Nightmare Fuel / The Incredibles

This page contains unmarked spoilers. You Have Been Warned!

Dead supers tell no tales.

"Remember the bad guys on the shows you used to watch on Saturday mornings? Well, these guys aren't like those guys. They won't exercise restraint because you are children. They will kill you if they get the chance. Do not give them that chance."

— Helen giving her kids (and the viewers) a dose of reality.

The Incredibles was the first Pixar film to earn a PG rating, and as this page can tell you, it rightfully earns said rating.

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• The film takes no liberties in showcasing the downsides of a world filled with supers; from the risk of heroes failing to save the day, to being persecuted and sued by the same people you vow to protect, and most frighteningly, the worries that villains will show no restraints against killing children if they pose a threat in any capacity. All of this leads to the supers becoming illegal, and the overall setting is very similar to Watchmen.
• After he believes his family has been killed, Mr. Incredible: "Why are you here? How can you possibly bring me lower? What more can you take away from me?" While Mr. Incredible is saying this, he has Mirage in a Neck Lift, is holding her a good three-four feet off of the ground and her face clearly shows pain and quickly loses color to the point of being almost white from lack of oxygen.
  • When she tells him "There isn't much time", the way he immediately chokelifts her and goes "No. There isn't. In fact... there's no time at all." in a disturbingly chilling tone is scary as hell.
  • In their previous scene together, he came dangerously close to crushing her to death out of sheer, animalistic fury.
  • Really, the scene itself is pretty terrifying, if only for Mr. Incredible's rage, and Syndrome's complete indifference to Mirage's plight.
    Mr. Incredible: Release me! NOW!
    Syndrome: (scoffs) Or what?
    Mr. Incredible: I'll crush her.
    Syndrome: Ooo, that sounds a little dark for you... ah, go ahead.
    Mr. Incredible: It will be easy... like breaking a toothpick.
    Syndrome: ...show me.
  • On top of that, there's the brief yet intense few seconds where in that moment, there was a chance he could've actually killed her. Thankfully, he doesn't but it's still an especially unsettling moment.
    • Mr. Incredible releasing Mirage the first time comes off as a relief until you get to the part where he tries again after being released. He didn't release her because he believed that Thou Shalt Not Kill - he just couldn't kill her because of the sheer exhaustion torture left him with.
• The various incarnations of the Omnidroid are enormous black robots that relentlessly hunt and kill any super who gets too close. They are Made of Iron, Combat Pragmatists, have an Adaptive Ability and could not be more devoted to slaying their targets if they tried. And that's not even getting into the fact that the last one can disobey its creator as it causes as much carnage as it pleases.
• The list of supers killed, lured to their deaths during the Omnidroid testing. Really, would you expect anyone to see Syndrome as a sympathetic character after that? Especially when you consider that these are people Mr. Incredible knew personally; look closely, and you can see most of them at the wedding. The increasing horror on Mr. Incredible's face certainly doesn't help either.
  • It's even more chilling if you remember from the start of the movie that all of the supers are simply trying to live as normal folk and during the dinner scene where Mr. Incredible is reading the newspaper, we see that the recent missing person used to be a super known as Gazerbeam. We see him later as a corpse in a cavern.
    • On that note, Mr. Incredible finds out what happened to Gazerbeam after he swims away from Syndrome's probe and escapes into the cave. When he takes a moment to catch his breath, he looks up and finds himself inches away from Gazerbeam's lifeless skeleton slumped against a rock (Pictured). Mr. Incredible is understandably freaked out.
  • Even worse, many of those people must have gone through the exact same arc as Bob did. Feeling unfulfilled with normal life, the supers were approached by Mirage, given missions, kept coming back after succeeding in them, felt good about themselves again... and then they were killed by the ever-evolving droid.
    • Some supers (like Gazerbeam) managed to beat the Omnidroid, only to be later killed by an upgraded version; however, it was actually the majority that didn't get such luck.
    • Which may even make it more tragic; Syndrome only revealed the true purpose of the Omnidroid to Mr. Incredible after he defeated the first, meaning that for all those supers who died facing their first, they would have perished thinking that they were fighting to protect people, rather than just to be data for Syndrome.
  • And Bob is quickly relieved to know that Syndrome doesn't know where Helen is. Which then turns to alarmed concern when he finds out that Syndrome does know where Frozone is. Technically, he would've been the one Mirage approached to fight the Omnidroid instead of Bob if she hadn't gotten hold of him instead, so thankfully, he dodged the bullet.
  • Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack score that plays during this scene is very chilling, and really fits the seriousness of the situation.
