August 4, 2023 • 47 mins
Pixar is renowned for creating emotionally resonant and thought-provoking animated movies, and "Incredibles 2" falls short of the studio's own high standards. Nevertheless, fans of the original might still enjoy the nostalgia and moments of humor, but for those seeking a truly exceptional sequel, "Incredibles 2" leaves much to be desired.
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(00:03):
Welcome to the nerd Polity. Welcomeback to Houselights, our director discussion show
here on the Nerd Party Network.Today, we're completing The Birdhouse, covering
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Brad Bird's final directed work as ofthis date, Incredibles Too. It's also
Brad's first sequel. I'm Darren Moserand I'm joined again by my friend's screen
slaver, Goggle repairman Tristan Riddell andAmbassador to the Supers John Mills. Gentlemen,
no caps allowed as we discuss atjust how much money this film made.
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Wow, Incredibles Too. Not theIncredibles Too. Only two words,
only two words. Yeah, thisis It's not often that we get to
sequels. I mean, granted,we had Godfather and that's kind of its
own, its own thing. Butyeah, now we get to see,
after fourteen years, Brad Bird comeback to the well of this story.
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And I think that's going to bereally interesting to compare and contrast, because
you know, does the second storyhold up to the first? Is it?
You know, technology has advanced.It's not like can we do humans
and hair? You know it?Pixar has advanced so much between those two
two years. But let's start withone of our favorite first questions. Again,
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this was only five years ago,twenty eighteen. Tristan, When did
you see this? Did you?Was it of course Pixar time to see
it or was the incredible to youknow, like, eh, maybe maybe
let it go to streaming. Thisone was let go to streaming, like
it was. It was very much. I've waited fourteen years. I can
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wait, you know, a fewmonths more. I can wait six months
too bad. Yeah, honestly,I think I think that was it.
Like if it was two years after, I probably would have been like,
oh sweet, another Incredibles film.Yeah, I'll go see that right away.
But because it was so long,it was monumental because it was so
long, but at the same timedetrimental because you could wait, no problem.
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And so yeah, I saw thiswhen it was streaming, and that
was the only time I watched itwas in twenty eighteen when it was released
on streaming. Well, so Ijust looked it up. So this movie
was fourteen years after the first one, just beating out by one year,
longer than James Cameron's gap between Avatarand Avatar two of thirteen years. Wow,
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Brad, you you waited you outI didn't think anyone would outdo Cameron
on that stat but you did.When this movie was coming out, there
was there was so much any memesof Gary Oldman's character Serious Black in the
Harry Potter films when he's like,I've done my waiting. Well, what
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about you, John? Does thistaking the family to the cineplex? Or
were you ready to wait an extrasix months to just sit in your own
home with your own food and justenjoy the Incredibles too. This was my
first time watching it. I haddidn't even cool. It wasn't It wasn't
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one of those things where it waslike a conscious thing or it was like
screw that movie. It was moreof a thing of I will go ahead
and speak to this one being skepticalabout you waiting that long between sequels.
I was that way with Avatar tooas well. But I'm gonna I'm gonna
go ahead and throw the first controversialcomment out there that number one in May
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of twenty eighteen. I believe Iwas more excited at the end of that
month to see Solo, a StarWars story, and I believe I used
the weekend that Incredibles two came outto go see that again. And I
think that additionally, the worm hadsort of started to turn on the long
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the long awaited sequel, slash,reboot, slash whatever. By this point,
I like, for me at least, where I started to question.
I was like, well, dowe really need to go back to these
things? And so my decision wasagain wasn't like, oh screw this movie.
It was like, I'll get toit and then it's just it once.
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Nowadays, in the streaming era,once it goes in the I'll get
to it. Que stuff continually getsput in front of it. It's the
reason that bookshelves never empty is becauseyou're always like, oh, well,
i'll read this after this one,I'll read this after that. You just
keep adding and adding and adding,and then you lose track. And you
have a podcast about movies, sowe're all constantly putting things on your queue
in front of other things. Itis true. Homework does get in the
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way a lot of times. Thatis a fact. That's why long time
listeners will know that if I reallywant John to watch something, I send
him a physical copy of the moviewith a note that says, love you
watch this. This is true.This is true, and it works every
time. So if there's somebody outthere that wants me to watch a movie,
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send a message to Tristan over atthe Insane Robin and tell them to
send me a physical copy there.I'll send it. I won't give out
your address, but I will sendit to him. You can to TNP
headquarters. So I think you needto start a appeal box, Sean and
give that out and then just peoplewill send you random movies. You got
to get the capitalized capitalize. Ilove it. I love it. So
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yeah, I did see this intheaters. I also do have fairly young
children who are still kind of inthat Disney Pixar grasp. And though this
was the year that Into the SpiderVerse came out and was kind of redefining
what animation could be. And itwas in length, yeah, because this
was the longest one. Was thisthe longest Pixar film in terms of minutes?
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It feels like it was the longestanimated film, and then CG animated
film, and then Across the SpiderVerse came out and it beat it.
Yeah it so yeah, I sawit again, probably just because it's Pixar.
You know you you pretty much knowwhat you're gonna get with a Pixar
movie, and you know, weit enjoyed it, but it's interesting.
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It not that I want to unpackinto a bigger discussion, but it feels
like Disney and Pixar like two points, Disney and Pixar almost kind of looked
the same at this point, likethey're like the visual style is just a
hair different between the two. Andalso you have the fact that it is
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a style, and I would ratherPixar be known for a certain you know,
cinematic storytelling quality, and that isthe only constant, not well,
I know what a character is goingto look like in a Pixar movie versus
again, you know, we'll mentionSpider Verse a lot, but something that
is leaning into being an animated film, playing with the color and the camera
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and the action and the comic booknessand all of that. And Pixar movies
don't really risk that anymore. Theyare they are not always photo real,
but it's just hard when you're playingin this caricature world that these animated films
fall in, and it's just likethey're not taking risks. This doesn't feel
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like a risk. This feels likeit made a lot of money on the
first one, and so we're goingto bring out a second one and it
worked. I mean, we talkedabout last week about brad Bird's Tomorrowland needing
to recoup some lot, although thatwas different production company, but this was
budgeted for two hundred mill just alittle more than Tomorrowland was, and made
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worldwide one point two billion dollars.It print diion with so much money.
H I M. So that's mysoapbox about Pixar. But what do you
think of that, John? No? I mean, I think that's a
very fair point. Is Disney theDisney effect is taking place by this point,
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and it's what I mean by thatis is Disney's corporate imprint has become
overbearing and there feels like there's alot less room for innovation and ingenuity.
And you know, that's just myopinion, and I think that that is
probably one of the things that didn'tmake me excited for Incredibles too, is
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because even in the ads, II felt like I'd seen this before and
why why would I you know,I was like, why would there be
any urgency? As opposed to becauseit was mentioned earlier into the Spider Verse,
which okay, Incredibles two made onepoint two billion dollars, which was,
you know, point one point onebillion less than the Last Jedi,
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which cost one hundred million more tomake, and all of that stuff.
But by this point it's just Disney'sin the money the money printing machine phase.
And since we mentioned Into the SpiderVerse earlier, a highly original film
that made a fraction made like lessthan a third of what this did,
but in terms of cultural made almostfour hundred. Yeah, but in terms
of cultural impact, we're still talkingabout it. We still talk about Into
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the Spider Verse, who was stilltalking about Incredibles too. And I think
that is reflected as well in theproduct in that it does have that feel
of here, we know the template, we're just going to color inside the
lines, and we're going to giveto you what you expect and you're gonna
love it because is we're going tomarket the hell out of it, and
you're all going to feel like yougotta go see this movie, and you
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know, pack you into the theater. So Tristan this movie. I think
one of the big differences is thisis post two thousand and eight. This
is post a superhero world where youhave Marvel and iron Man and all of
these superhero movies that you didn't haveback when The Incredibly Incredibles was kind of
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new and fresh and a different takeon the superhero genre. How do you
think that stack up in Incredibles too. I've heard that Bradbird was trying to
focus more on the family aspect,and it's like the fact that the superhero
is kind of tacked on or inaddition to, but he really wanted to
focus on and we'll get into it. I really want to get your dad
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views of the mother father relationship inthis movie. But on the superhero side,
did it feel like this movie couldalmost be told without them being supers
and they're just a sixties family.Oh? I don't know if I would
go that far, because I thinkthat's a little far. Yeah, that's
that's a little far. Because Ithink there's some really great superhero moments in
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this movie where I really like theI really like the idea of Mister Incredible
taking a backseat to the superhero missionsand being more of the stay at home
dad because I think his interaction withinteractions with Jack Jacks are really great.
Specifically, I think when this cameout in twenty eighteen. I had a
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kid who was around the age ofJack Jack at that time, and they
were like when he was reading toJack Jack and he fell asleep and then
Jack Check just smacked him on theface a couple of times to wake him
up to keep reading. I waslike, oh, man, I have
I have absolutely one percent been there. So there was There's so many moments
as a dad where I absolutely,in one hundred percent related to mister Incredible.
