Headscratchers / The Incredibles

Headscratchers for The Incredibles.

Why did Syndrome become evil?

• Taking out all superheroes and making them obsolete because you got rejected by your idol is...pretty extreme. That's like thinking all celebrities are jerkwads after meeting one, and then killing as many of them as you can.
  • Syndrome didn't turn evil because of being rejected. Being rejected is his excuse for becoming Syndrome. Essentially, the so-called tipping point was just a Freudian Excuse; the guy was likely going to turn bad regardless.
  • Syndrome is pretty extreme. And "killing your idol" is something that happens in real life; that's how John Lennon died.

Who Else has Syndrome Captured

• Hellen looks at a screen displaying the cell block and the amount of power each captive is drawing to see Bob was draining the most power. The problem is, we only see Bob in containment. Who else has Syndrome captured?

Does Mirage have any powers?

• She's not shown exhibiting any powers in the movie, but in the recording sent to Mr. Incredible, she says: "According to the government, neither of us exist!" Was that just part of the ruse to draw him in, or did she actually mean something by that?
  • When Mirage is shown on the tablet Bob receives, she seems to have some effect on the video when he moves the tablet back and forth. If her name is any indication, Mirage can make herself and her surroundings hazy and difficult to interpret / focus on. It's a subtler superpower, so straight-up crime fighting probably won’t be her first career choice, but it's still a metahuman ability, therefore, she's classified as a super. This could be why she's the one sent to track down superheroes to fight the Omnidroid.
  • It might just mean she's off the grid due to Syndrome's money and influence, not because she's a Super hidden by the government.

Why didn't Syndrome freeze Jack Jack at the end?

• He would've gotten away with it easily. Why didn't he do it?
  • Syndrome was caught off guard by a baby he didn't think had any powers. It's evident that he can't improvise if something he didn't plan for goes off (as evidenced when the Omnidroid turned on him).

No Capes! Why Not?

• Isn't the real cause of all those cape disasters the guy who made the cape out of the strongest thing possible, and also not allowing them to be easily detached in emergencies?
  • Are the kind of people who insist on having capes (despite the known risks) going to be satisfied if it tears off just because of a supervillain or two? How unstylish!
  • The anti-capes mandate by Edna Mode seems more artistic temperamentalism than anything else.
  • Admittedly, the only thing capes bring to the table is Rule of Cool, so Edna can be excused for not wanting to incorporate what can be argued as an addition that hinders more than it helps.
  • Note that even 'ordinary' materials can be deceivingly strong. Isadora Duncan, for instance, died when her excessively long scarf got caught in the wheels of the car she was riding in and broke her neck.
  • The real reason for the NO CAPES is because animating capes is a pain and thus the writers put in this justification so they wouldn't have to put capes on everyone since being a superhero IP it would be expected. The in-universe justification is easily solved by simply the addition of a breakaway clasp on all capes. Capes can serve practical purposes such as providing a larger target, aiding in flight for those superheroes capable of it, acting as weapon storage, and allowing for gliding among other reasons.

No Capes, part 2

• How is Splashdown's death the fault of his cape? Edna said that he was sucked into a vortex, and that'll kill pretty much anybody, cape or no cape.
  • What happened was that Splashdown nearly escaped unharmed, but his cape got caught in the vortex and dragged him inside. If it hadn't been for his cape, he might have escaped being sucked into the vortex and survived.

How did Mr. Incredible lose those lawsuits?

• How exactly did Mr. Incredible's lawyer manage to lose that case? (Attempted) suicide is illegal in America, heroes seem to have government mandate to apprehend criminals (and violently). Therefore in saving the jumper Mr. Incredible was simply performing a regular act of heroism, foiling a felony in progress and therefore the jumper should have zero claim against him.
  • The laws in the world of the Incredibles evidently work differently to the ones in our world.
• Related: How can Mr. Incredible be held responsible for the train accident? The bomb landed on the tracks totally at random. Mr. Incredible cannot be held responsible, because the alternative is letting Buddy explode in midair.
  • Well, the people who sued him don't know that; they only know that's how Bob says it went. If you take it back far enough, one of the causes of bomb landing on the tracks in the first place is Bob playing vigilante with Bomb Voyage. And, even though we the audience know Bob was on limited time, the jury might have found fault with him throwing towards the train instead of in another direction.
  • The laws in the world of the Incredibles evidently work differently to the ones in our world.
  • In Incredibles 2, it's revealed that politicians had been gunning for superheroes for years because they couldn't comprehend a selfless desire to help people. It's almost certain that Sansweet's suit was simply the excuse they used to bury a thorn in their side.
  • Oliver Sansweet and the people on the train were still injured as a result of his actions, accidental or not. The point of the lawsuits was to seek compensation for their injuries, not to punish Mr. Incredible for "doing something wrong".

Syndrome HAS superpowers!

• Syndrome invented fucking flight boots and a glove that taps into the infinite energy of an absolute zero vacuum. (Zero Point Energy) Physicists estimate that if we could tap into this energy, we would never need any kind of fuel again. This guy has done, by himself, what quantum physicists can only dream of. Doesn't that count as a superpower?
  • Of course it does! The Gadgeteer Genius. It's not like being a massive hypocrite would be out of character for Syndrome, given that he possessed virtually every other moral failing known to mankind.
  • Syndrome calls it "Zero Point Energy" but it seems to have the one use of stopping things in place and moving them around. It's possible that he heard it and thought it was a cool name for his energy gun that stops you in zero point zero one seconds.

Why can't Dash do a different sport?

