I’m saying OS is Universe. A bad law on the books is what causes everybody problems from Winston and his parents (and his sister, even though she is against the goal), to the Parr family.
Oh, sorry I misunderstood.
Okay, Universe – I confess I have trouble recognizing this one when its the OS.
So how is having a bad law necessarily a Universe problem as opposed to one that results from problematic manners of thinking?
A law is external and unchanging. The way I’m seeing it, the last movie was about a way of thinking that brought about the law. This is a different story, different problem. The law is the given and changing people’s minds is one step toward changing the law.
Sounds like you’re saying this is a direct continuation where it’s the way people think that’s causing problems. I can see the thinking there. But the way I saw it, the law was what kept the heroes from saving the parents, and it was the law that caused the Parrs a problem when they stopped Underminer.
@actingpower,you stated the goal as "restore the reputation of superheroes.” Are you seeing this as an OS of Psychology as well?
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I’m also influenced by (what appears to me) to be the other sources of conflict throughout the rest of the story – manipulation, coersion, “P.R.”, “mindwiping” etc.
The way the law is approached in the story is entirely in relation to people’s thinking – influencing thinking to change the law, or the reverse. The assumption is if you just show people that they’re wrong, the law will magically be changed from public pressure (and in the end, it is). Conversely if you can manipulate the public into believing that supers are dangerous, the law will never get changed.
The Concerns of Psychology also seem to fit much better to me. I’ll be interested to hear what others think though.
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So is changing the law a dividend?
One thing about the Incredibles, both 1 and 2, is that they are a commentary on the whole idea of heroism and hero worship. The first movie’s central argument is a critique of the idea “when everybody is a hero, then no one is,” while the second movie is about how hero worship can trap the worshiper in an artificial reality which is a bad thing.
But, at the same time, it is the heroes who end up winning. When they set out to be heroes, they fail. But, when forced into being heroes as an act of survival, they win.
So, maybe, the core argument is some variation of essentialism v. existentialism? Or, maybe that’s a bridge too far. I don’t know.
This sounds like an explanation of the first movie.
If you’re having difficulty deciding who is the Changed character and who is the Steadfast character at this early in the game…that might be an indication of something else…
Hm, cryptic as ever Mr. Hull! I will have to ponder this …
However, the more I’ve thought about it, the more confident I’ve become.
At the beginning after the kids join in the fight, the family sits down for dinner. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but I believe it’s clear that while Bob is proud of the kids, Helen is worried for them. Violet says something like “so we go back to how things were, not allowed to use our powers?” Helen says, basically, yeah, you can’t use your powers, it’s illegal, which leads to a huge fight with Bob.
After they all join in the final battle with the bad guys together at the end of the movie though, Violet says something to Helen like “you’re not mad?” and Helen says “of course not.” I think this is the indication of her change – she has accepted that they can be a family of supers (who use their powers). The final scene has the whole family suiting up to fight some fleeing bank robbers.
If I’m right though, this “it’s okay to be supers” change begins pretty early in the movie when Helen agrees to become the face of the new pro-supers movement (though she doesn’t appear to accept this about her kids).
Bob is a growth-but-steadfast character. He grows in that he manages to get better at taking care of the kids and being “superdad” but his fundamental outlook doesn’t change.
I would not be surprised if this movie has a very similar storyform to the first.
However, I am open to correction!
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I just assume I missed something. It feels like a full story, and it feels like there was a change, but maybe I’m walking around with a hammer looking for nails. I might have to go watch it again.
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OR…you’ve been doing this long enough and that feeling that you missed something is because something was missing.
Feeling like there was a full story. Feeling like there was a change. Are these the same feelings you experienced with other films you’ve recently helped to analyze?
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Same thing here. I still need to catch up on yesterday’s posts but something didn’t quite sit right with me after watching the first time. I need to watch it again (kid free!) to figure out why that is.
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Be prepared to be dumfounded
Apparently there isn’t a “cringe” emoji available to reply to that review with.
Just saw it (it’s only been out for, like, a week here). It does feel like a weird one.
Definitely an OS Psychology (probably Conceiving – giving the public a new idea about the Supers), but everything else feels vague and blurred.
I don’t see Helen being the one having a change at all. If anything, it’s the rest of the family. Initially, everyone is saying “why can’t we go?” “Why do they want her?” “Why don’t they want us?” etc. At the end, they support Helen and encourage her to go take care of business in the sky on her own. But it’s very light.
Bob has an excellent Do-er moment where he puts the table on top of Jack Jack’s crib to keep him in.
That’s about all I have. Everything else felt a little weird. I don’t know if it’s complete or not, but it feels uneven.
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So now that it has been out for a while, does everyone still think it is a weird one ?
I know I do. It was a really enjoyable movie and it was nice seeing the Parr in action again. However it doesn’t have the same feeling of completeness of the first Incredibles. Maybe a problem/ focus of Perception since they keep talking about it, but aside from that…
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Yes. I still think it’s a great movie but it’s a bit off storyform-wise. I went into it expecting a complete storyform and then to not be able to decide who, if anyone, was a changed character was a bit weird. But I’m still figuring out all kinds of stuff with Dramatica that, once I see it, feels like it should be first year stuff, not fourth year (or however long I’ve been into this) and assumed I had missed something.