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But at the same time, theElastic Girl stuff, specifically the motorcycle
chase on the with the train,that is a phenomenal piece of action,
amazing sequence, and I've done MissionImpossible very much. That is that is
like if we if you were toask the question where do you see Bradbird,
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it is in that train motorcycle sequencethat if Ethan Hunt had superpowers,
that's how it would have been shot. And that that is Ah, I
can't I know, I've said thisbefore, said that word before, but
it is a phenomenal sequence. Itis great action, and that alone is
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enough to say no, you know, keep the superhero stuff. But to
answer your question, yeah, thenon superhero stuff was really great, and
I really liked the frustration that hehad, mister Incredible had with teaching dash
math. I think that's actually themoment that stays with me the most with
this movie is when he's like,how do they change math? Because this
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is supposed to be like pseudo fifties, pseudo sixties kind of mentality. And
my mother graduated high school in thesixties and went to middle school in the
sixties, and that's when they starteddoing the new math and she has never
recovered from it because it was afailed experiment. Well, I've been I
was thinking more about common core andlike modern Yeah, I've been through the
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modern day math stuff. And whatI can tell you is that the bit
of advice that my older kids havegotten from their father is do it this
way and then reverse engineer how theywant you to show it game the system,
because the way I'm teaching you isfaster than what they're teaching you,
and you are learning an additional bitof how to you know, sort of
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like use showmanship to make it throughand have people look the other way that
you made your own rules sort ofthing, which maybe is a bad lesson
to teach your kids, But atthe same time, I'm not you know,
I draw ten squares, divide themin threes multiplied by twelve minus by
when I could just do one hundredninety eight, Why the hell am I
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doing boxes for this? Just youjust you know, cross this off and
move that around sort of thing.So the math is math thing that had
me uproariously because I've been in thatexact moment already a couple of times.
And my kids would watch that sceneand laugh because they've seen their dad math
is math can't change what is?What do they talk about changing math?
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This is dumb? Why are youdoing this? And then that aspect of
the six season. I didn't realizethat that had kind of happened before,
and that so your mom had thatkind of experience of here's a new way
of teaching something that feels like it'sold as time, but there's always something
new. Yeah, there's always someparadigm shift in education that totally doesn't work.
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You know. It's the thing isI think that there's I think this
gets to one of my criticisms ofthe movie, though, is Tristan,
You're absolutely right that that action sequenceis great. Like I look at that
action sequence on its own, I'mlike, holy crap. This is an
absolute you know, master at workhere, right, somebody who has complete
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command of how to give direction,how to get what they're looking for and
make it look fantastic and pace itjust right. Credible. You have to
use the word incredible as much aspossible in this podcast. Sorry, I
apologize, I will I will tryharder next time. But you can exercise
that specific sequence out show it,and that is a brilliant section of film.
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But with the other parenting stuff thatyou're doing. I never get the
feeling maybe I'm alone of the threeof us here. The problem I look
at is it doesn't really seem tomesh. It seems like a director who's
making things work seen by scene,sometimes really well, and then it's it's
almost like two parallel movies running,and it's like, where is I don't
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know where Bradbird's heart is in thismovie. I feel like it's with the
parenting stuff. I feel like allof the parenting stuff is the parent looking
musing about what he's been through,and then he knows he has to do
the incredible adventure stuff, so hedoes that too, but that's not really
where his heart is this time.Well again on that quote of him talking
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about, you know, focusing onthe parent aspect, but he also talked
about the reason for not time jumpingit because it's been you know, fourteen
years, so you could have ittake place fourteen years later, but instead
it picks up like months, right, it's like right after the first movie.
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And obviously you don't have to changeto the kids, you know,
they're not older or something like that. But I think he's quoted and saying
he likes the fact that you didn'thave to reinvent a whole bunch of new
superheroes, Like, obviously you havethe newer ones that we see in this
movie, but you don't have tobuild the world as much because it hasn't
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been like a decade. So whenyour director of a superhero movie is saying,
I didn't want to build the worldmore than I had to. I
wanted to focus on the aspects ofthe family. I think that answers where
his heart was in this story,not for good or mad, just that's
where his focus was. But yeah, and you have, like we were
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kind of mentioning earlier, one ofthe differences in this movie is again the
technical aspect. When Brad was makingthe first one, it was like,
how do we do humans? Andcan we do long hair in water like
we want to? And in thisone, I mean, I'm sure they
always pushed the envelope in every singlemovie they make, they seem to,
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but it was a vastly different experience. I think we got the trained sequence
because the technology had progressed so much. Although I did hear that they had
to rebuild all the characters in thenew software. The software had completely changed,
so they couldn't just go into thearchive zip disc and pull the Mystery
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Incredible file in. It was acompletely new rebuild. But well, I
think they even had to do thatwith I think between story story two to
think, or might even been oneto two, I'm not quite sure.
As you said, yeah, theyhad to completely recreate it because time had
passed and technology has grown where they'rejust like, yeah, they can't import
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this one. You got to yougotta rebuild it with way more polygons,
right, yeah, polygons, andjust how the software works, how you
can command the character to emote ordo whatever. You know, all these
variables that you're adjusting, and it'sI'm sure night and day. Also,
yeah, it'd be kind of aninteresting just thought of Brad coming back to
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animation because his last two movies werelive action, so he'd done Mister Impossible
and Tomorrowland, and so now thismovie was announced in twenty fourteen that he
was coming back to do The IncrediblesToo. Sorry, Incredibles Too, know
the I don't know why they toothat up. So, but that's at
least a four year time span ofproducing. Obviously, I'm sure we all
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know it's longer than that because thesemovies take forever to produce. But he's
kind of starting while he's doing Tomorrowland, getting that script started, kind of
getting that ball rolling, deciding thosethose big brushstrokes. But yeah, it
you know, we'd kind of talkedabout, you know, him taking over
Tomorrowland. This was this is obviouslyhis baby. This was his idea that
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he originated in The Incredibles. WhereTristan in this movie, do you feel
it's still his baby? Maybe it'sthe baby literally the BA, but do
you feel like there's a specific aspectof this film that has that bradbird in
nest besides the train scene. Well, I think in terms of action,
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the train scene is very much there. But in terms of story content,
and you can tell that this ishis baby as and he loves the Incredibles.
The Incredibles is him and there's areason why he waited fourteen years,
because he went on record saying he'slike, if I'm going to do an
incredible sequel, I'm going to waituntil I have a really great idea that
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either matches or exceeds the original.And so I truly think it's the whole
stay at home dad aspect. Ithink in terms of action, it's elastic
girl going like crazy, and forhis filmmaking technique, but for his baby,
I think it's mister incredible interacting withJack Jack. I really do.
I think those are some really key, heartfelt moments that Bradbird threw himself into.
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I agree. I agree about that, I think, and it is
one of those things where I thinkthat, yes, this is announced before
Tomorrowland comes out, but there's almosta sense for me watching this that this
is the unfortunate thing. I thinkis that it's too comfortable for Bird to
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be back in here. I feellike, you know what, I think
that as I who cares how Ifeel, I think that what I'm seeing
reflected here is a somebody coming backto something that is safe and he knows
he has complete control here and giventhat mission impossible for is Brad Bird coming
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in and making Tom Cruise's dreams cometrue and then tomorrow Land doesn't go quite
the way we think he wants itto. This very much feels like a
director who isn't pushing himself at thispoint, but rather purposefully taking a step
back into a safer space where heknows he can exert more influence and he
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knows. It's almost like somebody whois like a boxer, goes up and
loses the prize fight, so theygo back down, but then they take
on an opponent that's more matched totheir level as they climb back up the
rankings sort of thing. And thisfeels like something that Bird is just more
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comfortable with and that is not aninsult. I think that, if anything,
this should teach a lesson to somepeople in creative spaces out there that
it's okay to have a strong suit. This is obviously where Brad Bird excels.
Don't feel obliged to go into liveaction. Do what comes naturally to
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you, do what you're excellent at, and excel at it. And that's
great. That's what we want youto do. We want you to succeed
because you gave us Iron Giant,you gave us incredible as you gave us
Rattui awesome. If this is whereit works, by all means, stick
with it. You tried the liveaction stuff, maybe we didn't love it
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as much as your animated stuff.Cool, So do animated stuff and we
will love you for it, andwe will love what you do. And
just stay there, like I'm Imean, obviously, I'm not saying it's
like mister birds, stay and you'relate. I'm not saying something like that.
I'm saying, like, it's okayto embrace what your best at.
It's you know, Captain Kirk wasnever meant to be an admiral. It's
okay to stay in the chair thatyour best at. Don't let them promote
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you to live action director, don'tlet them transfer you. It's his first
best destiny. Embrace it. YeahNo, And we've seen other directors who,
yeah, who kind of doubled down, like they didn't have a really
good release or it didn't quite gel, and then they made another one and
another one, and it just keptgetting worse. And not to say that
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Bradburn couldn't come back to live actionwith the right story. I think it
always comes down to story really ofhis. You know, if it's got
action in it, it's probably gonnado rather well. But yeah, I
don't know anything about it except thename. I know his TBA. You
know. Next picture is called rayGun gunn. I don't know if it's
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animated. I don't know if it'slive action. It sounds sci fi e
it sounds exactly like the kind ofmovie title I would expect from a Bradbird,
you know director. So I'm excitedfor that. I will see what
that is around the corner. Butyeah, with Tomorrow, not with Tomorland,
with the with Incredibles too. Yeah, it I think, not that
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we're dancing around it, we're obviouslyshowing we have some criticisms of this movie.
