Trivia / The Incredibles

• Breakthrough Hit: While both director Brad Bird and composer Michael Giacchino had several well known productions under their belt, it was this film that launched both of their careers into the stratosphere, with Giacchino in particular getting to compose many more films after this one (indeed this was his first major film, the film he did before this was a Direct to Video thriller with Gary Oldman and Ving Rhames).
• Cast the Runner-Up: For the Latin Spanish dub, Mario Filio, Claudia Garzón and Ricardo Tejedo voiced Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and a person on the phone summoning Mr. Incredible, in the trailers. But Víctor Trujillo and Consuelo Duval were both cast for the first two parts instead. Despite this, Mario dubbed one of Syndrome's guards at Nomanisan Island, the Manta Jet's autopilot voice and the robot bird that identified Dash and Violet as intruders. In Claudia's case, she voiced the woman interviewing Mr. Incredible at the beginning. Ricardo, who directed the dubbing, also voiced Oliver Sansweet's lawyer and the cop who mistook Bob and Lucius for burglars.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • In Japan, Syndrome is voiced by Hiroyuki Miyasako (the boke of Ameagari Kesshitai, who would later voice Ultraman Belial and Baron Ashura), while Underminer is voiced by Professional Wrestling legend Nobuhiko Takada.
  • In the Hindi dub, Mr. Incredible is voiced by none other than Shah Rukh Khan himself.
  • In Mexico, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Frozone, Syndrome, Mr. Huph, Edna Mode and Honey Best are all voiced by Víctor Trujillo, Consuelo Duval, Martín Hernández, Omar Chaparro, the late Antonio Miguel, Darío T. Pie and Charo Fernández.
  • The Argentine dub surprisingly brings many celebrities together: Sebastián Llapur as Mr. Incredible, Juana Molina as Elastigirl, Rubén Rada as Frozone, Nicolas Frías and Matías Martín as Syndrome (as a child and adult respectively), Florencia Otero as Violet, Gastón Sofritti as Dash, Carolina Peleritti as Mirage, Favio Posca as Edna Mode, Rodolfo Rodas as Mr. Huph, Dorita Guzmán as Mrs. Hogenson, Dani Martins as Tony Rydinger, Eduardo Ferrari as Bernie Kropp, Juan Carlos Olmedo as Dash's school principal, Carolina Ibarra as Kari, Silvia Dabove as Honey Best and Lalo Mir as the newsreel narrator.
• Completely Different Title: The Russian title is Суперсемейка, which means "Superfamily."
• Creator Breakdown: Personal issues had percolated into the story as they weighed on Brad Bird in life. Approaching middle age and having high aspirations for his filmmaking, Bird pondered whether his career goals were attainable only at the price of his family life. He stated, "Consciously, this was just a funny movie about superheroes. But I think that what was going on in my life definitely filtered into the movie.".
• Creator-Chosen Casting:
  • Brad Bird cast Sarah Vowell as Violet after hearing her voice on This American Life. He stated that she was "perfect" for the part and immediately called her to offer her the role. ^note Even though Disney/Pixar considered having an actual teenager voice Violet, had Vowell turned it down.
  • Bird cast Samuel L. Jackson as Frozone because he wanted the character to have the coolest voice.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Brad Bird as Edna (they brought in Lily Tomlin to voice Edna, but when she heard Brad demonstrate the kind of voice he wanted, she immediately declared Brad needed to do the voice himself). While the same thing is done in many of the dubs, this is averted in others, such as the French, European Spanish and Italian dubs.
• Dawson Casting: Sarah Vowell was 34 when she first voiced 14-year-old Violet, and 48 the second time. Of course, she was cast in the first place because her natural voice just happens to sound squeaky and adolescent. No doubt she could play the character indefinitely. ^note  Assuming that there is no Time Skip in any future films where Violet is an adult.
• Descended Creator:
  • Brad Bird, the director and writer of the film, is also the voice of Edna Mode.
  • Production designer Lou Romano is the voice of Bernie Kropp, Dash's hapless teacher.
• Development Gag:
  • When Buddy is showing off his homemade rocket boots to Mr. Incredible, Buddy asks if he can fly. An early idea was to have Bob being the only member of the Parr family that couldn't fly (and being a bit self-conscious about it).