• Why can't Dash play sports? There are plenty of sports (Hockey, Basketball, Soccer, etc.) that emphasize skill and precision over raw speed. Why did they stick him in Track, the one sport where he really couldn't learn anything?
  • Dash didn't express interest in anything other than track. Honestly, it seemed that Dash wanted to participate partially just to feel smug (can't blame him - what 10-year-old wouldn't?) and partially because he found running cathartic (likely contributing to his acting out and placing a tack on his teacher's chair in the first place).
  • Every sport involves at least some situations where speed is important. That includes Hockey, Basketball and Soccer. There's always a chance that Dash will accidentally reveal his powers in the heat of the moment.
  • Dash would probably have an advantage in most sports, but track running does not allow him to learn anything at all except hiding his real speed. His running will not improve, because he cannot run at his normal speed. The coach cannot teach him anything because, even if he knew about Dash's powers, how would he train a superhero? He certainly will not learn fairness, because normal kids do not stand a chance against him. What bothers me is not so much that Dash would choose track running (he is a kid after all), but that his parents would support such a choice.

Why did Syndrome Leave the family alive?

• After Syndrome captured the Incredibles, why didn't he kill them? He'd proved he was willing to before, and Mr. Incredible had already escaped from the harness once.
  • Possibly he wanted to do it, but was in a hurry and didn't want any of his minions to have the glory just then when he could have it later (Maybe he was more focused / curious how he got out; perhaps this isn't Mirage's first brush with goodness, and she's betrayed him before, and Syndrome wants to know how these things keep happening). And despite his mild genre savviness, Syndrome (acknowledging it himself) is still inherently a supervillain. Arrogance, monologuing, and wanting the other guy to live for a while and suffer before you take him out yourself are par for the course.
  • From the scene's dialog in question Syndrome comes across as a giddy geek kid who just scored the motherlode of rare collectors' cards.
  • Syndrome also left the TV on showing the Omnidroid's attack on the city. He probably wanted them to see him "save the day" so he could gloat to them about it when he got back.

“I Know, I know… Freeze.”

• So when Frozone freezes that one police officer, how is it all the others bust in there and don't notice the frozen guy until they turn around? He didn't seem that far from the door, and they would have had to walk past him to turn around and see him. Also, does not freezing people, y'know, kill them? Is Frozone okay with that, or does he have magic ice?
  • He didn't freeze the officer solid, he covered him in ice. If the other cops broke it off quickly, he might have a mild ice-burn at worst. Regarding the former question, the shot of the cops bursting in focuses mainly on one cop who looks to see if everyone is alright and turns around to see a frozen bullet in his face. It then shows the frozen cop surrounded by his friends. There were cops that noticed him, they were just initially off-screen, to the right.
• Does Frozone ever get in trouble for freezing a cop?
  • No, because he runs away and they don't catch him.

Psychoanalyzing Mr. Incredible

• Mr. Incredible has Mirage in his grasp after he thinks his family is dead. He threatens to kill her, but doesn't because he "values life." Fast forward a bit: Mirage is FREEING HIM, and he about strangles her to death. Did I miss something?
  • Word of God was that in that particular scene Mr. I was quote, "stewing in his own juices" and more likely to do something rash.
  • Big difference between killing someone in a fit of rage and killing someone because someone else dared you to. Remember what Syndrome said when Mr. Incredible claimed it would be easy to kill Mirage right there: "Show me." As soon as he realized what he was doing, he couldn't do it anymore.

Mirage misses Elastigirl – how?

• Mirage is a top investigator, and found out Mr. Incredible's civil identity. She reports to Syndrome, so you'd logically expect Syndrome knows everything by proxy. How did he miss that he is married with (ex) Elastic Girl?
  • Mirage only found Mr. Incredible by following Frozone, and was only interested in him. There's no indication she ever found out about Elastigirl having married him, or even that she was familiar with Elastigirl at all (remember, when Bob checks the Kronos files, Elastigirl's location is listed as "unknown"); it's possible when Syndrome sends her out, she's only given info on the Super she's tailing; she recognized Mr. Incredible because Syndrome is obsessed with him, and probably couldn't hide it. Her investigation may not have gotten further than, "Follow Frozone until he drops Bob off, then slip the package into the mail."
    Another point to consider is that most superheroes found by Mirage are the ones secretly going around engaging in clandestine acts of vigilantism and superheroics — and, therefore, prominent enough to show up on Mirage's radar, and therefore on Syndrome's radar. Regardless whether Mirage is a good investigator or not, she doesn't even need those abilities to find said Supers. Helen, however, isn't doing anything that would draw attention to herself as being anything other than a mother of three.

Why live in the city?

• Why did the family have to live in that city? One of the early problems they were having was Dash not having a constructive way to let off steam. Land prices in some places in the US can be in the range of a hundred dollars or two per acre. Surely there's a place the government/Parrs can get a large plot of land that won't break the budget?
  • Land by itself is relatively cheap, but housing and infrastructure drives the prices up. Not much good the Parrs using their entire savings to buy a huge expanse of land in the middle of nowhere if they can't then afford to put a house and hook up electric and water pipes.
  • The Supers' jobs, homes, etc. are all set up by the government as a kind of witness protection program. So it's likely the Parrs were simply assigned an area to live. And clearly part of the agreement is to not be seen using powers, so private property or not, running at super-speed in broad daylight might still not be allowable.
  • It's also not just Dash trying to run off energy like a Greyhound, it was about him wanting to use his power to impress his buddies and Helen warning him about this. He still would have had to go to school sometime and faced the same temptation. FWIW, during the "Happy Bob" montage, they are out in the country playing some long distance catch-the-football.

Elastigirl becomes a boat?

• Since when does elastic reshape itself into, say, a boat? I can kind of understand a parachute, but a BOAT?
  • It's not a literal name. She's called Elastigirl because she stretches like elastic, but she's still made of flesh (probably). Helen probably vetoed 'Claygirl' or 'Silly Putty Girl' because it sounds less cool.

Nice Job Not Breaking It, Hero.