It's not a perfect movie. It'snot I think honestly, part of
it is just the fact that it'sa sequel, and sequels on their own,
you have this pressure to bigger andbetter everything and and add more characters
and add more and the and thestory gets less tight. I mean,
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the first movie is like so sharpand so clear on that world it's building.
It builds just enough world to giveyou what you need. It's got
to Really there's no protagonist confusion.It is mister Incredible. It is his
midlife crisis movie exactly. And notthat I'm saying this protagonist confusion in this
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one, but as the world grows, you start to sacrifice minutes of screen
time like with Helen or do weare we showing more of Bob or are
we showing the other supers and what'sgoing on in the world. Like,
every choice you're making is minutes you'respending with not your main character or not
your main family, and that's somethingyou have to stay on top of.
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So I guess what I'm saying isI feel like a lot of times sequels
will it's very easy for them torun away with themselves and be like,
Oh, we're gonna make now we'regonna see the entire world. Look at
all the characters we can put inthis shot with this new technology. But
story wise, do you guys kindof wish that this was a tighter,
smaller story obviously still focused on Alastagirl. I would even take a flashback
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of her glory days like that couldbe incredible see what I did. But
what do you think, just onthe scope how this kind of came together.
What do you think, Tristan,I don't I don't know if I
would say that it needs to besmaller, because I don't think this was
something that you know, failed dueto bloat from a story perspective or you
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know, like you know, youmentioned how this is in a post iron
Man, post dark Night World,and I feel like around the time that
this came out, we were reallysuffering from the blue screen I'm sorry,
excuse me, the blue beam inthe sky. Yeah, at the end
of the movie and a huge CGIfight and the world is going to end.
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That doesn't happen here, you know, like, the world's not going
to end here. There's the bomb'snot going to go off, the beam's
not in the sky, aliens aregoing to invade, nothing like that,
And so I applaud it for notgoing that route. So I don't think
it needs to be smaller. Ithink Will Save the World would be a
bit too much, a bit toomuch, and so I really do think
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this stayed within its wheelhouse, stayedwhere its talents were, and I think,
to me, mainly if I cango on a tangent a little bit
after I answer your questions. Tangentit up. You are right, angle
man moving in tangez. Since we'reat the twenty eight minute mark, and
I have been heaping praise on thismovie that this movie is good, it's
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not great, and even though itmade a lot of money in a lot
of people loved it. It gota lot of praise, It got a
I mean I started reading reviews forit in preparation into this podcast, and
there was a lot of a lotof critics who were saying this was heap
with praise. But to me,I think this was a situation of this
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is a good movie with great visuals, fantastic score, great voice acting,
good story. Okay script, ifthat makes sense. I mean, there's
some really great moments. There's someI mean, like we talked about the
moments, like the stuff between misterIncredible and Jack Jack, you know,
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like everything like that. Those aresome really great moments of this stuff with
Frozene and his wife as a callbackto the original being showing a last girl
being raised from just female protagonist toprotagonist in this film is some really great
stuff. But the script itself justdoesn't have the charm of the original,
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and I think that's what it reallysuffers for me watching this film. John,
Do you disagree with that? Doyou agree with that? What's your
take on that? I agree.I think that I likewise sort of struggle
with what is it that doesn't quitegel here? And it's always one of
those things where as you're thinking throughit, you're afraid of like overstating this
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or overstating that. But I thinkthat one of the things that makes it
feel longer than it actually is.This feels longer than one hundred and eighteen
minutes. And I think the reasonit feels longer than that is because Darren,
I think you're right. There isn'tprotagonist confusion here per se, but
there is not as much of acontrolled sense of perspective or focus here.
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It's it's you know, the firstone. It's like, oh, well,
this is you know, mister incredibleas midlife crisis movie, and this
is it's two different stories running parallelto each other exactly, and so it
almost feels like and like I think, I think, tell me if I'm
right, if I'm right here,I think when you're saying like you know,
a smaller film. I almost wonder, as much as I enjoy the
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Elastic Girls stuff on its own merits, I almost wonder if the film benefits
if we get a little bit lesstime quote unquote with her, so that
we see it more from perspective ofmister incredile being so incredibly frustrated and not
knowing what's going on. Well,and when you let the audience in fully
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you don't. You can't understand orrespect the idea of that character being completely
out of it because you know what'sgoing on. And so I think by
if more effort had been made toobscure what she was going through, through
whatever way you want to do it, we wind up understanding more what was
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being attempted with mister incredible here,and we feel his frustration more, and
so the point sort of hammers homemore about that. But then at the
same time, what are you sacrificingwhen you choose to do that? And
it's it's it's all of these littlechoices through there. If anything, if
I were to go ahead and nitpicksomething, I think in a sense almost
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that having frozone feels like its ownlittle tiny distraction to it. Frozone feels
like he's there because he's got tobe there because everybody loved Frozone. So
that feels like a sequel lightest thingwhere it's like, how am I going
to work Frozone into the story.It's okay to just bring him in at
the end, but because it wasSam Jackson, everybody loved Frozone and he
was a scene stealer last time.Oh well, we got to have Frozone
in this as much as we can. And it's like, to your point,
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Tristan, those that's valuable slices oftime. You're you're sacrificing here with
all of this stuff. So itfeels like just sort of like a death
by a thousand cuts sort of thing. Yeah, No, I really like
that aspect you said about more timewith Bob, just his point of view,
Like again with the whole train sequencein the beginning. I mean,
obviously he trusts Helen, he truststhat she's like super capable, but this
(32:13):
is still where superheroes are kind ofillegal and not quite shouldn't be like out
and about, and so he's athome with the kids and he hears about
this explosion and this train, likehe doesn't know what like show like literally
like you're saying, just his pointof view. He has no idea if
she's okay, what's going on.And it's kind of like that firefighter mentality
(32:37):
of like you know, the familiesat home and you know mom or dad
is out doing their job, butit's really dangerous and there's actually that risk
and you know there's there's They alreadykind of dabbled into it in the first
movie of him thinking he had lostthem. You know, we've already experienced
that particular emotion. But yeah,the the death by a Thousand cuts.
(33:00):
I think that's what I was reallytrying to say. With the sequel nous
Is and again, like again,like you said, you're putt you're putting
my thoughts into good words, John, This is very helpful, but you
know, yeah, spending time withFrozone is time we're not spending with Bob
or Alasta Girl, even Edna Mode. I love Edna Mode, but that's
(33:22):
time we're not spending with our maincharacters. And so as a that's what
I meant when I was saying sequels, there there grow. The problem is
they're they're stuck with trying to keepwhat worked in the first one. But
like, honestly, like you said, you know, you could do the
entire movie without Frozone and without Ednaand without like like why bring those characters
(33:44):
back? And again, I'm notsaying that you shouldn't, like I understand
the directing choice, but by doingthat, you are not allowing new characters
to come in and really have moretime or enriched time with your main characters.
And it's all just these trade offsof of minutes. And even if
you bump it up two one hundredand eighteen minutes, there's still only so
(34:05):
many that you can keep the attention. But yeah, a good story,
but an okay Scriptum, well,oh hey, we're not quite running third
yet, so let's let's jump intothe two other things I mainly wanted to
talk about is we have the music, but I'll get to that second.
But also the twist, So wehave the twist of the villain. It's
(34:30):
it's not really surprising anybody, LikeI didn't like obviously know what was going
to happen because I didn't read thescript ahead of time. But you know,
your hero being surprised by haha,it's me is not anything super new
what did you think of that aspectof the story slash script Tristan with the
(34:52):
screen flavor, You know, itwas one of those things where I saw
it coming a mile away. Andthat's not necessarily a criticism because I think
too many people use that as acriticism whe they're just like, oh,
yeah, no, I totally figuredit out, like they the filmmakers didn't
pull the wool over my eyes weretrying to. Yeah, it's it's one
(35:15):
of those things where it's just like, yeah, like if you can guess
it, that usually means that they'redoing something right, that they're following the
rules of filmmaking and story progression.You have to bread krumm it. Otherwise
your audience is completely blindsided and they'relike that doesn't make sense, like that
little Johnny is the villain, likewe've never even seen them for three scenes.
(35:37):
You have to ease your audience intothat kind of a twist, right,
And with that twist comes the sacrificeof character development, because you're developing
one character and then turning them intoanother. Right. I think that's the
problem is that with the twist comingso late in the film, the twist
sacrifice the character development of the realvillain. So once we get that real
(36:01):
villain, it's just like it's arush to the climax. And I think
that's why thing not really an infodump, otherwise you have no time to
learn. Yeah, and I thinkthat really hurt the movie, and I
that hurt the story and it's ait's a trope that a lot of movies
fall into, a lot of actionfilms fall into, and um, this
one was no different. And eventhough I'm not criticizing the twist, I
(36:24):
think that's one thing that I thinkif they if they revealed the if the
if they revealed the antagonist and thesecond act, it would allowed us to
build more to the climax, andit made it more impactful. I agree.
