Let’s talk about “The Incredibles”

I recently watched “The Incredibles” for a second time, and I noticed how incredibly similar it is to “Watchmen”. I mean, it takes place in a world where superheroes aren’t allowed to be superheroes, its main villain is someone who’s trying to be a hero, and so forth. How can you not see the similarities between the two? And even those who would say that “The Incredibles” isn’t as dark as “Watchmen”, you may be right (even though “The Incredibles” is one of the darkest Disney movies ever, second only to “Pirates Of The Caribbean”). But there is one similarity between the two that I don’t really understand.

So you have one hero, Nite Owl/Mr. Incredible, who misses being a superhero, and would do anything just so he can be a hero again. And you have his significant other, Silk Spectre/Elastigirl, who would be perfectly fine with living a normal life. Sure, she mellows out toward the end, but until then, she seems very adamant about not being a hero anymore. Now, in case of the “Watchmen” characters, it makes sense. Nite Owl was originally a hero that was active during the 1930s and ’40s. The character Dan Dreiberg was a fan of the original Nite Owl, and so when he retired, Dreiberg took over. In other words, the second Nite Owl grew up wanting to be a superheroe, and he got a chance to pick up where the man he idolized left off. Silk Spectre on the other hand, had a slightly different history. Her mother was the first Silk Spectre, and when she got a daughter, she may have trained her since birth to one day take over from her. So unlike the second Nite Owl, Laurie (the second Silk Spectre) was forced into the world, she had no choice in the matter. So when the law forbid her to do anything, it must have been a relief for her. So it makes sense for Nite Owl to miss being a hero, and for Silk Spectre to be perfectly fine with it. In case of “The Incredibles”… what is their reasoning? Why is it the guy who misses it and the woman who is fine with it? Never explained. Of course, I’m not saying it should be spoon-fed to us. After all, they didn’t explicitly explain this in “Watchmen” either, but since we knew the origins of the characters, it helped us make sense of their stance on the matter. But what is the origin of “The Incredibles”? How/why did Mr. Incredible become incredible? How/why is Elastigirl elastic? We don’t know. At least in “Sky High”, we focus on second generation superheroes, of whom it can be said that they simply inherited the powers from their parents. How did the parents gain their superpowers? We don’t know, but they are just supportive cast, so we don’t need to know their origins. But “The Incredibles” focus so much on Mr. Incredible and his family, and yet we know so little about him. Or his wife. So it seems to me that the only reason that Mr. Incredible misses being a superhero and Elastigirl being alright with it, is because it was in “Watchmen”, and no other reason.

Still, despite this little nitpick of mine, it was still a good movie. The animation was awesome, it knew exactly what tropes of the genre to address and how to play with them, and even the villain was someone we could sympathize with. Now, since this is a Disney movie, as is the aforementioned “Sky High”, and the character Darkwing Duck, and Marvel Comics has become Disney property… Ok, there’s a time and place for geeking out, and this isn’t one of them.