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Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: Which is another way of saying no one is.
Following a Super Registration Act and consequent court ruling, former Superheroes Bob and Helen Parr (once the superstrong Mr. Incredible and the stretching Elastigirl) are leading quiet lives in the suburbs with an ordinary house, a normal job and 2.4 children: disruptive and superfast Dash, shy Violet (who can turn invisible and project force fields), and baby Jack-Jack, who seems to have no powers. In other words, they are a very rough equivalent of the Fantastic Four. Most of them are not too happy with the situation.
When Bob gets an offer from a mysterious woman named Mirage to relive his Glory Days and help out a high-tech facility gone wrong, he Jumps at the Call without telling his family. Soon, though, he gets in trouble, and finds he needs all the help his family can offer to help him save the day from an old friend, an Evil Plan, and a Killer Robot.
The Incredibles is an Affectionate Parody of the Superhero genre, with light touches of Deconstruction, and happily hangs lampshades on several conventions. Its plot bears a resemblance to Watchmen, although the tone is nowhere near as dark.
For information on the DVD short Jack-Jack Attack, see the Pixar Shorts page.
This film provides examples of:
- Action Mom: Elastigirl in the second half
- Actor Allusion: When trying to remember Buddy's name, Mr. Incredible's first guess is Brody.
- A twitchy cop holds Frozone at gunpoint in an homage to Die Hard With A Vengeance
- Affair Hair: Parodied and Played Straight
- Al Bundy: Bob Parr, after being forced into retirement.
- All There In The Manual: Detailed profiles of other Supers that are only briefly mentioned in the movie (if at all) in the Extras section of the DVD.
- Ascended Fanboy: Syndrome himself was a great admirer of Mr. Incredible.
- Ass Kicking Pose: Fun for the whole family!
- Baby Carriage: During the killer robot's attack.
- Baby Got Back: Helen Parr. She's even seen checking herself out in a mirror and sighing over it. Why???
- Badass Bookworm: Edna.
- Badass Family: The Parrs.
- Barrier Warrior: Violet.
- Beehive Barrier: Violet, again.
- Beneath The Earth: Taken literally at the end of the movie with a new villain.
- Best For Last
- Big Red Button: Syndrome gets to press several over the course of the film.
- One of the DVD Easter Eggs is a compilation sequence showing "every door, button and explosion in the movie". The fact that it has nearly the whole of the Anvil Chorus as its soundtrack shows just how many there are.
- Blinding Bangs: Violet
- Brick Joke: Syndrome's death by cape in a jet turbine.
- Broken Aesop: One moral of the film seemed to be how your family is the most important thing regardless of your past glory days. That's the lesson Mr. Incredible seemed to learn... while Frozone, who seemed to be the model of this at the beginning, throws everything out of the window near the end.
- Brought To You By The Letter i: Lampshaded.
- But Not Too Black: Frozone in the special features' Clutch Cargo knockoff cartoon. He is furious about it.
- Camera Abuse - a neat little effect aboard Mrs. Parr's jet.
- Captain Ersatz: The family is very nearly the Fantastic Four— Mr. Incredible is the Thing, Elastigirl is Mr. Fantastic, and Violet is the Invisible Woman. Only Dash lacks a direct parallel (although he's certainly impulsive enough to be an ersatz Human Torch). Even their costumes and name (Fantastic/Incredible) are similar. Their villain Syndrome, too, is a somewhat more rotund Dr. Doom, being a villain whose primary superpowers are simply being so good at super-technology that his super-suit is more powerful than the family combined.
- The ending shows Jack-Jack has highly variable superpowers, and the child of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman had very ill-defined but extremely vast superpowers.
- In a more extreme example, Gazerbeam and The Underminer basically are Cyclops and the Mole Man in all but name.
- Car Cushion: Frozone lands on one during the killer robot battle.
- Car Fu
- Cave Behind The Falls
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: The Supers in general are quick to spring into action against big threats, but Mr Incredible in particular needs to help other people. He doesn't adapt well to civilian life.
- City Of Adventure: Municiberg, in the intro sequence.
- Convection Schmonvection: Taken to serious and seriously impractical extremes, when Bob has to run and eventually shimmy between two closing walls that are made of lava.
- Could Say It But: Bob does this with a woman trying to claim her insurance, when his boss wants him to reject as many claims as possible. He even whispers "Pretend to be upset!" before she walks away, turning on the Water Works flawlessly.
- Create Your Own Villain
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Frozone, with "Yeah, yeah, I know... freeze."