(36:44):
I think additionally, if they hadrevealed the antagonist to the audience but
not to alast a girl that Ican get done with that, that that's
a much better progression because that introducestension with the audience because we know something
the main character does exactly and youcan and that buys you time to have
(37:08):
a few fakes where it's like,hey, why don't you come over here?
You're like, oh, they're gonnareview. Oh they didn't reveal it
at that time. Okay, okay, okay, maybe the next scene that
they're together, and that builds youranticipation with it, and then you can
have that that you know, thetwirling mustache haha, I am the villain
moment right before the climax, andthen you have that all that good will
(37:29):
built through the the the end ofit. Yeah, no, that that
would be Again, these are allnuances in the story. It's still the
same kind of story where we're talkingabout, right, but yeah, not
And that's kind of part of thisscript or story is the mystery, like
who is the screenslaver? Like whatis their goal? Like we spend so
(37:50):
much time not knowing as an audiencemember that by the end we're kind of
like, oh, so you kindof batmanned your way into this life because
you parents died, and like wedon't care by the time it's actually given
to us, it's so late inthe movie that we'd like these are ten
gentle characters at best, the youknow, the brother and sister, Like
(38:13):
I never really cared about them atall through the entire movie, Like they're
just they're not supers, they're notpart of the family. H Yeah,
so it that's I think a majorthing of this movie is again when things
are revealed, what the paces ofthe plot, and it's a long,
a long plot. Well we getMichael Dick, you know, coming back
(38:35):
for another amazing score. I thinkhe does a good job of still using
the motifs you know, obviously establishedin the in the first one. You
know, again it's a sequel forhim too, so he's revisiting his previous
work. And I mean, Idon't think there was anything that like super
stood out to me. But todo there of you have something in the
(38:57):
music like a queue or a ora moment. Was there a Superman moment
that impacted you? No, thescore is fine. It's I you know,
it's not something where I'm like,oh, this is a great score.
I was. My reaction was morealong the lines of it works,
it's cool. I didn't There wasn'tanything I walked away with where it was
(39:21):
so fresh and new that I hadto have it sort of thing. You
know, I think that all ofthe really fresh stuff was in the first
one, and so this yeah,you know, it's one of those eternal
back and forth feeling argument blah blahblah things. That happens with sequels,
where sometimes you're really lucky and youget a sequel that breaks the mold and
(39:45):
does something different or really leans intothings and makes it feel new again,
or you have a sequel that isIron Man Too that just sucks and I
never want to talk about it again. Incredibles Too is not that. But
Incredibles two also is not The GodfatherPart two or The Empire Strikes Back or
(40:05):
anything like that. It's more inthat. Again, that's safe space of
you know what you're going to get. This is nothing that's going to challenge
you, but you'll still enjoy it. This is the you know, this
is the I went back to thesame restaurant because I enjoyed it the first
time I went. I expect theexperience to be replicated. I'm not going
(40:27):
there because I want to try somethingfresh. I want to go there because
I know I'm going to be satisfied. But with that knowledge you're going to
be satisfied, you are sacrificing theopportunity to be surprised. And that's the
type of sequel that all the wayfrom everything else we've talked to to even
the score, that's where we arewith it and the score is in that
(40:51):
exact same Wheelhouse of Jacquino comes backand it's like, yeah, I've been
here before. Okay, I knowwhat to do, and I'm not going
to disappoint anybody, but this iswhat I've been a couple of weeks.
It wasn't a huge stretch, now, right, he wasn't composing Vader on
the Murder Express at the end ofRogue one or something like that. Vader
on the Murder Express. I likethat. All right, Well, we're
round and third, So I wantto kind of give this moment to you
(41:15):
guys for any kind of final thoughtsor things we didn't hit. So let's
start with you, Tristan, anyother thoughts you had on this movie,
and just take us right right intoyour rating. I think we explained it
pretty well. I think we wentover what we liked and what we didn't
like. There's a lot of greatmoments in this movie. There's a lot
(41:37):
of great character moments in this movie. It's a good story, but it's
an okay script. It is phenomenalanimation, some really one of a kind
of action sequences, but it doesnot capture the essence of the original.
And I think after fourteen years ofwaiting, you expect something two because this
(42:00):
isn't a cash grab. You cannotcall this a cash grab after fourteen years.
This is something that was waited for, plotted, thought about, and
just really laid down and you know, put on a record, and you
know, Bradbird's in a room justyou know, sit in a bean bag
(42:21):
chair thinking about what this movie isgoing to be. And so there's no
excuses. And while this is agood movie, as I said at the
beginning, this is a good movie, not a great movie. I give
it a solid three stars with noprejudice. Awesome. Now, now,
John, I'd like to go toyou, but we missed you last time
(42:42):
when we were talking about the Incredible. So I want your double rating.
I want to know what number you'regiving. I want it. I want
it number you're rating for Incredibles andIncredibles too. No, I you know
what, I'll no people to findme on social media to hear my rating
in the first Incredibles. That's it. Yeah, I have to reach out
(43:02):
to me there. And if youdon't know where to reach me, you
haven't been listening to everywhere I am. So never mind. I'm the villain
now exactly exactly, let me putthese goggles on you. Um, okay,
give me Incredibles too. Then Iwould say that with Incredibles too.
Ill you know this is a lotlike Tomorrowland. I want to like it
(43:23):
more than I do. I reallywanted to like it more than I do,
especially since this was my first timewatching it. I was like,
Okay, I know how successful thiswas. There's distance. Nobody's opinion can
influence me here. I'm coming intothis as cold as I possibly can.
There's no hype coming around it.Maybe I should have had a little hype
coming around it. Maybe if I'dseen it in the theater, a little
(43:43):
of that momentum would have carried methrough. But I think that it was
somebody in the in in one oftheir reviews, said that if the title
were okay, here, I'm readingit from this Michael Phillips from the Chicago
Tribune. One of the things hewrote was the title We're Satisfactories too,
(44:04):
it would be about right. Ithink that's correct. I would give this
a three. I watched it,Granted I was a little bit tired.
But if I'm truly engaged by afilm, I won't be dozing off by
you know, two thirds of theway through it and waking myself and say,
oh, right, right right,I gotta finish. I gotta finish
this, right. So yeah,this is a three out of five.
(44:30):
Yeah, I think. I meanjust the fact that I will rewatch Incredibles
over and over. It's it's alwaysfun. It's one of those if it
was on, if my kids putit on and I walk by the TV,
I'm like, oh I could.I could spend the next sixty minutes
sitting down and watching the rest ofthis. Like it's a joy every moment,
every scene, this one. Imean, we saw it in theaters.
(44:55):
I don't think we even know,we don't even own it, but
but it's yeah, it's like we'veall said. I think we've all kind
of saying the same thing. Iam also giving it a three man That
train scene gives it at least onepoint, right just for that because it
said I almost wish that was theend. Like I get that the end
has to have the family working together, but if that sequence or that energy
(45:20):
or that amazingness was at the end, because it was kind of a lackluster
end. Again, it had alot of amazing things going on with the
ship and the plane and all ofthat, but it was the difference and
maybe I can't have my you knowcake and eat it two because the train
is Alasta girl in her element.The ending is we have to find a
(45:42):
thing for everybody to do, andthat's a very different formula for your finale.
Granted it it can work really welllike sometime. I mean, we
talk about Star Wars has this issuewhere you know, look at the end
of episode one, you have theyou know, the space battle, the
lights aber battle, the grass battle, and there's a fourth one, oh
(46:05):
and the you know, the othergroup palace. You have four battles going
on at the exact same time.It's it's insane, And you kind of
have the same with this where there'sa lot going on and Jack Jack's got
to be there. And so yeah, I'm going to give it a three.
I can't go below that. Ithink there's still a lot of good
aspects to it. But um,but I'm really hoping ray Gun is animated.
(46:29):
I again, I haven't looked upanything on it, but I'm hoping
that he's doing another animated film andleaning into animation. And because I man
if if Bradbird gets unleashed and couldreally just tell an animated story, drive
his team to tell something original thathe's thought up, and really play with
(46:50):
what that visual medium can do.I think it's going to be amazing and
blow this out of the water.Maybe not make the billions, because that's
just the p x our machine,and we all knew that was coming when
this movie came out, but Ithink it would still still be amazing.
Well, that is it for theBird House. I mean that joke is
(47:12):
still one of the best ones we'vecome up with here on House Slights.
But next week we're going to trysomething a little different. We're going to
be going into the House of KevinReynolds, but we're going to kind of
go just to the rooms we'd liketo visit, you know, those ones
that are unlocked and a joy towatch. But starting in nineteen ninety one,
(47:36):
with Robin Hood, Prince of thesehere On House Slights, join the
Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.
Welcome to the nerd Polity. Welcomeback to Houselights, our director discussion show
here on the Nerd Party Network.Today, we're completing The Birdhouse, covering
(00:27):
Brad Bird's final directed work as ofthis date, Incredibles Too. It's also
Brad's first sequel. I'm Darren Moserand I'm joined again by my friend's screen
slaver, Goggle repairman Tristan Riddell andAmbassador to the Supers John Mills. Gentlemen,
no caps allowed as we discuss atjust how much money this film made.