• Mirage tells Mr. Incredible to NOT destroy the Omnidroid part 1, and what does he do? He has it beat itself to death, tearing gaping holes in its hull, and eventually ripping out its energy source, which very possibly might've been connected with fiddly little wires that might be expensive to replace...
  • "Don't destroy it" was a secondary objective. The primary one was "Stop the damn thing," which takes priority. Syndrome probably wouldn't want Mr. I holding back, anyway; it'd ruin cause an underestimation what he can really do. It's not even that damaged; just replace the casing and the power cell and it's good as new.
  • The Omnidroid has most of its pieces accounted for. It was impaled and partially disassembled, not blown apart into a million scattered pieces or completely vaporized.

Edna’s mannequins

• When Edna is demonstrating the suits to Helen she demonstrates a suit is bulletproof by shooting it...as well as the uncovered head of the mannequin it's on. So, how do we know the suit is bulletproof? Also, if Edna can make bulletproof suits, why didn't she just incorporate that into ALL the suits she made? As evidenced by the Supers we meet in the movie proper, none of THEM are bulletproof...
  • The scene's a little ambiguous, but Edna saying she "covered the basics" regarding Jack Jack seems to imply all suits are already bulletproof.
  • You can tell it's bulletproof because there are no holes in the fabric after it's machine-gunned. Also, even if you're in a bulletproof suit, a sensible person will still try to avoid being shot because the force and size of the bullet can still break bones, leave painful bruises, and break the momentum of whatever it is you're doing.

How did Gazerbeam find out and reveal what he found?

• How did Gazerbeam find out about Operation Kronos, and that Kronos was a password? And what made Bob know to look where Gazerbeam's skull was facing? As he decayed, shouldn't the eyeline have fallen, if nothing else?
  • According to the Pixar wikia page on the Omnidroids, Gazerbeam killed Omnidroid v. x4 and was brought back to be killed by v. x5. If he was as smart as Bob and he could see through walls like the newspaper said, he might have spied on Syndrome his second time on the island before he was attacked. As for looking in GB's line of sight, it seems Bob simply fell into the trope of "Well, this guy's dead. He looks pretty terrified, wonder what he was looking at when he...oh." (Reveal Shot.)
  • Slight correction: Gazerbeam wasn't the X-ray vision guy from the paper.
  • Bob seems really disturbed when he reads in the newspaper that Gazerbeam's alter-ego has disappeared: Given that he knows GB's secret identity, it's possible they worked together closely in the past. "Cutting a message into the wall" might have been a trick they used before.

Gazerbeam's demise

• How exactly did Gazerbeam die? The skeleton's sitting there, still facing the direction in which he carved a word into the wall. So how exactly did the robot kill him without moving him from the position? And why the heck was he sitting there carving words into the wall (with laser eyes apparently) in the first place?
  • Most likely the Omnidroid fatally wounded him in their struggle and he didn't die instantly. He managed to escape to the cave where the robot couldn't follow him but got too weak to leave, carved out the message with his last efforts, and then died. As for why, he's clearly trying to pass on a last message in case anyone should find him and be in a position to try and stop Syndrome's plan.

Gazerbeam at the wedding

• Why was Gazerbeam wearing his costume at the wedding?
  • Came straight from a crime scene, like Bob?
  • Might be some tricky Secret Identity wrangling—maybe "Bob" knows "Gazerbeam," but "Bob" doesn't know Gazerbeam's secret identity at that point, or some other combination of I Know You Know I Know that makes it easier/safer for him to be there in his Super persona than his civies. I don't think we're given any indication of what Bob's civilian persona is at that point, but it probably wasn't Bob Parr, else someone would've figured it out a lot sooner than Mirage did.
    • The priest at the wedding calls him "Robert Parr" if you listen closely, so yes, that was always his name.
  • The dossier on him states that he can't gaze at someone or something too long without triggering his eye beams. Maybe the visor is a control method for that and he wore his visor as a safety measure during the wedding?
  • Perhaps it was also a way for the audience to know "Oh, these are Supers" because at this point, we only know Helen, Frozone and Bob.

How come a jet is too slow to follow Syndrome?

• So, scene: Syndrome gloats and leaves on a jet. Violet breaks free and lets her family free, which must only be a few minutes. The Incredible family then tries to chase after Syndrome. They can't find a jet, but that doesn't matter because one of them says a jet is too slow, so they take a rocket. The problem is, that Syndrome had left just a few minutes before them ON A JET!
  • Bob wanted to be there before Syndrome could even start his plan. He likely thought it'd be cool/funny if Syndrome arrived and he was standing there to greet him, looking nonplussed.

Syndrome better have super-sunblock

• Syndrome has a very light complexion. So why does he live on a tropical island?
  • He probably just doesn't go outside. Syndrome's probably working in his lab all the time anyway, so they could have been in the arctic for all he cared.
  • The guy walks through a hallway of lava to get to his office. If he can solve that problem, the tropical sun is no biggie.
  • Judging from the rainforest covering most of the island, it probably rains a lot and the events of the movie just happened to catch good weather.

Mirage: Karma Houdini?

• Why doesn't Mirage end up in jail? She helped the Incredibles escape, but she was a willing accomplice to dozens of murders.
  • She did help the Parrs save the city. Besides, we don't have any information about what happens to her, for all we know she's a hunted fugitive. One hopes she wouldn't get a codename as cool as Mirage without being somewhat successful at covert operations.
  • In the comics, Mirage is shown working as a field agent for the National Supers Agency, which suggests that she was considered skillful enough to be considered highly useful, and offered a pardon. Consider that the US waived away the war crimes of Japan and Germany after World War II because they wanted the research and to have a base to stand up to USSR influence in the east. Karma Houdini indeed, considering that she'd end working with the friends and acquaintances of many Supers she helped to murder.

Going to the bathroom to change

• Helen thinks she's alone on the plane. Why does she go to the bathroom to change?
  • Force of habit. Also, she's on a plane, with a lot of windows, and she lives in a universe where some people can fly.
  • Helen hasn't worn her Elastigirl costume in 15 years, and she's never tried on Edna's latest creation before. She probably wanted to look at herself in the bathroom mirror, and to make sure her mask was on straight.