- No offense to Frozone, but "Freeze" doesn't even begin to compare with the CMOA that was the big family fight against the giant robot ...which was only surpassed by The Incredibles fighting together against Syndrone's Mooks.
- How about Dash running on water?
- Just when it looks like Syndrome is going to abduct Jack-Jack, the baby suddenly manifests a smorgasboard of powers.
- "I love our family!"
- "The Greater Good?! I am your wife. I'm the greatest Gooooood you EVER gon' get!"
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: "I CAN'T LOSE YOU AGAIN!! I can't. Not again. I'm not... Strong enough."
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: Oh
 , yeah.
- And the Anvil Chorus in the "every door, button and explosion in the movie" DVD Easter Egg; it fits perfectly.
- Cruel And Unusual Death: Syndrome. Who honestly wants to be run through a jet turbine?
- At least it would be quick.
- Cut Lex Luthor A Check: Syndrome made a fortune out of military inventions.
- the last part of Syndrome's plan is to sell his adventions to normal people to get rid of the "special people with special powers" meaning of superhero.
- Dark Skinned Blond/White Haired Pretty Girl: Mirage.
- Desk Jockey: Mr. Incredible is forced to become one to support his family's normal middle class life and hates it so much he sneaks a little illicit heroing on the side.
- Desperately Looking For A Purpose In Life
- Disney Villain Death: Averted by the flash backs of the "No Capes" speech, moreso by the violent deaths of a few Mooks, and to the point of Nightmare Fuel in the case of the Big Bad. Helen Parr makes VERY CLEAR to Dash and Violet that they are not living in your typical Disney universe:
Helen: Remember the bad guys, on those shows you used to watch on Saturday mornings? Well, these guys are not like those guys. They won't exercise restraint because you're children. They will kill you, if they get the chance. Do NOT give them that chance.
- Our Demons Are Different: Ok, it's not really a demon, but at the end of the movie Jack Jack's powers include lighting himself on fire, turning into heavy brimstone, and transforming into the freaking baby devil.
- Die Or Fly
- Disproportionate Retribution: Yes, Syndrome, we understand that you were disappointed, he could have gone a little easier on you, and we feel for you. But... don't you think you're overreacting?
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: Mr. Incredible
- Does This Remind You Of Anything: "It's time for their secret identity to become their only identity. Time for them to join us or go away."
- Also, Violet's dialogue during the dinner scene: "Normal? What do you know about normal? What does anyone in this family know about normal?! We act normal, I want to be normal!"
- Do Wrong, Right - Dash gets sent to the principal's office for using his Super Speed to put a tack on the teacher's chair during class. His father is genuinely impressed, especially about how Dash went too fast to be picked up on video.
- Draco In Leather Pants: Syndrome. Why, fangirls, why?
- Because it's Jason Lee!!!
- Early Bird Cameo: As is standard for Pixar films. Doc Hudson from Cars appears in one shot.
- Eenie Meenie Miny Moai
- Electric Torture
- Elemental Baggage: Frozone gets his ice by sucking moisture from the air and his body, but can somehow multiply it exponentially. A single sip of water lets him put a fridge-sized block around a guard.
- There was probably more moisture in the air as well (though to make that much ice, he would have needed to suck up most, if not all, of the water in the room, or more.)
- Embarrassing Nickname: Don't ever call Syndrome (a.k.a. Incrediboy) 'Buddy."
- Actually, that's his *real* name—Buddy Pine.
- Emo Teen
- Ensemble Darkhorse: EDNA MODE
- Even Evil Has Standards: It's one thing to lure supers to their deaths, but to kill children, that bothers Mirage. This and the scene a moment later lead to the Heel Face Turn.
- Evil Foreigner / Enemy Mime: Bomb Voyage, who dresses like a mime but speaks French and uses bombs instead of invisible walls. Combines a parody of supervillain tropes with an Incredibly Lame Pun and a Shout Out to Marcel Marceau.
- His original suggested names were worse: Bomb Perignon and Sacre Blew.
- Evil Gloating: Heavily lampshaded, as the heroes mock the villainous habit of 'monologuing'.
- Evil Laugh: Done by Syndrome after he thinks he's killed Bob's family. It's somewhat lampshaded, although not as obvious as the other ones that are hung because of the seriousness of the scene—but in the background, Bob is moving and it's only Mirage's quick action that saves Syndrome.
- Evil Redhead: Syndrome.
- Expressive Mask
- Face Heel Turn
- Faceless Goons - Though not voiceless. "Okay, every time one of them runs, take a shot."