(00:50):
Wow, Incredibles Too. Not theIncredibles Too. Only two words,
only two words. Yeah, thisis It's not often that we get to
sequels. I mean, granted,we had Godfather and that's kind of its
own, its own thing. Butyeah, now we get to see,
after fourteen years, Brad Bird comeback to the well of this story.
(01:14):
And I think that's going to bereally interesting to compare and contrast, because
you know, does the second storyhold up to the first? Is it?
You know, technology has advanced.It's not like can we do humans
and hair? You know it?Pixar has advanced so much between those two
two years. But let's start withone of our favorite first questions. Again,
(01:37):
this was only five years ago,twenty eighteen. Tristan, When did
you see this? Did you?Was it of course Pixar time to see
it or was the incredible to youknow, like, eh, maybe maybe
let it go to streaming. Thisone was let go to streaming, like
it was. It was very much. I've waited fourteen years. I can
(02:00):
wait, you know, a fewmonths more. I can wait six months
too bad. Yeah, honestly,I think I think that was it.
Like if it was two years after, I probably would have been like,
oh sweet, another Incredibles film.Yeah, I'll go see that right away.
But because it was so long,it was monumental because it was so
long, but at the same timedetrimental because you could wait, no problem.
(02:23):
And so yeah, I saw thiswhen it was streaming, and that
was the only time I watched itwas in twenty eighteen when it was released
on streaming. Well, so Ijust looked it up. So this movie
was fourteen years after the first one, just beating out by one year,
longer than James Cameron's gap between Avatarand Avatar two of thirteen years. Wow,
(02:49):
Brad, you you waited you outI didn't think anyone would outdo Cameron
on that stat but you did.When this movie was coming out, there
was there was so much any memesof Gary Oldman's character Serious Black in the
Harry Potter films when he's like,I've done my waiting. Well, what
(03:12):
about you, John? Does thistaking the family to the cineplex? Or
were you ready to wait an extrasix months to just sit in your own
home with your own food and justenjoy the Incredibles too. This was my
first time watching it. I haddidn't even cool. It wasn't It wasn't
(03:35):
one of those things where it waslike a conscious thing or it was like
screw that movie. It was moreof a thing of I will go ahead
and speak to this one being skepticalabout you waiting that long between sequels.
I was that way with Avatar tooas well. But I'm gonna I'm gonna
go ahead and throw the first controversialcomment out there that number one in May
(03:55):
of twenty eighteen. I believe Iwas more excited at the end of that
month to see Solo, a StarWars story, and I believe I used
the weekend that Incredibles two came outto go see that again. And I
think that additionally, the worm hadsort of started to turn on the long
(04:16):
the long awaited sequel, slash,reboot, slash whatever. By this point,
I like, for me at least, where I started to question.
I was like, well, dowe really need to go back to these
things? And so my decision wasagain wasn't like, oh screw this movie.
It was like, I'll get toit and then it's just it once.
(04:38):
Nowadays, in the streaming era,once it goes in the I'll get
to it. Que stuff continually getsput in front of it. It's the
reason that bookshelves never empty is becauseyou're always like, oh, well,
i'll read this after this one,I'll read this after that. You just
keep adding and adding and adding,and then you lose track. And you
have a podcast about movies, sowe're all constantly putting things on your queue
in front of other things. Itis true. Homework does get in the
(05:00):
way a lot of times. Thatis a fact. That's why long time
listeners will know that if I reallywant John to watch something, I send
him a physical copy of the moviewith a note that says, love you
watch this. This is true.This is true, and it works every
time. So if there's somebody outthere that wants me to watch a movie,
(05:23):
send a message to Tristan over atthe Insane Robin and tell them to
send me a physical copy there.I'll send it. I won't give out
your address, but I will sendit to him. You can to TNP
headquarters. So I think you needto start a appeal box, Sean and
give that out and then just peoplewill send you random movies. You got
to get the capitalized capitalize. Ilove it. I love it. So
(05:45):
yeah, I did see this intheaters. I also do have fairly young
children who are still kind of inthat Disney Pixar grasp. And though this
was the year that Into the SpiderVerse came out and was kind of redefining
what animation could be. And itwas in length, yeah, because this
was the longest one. Was thisthe longest Pixar film in terms of minutes?
(06:12):
It feels like it was the longestanimated film, and then CG animated
film, and then Across the SpiderVerse came out and it beat it.
Yeah it so yeah, I sawit again, probably just because it's Pixar.
You know you you pretty much knowwhat you're gonna get with a Pixar
movie, and you know, weit enjoyed it, but it's interesting.
(06:38):
It not that I want to unpackinto a bigger discussion, but it feels
like Disney and Pixar like two points, Disney and Pixar almost kind of looked
the same at this point, likethey're like the visual style is just a
hair different between the two. Andalso you have the fact that it is
(07:00):
a style, and I would ratherPixar be known for a certain you know,
cinematic storytelling quality, and that isthe only constant, not well,
I know what a character is goingto look like in a Pixar movie versus
again, you know, we'll mentionSpider Verse a lot, but something that
is leaning into being an animated film, playing with the color and the camera
(07:27):
and the action and the comic booknessand all of that. And Pixar movies
don't really risk that anymore. Theyare they are not always photo real,
but it's just hard when you're playingin this caricature world that these animated films
fall in, and it's just likethey're not taking risks. This doesn't feel
(07:51):
like a risk. This feels likeit made a lot of money on the
first one, and so we're goingto bring out a second one and it
worked. I mean, we talkedabout last week about brad Bird's Tomorrowland needing
to recoup some lot, although thatwas different production company, but this was
budgeted for two hundred mill just alittle more than Tomorrowland was, and made
(08:13):
worldwide one point two billion dollars.It print diion with so much money.
H I M. So that's mysoapbox about Pixar. But what do you
think of that, John? No? I mean, I think that's a
very fair point. Is Disney theDisney effect is taking place by this point,
(08:35):
and it's what I mean by thatis is Disney's corporate imprint has become
overbearing and there feels like there's alot less room for innovation and ingenuity.
And you know, that's just myopinion, and I think that that is
probably one of the things that didn'tmake me excited for Incredibles too, is
(08:56):
because even in the ads, II felt like I'd seen this before and
why why would I you know,I was like, why would there be
any urgency? As opposed to becauseit was mentioned earlier into the Spider Verse,
which okay, Incredibles two made onepoint two billion dollars, which was,
you know, point one point onebillion less than the Last Jedi,
(09:20):
which cost one hundred million more tomake, and all of that stuff.
But by this point it's just Disney'sin the money the money printing machine phase.
And since we mentioned Into the SpiderVerse earlier, a highly original film
that made a fraction made like lessthan a third of what this did,
but in terms of cultural made almostfour hundred. Yeah, but in terms
of cultural impact, we're still talkingabout it. We still talk about Into
(09:43):
the Spider Verse, who was stilltalking about Incredibles too. And I think
that is reflected as well in theproduct in that it does have that feel
of here, we know the template, we're just going to color inside the
lines, and we're going to giveto you what you expect and you're gonna
love it because is we're going tomarket the hell out of it, and
you're all going to feel like yougotta go see this movie, and you
(10:05):
know, pack you into the theater. So Tristan this movie. I think
one of the big differences is thisis post two thousand and eight. This
is post a superhero world where youhave Marvel and iron Man and all of
these superhero movies that you didn't haveback when The Incredibly Incredibles was kind of
(10:28):
new and fresh and a different takeon the superhero genre. How do you
think that stack up in Incredibles too. I've heard that Bradbird was trying to
focus more on the family aspect,and it's like the fact that the superhero
is kind of tacked on or inaddition to, but he really wanted to
focus on and we'll get into it. I really want to get your dad
(10:50):
views of the mother father relationship inthis movie. But on the superhero side,
did it feel like this movie couldalmost be told without them being supers
and they're just a sixties family.Oh? I don't know if I would
go that far, because I thinkthat's a little far. Yeah, that's
that's a little far. Because Ithink there's some really great superhero moments in
(11:11):
this movie where I really like theI really like the idea of Mister Incredible
taking a backseat to the superhero missionsand being more of the stay at home
dad because I think his interaction withinteractions with Jack Jacks are really great.
Specifically, I think when this cameout in twenty eighteen. I had a
(11:35):
kid who was around the age ofJack Jack at that time, and they
were like when he was reading toJack Jack and he fell asleep and then
Jack Check just smacked him on theface a couple of times to wake him
up to keep reading. I waslike, oh, man, I have
I have absolutely one percent been there. So there was There's so many moments
as a dad where I absolutely,in one hundred percent related to mister Incredible.
