The Incredibles is Deeper than You Think
Updated: Mar 12, 2025
The Incredibles (2004) is objectively one of the best superhero movies created, simply because it's less like a typical superhero movie. The creator of this film, Brad Bird, wanted to take a huge risk for this film by creating something completely original.
After being fired from Disney for calling the studio out for “not wanting to take risks”, Bird took his passion to 20th Century Fox and created The Iron Giant. This animated feature broadcasted all of Bird's passions and ideologies, with the theme around how life is sacred and nothing lasts forever. With fluid animation, beautiful visuals, lovable characters, and a touching story, the movie flopped. Completely undeserved, and due to unfortunate timing, Bird moved on to Pixar to develop an idea that had been snowballing since 1990.
Pixar decided to give Bird sole control over The Incredibles, which launched this world and characters into reality exactly how Bird wanted it. Bird brought in the “black sheep” of the animators to bring true creativity to this film; those with unique creative vision who were also tired of being tied down by safe-going corporations. And when it came down to it, Bird still listened to others when a change in the story was suggested. Even though he was dead set on his vision, he made sure to do what was best for the film, not just himself.
Unlike most superhero films these days, Bird centered the story around a family rather than just their superpowers. He based their scenes and dynamics on his own family life which made the characters relatable. Their superpowers were also based on their family role, making the powers part of their character (Bob being the strength of the family, Helen having to stretch and pull the family together, Violet being defensive and feeling invisible as a teenager, and Dash having tons of energy as a young boy).
The concept for the film is unique in itself. One would expect a superhero movie to be some kind of origin story, the main character gaining their superpowers, learning how to use them, a villain appears and the main character’s goal is to defeat them. In this case, this film hits fast forward on the life of a superhero. Bird brings in his realism to the world of supers. How does society feel about them? What about city damage? How do these superheroes fit into the real world, as normal people? This film focuses on the hero days being over, their existence shunned by society, and reminiscing about the glory days. This can serve as a metaphor for many, which is due to Bird’s talent as a writer. And looking at the villain in this film, it’s the villain that finds the main characters in the first place. Events unfold because the main characters were pulled into it instead of the main character chasing after the plot. This gives more time to dive into the characters and how they react to these outside forces, as well as a great way to add suspense, since the audience and the main character are on the same page.
Speaking of suspense, another unique angle for this superhero film is the genre leaning a bit into spy films. Bird was a Bond fan, and definitely pushed that influence into this film. On top of fighting robots & people, there was a lot of focus on stealth, information, and deception. The characters weren't after something, they were figuring things out as we were. Usually accompanied with the spy genre, a jazz theme for the score paired nicely with the spy aspect of the plot & brought a slyness vibe to the film, but kept the badass action factor of superheroes & were balanced nicely.
Risk factor also matters in a superhero film. Superhero films are usually rated for a more mature teen audience, so those usually don’t shy away from violence. But for a kids film, the violence is usually dialed down or censored as to not scare younger audiences. However, when it comes to Brad Bird, he is steadfast on not sugarcoating to children. He trusts kids’ intuition to take in what they watch and learn from it. The risk factor in The Incredibles is very high and isn’t scared to censor anything for kids. For Pixar, this is their first PG film, first to fully be about humans, first to show guns shooting at people, first to display a suicide attempt, and first to show blood, wounds, and alcohol. Most PG films these days lean towards censorship for the kids watching, but this film proves it’s not needed. Brad Bird wanted to tell a realistic story & even says so in the dialogue (Helen explicitly tells her children “These guys won’t hold back just because you’re kids. They will kill you.”) The film covered adult themes like suicide, family drama, and legal disputes, but the kids watching didn’t grasp anything past the emotion of the scene and the vague movement of the plot because they simply didn’t retain that much knowledge yet. As a PG animated Pixar film, The Incredibles went deeper than most superhero films when it comes to politics, risk, & safety.
If you haven’t seen The Incredibles, or haven't watched it in many years and reading all of this doesn’t match up with the film you remember, go watch it. Really watch it.
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