Revenge for killing Syndrome

• Syndrome is said to be the arms dealer for quite a few crime lords and even countries. With the Parrs offing him, is the family going to get backlash (and by backlash, we mean 'revenge')?
  • What would that even do? It won't bring the supplier back, and you might just end up with an annoyed Super coming after you.
    • The crime lords could use it to build up a reputation as someone not to be messed with.
    • Given the whole government-hiding-Supers plan which is evidently working since Syndrome managed to off so many in secret, even if they succeeded killing the Parrs the whole thing would likely be covered up and no one would believe them. There are easier and more prominent targets.
    • The crime lords and foreign governments are Syndrome's customers, not his friends. Once they learned of his death, they probably burned all the evidence of ever having known him in anticipation of the inevitable government investigation into Syndrome's criminal activities. Besides, who wants to pick a fight with supers that the crime lords would probably lose?

Dash and Violet on the plane

• How did Dash and Violet sneak onto the plane and arrange a sitter without Helen knowing?
  • Violet's suit lets her turn completely invisible, and Dash can run so fast that you couldn't even see him moving when he was caught doing it on tape. Probably wouldn't be too difficult.

Syndrome arriving in the morning

• In Jack-Jack Attack, how is it morning when Syndrome shows up to the house, despite in The Incredibles, he doesnt go there after he wakes up and sees his plan was foiled which took place late afternoon, so how is it possible?
  • It IS later afternoon at that point in the short. It looks like it might be morning because Kari clearly had a sleepless night, but that doesn't mean it IS the morning.

Spare masks for Dash and Violet

• "What the hell are you two doing on the plane? I told you to stay home!" but, "I have two extra face masks, just for you..."

  • Dash took his and Violet's costumes, but Helen shut them out before he could grab the masks. So they were still in the bag.

Omnidroid enhancements

• Whenever a Super wins against an Omnidroid Syndrome Obvious Rule Patched it. After Mr. Incredible beats Omnidroid 9, he says he made "major modifications". Then, when Omnidroid 10 is deployed, it's beaten... the same way as the last one. What happened to those mods?
  • His modification was to make it much larger and stronger, so Mr. Incredible couldn't just climb inside and start wrecking things. Technically, Mr. Incredible lost against v10; he just happened to have backup.

Truck-cersizing

• When Mr. Incredible was exercising with the trains, shouldn't physics say he does pull ups instead of him picking up the two trains?
  • Same reason he can lift a tree without driving his feet into the ground, or hit things with a super-punch without knocking himself backward. His Super-Strength comes with the ability to ignore that whole "equal and opposite reaction" when he wants to.

Testing Omnidroid 10

• After Mr. Incredible beats Omnidroid 9, Syndrome tries to kill him conventionally. Shouldn't he have Omnidroid 10 do it? How was he planning on testing it?
  • The Omnidroid 10 was going to decapitate Bob before Syndrome intervened to monologue, he probably considered it finished at that point. As for killing Bob, he probably was going to have the Omnidroid finish him off but he accidentally pitched him over a mountain.

This message will self-destruct

• How did Mr. Incredible explain to Helen the mess the self-destructing message leaves?
  • The family never learns about the message, he discovers it in the trash when he dumps out his briefcase. He might have lied and said he was fiddling with some souvenir from his hero days which blew up on him. After all, he's had several run-ins with a villain whose gimmick is explosives (Bomb Voyage).

Planning Dash's race

• Shouldn't Dash and the rest of the family have determined what place he was going to come in during the track meet before they got there so they weren't screaming at him with other people around to pick a position, something you don't normally get to do in a competition? It's not like they wanted a surprise since they're picking for him.
  • They probably didn't care what place he came in; the problem (initially) wasn't so much that he was winning but that he got a bit overexcited and was winning by an unrealistic and potentially suspicious margin, and when they tried to point this out to him over the shouting of the crowd he misunderstood what they wanted and slowed down too much. "Come in second" was just an off-the-cuff idea to make his suddenly going from front runner to back of the crowd and back again look halfway plausible.

Stretching into shape

• In one scene on the island, Helen pauses to lament the shape of her butt in a mirror. A split second later, she uses her powers to squish flat against a wall. Why doesn't she just use her powers to appear as slim or shapely as she pleases?
  • She probably could, but presumably her stretching powers take some kind of effort, concentration or willpower to maintain, and as soon as she gets loses that concentration she slips back into her 'default mode', for want of a better term. She might not normally be sufficiently unhappy with her figure to consider it worth the effort or pretence. At that particular moment, she's implicitly still a little bit worried that her husband might be cheating on her, so she's likely to be a bit more insecure about her looks than she normally would be.

The Magic Falling Debris

• Ok, so Elastigirl's plane is hit by the missile, she and the kids are ejected from the wreckage. On the way down, Elastigirl wakes up, grabs the kids to form a parachute and slowly crashes into the surf. The trio exchange a few lines, and only then does a massive piece of the fuselage come crashing down right on top of them. How does that work? Shouldn't the wreckage have hit the water long before the Parrs, as well as land ina different spot?
  • Maybe it got blasted upwards in the explosion and had farther to fall.

No Moisture in the Burning Building

• Frozone said that he couldn't make ice in the burning building because there was no water in the air. However, water doesn't magically disappear in the presense of fire; all a fire would do is turn existing water into steam.
  • Frozone mentions that he is dehydrated, which seems to be the cause of his power incontinence. Once he has a single paper cup of water, he is hydrated enough to flash-freeze a cop. Further, keep in mind there's an ongoing fire. Any ice he makes would likely just begin evaporating again.
    As for why he said 'there's no water' instead? Basically, he's hot, dehydrated, trapped in a burning building, unable to use his powers because of the intense heat and the guy who got him into this mess is getting on his case about things out of his control. Frozone just wanted to get the point across and not spend time on a science lesson.
  • Hot air rises. Could be that the heat caused the ambient moisture to rise high above the flames, beyond Frozone's reach.

Yes, because when I want to beat something, I spend years building it up to be unbeatable.