(12:01):
But at the same time, theElastic Girl stuff, specifically the motorcycle
chase on the with the train,that is a phenomenal piece of action,
amazing sequence, and I've done MissionImpossible very much. That is that is
like if we if you were toask the question where do you see Bradbird,
(12:22):
it is in that train motorcycle sequencethat if Ethan Hunt had superpowers,
that's how it would have been shot. And that that is Ah, I
can't I know, I've said thisbefore, said that word before, but
it is a phenomenal sequence. Itis great action, and that alone is
(12:43):
enough to say no, you know, keep the superhero stuff. But to
answer your question, yeah, thenon superhero stuff was really great, and
I really liked the frustration that hehad, mister Incredible had with teaching dash
math. I think that's actually themoment that stays with me the most with
this movie is when he's like,how do they change math? Because this
(13:05):
is supposed to be like pseudo fifties, pseudo sixties kind of mentality. And
my mother graduated high school in thesixties and went to middle school in the
sixties, and that's when they starteddoing the new math and she has never
recovered from it because it was afailed experiment. Well, I've been I
was thinking more about common core andlike modern Yeah, I've been through the
(13:30):
modern day math stuff. And whatI can tell you is that the bit
of advice that my older kids havegotten from their father is do it this
way and then reverse engineer how theywant you to show it game the system,
because the way I'm teaching you isfaster than what they're teaching you,
and you are learning an additional bitof how to you know, sort of
(13:54):
like use showmanship to make it throughand have people look the other way that
you made your own rules sort ofthing, which maybe is a bad lesson
to teach your kids, But atthe same time, I'm not you know,
I draw ten squares, divide themin threes multiplied by twelve minus by
when I could just do one hundredninety eight, Why the hell am I
(14:15):
doing boxes for this? Just youjust you know, cross this off and
move that around sort of thing.So the math is math thing that had
me uproariously because I've been in thatexact moment already a couple of times.
And my kids would watch that sceneand laugh because they've seen their dad math
is math can't change what is?What do they talk about changing math?
(14:37):
This is dumb? Why are youdoing this? And then that aspect of
the six season. I didn't realizethat that had kind of happened before,
and that so your mom had thatkind of experience of here's a new way
of teaching something that feels like it'sold as time, but there's always something
new. Yeah, there's always someparadigm shift in education that totally doesn't work.
(15:01):
You know. It's the thing isI think that there's I think this
gets to one of my criticisms ofthe movie, though, is Tristan,
You're absolutely right that that action sequenceis great. Like I look at that
action sequence on its own, I'mlike, holy crap. This is an
absolute you know, master at workhere, right, somebody who has complete
(15:22):
command of how to give direction,how to get what they're looking for and
make it look fantastic and pace itjust right. Credible. You have to
use the word incredible as much aspossible in this podcast. Sorry, I
apologize, I will I will tryharder next time. But you can exercise
that specific sequence out show it,and that is a brilliant section of film.
(15:46):
But with the other parenting stuff thatyou're doing. I never get the
feeling maybe I'm alone of the threeof us here. The problem I look
at is it doesn't really seem tomesh. It seems like a director who's
making things work seen by scene,sometimes really well, and then it's it's
almost like two parallel movies running,and it's like, where is I don't
(16:08):
know where Bradbird's heart is in thismovie. I feel like it's with the
parenting stuff. I feel like allof the parenting stuff is the parent looking
musing about what he's been through,and then he knows he has to do
the incredible adventure stuff, so hedoes that too, but that's not really
where his heart is this time.Well again on that quote of him talking
(16:30):
about, you know, focusing onthe parent aspect, but he also talked
about the reason for not time jumpingit because it's been you know, fourteen
years, so you could have ittake place fourteen years later, but instead
it picks up like months, right, it's like right after the first movie.
(16:51):
And obviously you don't have to changeto the kids, you know,
they're not older or something like that. But I think he's quoted and saying
he likes the fact that you didn'thave to reinvent a whole bunch of new
superheroes, Like, obviously you havethe newer ones that we see in this
movie, but you don't have tobuild the world as much because it hasn't
(17:11):
been like a decade. So whenyour director of a superhero movie is saying,
I didn't want to build the worldmore than I had to. I
wanted to focus on the aspects ofthe family. I think that answers where
his heart was in this story,not for good or mad, just that's
where his focus was. But yeah, and you have, like we were
(17:36):
kind of mentioning earlier, one ofthe differences in this movie is again the
technical aspect. When Brad was makingthe first one, it was like,
how do we do humans? Andcan we do long hair in water like
we want to? And in thisone, I mean, I'm sure they
always pushed the envelope in every singlemovie they make, they seem to,
(17:57):
but it was a vastly different experience. I think we got the trained sequence
because the technology had progressed so much. Although I did hear that they had
to rebuild all the characters in thenew software. The software had completely changed,
so they couldn't just go into thearchive zip disc and pull the Mystery
(18:18):
Incredible file in. It was acompletely new rebuild. But well, I
think they even had to do thatwith I think between story story two to
think, or might even been oneto two, I'm not quite sure.
As you said, yeah, theyhad to completely recreate it because time had
passed and technology has grown where they'rejust like, yeah, they can't import
(18:38):
this one. You got to yougotta rebuild it with way more polygons,
right, yeah, polygons, andjust how the software works, how you
can command the character to emote ordo whatever. You know, all these
variables that you're adjusting, and it'sI'm sure night and day. Also,
yeah, it'd be kind of aninteresting just thought of Brad coming back to
(19:03):
animation because his last two movies werelive action, so he'd done Mister Impossible
and Tomorrowland, and so now thismovie was announced in twenty fourteen that he
was coming back to do The IncrediblesToo. Sorry, Incredibles Too, know
the I don't know why they toothat up. So, but that's at
least a four year time span ofproducing. Obviously, I'm sure we all
(19:26):
know it's longer than that because thesemovies take forever to produce. But he's
kind of starting while he's doing Tomorrowland, getting that script started, kind of
getting that ball rolling, deciding thosethose big brushstrokes. But yeah, it
you know, we'd kind of talkedabout, you know, him taking over
Tomorrowland. This was this is obviouslyhis baby. This was his idea that
(19:48):
he originated in The Incredibles. WhereTristan in this movie, do you feel
it's still his baby? Maybe it'sthe baby literally the BA, but do
you feel like there's a specific aspectof this film that has that bradbird in
nest besides the train scene. Well, I think in terms of action,
(20:10):
the train scene is very much there. But in terms of story content,
and you can tell that this ishis baby as and he loves the Incredibles.
The Incredibles is him and there's areason why he waited fourteen years,
because he went on record saying he'slike, if I'm going to do an
incredible sequel, I'm going to waituntil I have a really great idea that
(20:32):
either matches or exceeds the original.And so I truly think it's the whole
stay at home dad aspect. Ithink in terms of action, it's elastic
girl going like crazy, and forhis filmmaking technique, but for his baby,
I think it's mister incredible interacting withJack Jack. I really do.
I think those are some really key, heartfelt moments that Bradbird threw himself into.
(21:00):
I agree. I agree about that, I think, and it is
one of those things where I thinkthat, yes, this is announced before
Tomorrowland comes out, but there's almosta sense for me watching this that this
is the unfortunate thing. I thinkis that it's too comfortable for Bird to
(21:23):
be back in here. I feellike, you know what, I think
that as I who cares how Ifeel, I think that what I'm seeing
reflected here is a somebody coming backto something that is safe and he knows
he has complete control here and giventhat mission impossible for is Brad Bird coming
(21:48):
in and making Tom Cruise's dreams cometrue and then tomorrow Land doesn't go quite
the way we think he wants itto. This very much feels like a
director who isn't pushing himself at thispoint, but rather purposefully taking a step
back into a safer space where heknows he can exert more influence and he
(22:10):
knows. It's almost like somebody whois like a boxer, goes up and
loses the prize fight, so theygo back down, but then they take
on an opponent that's more matched totheir level as they climb back up the
rankings sort of thing. And thisfeels like something that Bird is just more
(22:32):
comfortable with and that is not aninsult. I think that, if anything,
this should teach a lesson to somepeople in creative spaces out there that
it's okay to have a strong suit. This is obviously where Brad Bird excels.
Don't feel obliged to go into liveaction. Do what comes naturally to
(22:53):
you, do what you're excellent at, and excel at it. And that's
great. That's what we want youto do. We want you to succeed
because you gave us Iron Giant,you gave us incredible as you gave us
Rattui awesome. If this is whereit works, by all means, stick
with it. You tried the liveaction stuff, maybe we didn't love it
(23:14):
as much as your animated stuff.Cool, So do animated stuff and we
will love you for it, andwe will love what you do. And
just stay there, like I'm Imean, obviously, I'm not saying it's
like mister birds, stay and you'relate. I'm not saying something like that.
I'm saying, like, it's okayto embrace what your best at.
It's you know, Captain Kirk wasnever meant to be an admiral. It's
okay to stay in the chair thatyour best at. Don't let them promote
(23:37):
you to live action director, don'tlet them transfer you. It's his first
best destiny. Embrace it. YeahNo, And we've seen other directors who,
yeah, who kind of doubled down, like they didn't have a really
good release or it didn't quite gel, and then they made another one and
another one, and it just keptgetting worse. And not to say that
(23:59):
Bradburn couldn't come back to live actionwith the right story. I think it
always comes down to story really ofhis. You know, if it's got
action in it, it's probably gonnado rather well. But yeah, I
don't know anything about it except thename. I know his TBA. You
know. Next picture is called rayGun gunn. I don't know if it's
(24:21):
animated. I don't know if it'slive action. It sounds sci fi e
it sounds exactly like the kind ofmovie title I would expect from a Bradbird,
you know director. So I'm excitedfor that. I will see what
that is around the corner. Butyeah, with Tomorrow, not with Tomorland,
with the with Incredibles too. Yeah, it I think, not that
(24:44):
we're dancing around it, we're obviouslyshowing we have some criticisms of this movie.