  • In early drafts, Syndrome (then just a One-Scene Wonder) called retired superheroes back into action to battle the Omnidroids to the death.
• Diagnosis of God: In the DVD Commentary, the creators confirmed that Syndrome had schizophrenia.
• Dueling Dubs: There are two Brazilian Portuguese dubs, the theatrical one last featured on the DVD. The changed dubbers in the second one were retained in the sequel.
• Enforced Method Acting: To give Dash a more realistic sounding out-of-breath voice, Brad Bird would make Spencer Fox run laps around the studio.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's released a set of eight action figures of the Parr family, Frozone, Syndrome, and the Incredibile in their Happy Meals.
• Licensed Game: There are three: The action-adventure adaptation of the movie suitably stretched out on Nomanisan Island and starring the whole family, a sequel beat-em-up game called Rise of the Underminer starring Mr. Incredible and Frozone, and LEGO The Incredibles.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Amanda Lear dubs Edna Mode in the France and Italian versions.
• No Export for You:
  • The DVD bonus feature "Vowellet" is included only on the Region 1 DVD — not Region 2 or Region 4. Presumably, because Sarah Vowell is fairly unknown outside the US.
  • The film wasn't released in China.
• One-Book Author: Violet is Sarah Vowell's only acting role, as she's better known as a writer and essayist instead of a professional actress.
• The Other Darrin: In the tie-in game, Mr. Incredible is voiced by Richard McGonagle (replacing Craig T. Nelson)^note who does a stunning job at replicating Nelson's voice and Elastigirl is voiced by Elizabeth Daily (replacing Holly Hunter), ^note who uses her Buttercup voice, which makes Helen sound younger.
• Permanent Placeholder: Brad Bird's voice for Edna was just something he did to give potential actresses an idea of what he was looking for. He only decided to do it himself when Lily Tomlin, his first choice, told him that it was perfect the way it was.
• Playing Against Type: Jason Lee, known primarily for comedic roles, as the psychopathic but still very funny Syndrome, basically a darker take on Lee's comedic roles.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Both Tony Rydinger and Rusty (the boy on the tricycle) are voiced by two of Brad Bird's sons.
  • In the Canadian French dub, Mr. Huph and Tony are voiced by Manuel Tadros and Xavier Dolan respectively, who are father and son in real life.
• Regional Bonus: In European versions, several inscriptions during Mr. Incredible's search on the villain's main computer have been replaced with generic graphical symbols. For instance, "Location: Unknown" is replaced by a question mark in front of a globe, "Location: Known" is replaced by a highlighted map section, and "Terminated" is replaced by a red diagonal line.
• Sequel Gap: How long did it take for Incredibles 2 to release? A staggering fourteen years later.
• Sequel in Another Medium: The comic book is an attempted one. At the time, Brad Bird hadn't settled on a sequel for the movie quite yet, so the comic was made in the interim with the theory if the sequel would come, some time would've passed in-universe^note though the comic does use the first film's ending as a jumping off point, implying it's still an Immediate Sequel. No one could've guessed when the sequel was finally developed that it would directly pick up after the first film.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The whole "no capes" rule - and the resulting monologue from Edna - was added so the animators wouldn't have to animate the cape physics.
• Shrug of God:
  • No one who worked on The Incredibles, not even Brad Bird, knows why the Pizza Planet truck gag wasn't included in the film.
  • When talking about the comics, Mark Waid said that Syndrome might have survived the movie but refused to give a definite answer.
  • Brad doesn't know how The Incredibles got their powers, as he hopes to never explain them.
• Star-Making Role: For Michael Giacchino, whose previous work had mostly been video games and TV shows. Thanks to this film, he's now one of Hollywood's most in-demand composers.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
• Word of God:
  • According to Brad Bird, Helen Parr's maiden name is Truax.
  • The writer of the comic detailed Xerek's backstory on Twitter (since removed), revealing him as a man with an ability to continually achieve victory that has lived for over 200 years through various life-extension/eternal youth schemes, but has now become a Death Seeker wanting to bring the world down with him.

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