  • The word "genocide" seems a little strong, but is there any other word to explain Syndrome systematically luring in and murdering almost every known American superhero?
  • And just think, if Syndrome actually had killed Bob. Bob never told his family where he was actually going. He would've just disappeared one day and would never be seen again. Bob's remains might have been found, assuming his suit had survived but that's no less horrific. It's also not unreasonable to assume some of the other superheroes had settled down and produced families of their own as well. Same thing, they just disappeared one day and their families never found out what happened to them.
  • A commenter on the above video sums it up perfectly:
    Alex Eisenbeis: That moment when you find out your former fan has been systematically murdering dozens of superheroes to make a superweapon.
  • This scene is unique for being entirely comparable to genuine horror movies. Think about it: An old face you haven't seen in over a decade just came back and pointed a gun at your head. You barely escape, and wind up sleuthing around the guy's house where you discover...his scrapbook. And every picture pasted into that scrapbook is someone you knew personally. You come to the last couple of pages, where there are pictures of your wife and best friend. And to top it all off, on the inside of the back cover, is a full, page-sized photograph of you.
  • This line.
    Syndrome: And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. EVERYONE can be super! And when everyone's super...no one will be.
    • It's not just the robots or the killing of actual heroes, but the thought of turning everybody into supers. What better way to permanently eliminate them than by making superpowers ordinary to the public? Thus destroying the fact that it's "super". Syndrome wants real supers to feel spurned just like he was when Mr. Incredible rejected him.
• On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, the deaths of all those Mooks. There were many more Mook deaths than Super deaths, and they could've just been Punch Clock Villains.
  • That said, there were Mooks playing a Drinking Game based what on the Omnidroid did; taking a shot "when they run." So, y'know, whenever the WMD that they dropped into a major metropolitan area scored a One-Hit Kill, they showed their remorse by not taking a drink. Practically angels!
  • Dash's high-speed chase with the velocipods becomes a lot more chilling when you realize he causes the death of about 8 people, tied with his father for the highest on-screen body count in the film. From a kid who's about 10. But it's horrifying from the other side, too; multiple adult men are deliberately and completely knowingly trying to murder a ten-year-old for pretty well no other reason than, well, trespassing.
• No matter how karmic and well-deserved it was, Syndrome's death by Turbine Blender is just so horribly gruesome to think about. He gets knocked towards his own VTOL jet by Bob's thrown car, then his own cape getting caught in its nearby jet turbine does the rest; leading to a harrowing shot of him slowly being dragged toward the whirling blades as he frantically claws at the sides in a blind panic, before suddenly being yanked into them.
  • Syndrome goes in feet first, which is just so much worse than going in head first; because at least in that case, he would have died pretty much immediately. Going in feet first means that Syndrome not only had just enough time to see his own violent death coming while powerless to stop it, but he also would've felt himself going through the unimaginable pain of being torn to pieces.
  • Hell, even Bob himself cringes as he watches Syndrome get sucked into the turbine and then promptly vaporized by the jet exploding in the air.
  • This was foreshadowed by the exact same thing happening to Stratogale. While she was waving at a child in the airplane. The special features note that she was a teenager. Wanna go darker? Just imagine that scene from the perspective of the child, who didn't have the benefit of a Discretion Shot to hide their view the way the movie audience did. Even worse when you take into account the alarm that sounds once she's sucked in, indicating that the plane might've malfunctioned and even crashed...
  • Think about how poor Edna must have felt after all those cape malfunctions, especially Stratogale's; after all, she designed at least some of those costumes. Makes her rant about the whole thing and her "I never look back" mentality a lot darker...
  • Stratogale, while easily the most tragic, isn't the only victim:
    • Thunderhead gets his cape snagged on a live missile intended to blow up a city. If the sudden jerk didn't snap his neck, he was probably blown to smithereens by said missile.
    • Meta-Man got his cape caught on steel framework lifting up an express elevator. That elevator, which may or may not have had civilians inside of it, probably came crashing down on him. You can even hear him scream as he gets caught.
    • Dynaguy simply snagged on take-off. Given how quickly he launched, he likely snapped his own neck. Even more horrific? You can hear him make a choking sound when the cape got snagged!