It's not a perfect movie. It'snot I think honestly, part of
it is just the fact that it'sa sequel, and sequels on their own,
you have this pressure to bigger andbetter everything and and add more characters
and add more and the and thestory gets less tight. I mean,
(25:07):
the first movie is like so sharpand so clear on that world it's building.
It builds just enough world to giveyou what you need. It's got
to Really there's no protagonist confusion.It is mister Incredible. It is his
midlife crisis movie exactly. And notthat I'm saying this protagonist confusion in this
(25:30):
one, but as the world grows, you start to sacrifice minutes of screen
time like with Helen or do weare we showing more of Bob or are
we showing the other supers and what'sgoing on in the world. Like,
every choice you're making is minutes you'respending with not your main character or not
your main family, and that's somethingyou have to stay on top of.
(25:53):
So I guess what I'm saying isI feel like a lot of times sequels
will it's very easy for them torun away with themselves and be like,
Oh, we're gonna make now we'regonna see the entire world. Look at
all the characters we can put inthis shot with this new technology. But
story wise, do you guys kindof wish that this was a tighter,
smaller story obviously still focused on Alastagirl. I would even take a flashback
(26:18):
of her glory days like that couldbe incredible see what I did. But
what do you think, just onthe scope how this kind of came together.
What do you think, Tristan,I don't I don't know if I
would say that it needs to besmaller, because I don't think this was
something that you know, failed dueto bloat from a story perspective or you
(26:41):
know, like you know, youmentioned how this is in a post iron
Man, post dark Night World,and I feel like around the time that
this came out, we were reallysuffering from the blue screen I'm sorry,
excuse me, the blue beam inthe sky. Yeah, at the end
of the movie and a huge CGIfight and the world is going to end.
(27:06):
That doesn't happen here, you know, like, the world's not going
to end here. There's the bomb'snot going to go off, the beam's
not in the sky, aliens aregoing to invade, nothing like that,
And so I applaud it for notgoing that route. So I don't think
it needs to be smaller. Ithink Will Save the World would be a
bit too much, a bit toomuch, and so I really do think
(27:29):
this stayed within its wheelhouse, stayedwhere its talents were, and I think,
to me, mainly if I cango on a tangent a little bit
after I answer your questions. Tangentit up. You are right, angle
man moving in tangez. Since we'reat the twenty eight minute mark, and
I have been heaping praise on thismovie that this movie is good, it's
(27:55):
not great, and even though itmade a lot of money in a lot
of people loved it. It gota lot of praise, It got a
I mean I started reading reviews forit in preparation into this podcast, and
there was a lot of a lotof critics who were saying this was heap
with praise. But to me,I think this was a situation of this
(28:17):
is a good movie with great visuals, fantastic score, great voice acting,
good story. Okay script, ifthat makes sense. I mean, there's
some really great moments. There's someI mean, like we talked about the
moments, like the stuff between misterIncredible and Jack Jack, you know,
(28:37):
like everything like that. Those aresome really great moments of this stuff with
Frozene and his wife as a callbackto the original being showing a last girl
being raised from just female protagonist toprotagonist in this film is some really great
stuff. But the script itself justdoesn't have the charm of the original,
(29:00):
and I think that's what it reallysuffers for me watching this film. John,
Do you disagree with that? Doyou agree with that? What's your
take on that? I agree.I think that I likewise sort of struggle
with what is it that doesn't quitegel here? And it's always one of
those things where as you're thinking throughit, you're afraid of like overstating this
(29:22):
or overstating that. But I thinkthat one of the things that makes it
feel longer than it actually is.This feels longer than one hundred and eighteen
minutes. And I think the reasonit feels longer than that is because Darren,
I think you're right. There isn'tprotagonist confusion here per se, but
there is not as much of acontrolled sense of perspective or focus here.
(29:51):
It's it's you know, the firstone. It's like, oh, well,
this is you know, mister incredibleas midlife crisis movie, and this
is it's two different stories running parallelto each other exactly, and so it
almost feels like and like I think, I think, tell me if I'm
right, if I'm right here,I think when you're saying like you know,
a smaller film. I almost wonder, as much as I enjoy the
(30:15):
Elastic Girls stuff on its own merits, I almost wonder if the film benefits
if we get a little bit lesstime quote unquote with her, so that
we see it more from perspective ofmister incredile being so incredibly frustrated and not
knowing what's going on. Well,and when you let the audience in fully
(30:36):
you don't. You can't understand orrespect the idea of that character being completely
out of it because you know what'sgoing on. And so I think by
if more effort had been made toobscure what she was going through, through
whatever way you want to do it, we wind up understanding more what was
(31:00):
being attempted with mister incredible here,and we feel his frustration more, and
so the point sort of hammers homemore about that. But then at the
same time, what are you sacrificingwhen you choose to do that? And
it's it's it's all of these littlechoices through there. If anything, if
I were to go ahead and nitpicksomething, I think in a sense almost
(31:25):
that having frozone feels like its ownlittle tiny distraction to it. Frozone feels
like he's there because he's got tobe there because everybody loved Frozone. So
that feels like a sequel lightest thingwhere it's like, how am I going
to work Frozone into the story.It's okay to just bring him in at
the end, but because it wasSam Jackson, everybody loved Frozone and he
was a scene stealer last time.Oh well, we got to have Frozone
in this as much as we can. And it's like, to your point,
(31:48):
Tristan, those that's valuable slices oftime. You're you're sacrificing here with
all of this stuff. So itfeels like just sort of like a death
by a thousand cuts sort of thing. Yeah, No, I really like
that aspect you said about more timewith Bob, just his point of view,
Like again with the whole train sequencein the beginning. I mean,
obviously he trusts Helen, he truststhat she's like super capable, but this
(32:13):
is still where superheroes are kind ofillegal and not quite shouldn't be like out
and about, and so he's athome with the kids and he hears about
this explosion and this train, likehe doesn't know what like show like literally
like you're saying, just his pointof view. He has no idea if
she's okay, what's going on.And it's kind of like that firefighter mentality
(32:37):
of like you know, the familiesat home and you know mom or dad
is out doing their job, butit's really dangerous and there's actually that risk
and you know there's there's They alreadykind of dabbled into it in the first
movie of him thinking he had lostthem. You know, we've already experienced
that particular emotion. But yeah,the the death by a Thousand cuts.
(33:00):
I think that's what I was reallytrying to say. With the sequel nous
Is and again, like again,like you said, you're putt you're putting
my thoughts into good words, John, This is very helpful, but you
know, yeah, spending time withFrozone is time we're not spending with Bob
or Alasta Girl, even Edna Mode. I love Edna Mode, but that's
(33:22):
time we're not spending with our maincharacters. And so as a that's what
I meant when I was saying sequels, there there grow. The problem is
they're they're stuck with trying to keepwhat worked in the first one. But
like, honestly, like you said, you know, you could do the
entire movie without Frozone and without Ednaand without like like why bring those characters
(33:44):
back? And again, I'm notsaying that you shouldn't, like I understand
the directing choice, but by doingthat, you are not allowing new characters
to come in and really have moretime or enriched time with your main characters.
And it's all just these trade offsof of minutes. And even if
you bump it up two one hundredand eighteen minutes, there's still only so
(34:05):
many that you can keep the attention. But yeah, a good story,
but an okay Scriptum, well,oh hey, we're not quite running third
yet, so let's let's jump intothe two other things I mainly wanted to
talk about is we have the music, but I'll get to that second.
But also the twist, So wehave the twist of the villain. It's
(34:30):
it's not really surprising anybody, LikeI didn't like obviously know what was going
to happen because I didn't read thescript ahead of time. But you know,
your hero being surprised by haha,it's me is not anything super new
what did you think of that aspectof the story slash script Tristan with the
(34:52):
screen flavor, You know, itwas one of those things where I saw
it coming a mile away. Andthat's not necessarily a criticism because I think
too many people use that as acriticism whe they're just like, oh,
yeah, no, I totally figuredit out, like they the filmmakers didn't
pull the wool over my eyes weretrying to. Yeah, it's it's one
(35:15):
of those things where it's just like, yeah, like if you can guess
it, that usually means that they'redoing something right, that they're following the
rules of filmmaking and story progression.You have to bread krumm it. Otherwise
your audience is completely blindsided and they'relike that doesn't make sense, like that
little Johnny is the villain, likewe've never even seen them for three scenes.