- Fastball Special: Bob with Helen towards the end.
- Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Elastigirl. Don't give me that look, she's a Hot Shounen Mom with a big backyard and stretchy powers.
- Foe Yay: Syndrome is beyond way obsessed with Mr. Incredible.
- Foreshadowing: The entire "NO CAPES" sequence, "Stratogirl! April 23rd, '57! Cape caught in a jet turbine!" specifically.
- Fridge Brilliance: Early on, Mr. Incredible meets Buddy Pine, his biggest fan, on the same day as the events that led to the downfall of the age of superheroes. Buddy grows up to become Syndrome, whose life was ended as a result of meeting HIS biggest fan - the jet turbine on his own plane.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: A ridiculous number of these end up forcing all superheroes into hiding.
- Getting Crap Past The Radar: More than you'd think.
- Genre Savvy: This, more than any of his weapons, was the secret to Syndrome's success - but would eventually be his undoing as well.
You sly dog! You got me monologuing! I can't believe it.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Edna to Helen
- Glory Days: There's even a magazine cover in Bob's memory room with this as the title
- Good People Have Good Sex: Strongly implied. In a frakkin' Disney film. Awesome.
Syndrome: "You married Elastigirl?...And got biz-zay!"
- Goo Goo God Like: Jack-Jack
- Gone Horribly Right
- Got The Whole World In My Hand: Insuricare's Logo
- Grievous Harm With A Body: During the family's first fight as a team.
- Happily Married: Bob and Helen.
- Hartman Hips: Elastigirl laments this.
- Help Face Turn: Syndrome does a great deal to push Mirage along.
- Hero Harasses Helpers: Mr. Incredible to "Incrediboy".
- Heroes Want Redheads: Helen/Elastigirl had long, bright red hair when young. Now that she's older, she keeps it short and auburn.
- Hero Worshipper: Buddy. Who then went HORRIBLY wrong.
- Hey Its That Voice: Bob is Coach, Elastigirl is Helen Hunt, Frozone is Samuel L Jackson...
- And The Underminer is Cliff Clavin (and Hamm...and P.T. Flea...and the Abominable Snowman...)
- Hilarious In Hindsight: Disney owns Marvel Comics now.
- Hilarity Sues/Hero Insurance: One of the main causes for heroes hiding is the damage their battles caused to their surroundings. The immense destruction in the end battle is hardly mentioned, though.
- Hoist By His Own Petard - Bob knocks Syndrome into his jet's intake by hurling a car at him — the one he bought when he was on Syndrome's payroll.
- Syndrome also got hoisted by making the OmniDroid smart enough to outwit him by destroying his controls.
- Hot Mom: Elastigirl.
- Human Shield
- Humongous Mecha: Syndrome's Omnidroids.
- I Just Want To Be Normal: Violet, until the Adrenaline Makeover makes her realize how awesome she is when she has confidence and uses her powers to help and protect her family.
- I Just Want To Be Special: Syndrome; he actually is somewhat special (he's a Gadgeteer Genius) but never realises it.
- Syndrome is absolutely a super, which makes his anger about not having flashy superpowers like the protagonists so ironic. Surely he must be the smartest person in the world, with an island base, the ability to launch ICB Ms, and enough toys to defeat supers with ease all by himself.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes
- Impractically Fancy Outfit: Subverted by a superhero costume designer who refuses to include capes for safety reasons.
- Improbable Hairstyle: Syndrome's Onion head.
- Ink Suit Actor: Samuel L Jackson animated as-is to create Lucius/Frozone.
- Instant AI Just Add Water: The cover story for Mr. Incredible's first mission is that this had happened to the Omnidroid. It's implied that this happens for real to the final Omnidroid.
- Infant Immortality
- In Harms Way: Bob
- Invisibility: Violet.
- Island Base: Nomanisan Island
- I Work Alone: Bob, until it bites him in the ass Big Time.
- Jack Attack: Jack-Jack, obviously.
- Jumped At The Call: Mr. Incredible just can't give up superheroing, even when he's supposed to retire.
- Karma Houdini: Despite helping track down and murder dozens of superheroes, as well as developing a killer robot to threaten the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands of innocent people, absolutely nothing happens to Mirage in the end.
- Kick The Dog: Syndrome manages to turn his own henchwoman against him.
- Well, that and the moment where, y'know, he happily and unrepentently shoots Mr. Incredible's children out of the sky, or so he thinks.