• Why did Syndrome want to build up the Omnidroid by having it fight supers? His entire plan revolved around beating the damn thing. Why not just send out the first version and kick its ass in the city?
  • Because he needed to make sure that only he could beat it. Otherwise, the Omnidroid could be taken out by the military or some Super. Syndrome also implied that all of the other Supers he picked off were basically killing time until he could find Mr. Incredible, the best, the favorite, the one the Omnidroid had to beat.
  • As far as he knew, he would have complete control over the Omnidroid. The thought that its "learn and adapt" protocols would apply to him as well likely never crossed his mind.
  • He hates supers and wanted to see them humiliated and killed one by one. He also wanted to prove to himself that his genius was greater than their powers.

First Invisible Costume

• In the scene where Edna is explaining the suits to Helen, she says about Violet's "Your daughter's suit was tricky, but I finally created a sturdy material that will disappear completely as she does". This implies that she has never created a suit for an invisible hero before. So did every single invisible hero beforehand have to remove their clothes before using their powers?
  • There are various ways to become invisible - one could simply bend light, for example, which would not matter what you are wearing. Alternatively, there are other super suit designers. Violet was the first super with the invisibility power that Edna had to tackle.
  • Edna made reference before to Mr. Incredible's old suit being outmoded, which is her entire reason for making a new one (and then the rest) in the first place. Maybe she had an old material that worked but was comparatively fragile, so she had to make a new one to make it measure up to the other suits.
  • None of the other super in the NSA files had invisibility as a power (the closest is Meta Man, who had "partial invisibility" among a half-dozen others.) It's possible that there simply aren't enough supers in the Incredibles universe for invisibility to have popped up before.

Supers are finally back and respected... wait WHY?

• So the Supers were forced to go into hiding after people started suing them for damages. 15 years later, a robot shows up and wrecks the place, partially a result of someone being rejected by a Super, then some Supers show up and wreck the place more. Doesn't this just prove more that Supers are trouble? You'd expect the government to strengthen anti-super laws after this.
  • First, they don't know why Syndrome became a supervillain. Second, justifying a law because there was this one time under exceptional circumstances where having such a law was beneficial is...not a good argument (notably, the debate on anti-encryption and surveillance laws in our world). After all, said anti-super laws had allowed Syndrome to pick off supers one by one. If Mr. Incredible had still rejected Buddy but the laws never happened, then Syndrome would have had to use his Gadgeteer Genius skills either to become a hero on his own or become a jealous supervillain anyway.
  • Supers aren't made legal again until the sequel. And no, this isn't a retcon, you'll notice that the first movie does legitimately end with that thread unresolved, at most Dicker says the Incredibles won't be arrested for stopping the Omnidroid.

It's finally ready! But let's upgrade it again.

• Why did Syndrome bother upgrading Omnidroid V9 to V10 (note the number of legs and the laser cannon) when the V9 had already proven it can defeat Mr. Incredible?
  • Because the V9 is too small to wreck a city. The V10 doesn't just have more legs. It's also several times as high. However, their AI is mostly the same, minus the lack of direct control of its "mind".

Those are some pretty weak supers...

• Why were so many supers defeated so easily by Syndrome's earliest Omnidroids?
  • A fair number of Supers had either weak or overly specific powers, like telepathy and clairvoyance, which wouldn't work too well on a robot. Plus, these supers haven't been able to practice their art for fifteen long years. Them being forced to live like ordinary humans has left them "rusty".

What was Syndrome's Evil Plan?

• What exactly is so diabolical about Syndrome's plan, in the greater sense? He spent 15 years killing off supers just so he could take their place as a hero, which is wrong, but even then, he doesn't seem intent on taking over the world or anything - he just plans on selling stuff, getting rich, and in the result making everyone equal.
  • Just because the end itself is not evil does not mean the means are not. Syndrome becoming a superhero was not evil. Syndrome murdering people to take their place as a superhero certainly was. Even if the end result is that the world as a whole still gets saved, he chose a route that would kill innocents just because he was jealous.
    As for making everyone super, the terrible part was not taking away superheroes' uniqueness. The terrible part is that now everyone would have powers but not the responsibility to control them. If everyone has powers, that includes bank robbers, gangsters, terrorists, etc, now with the ability to break even more property and kill more people in the process. Syndrome wasn't powerful enough to defeat his own robot. That proves pretty conclusively that the offensive potential of his tech vastly outstrips the defensive potential. Would you want to live in a world filled with battling super-robots while civilians are constantly forced to flee?

Superheroes at Bob and Helen's wedding?

• Bob and Helen get married in their civil personas (the priests explicitly calls Mr. Incredible Robert Parr), but all of their guests save for Lucius, Edna and Agent Dicker are dressed in superhero outfits. How was the wedding conducted? Surely it must arouse suspicion that all these superheroes would attend their wedding. Was it conducted in secret? Was the priest in on their secret?
  • Probably, yes? It wasn't a huge crowd, so presumably everyone there knew, they didn't have a super public reception or anything, and maybe the priest was also a superhero or related to someone who was. This was when public opinion was good for superheroes, so maybe they didn't care as much if the priest sort of guessed.
  • In real life priests are obligated to keep the secrets of their parishioners so they could certainly do so in the Incredibles universe as well.
  • Maybe their "day job" cover stories had them working for the National Supers Agency. That would easily explain their friendships with people like Rick Dicker, and allow them to superhero mostly full-time (the government is paying them for this, remember.)
  • Everyone in the room knows the newlywed's secret identities. It's just like a regular wedding, where you only invite the people you already know and the general public isn't part of the crowd. Bob mentioned at the beginning that every hero has a secret identity and Frozone mentioned girls always trying to tell him theirs. So I think it's common practice for friendly supers to tell each other their identities; it's only non-supers who generally get left in the dark.

What was the point of the homing devices?