(35:37):
You have to ease your audience intothat kind of a twist, right,
And with that twist comes the sacrificeof character development, because you're developing
one character and then turning them intoanother. Right. I think that's the
problem is that with the twist comingso late in the film, the twist
sacrifice the character development of the realvillain. So once we get that real
(36:01):
villain, it's just like it's arush to the climax. And I think
that's why thing not really an infodump, otherwise you have no time to
learn. Yeah, and I thinkthat really hurt the movie, and I
that hurt the story and it's ait's a trope that a lot of movies
fall into, a lot of actionfilms fall into, and um, this
one was no different. And eventhough I'm not criticizing the twist, I
(36:24):
think that's one thing that I thinkif they if they revealed the if the
if they revealed the antagonist and thesecond act, it would allowed us to
build more to the climax, andit made it more impactful. I agree.
(36:44):
I think additionally, if they hadrevealed the antagonist to the audience but
not to alast a girl that Ican get done with that, that that's
a much better progression because that introducestension with the audience because we know something
the main character does exactly and youcan and that buys you time to have
(37:08):
a few fakes where it's like,hey, why don't you come over here?
You're like, oh, they're gonnareview. Oh they didn't reveal it
at that time. Okay, okay, okay, maybe the next scene that
they're together, and that builds youranticipation with it, and then you can
have that that you know, thetwirling mustache haha, I am the villain
moment right before the climax, andthen you have that all that good will
(37:29):
built through the the the end ofit. Yeah, no, that that
would be Again, these are allnuances in the story. It's still the
same kind of story where we're talkingabout, right, but yeah, not
And that's kind of part of thisscript or story is the mystery, like
who is the screenslaver? Like whatis their goal? Like we spend so
(37:50):
much time not knowing as an audiencemember that by the end we're kind of
like, oh, so you kindof batmanned your way into this life because
you parents died, and like wedon't care by the time it's actually given
to us, it's so late inthe movie that we'd like these are ten
gentle characters at best, the youknow, the brother and sister, Like
(38:13):
I never really cared about them atall through the entire movie, Like they're
just they're not supers, they're notpart of the family. H Yeah,
so it that's I think a majorthing of this movie is again when things
are revealed, what the paces ofthe plot, and it's a long,
a long plot. Well we getMichael Dick, you know, coming back
(38:35):
for another amazing score. I thinkhe does a good job of still using
the motifs you know, obviously establishedin the in the first one. You
know, again it's a sequel forhim too, so he's revisiting his previous
work. And I mean, Idon't think there was anything that like super
stood out to me. But todo there of you have something in the
(38:57):
music like a queue or a ora moment. Was there a Superman moment
that impacted you? No, thescore is fine. It's I you know,
it's not something where I'm like,oh, this is a great score.
I was. My reaction was morealong the lines of it works,
it's cool. I didn't There wasn'tanything I walked away with where it was
(39:21):
so fresh and new that I hadto have it sort of thing. You
know, I think that all ofthe really fresh stuff was in the first
one, and so this yeah,you know, it's one of those eternal
back and forth feeling argument blah blahblah things. That happens with sequels,
where sometimes you're really lucky and youget a sequel that breaks the mold and
(39:45):
does something different or really leans intothings and makes it feel new again,
or you have a sequel that isIron Man Too that just sucks and I
never want to talk about it again. Incredibles Too is not that. But
Incredibles two also is not The GodfatherPart two or The Empire Strikes Back or
(40:05):
anything like that. It's more inthat. Again, that's safe space of
you know what you're going to get. This is nothing that's going to challenge
you, but you'll still enjoy it. This is the you know, this
is the I went back to thesame restaurant because I enjoyed it the first
time I went. I expect theexperience to be replicated. I'm not going
(40:27):
there because I want to try somethingfresh. I want to go there because
I know I'm going to be satisfied. But with that knowledge you're going to
be satisfied, you are sacrificing theopportunity to be surprised. And that's the
type of sequel that all the wayfrom everything else we've talked to to even
the score, that's where we arewith it and the score is in that
(40:51):
exact same Wheelhouse of Jacquino comes backand it's like, yeah, I've been
here before. Okay, I knowwhat to do, and I'm not going
to disappoint anybody, but this iswhat I've been a couple of weeks.
It wasn't a huge stretch, now, right, he wasn't composing Vader on
the Murder Express at the end ofRogue one or something like that. Vader
on the Murder Express. I likethat. All right, Well, we're
round and third, So I wantto kind of give this moment to you
(41:15):
guys for any kind of final thoughtsor things we didn't hit. So let's
start with you, Tristan, anyother thoughts you had on this movie,
and just take us right right intoyour rating. I think we explained it
pretty well. I think we wentover what we liked and what we didn't
like. There's a lot of greatmoments in this movie. There's a lot
(41:37):
of great character moments in this movie. It's a good story, but it's
an okay script. It is phenomenalanimation, some really one of a kind
of action sequences, but it doesnot capture the essence of the original.
And I think after fourteen years ofwaiting, you expect something two because this
(42:00):
isn't a cash grab. You cannotcall this a cash grab after fourteen years.
This is something that was waited for, plotted, thought about, and
just really laid down and you know, put on a record, and you
know, Bradbird's in a room justyou know, sit in a bean bag
(42:21):
chair thinking about what this movie isgoing to be. And so there's no
excuses. And while this is agood movie, as I said at the
beginning, this is a good movie, not a great movie. I give
it a solid three stars with noprejudice. Awesome. Now, now,
John, I'd like to go toyou, but we missed you last time
(42:42):
when we were talking about the Incredible. So I want your double rating.
I want to know what number you'regiving. I want it. I want
it number you're rating for Incredibles andIncredibles too. No, I you know
what, I'll no people to findme on social media to hear my rating
in the first Incredibles. That's it. Yeah, I have to reach out
(43:02):
to me there. And if youdon't know where to reach me, you
haven't been listening to everywhere I am. So never mind. I'm the villain
now exactly exactly, let me putthese goggles on you. Um, okay,
give me Incredibles too. Then Iwould say that with Incredibles too.
Ill you know this is a lotlike Tomorrowland. I want to like it
(43:23):
more than I do. I reallywanted to like it more than I do,
especially since this was my first timewatching it. I was like,
Okay, I know how successful thiswas. There's distance. Nobody's opinion can
influence me here. I'm coming intothis as cold as I possibly can.
There's no hype coming around it.Maybe I should have had a little hype
coming around it. Maybe if I'dseen it in the theater, a little
(43:43):
of that momentum would have carried methrough. But I think that it was
somebody in the in in one oftheir reviews, said that if the title
were okay, here, I'm readingit from this Michael Phillips from the Chicago
Tribune. One of the things hewrote was the title We're Satisfactories too,
(44:04):
it would be about right. Ithink that's correct. I would give this
a three. I watched it,Granted I was a little bit tired.
But if I'm truly engaged by afilm, I won't be dozing off by
you know, two thirds of theway through it and waking myself and say,
oh, right, right right,I gotta finish. I gotta finish
this, right. So yeah,this is a three out of five.
(44:30):
Yeah, I think. I meanjust the fact that I will rewatch Incredibles
over and over. It's it's alwaysfun. It's one of those if it
was on, if my kids putit on and I walk by the TV,
I'm like, oh I could.I could spend the next sixty minutes
sitting down and watching the rest ofthis. Like it's a joy every moment,
every scene, this one. Imean, we saw it in theaters.
(44:55):
I don't think we even know,we don't even own it, but
but it's yeah, it's like we'veall said. I think we've all kind
of saying the same thing. Iam also giving it a three man That
train scene gives it at least onepoint, right just for that because it
said I almost wish that was theend. Like I get that the end
has to have the family working together, but if that sequence or that energy
(45:20):
or that amazingness was at the end, because it was kind of a lackluster
end. Again, it had alot of amazing things going on with the
ship and the plane and all ofthat, but it was the difference and
maybe I can't have my you knowcake and eat it two because the train
is Alasta girl in her element.The ending is we have to find a
(45:42):
thing for everybody to do, andthat's a very different formula for your finale.
Granted it it can work really welllike sometime. I mean, we
talk about Star Wars has this issuewhere you know, look at the end
of episode one, you have theyou know, the space battle, the
lights aber battle, the grass battle, and there's a fourth one, oh
(46:05):
and the you know, the othergroup palace. You have four battles going
on at the exact same time.It's it's insane, And you kind of
have the same with this where there'sa lot going on and Jack Jack's got
to be there. And so yeah, I'm going to give it a three.
I can't go below that. Ithink there's still a lot of good
aspects to it. But um,but I'm really hoping ray Gun is animated.
(46:29):
I again, I haven't looked upanything on it, but I'm hoping
that he's doing another animated film andleaning into animation. And because I man
if if Bradbird gets unleashed and couldreally just tell an animated story, drive
his team to tell something original thathe's thought up, and really play with
(46:50):
what that visual medium can do.I think it's going to be amazing and
blow this out of the water.Maybe not make the billions, because that's
just the p x our machine,and we all knew that was coming when
this movie came out, but Ithink it would still still be amazing.
Well, that is it for theBird House. I mean that joke is
(47:12):
still one of the best ones we'vecome up with here on House Slights.
But next week we're going to trysomething a little different. We're going to
be going into the House of KevinReynolds, but we're going to kind of
go just to the rooms we'd liketo visit, you know, those ones
that are unlocked and a joy towatch. But starting in nineteen ninety one,
(47:36):
with Robin Hood, Prince of thesehere On House Slights, join the
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