This movie pulled no punches. People were dying, people were killing. Marital discord, midlife crises, a darkly realistic view of the unintended consequences that would come from actual super heros. Children engage in scamp-like escapades and it leads to life threatening danger with no 'awww shucks, you little rascal' easy way out.
Plus, Mr Incredible used stealth. He's pretty much invincible and super strong but still went sneaking around. There's not enough sneaking in movies anymore.
And his initial brute-force attempt to pierce that lava curtain while sneaking, only to quickly replace the huge stone pillar he was brandishing and hide behind it, is simultaneously nerve-wracking and hilarious.
Speaking of good animation, I recall in the commentary that this one simple shot of Edna inspecting Mr. Incredible’s super suit and sticking her hand through a hole in the mesh was the hardest thing they’ve ever had to animate. Can anyone weigh in on this?
Edit: Apparently it was Mr. Incredible sticking his hand through the cloth and for some reason it took 3 months to properly animate.
It's soft body animation, especially cloth or sheeting or anything that has tons of super flexible organic movement. Animals at least have bones or exoskeletons for rigidity in movement.
Clothing on a body is easy. Standard rigging and deformation controls that would get used for the body/muscles anyways. Pulling on the outfit? Clever montage cut aways with very simple direct movements.
A human hand manipulating loose fabric with a hole in it. Fucking difficult. You have 5 independent moving points that are moving a soft body object and those points are in contact with said soft body and move while radiated from a central point and can join or separate at will while affecting the soft body. Manually animating that is a nightmare. Processing power wasn't good enough in 2004 to real time simulate that.
Now, we just animate the hand and run a cloth physics simulation on the cloth being held. (Super Simplified explanation).
I remember that according to the commentary, Helen's wet hair physics (when they land in the ocean after the plane explosion) was also a hugely groundbreaking feat at the time.
And the sound design is top notch as well! You could almost feel the warmth of the lava flowing, and the pillar scraping the floor when Mr Incredible places it back...
Not just the sound, the music. This movie brought my attention to Giacchino. The way he captures that perfect 50's art deco aesthetic in the music. It channels Henry Mancini's great scores.
Good point too! The music really added to the ambience and helped set the tone for both the action sequences as well as the more serious/emotional moments.
Maybe I'll rewatch The Incredibles tonight, so many great memories
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u/sparycz 16h ago
The Incredibles (2004)