- Or even before that, when it's revealed that he's been spending years murdering supers just to satisfy his own petty revenge against Mr. Incredible. The movie leaves you in no doubt that Syndrome is evil.
- Lantern Jaw Of Justice: There's nothing we can say about Mr. Incredible's chin that the picture at the top of the page doesn't. Syndrome has one as well, but he's evil, So Yeah.
- Large Ham: "I am Syndrome, your nemesis!"
- "...brilliant."
- The Underminer shows signs of this as well. "I am beneath you! But NOTHING is beneath ME!!!"
"I hereby declare war on PEACE and HAPPINESS!"
- Larynx Dissonance: Director Brad Bird voices Edna (which wasn't originally intended, but during casting producers thought his guidance performance was good enough).
- According to commentary, Brad Bird initially wanted someone else (Lily Tomlin) to voice Edna Mode. When he called her and gave a demonstration of what he wanted the voice to sound like, she laughed and asked him what he needed her for. He already had the voice down!
- Laser Guided Karma: Thanks to his Kick The Dog, Mirage does a Mook Face Turn in favor of the merciful Mr. Incredible.
- Load Bearing Hero
- Locked In A Freezer: Or, chained to an electric prison thing.
- Loony Fan
- Meaningful Name: Several. Syndrome is Buddy "Pine", as in "I cry because I can't be your friend". The Parr family, "par" meaning average or adequate, superimposed with Incredible. Dash, Violet, Mirage... must we go on?
- Also noteworthy that Mr. Incredible and Syndrome have the same initials: Bob Parr and Buddy Pine.
- Also worth mentioning is Nomanisan Island (No man is an island), which ties into the film's themes of teamwork and family.
- And Edna Mode ('Mode' means 'fashion' in several languages, including German and French.)
- 'Mode' is also an English synonym for 'fashion'
- Memetic Mutation: NO CAPES[sic]
- Misaimed Fandom: Some people think Syndrome had a point in accusing Mr. Incredible of being biased against non-supers. They even think he'd stay true to his promise to sell his inventions to the public. The very same public he has no problem actively hurting in his quest for glory.
- Misfit Mobilization Moment: When the Parrs fight together against Syndrone's Mooks.
- Monster Protection Racket: Syndrome's original plan.
- Mook Face Turn: Mirage
- Mundane Utility: The Parr's homelife in a nutshell — especially Helen, who finds a way to apply her superpowers to nearly every household chore despite her oft-expressed desire to live a normal life.
- Moral Event Horizon: To be fair, Syndrome doesn't know at first that Bob's family is on the jet he launches missiles at. But when it's revealed that there are people he cares about—and that there are children on board—he still refuses to call off the missiles, mocking Bob and laughing at his anguish.
- Name That Tune
- The Napoleon: Mr Huph.
- Never Heard That One Before: Frozone loves ice puns.
- Never Be A Hero: What Buddy thinks Mr. Incredible is telling him.
- Newer Than They Think: Sort of. Word Of God says that the main part of the movie takes place in "The Sixties of an alternate universe" (the architecture is the 1950s version of "futuristic"), but it has things which didn't arrive in our world until much later, such as personal computers (late '70s) and CDs (1983).
- Nice Job Fixing It Villain
- No Doubt The Years Have Changed Me: Syndrome reveals himself to be an old fan of Mr. Incredible turned supervillain.
- No Flow In CGI: With one exception particular to this film: Violet's long hair required Pixar's engineers to write advanced custom software to get it right, and was one of the first challenges they tackled when making the film, since they knew they would need as much time as they could get to cope with unforseen problems.
- No Plans No Prototype No Backup: Averted heavily. Syndrome intended each iteration of the Omnidroid to be destroyed so he could identify its shortcomings and successfully kill the Super in question with the next. Finding the plans is what gets Bob caught.
- Not Now Bernard: Not now Dash. And Violet, you can set us free after Dad has his epiphany.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Mr. Huph and how!
- Older Hero Vs Younger Villain
- Older Than They Think
- Old Superhero: As a minor theme: Both Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible notice themselves getting out of shape.
- Outrun The Fireball
- Pale Skinned Brunette
- Peek A Boo Corpse: Mr Incredible unexpectedly comes face-to-face with the mortal remains of Gazer Beam while on the run from Syndrome.
- Personality Powers
- Pink Bunny Slippers
- Power Perversion Potential: Alluded to during a happy-family-times montage.
- Punny Name: Nomanisan Island.
- Reckless Sidekick: Incrediboy
- Renny Harlin Helicopter Explosion: Jet explosion, actually.
