyone with powers goes there when they're a kid. Whether they turn into a supervillain or superhero is up to the student. This would be like saying that real life high schools are "responsible" for "creating" a serial killer who just happened to graduate from school.
    • It is very true that people make their own choices. However, it is not at all the same thing as the "serial killer" analogy. No high school has simulations that teach people how to effectively become criminals or killers... Sky High, however, does run simulations that would unwittingly teach students how to be a supervillain ("Save the Citizen" actually lets a team choose to be "villains," and Warren was put into a position during their match that could have easily killed him were it an actual life-and-death fight... and almost did even when it wasn't one) if they wished to become one in future.
    • The analogy still holds. Do you blame a gym class' game of softball on the rise of a thief since the students can choose to steal bases? It is not the school that makes the bully, and the school can only do so much to stop the bully from being such. And, even more-so, a good guy can choose to play the villain because it doesn't show how the civilian gets captured; it's a challenge for the heroes. In a sequel, maybe Will and Warren act as the "villain" to show that they are indeed better than Lash and Speed.
  • The point of being the villains in "Save the Citizen" isn't "We're going to teach you how to be a villain" but "We need you to help us with training our heroes." Save the Citizen is like super-sparring.
• As is pointed out above, Speed's move against Warren in "Save the Citizen" could very well have killed him, and none of the adults present bothered to raise a finger. Is Warren that marred by his father's choices, regardless of what they were, that adults would consider his death nothing to worry about? Made even worse by some fanfics that postulate Warren requires more oxygen than most humans due to the nature of his powers, meaning that what looked like a slightly dirty but ultimately harmless action to the teachers could have turned into Accidental Murder if Will hadn't saved Warren.
  • Presumably Warren would have passed out before he died, at which point Coach Boomer might have called a foul on Speed if he'd kept up the vortex even after Warren had collapsed. These kids are supers in training; they aren't supposed to kill each other, but they are expected to play rough. The adult bad guys do, after all.
• The climax has Royal Pain disabling the anti-gravity device on the school, causing it to drop onto the neighborhood below. Given the context, she and Penny are willing to commit what is essentially a terrorist attack by using a school to kill innocent people.
  • And not just any innocent people. The house on which Will kicks off has a "Sold" sign up from the Strongholds' real estate company. It's Will's own neighborhood that the school was going to land on, which means it's Layla's neighborhood too, and possibly even Warren's since he works at a local restaurant. Layla's parents and Warren's mom were probably home at the time and likely to be crushed by the impact.
• Royal Pain abusing her "adopted father" Stitches. Let's assume her memory was wiped out, and he had to refresh it. It's disturbing that she is treating him like garbage after raising her; the man was loyal. He fed her, clothed her, and changed her diapers for years. Makes you wonder how she treated her real parents...
  • Professor Medula figuring out how to reverse the de-aging as an infant shows that she does remember everything.
  • The fact that a middle-aged woman (technically) is dating a 13-14 year old teen. If she retains all of her memories and has the mentality of an adult, then this make things even creepier.
  • Professor Medula figuring out how to reverse the de-aging means they do remember, it really is that creepy.
  • Royal Pain apparently remembered enough to tell the story to Baby!Commander. Her comment in the detention room ("I went through puberty twice... for this!?") also suggests she remembered everything. In both cases, she got emotional in her speech, so she was likely not just remembering what she was told... it was personal.
• Royal Pain's descent into villainy was primarily caused by how she was put into Sidekick class since her powers could not have done much in the 70's. It's unsettling to think just how common violent resentment against the Hero-Sidekick caste system is in the Sky High Universe....
  • Ironically, one wonders if Royal Pain using technopathy to terrorize is what lead to technopaths as a whole being more respected. How many other respected powers started out in the hands of unappreciated villains?
• Mr. Boy casually admitting that they used to use real citizens for the Save the Citizen sparring matches. As in, the same sparring match where the citizen has to be saved from mechanical spiked rollers. One wonders how long they used real citizens for that....
• A freshman having never won Save the Citizen before makes more sense when you realize that there are deadly spikes on a P.E. court that could seriously harm you (or worse) if you make one wrong move.
• In the word problems that the sidekicks are seen trying to solve, a radioactive zombie is mentioned. The problems are apparently meant to be about obstacles that superheroes in the Sky High Universe have to deal with. In other words, the Sky High world has zombies in it. How common are the undead in this universe if they are mentioned in a word problem meant to educate young super-beings?
  • On that same note, radioactivity is mentioned quite a lot. Radioactive waste appears to be cheap and easy to buy as Will's parents casually talk about dumping their son in a vat of the stuff (well, Josie jokingly suggested it, but Steve was actually considering it). Ron fell into a vat of toxic waste and got superpowers, and there's been mention of a radioactive tiger. Why is toxic waste such a huge problem in their world???
  • The mere fact that Steve was actually considering dumping his son into a vat of radioactive waste in a desperate attempt to give his son superpowers says a lot about how desperate he was to make his son special, and it also says a lot about his views of his son, before Character Development where he learns to respect non-powered heroes and heroes with so-called "lame" powers.
  • Mild example, just how common is Fantastic Racism against non-powered humans and superhumans with "lame" powers in the Sky High Universe?
• Royal Pain's plan in and of itself is Fridge Horror. For starters, she acted on that plan over something so petty. Secondly, how long did she use the Pacifier?!
  • Even worse, Royal Pain shooting at people with the Pacifier in the gym and people around her panicking in fear is eerily similar to mass shootings.
• Consider how much more powerful Royal Pain became in the transition from the ‘70s to the 2000s. Now consider how much more technology we rely on nearly twenty years later. We can only hope she never escaped detention.

Fridge Logic

• Will horrifiedly states "Oh my god: I made out with an old lady"... except Royal Pain is technically not old, but roughly 40, about presumably the age of his mom. Still Squick-worthy, but not that big an age gap.
  • That's more a perception thing. Will is a teenager — even a 28-year-old would seem "old" to him.