    • Splashdown is dragged into a vortex. In this instance, rather than jerking him in, it slowly drags him in, seemingly cutting off his air in the process. He even screams as he's being sucked in! If it helps, the special features list him as "missing in action" rather than killed, and with his water-themed superpowers he could have survived being sucked in. That said, seeing as he apparently hasn't been seen since then, he probably didn't last very long after the fact...
• The Electric Torture was rather disturbing, especially for something in a PG-rated movie. Made even worse in that Syndrome's expressed motive for it (the victim "sending out a distress signal") is something the victim did entirely by accident in the first place; Mr. Incredible wasn't even aware of the homing device and he wasn't contacting anyone! But when he tried to tell Syndrome this, it was immediately dismissed as lying.
  • How Mr Incredible came to be captured beforehand; having dozens of unremovable black "balloons" fired at him from nearby sentry guns as he struggles to escape, which expand and completely engulf him. The point-of-view shot of Mr Incredible's quickly-fading vision is chilling, especially for anyone with a fear of confinement or suffocation. The last thing he sees is Mirage, and we can tell just from her pose that Bob is in big trouble.
  • When Helen peeks into a control room, she sees that one cell out of sixteen is drawing far more power than all the others, and she realizes that it's Bob's...but none of the cells is drawing no power, so all of the cells are being occupied by God knows who, likely with much less ability to resist torture than Mr. Incredible - and that's just one cell block.
• For the aeronautically-inclined, hearing Helen's frantic voice-overs as the missiles approach and ultimately destroy the plane is pretty scary, especially if you imagine hearing it over a black box.
  • Mirage's reaction to hearing Helen's distress calls is about the same as that of the audience; dawning realization turning into absolute horror.
    Helen: MAYDAY MAYDAY!! INDIA-GULF NINER-NINER IS BUDDY-SPIKED!! Abort, abort! There are children aboard, say again, THERE ARE CHILDREN ABOARD THIS PLANE!
    [As Helen repeats that the kids are on board in the control room, Mirage's face changes to absolute terror, and Bob's eyes pop with horror.]
    Bob: [Gut-Punched] NO!!!
  • The Wrong Genre Savvyness of Helen during this sequence is pretty nightmarish as well, as she seems to remain under the assumption that everything is simply a misunderstanding and keep following the rules until the very end. Her increasingly frantic calls do not help.
    Helen: [Panicked] ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!!!!
  • Also imagine how the scene would look to the Parr children. They went what appeared to be a funny plane trip with fancy costumes to seeing their mother clearly panicking for probably the first time in their lives. To top it, emotionally withdrawn teenager Violet gets yelled at by her mother for having trouble disobeying the rule they had to follow since their birth.
  • Later on, we get the children yelling at the top of their lungs while plunging into the sea several meters below.
  • Originally, Helen's old pilot Snug would have been piloting the plane... and would have died in the explosion. The deleted scene animatic shows the terror that would have happened:
    Snug: [Panicked] Abort! Abort! Women and children aboard!! SAY AGAIN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN ABOARD!!
    [Dialouge between Helen, Dash, and Violet plays out like in the final movie in between Snug's lines]
    Snug: [Terrified, Last Words] ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!!!!
    [Elastigirl looks back at Snug, who is in a complete panic. He knows there is nothing more that he can do to save everyone and shuts his eyes tight, ready to die. The explosion happens as Elastigirl shields the kids.]
  • The extra dialogue following in the sea, right after Helen's "We are not gonna die" line (that did make it into the movie)
    Dash: What about the...the pilot?
    [Helen simply shakes her head.]
  • It's a good thing that Violet and Dash were terrible at hiding on the plane, and they were found by Helen not long before the missiles shot down the plane. But what if they hid somewhere else and didn't hear Helen's frantic pleas to call off the missiles, and Helen decided to jump off the plane right there and then...?
  • Just imagine what Mr. Incredible is going through. If learning his beloved wife was unknowingly heading to danger wasn't horrible enough but his children are heading there as well. Then Syndrome launches the missiles and Mr. Incredible had to hear his wife and children's screams.
• After the battle with the robot, Elastigirl is checking voicemails, and hears the babysitter that Violet hired to watch Jack-Jack panicking over the phone about her infant son. Just when it comes to a head, the girl calms down and thanks her for calling a replacement sitter. The full force of the moment floats right over the heads of younger viewers, but the look of abject horror on Bob and Helen's faces and Helen's frantic, "I didn't call a replacement!" is terrifying to older audience members. Sure enough, it turns out Syndrome has broken into their home, and is in the process of taking Jack-Jack away from them as revenge for thwarting his plan.
  Syndrome: (freezes Bob, Helen, Violet and Dash in place with Zero-Point energy) Shhhhhh.... the baby's sleeping. (chuckles evilly as he pulls an extremely menacing grin) You took away my future. I'm simply returning the favor. Oh, don't worry, I'll be a good mentor. Supportive, encouraging. Everything you weren't! And in time, who knows? He might make a good sidekick.