• The homing devices Edna installs in the supersuits really only serve one use in this film: to let Helen track her husband and subsequently get him caught by Syndrome. They come in, serve their purpose, and then leave without a trace. There are a number of other instances in the film where they could've been useful to the family, but as far as I know, they never seem to be brought up again.
  • The intended function of the trackers was so that they could know each other's locations if they got separated while performing Super duties. Evidently the whole thing soured Bob's perception of the trackers and so maybe he turned them off.
  • They use the device once and it turns out the thing generates a "homing signal" that Syndrome can track. So how would they ever benefit from using it a second time? They don't want Syndrome to track them down again.

Careful not to hit your wife!

• When Mr. Incredible throws the car at Syndrome's jet at the end, how did he manage to do it without hitting his giant parachute-wife, as she was falling through the sky carrying their son at the same time?
  • Because he aimed and threw it so he wouldn't hit her? He must have a lot of practice throwing things, since it's such an obvious application of his power. And she's not "giant," just spread out a bit. And well below the plane itself.

All those supers died, and no one noticed?

• Surely the government would've noticed something odd after so many supers they were supposed to be helping maintain anonymity disappeared without a trace? Wouldn't they have done some sort of investigation?
  • It would likely depend on how the bodies were being disposed of. Odds are Mirage found the other supers the same way that she found Bob, by catching them out doing hero work. So as long as the bodies were found in what appeared to be moonlight heroing accidents the government would just assume they were doing low key hero work and just made a mistake due to not wearing a protective suit and being rusty. Gazerbeam's a bit of an exception as Syndrome never found his body, or at least didn't bother to retrieve it.
  • If you're willing to be cynical, maybe the government was unempathatic, shrugged, and said 'Ah, who cares. Out of sight, out of mind.'
  • Who said the government DIDN'T notice? They were keeping tabs on forcibly-retired supers and even the press knew about Gazerbeam's disappearance. It's very likely that the government WAS investigating, secretly, but hadn't gotten very far in their investigation.
  • The newspaper only reported on the disappearance of lawyer Simon Paladino. They didn't know he was Gazerbeam.

Syndrome is Kronos?

• Is there a particular reason Syndrome chose the word "Kronos" as the name of his plan? In Greek mythology, Kronos was a Titan who murdered his father and usurped control of the world from him, and then devoured each of his children as they were born to keep them from doing the same to him. Symbolism or he just thought it sounded cool?
  • Kronos is the Omnidroid, the children he eats are the superheroes, and Syndrome intends to become Zeus by overthrowing the Omnidroid and so taking the throne of the supers. Or Mr. Incredible is Kronos, the father-figure who tried to suppress his son's abilities and was ultimately overthrown by him.

Mr. Huph doesn't understand publicity?

• Bob's actions in actually paying out to clients, instead of looking for ways to avoid paying claims, would actually strengthen the company. Word would get out that Insuricare is honest, and that would attract more customers. Also, since Bob is probably one of the few claims adjusters that actually does pay out, his actions are unlikely to put much of a dent in Insuricare's finances anyway.
  • This assumes Huph valued the long-term slow growth of the company rather than the short-term fast profit. It could be possible that he wanted to improve the financial prospects of the company as fast as possible and cash out shortly afterwards from the "success", where any future problems are not his to deal with. Then there's what he brings up to Bob near the beginning - if they all start being completely honest and open about their policies, as Bob is doing, they'd run the risk of giving people the idea to submit exaggerated or even falsified insurance claims.
  • This is, unfortunately, Truth in Television. Insurance makes its money by convincing lots of people to pay into it, while doing everything it can to not pay out, period. Publicity doesn't matter if your clients have little or no choice in coverage options, especially if all the other options have the same attitude.

High costs of the government program?

• If Syndrome was systematically killing off superheroes one by one, then why does the government agent still complain about the massive costs of keeping up the ruse? He makes it sound as if things like Bob's "accident" were still happening all the time, but that can't possibly be the case.
  • He's not complaining that keeping up the ruse ongoing was costly — he was complaining that moving the Parrs again was costly. Ie, Bob keeps doing this again and again.

Bob got fired...and that's it?

• Not trying to defend Mr. Huph, but how come Bob only got fired for what he did to his boss and not arrested nor charged for his assault and battery, as well as destruction of property (the walls)?
  • A deleted scene shows that Dicker erased Huph's memory of the incident and told him that Parr had already left the company before the incident. More than likely, Dicker just erased everyone's memories and told them Bob wasn't working there for another reason.

Nomanisan Timeline

• The timeline seems to get a little wonky in the middle of the movie. During Mr. I's second trip to Nomanisan, his "mission briefing" takes place at 2:00 PM island time. Just before then, Edna invites Helen to see her fresh batch of Super suits in one hour. During that visit, Helen activates the tracker on Bob's suit, which Syndrome says went off at 11:07 PM island time. Did Helen call Edna about the patch in her husband's old suit late in the day and spend the night at E's place before the Super suits were presented to her?
  • Time zones. Just because an Australian is currently sleeping doesn't mean an American is not enjoying lunch at the same moment.

Kari's phone calls

• When Helen calls the house to figure out what's happened after Violet and Dash followed her onto the plane, she still en route to Nomanisan, and the plane gets shot down shortly after she hangs up. How, then, was Kari able to leave messages for Helen if the phone used in the initial conversation was destroyed almost immediately after it was used?
  • Most likely, Kari had a different phone number that she'd been using to try to get in touch with Helen, which Helen either didn't have with her or was too busy to answer. (It may've been in the bag she brought with her, and we don't see the bag after Dash and Violet leave the cave.) And there are ways to access your voicemail from other phones.
  • In some countries voicemail was stored by the phone company, so, it didn't matter if the physical phone is destroyed.

How does Bob's car get back to his driveway?

• In the middle of the movie, Bob leaves his house and drives to, presumably, the airport to be flown to Nomanisan. He takes the rocket back to the city and is driven in Dicker's government vehicle back to his house after the climax—where his car is somehow sitting in the driveway, ready for him to throw it at Syndrome's plane.