- Repetitive Name: Jack-Jack. (Well, he is a toddler, it's probably not his real name.)
- Retired Badass: Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible. For a while. She adapts pretty well, he's not so happy about it.
- Rubber Man: Elastigirl, with some heavily implied Power Perversion Potential.
- Samuel L Jackson: WHERE IS HIS SUPERSUIT!?
- Self Serving Memory: Syndrome guilts Mr. Incredible into thinking he was wrong to have rejected him as a sidekick.
- Screams Like A Little Girl: Syndrome when Jack-Jack goes demon-baby, pulls out his hair, and just as he's about to die.
- Foreshadowed when Syndrome is taunting Mr. Incredible at his island base.
- Shout Out
- Bob is held in room A113
- Dash vs. the speeders calls back the Star Wars speeder chase
- Possibly the speech about "a company [being] like a giant clock."
- On the same note, Edna's "NO CAPES!" is a possible Shout Out to Dollar Bill's death in Watchmen.
- The call-sign of Helen's plane is "India Gulf Niner-Niner", or "IG 99", referencing The Iron Giant, which was director Brad Bird's previous film.
- Shown Their Work: Helen's radio-speak is realistic.
- Shrinking Violet: Who do you think?
- Sinister Geometry: The Omnidroid.
- Sleep Cute: Non-romantic version, with bickering siblings Violet and Dash
- Small Annoying Creature: Mr Skipperdoo, the rabbit sidekick from the in-universe cartoon "Mr. Incredible and Friends" included as a DVD extra.
- Smug Super: Handsome Jack in the DVD bonus material.
- Soaperizing
- Spider Tank
- Stealth Pun: The island of Nomanisan.
- Stone Wall: Violet; Near-impregnable defense, but she'd be hard pressed to actually do anything to the aggressors.
- Superhero Paradox: The entire point of the Super Registration Act is to prevent this.
- Superheroes Wear Capes: A Defied Trope, at least by Edna Mode.
- Super Registration Act: One of the main themes is the heroes being forced into hiding. However, it's notably given a twist in that the push comes, not from the government, but from the public. The supers are actually backed by Uncle Sam.
- Super Speed
- Super Strength
- Superpowerful Genetics: Explains how a super-strong guy and a stretching woman give birth to a super-fast boy, a girl with invisibility powers, and a shapeshifter.
- Superpower Lottery: Jack-Jack.
- That Man Is Dead: When Mr. Incredible identifies Syndrome as the grown-up Buddy Pine.
Syndrome: "My name is not Buddy! And it's not Incredi-boy, either! That ship has sailed!"
- The Voice: Honey, Frozone's wife.
- Think Nothing Of It
- Top Heavy Guy: Mr. Incredible
- Tuck And Cover: Helen uses this to shield the kids.
- Training Montage: Bob at the railyard, intercut with a lot of Crap Getting Past The Radar.
- Try Not To Die
- Uncanny Valley: Averted by the animators intentionally giving the characters cartoonish proportions.
- Underwear Of Power
- Ungrateful Bastard: The citizens saved by supers sue over minor injuries incurred while saving their lives!
- Well, he did sort of carelessly cause the bridge to blow up in the first place.
- Uh, no, that was Bomb Voyage's (and Incrediboy's) fault.
- A better example is the guy who sues Mr. Incredible for saving his life because he wanted to commit suicide! So Yeah. I guess he has a reason to live now.
- Unwanted Rescue
- Walk On Water: But... but how does he stop and turn the other way?
- Quickly.
- To clarify, hitting the water at a high velocities is practically like hitting concrete, and at terminal velocities, it might be better to hit the concrete because it will give way while water doesn't.
- Water Works
- What Happened To The Mouse: When the supers are forced into retirement, the existing villains seem to disappear as well, and it's never explained what happened to them.
- Also, Mirage disappears from the story after helping the family escape from Syndrome's lair. It's never indicated whether she dies, gets arrested, or gets away.
- This editor took it as a combination of Syndrome eliminating other villains and a play on the old idea that superheroes create supervillains and vice versa.
- It may be that the government did keep some of the supers fighting the good fight without the flashy codenames and costumes... just not the easily recognizable headliners like Mr. Incredible, of course.
- Or the military could take over. The military isn't well known for ITS policy of Thou Shalt Not Kill.
- Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys: He invents them, and makes the money to build more by selling superweapons.
- Xanatos Gambit
- X Meets Y: Fantastic Four meets Watchmen (only the villain doesn't win)
- Zero Sum Game
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