• In the alternate opening on the deleted scenes, there's this really creepy moment after Syndrome hears baby Violet crying and then says to Bob, "You are breaking the law, Mr. Incredible. You know supers aren't supposed to breed", his eyes just slowly move in the direction of Violet's room. There's something very unsettling about that moment; Syndrome has Bob and Helen trapped with his freeze ray and there's nothing they can do to stop Syndrome as he moves down the hall toward Violet. Oh, and in the international release, that line is in the film as screened: Syndrome says it when he captures the Parr family on Nomanisan.
  • Per Word of God, this was an intentional decision by Brad Bird to crank up the scare factor. He wanted to use focuses on eyes as a motif for Syndrome, and would end up recycling that idea in the final version of the film; the "After all... I am your biggest fan" scene in particular.
  • The fact that people with superpowers were legally unable to have any kids is pretty uncomfortable to think about in and of itself. If that was the actual wording of the law in the first place, then it takes on a rather disturbing turn if one thinks about it. They don't say "procreate," they don't say "have children," the law says "breed," as if they were treating supers like animals.
• The scene of the man getting mugged, and the scene of the man attempting suicide at the beginning. Both realistic scenes. Also, the look of absolute rage on Bob's face when he's grabbed his boss by the neck. If you stop at just the right moment, he looks practically feral.
• Jack-Jack demonstrating his shape-shifting powers. The look of absolute rage on his face when he does it is something every parent has seen. The thought of his kind of power with base infant rage is utterly terrifying.
• On a more mundane level, Mr. Huph, Bob's Bad Boss isn't afraid to threaten him with the loss of his job when Bob tries to rescue a man being mugged in the alley. Bob, having had enough of the sleazebag's lecturing crap, grabs him by his throat and hurls him through several walls and into a file cabinet, injuring him badly enough that he ends up in a body cast, while everyone stares at Bob in terror. A reminder that Bob is typically a nice person, but is very much capable of turning violent and aggressive especially if anyone like Huph, for example, tries to prevent him from rescuing innocent people in danger.
  • Also on the mundane level, but no less terrifying, the aforementioned Bad Boss that Bob had to work under was angry that Bob's customers were managing to get their claims approved because they cut into the company's profits and make the shareholders unhappy. The claims, according to Bob, were all completely in accordance to what the clients signed for, but that makes no difference to his boss who all but states that their company isn't supposed to actually help people, but gouge them for all they're worth and leave them high and dry if they ever need to make a claim. This kind of predatory company policy is all too real.
• Some of the... looks... on Edna's face. Such as when baby Jack-Jack's suit is being set on fire, we see the flames being reflected off her eyeglasses, making her look quite maniacal (not helped by the fact that you can even see her eyes underneath said eyeglasses, making a crazed gaze all the while), complete with a huge Slasher Smile. If ever there was a talking Creepy Good, here she is◊!
• Bob and Helen watching as Violet and Dash are about to be crushed by the Omnidroid. It's strong enough to shatter Violet's forcefield, knocking her out, leaving her and Dash defenseless against it. It's clear from Dash's reaction that he's afraid she may have been killed. And despite seeing the robot about to crush them, he refuses to leave Violet even to save his own life. That is until Bob physically stops the robot and Helen grabs Violet just as she comes to while Dash runs out of dodge.
• Besides the bride and groom, there are six supers attending Bob & Helen's wedding: Lucius (the best man), Dynaguy, Thunderhead, Gazerbeam, Meta Man & Stratogale. Barely 15 years later, only one of them is still alive, and four of them died in cape-related mishaps! Even worse, Bob didn't know Gazerbeam was dead until he found his corpse and, judging from Edna's "no capes" lecture, may not have known about some of the others. Imagine discovering about half of the guests at your wedding have died violently - and you didn't even know about it until years after the fact.
• In the Vowellet interview on the bonus features reveals a deleted storyboard during the dinner scene, showing that Violet Parr herself hated her skinny frame and was jealous of all the other girls her age developing better than her (no doubt stemming from her earlier encounter with Tony). Her mother Helen chimes in to try and cheer Violet up and tells her that she's beautiful the way she is, only for Violet to outright snap at her and the family and go on a tirade about how she feels she's getting ganglier and ganglier. Confirming that Violet was anorexic and was starving herself to death! No wonder this scene was cut as it was seen as far too dark, depressing and mean spirited towards people who were battling anorexia which was a major issue at the time.

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