Frozone's relocation

• The Parrs are stated to have been relocated several times, and Frozone is a long-time, consistent family friend. So is Frozone being relocated at the same time for the same reasons, or is he just following them?
  • Just because they're relocating doesn't mean they're relocating very far. Frozone lives in the big city, while the Parrs live in the suburbs — there could be a lot of suburbs, each with different school districts, around and within the city. The government could relocate the Parrs to a number of places still within driving distance for Frozone.
    Also, most of the secret superheroing Bob performed, he seemed to perform with Frozone. The two of them having to be relocated over the same incidents at least a few times doesn't seem too implausible.
    • In that case, why does the NSA keeps relocating them so close to each other, if it knows they work together so often?
    • Rick Dicker is friends with Bob, so it's not a stretch to think he's friends with Lucius as well. Evidently Rick did them a favour and relocated them close to each other.

Why yes, I would help you murder Supers. Oh, wait, you're evil? I quit!

• Why did it take Mirage so long to recognise that what Syndrome was doing was deeply immoral?
  • Mirage turning on Syndrome was mostly spurred on when he thoughtlessly gambled her life after she'd pushed him out of Mr. Incredible's reach.
  • It could also depend on her initial motive for helping Syndrome. As an example, she may be one of those civilians who think that the heroes just fight for the sake of beating people up rather than because they actually want to help anyone, and thought that Syndrome's plans would punish them for enjoying the fight and never thinking about those caught in the crossfire. When Mr. Incredible showed genuine emotion and grief over the potential loss of his family where Syndrome didn't care about the idea that Mirage might be killed, it helped her see that at least the Incredibles genuinely want to help rather than just to fight people.
  • It's not too difficult to think how Mirage could have constructed a rationalization for her actions. The superheroes she lured to Nomanisan were all adults. She wouldn't have found them (most likely) unless they were moonlighting enough to get on her radar. Some of did manage to take out the Omnidroid, so they weren't helpless victims—obviously that's all hogwash, but of such things is the human psyche made when it's being steered into an immoral course of action. But those kind of justifications don't stand up when your boss/lover decides that it's okay to kill children, and then callously suggests that their enraged father go through his threat of killing you in vengeance.

"There's no crying at Edna's house!"

• Why would Edna not have any tissues around her house just because she never cries? Is she immune to spilling things or something?
  • Apparently she uses toilet paper, like she offers to Helen when she's bawling her eyes out.

Getting a different job

• Why couldn't Bob be given a job like police officer or something that satisfies his desire to help people, even if he can't blatantly use his superpowers like he also wants to? It seems like relocated supers are given jobs by the government, so why shouldn't he have one that satisfies him, to some degree?
  • Probably for the same reasons they don't let Dash play sports — sooner or later, his super-strength will be used, he'll give himself away, and there'll be legal problems. The job at Insuricare is probably the most the NSA could get away with to satisfy Bob's wants.

Elastigirl is a hypocrite?

• How come Elastigirl tells her husband and children not to use their powers, but uses hers all the time?
  • Because they don't have the self-control to not use them in public, like Dash keeps doing. To ad, she tells Bob not to blow his cover. She doesn't say a word against, say, bench-pressing locomotives in the railyard, or playing catch with Dash in the park, because Bob takes care not to be seen doing it.

Just tell someone

• Why didn't Bob just report his boss for trying to deny insurance claims that he has no reason to?
  • It's almost guaranteed that Insuricare word their policies very clearly to be within the letter of the law while being way outside the spirit of it. He can't report them if they're not actually doing anything illegal.

Didn't think your plan through

• If Syndrome's plan goes ahead, what's to stop a Super from buying his inventions along with everyone else?
  • Syndrome seemed to be implying that his inventions would bring normal people up to the level of the supers; therefore, a super buying his gadgets would be, in his eyes, redundant. Besides, Syndrome didn't seem to be trying to actively purge supers, aside from his Omnidroid tests. His goal was to spite the supers, and specifically Mr. Incredible, for apparently looking down on him due to his lack of powers. The idea was to prove that they're not so special after all if he can bring normals to their level.

Mirage's very obvious message

• The device Mirage delivers to Mr. Incredible scans the room to guarantee that only her target would listen to her secret message. Reasonable. What is not is that the device analyzes Bob's face and loudly proclaims he is Mr. Incredible before scanning the room.
  • It's a pretty egregious flaw at first glance, but Bob didn't come across it until after he'd gone home. Evidently Mirage hides the device in such a way that the target would only find it in a private location. What's really weird is that the device scans the area for witnesses in such a glaringly unsubtle way. For something that's meant to relay classified information, that's a pretty blatant way of letting everyone know that something's afoot.
    • There might simply be no subtler way Syndrome/Mirage could think of to scan a room. Since the device can self-destruct, perhaps it'll blow up and thus destroy any evidence that can raise suspicion in the chance that someone was around.

Syndrome finding the Parr house.

• When Syndrome arrives at the Parr house to pretend to be the replacement sitter in order to lure the Incredibles into his trap. How exactly did Syndrome figure out the Incredibles' secret identities and where they lived?
  • The reason Bob ended up on Nomanisan is because Mirage was tailing him earlier in the film. (Okay, she was tailing Frozone originally, but then switched to Bob once she realized he was Mr. Incredible.) She knew Bob's address from watching Lucius pick him up to go "bowling", and figuring out his name wouldn't be too hard considering a later scene shows that she's infiltrated his workplace, as well.

Was Mirage too hard on Syndrome for calling Bob's bluff?

• When Bob holds Mirage hostage, what exactly was Syndrome going to do? If he lets Bob out, there's a huge risk that Bob will kick his ass and ruin his entire plan. And if he sincerely believes that Bob is willing to kill Mirage, who's to say he won't end up killing her anyway after he's free? Sure, Syndrome was still an ass to Mirage afterward, but tactically speaking, he made the right call and Mirage should have recognized that.
  • People do not think tactically when they are being held by someone threatening to crush the life out of them. What Mirage saw there was not a cold, rational, tactical situation that she was in a position to calmly assess from the comfort and safety of total detachment. What she saw there was her boss completely failing to care that she was in danger. Mirage probably already had the last straw when he called the missile strike on a plane with kids. She was likely gonna leave him for that anyway, but then he crosses the line by betting on her life, which made him irredeemable in her eyes.
  • Even if she realized on some level that Syndrome's approach was best in principle, there's the fact that he didn't even seem conflicted about it; he actually seemed to be enjoying the whole thing. There was no hesitance or indecision in response to Bob's threat; he casually dismissed it at first and then actually tried goading him to follow through on it. If he was only trying to call what he perceived to be a bluff, then he was too good an actor for his own good.

Psychological projection

• When Bob complains about society celebrating mediocrity, is it him lamenting society in general or Bob projecting his own insecurities onto Dash?
  • Yes, Bob is projecting his own issues onto Dash. He's upset that he can't get thanks for saving people, but Dash gets a ceremony for what is essentially a very low bar that everyone is expected to be able to pass.

Dynaguy - Sued or Snagged?

• During the Superhero Suing sequence, one of the headlines is "Dynaguy Sued", and was likely forced to go into hiding. However, Edna later lists him as part of the Cape Snag montage. So, which is it?
  • They're not mutually exclusive. There was presumably a period between the mass of superhero suits and the Supers Ban said suits caused. Presumably, it was during this time that his cape snagging incident occurred, and he either got badly injured or died as a result.

How does the Incredibile change Bob into his supersuit?

• If you watch the scene closely the car is creating the suit out of nothing over his clothes, or possibly even morphing his clothes into his supersuit. It would also be very hard to remove his clothes as he is wearing a jacket and a buttoned-up shirt. How exactly is it doing this?
  • Considering that there appears to be two parts of the machine that also appear to use suction technology in order to stick, there are probably two parts to the suit that can be taken apart manually.

It's not just superhero work, it's saving people's lives!

• When Helen is arguing with Bob about the burning building, why doesn't he make the very good argument that innocent people would have died had he and Frozone not been there to rescue them?
  • He does try to bring it up, pointing out that he performed a public service. Helen basically dismisses it as him shifting the blame from his desire to relive the glory days, suggesting that being altruistic isn't what it's really about for him, at least in her head.

No answer? Time to suit up!

• Why did Helen feel the need to put on her super suit as a result of no one answering her request to land on the island? Did she actually suspect that they would attempt to shoot her plane down?
  • She was heading into unknown territory. She probably wasn't expecting to get shot down, but the suit would still be useful on the island. It's not at all out of character for her to be prepared.

Why doesn't the principal believe Bernie?

• Sure, the footage shown by Dash's teacher is blurry, but Bernie is right that the only logical conclusion can be that Dash put the tack on his chair. Heck, the first time the footage is shown you can actually make out Dash's faint silhouette in the vicinity of Bernie's desk, so the principal's disbelief is rather perplexing.
  • It's still circumstantial evidence at best, and that's being generous. A far more likely explanation would be "Dash happened to be adjusting his posture at the same time and the tape glitched".
  • Gaslighting and avoiding a lawsuit, or even a criminal suit. If this state is a two party consent law state, Bernie might have just committed an outright felony in setting up that camera. Better to act like Bernie is a crazy paranoid person and go "sorry about him, I will have a talk with him, carry on with your day ma'am!" than risk her going to the cops.

How much did Bob get paid?

• He was paid triple his annual salary, but how much was that? He looked like he was burning through money with the new cars, new clothes, and getting back in shape instead of looking for a new job. How long did he think his money was going to last him?
  • His old job paid enough to sustain him and the rest of his family, and he got paid 3 years worth of that all at once. A new car, new clothes and a couple of months of training(considering how motivated he seemed to be about it it's likely that it didn't take him long to get back into shape) aren't that big of an expense with the new cash reserves. And his talk to Edna seems to imply that he expects to receive more missions.

"Now I have to pay to fix the table."

• After Bob accidentally cuts through Dash's dinner plate, the knife goes slightly into the table. Bob is frustrated, as he now has to "pay to fix the table" but then as he leaves to get a new plate of food, he just pulls the knife out of the table and life goes on. What exactly needs fixing? The car obviously needed repairs, but does a small dent in the table really warrant a repairman coming in to fix it?
  • He was probably just exaggerating due to being in a bad mood. It was just one more bad thing on a really bad day so he felt frustrated and took it too far.

Where's Omnidroid v9?

• So Mr. Incredible fights and destroys the Omnidroid v8 in the volcano. Then, later, Syndrome summons him back and attacks him with the rebuilt robot which he then takes to attack the city... but we see that the one in the city is the v10 according to its POV HUD. So... whatever happened to the v9?
  • It was immediately retired after proving to be impossible for Mr. Incredible to stop, as it was built purely for that purpose. Since the v10 was already planned to attack the city, he must have rapidly put together the v9 purely so he could get his one chance to overpower and humiliate Mr. Incredible (since the plan was for him to be killed by the v8) before killing him for good (which also fails).

No mugging, no insurance to pay

• Why did Mr. Huph threaten to fire Bob if he stopped the mugging? Stopping the mugging would've actually saved the company some money since they wouldn't have to pay the victim if the mugger didn't succeed.
  • He's an amoral Control Freak who cares more about Bob defying him than helping people. Additionally, his "Let's hope we don't cover him" statement was more a facetious comment than him seriously considering the possibility that they have to would pay him.

Why Is Helen Pissed

• Why is Helen un-pleased for Dash to be sent to the office for the third time and believed Bernie eventually even though she didn't at first?
  • If someone watches closely, they can see Dash go blurry. The principal was looking for a kid running, but not running that fast, so if he saw it he would have dismissed it as a flaw in the tape. Helen knows better; when she sees the blur, she recognizes it for what it is.