The weirdest part for me was that Bob seemed to have a Protection problem that needed to be solved with Inaction. I had assumed Bob would get in Helens way at one point and have to realize that he needs to step back and let her do her thing. Instead, Bob’s Inaction came from Violet basically saying “Dad, I know what I need to do. I need to stand here and do nothing while you save the day”-or something to that effect. That seemed really off to me. But maybe it would work as part of an OS throughline or something. I don’t know.
Either way, can’t wait to watch it again.
(Actually it’s been long enough now I can’t remember if I was thinking he had a Proaction problem or a Protection Problem)
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These would be a good call for Mr. Incredible, especially proaction : he just can’t sit still, not only regarding Helen’s job but also with how he drags Violet to the restaurant her crush works in. He has to work on having better reactions regarding each members of the family, what with Dash’s maths problems, Violet “having adolescence” and Jack-Jack new powers.
Honestly it’s kind of difficult to come up with elements at this point since we’re already having troubles figuring out who is change and steadfast, as you said (although I lean more towards Bob being changed rather than Helen). I’ll see it again tomorrow, maybe I’ll have some insights on a second watch!
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So, I just came back from the cinema. I tried to analyze the story again but I’m still not that good regarding that. So here are my ideas so far, and sorry for the rant!
It’s still hard to even figure out who is the MC and who is the IC between Bob and Helen. They have almost the same amount of screen time so one has to wonder who we identify with the most. Helen’s screentime could be said to be that of the protagonist, as the goal of the story has something to do with either the Physics of making the supers legal again, or the manipulation of the population’s Psychology to make them perceive the supers another way.
However I’d say on a second watch that this movie has a different feel from the first one. Helen being most likely the Protagonist, we can see that the activities she’s involved in are less psychology-based than when Bob was having his little rebellion against the system in the first movie, which involved a lot of deceiving, pretending and living up to one’s potential - plus the dysfunctional family relationship was a big part of the story, it was actually its core masquerading as a super hero movie. Here it is more a matter of fighting, investigating, signing papers and saving politicians from helicopter crashes. Plus, well, lots of baby-keeping. This movie is more action-driven in nature and, in essence, closer to our idea of a super hero movie.
I also watched it keeping in mind the elements of Protection and Proaction mentionned by @Gregolas and I can see some of them in the movie, but I may be biased. What stuck me was Bob’s confession to Violet that despite his past as a hero, he simply didn’t know how to react anymore (in my previous replies I mentioned the various things he did wrong, the poor guy tried). There’s this whole idea that they shouldn’t have acted at all at the beginning and, most prevalent : the idea that heroes exacerbate weakness in the population, who stays passive waiting for rescue - because it’s easier to live that way. It is without doubt the main subject of the story and it can be linked to other threads of the narrative with the right elements.
Interestingly enough Protection, Inaction, Proaction and Reaction share a quad under Strategy (Learning). That makes sense since the whole movie is basically that rich guy’s strategy to bring the supers back into light with Elastigirl ; and, in the background, you have Bob learning how to deal with Dash’s maths, Violet having adolescence and Jack-Jack’s powers. (The kids themselves have to do a lot of baby-keeping, flee from Frozone and the others and save their parents ; they have to create some kind of strategy to succeed.) They might look like two different stories but they actually mirror each other… In the context of an OS of Learning. (And a consequence of Conceiving : had Evelyn succeeded, the population would’ve had the wrong idea of the supers based on the way they were hypnotised, and they would have adopted her own way of thinking regarding them.)
The problem comes from the MC, IC and RS throughline. I may already be off-marks regarding the OS, but the other throughlines leave me completly in the dark because I still can’t figure out who is who. Although I’d go with Bob as a MC since Helen’s screentime, as I said, appears to be more that of the Protagonist - and considering Bob’s jealousy regarding her function, she might be more suited as his IC. Maybe she’s not even IC this time, maybe the kids as a whole are. I honestly don’t know, perhaps some of you will feel more inspired than I do!
I’m almost-certain it would be Psychology. The main area of concern revolves around the Screenslaver’s putting ideas into people’s heads (and puppeteering them), and those corporate siblings are pushing to ‘give the public a new idea about the supers’. Without those things, there would be no conflict in the story. I also remember when I saw it, having recently finished the Psychology Contextual Subgenres, immediately recognising the hallmarks of the Conceiving concern. In particular, the Inception story (stories where characters are working to plant ideas into the heads of others) and the Idea story (stories where characters are trying to come up with a new or ‘fresh’ idea).
I have a hard time placing the dysfunctional family stuff. Even when watching it, it all felt so far removed from the rest of the story until the last 20 minutes. It’s probably a substory, but it just felt very out of place to me.
I completely agree, though. I think the MC/IC/RS are too messy to work out.
I agree with that, however if we consider Evelyn / the Screenslaver as being the Antagonist, isn’t her working on putting ideas into the heads of the people she manipulates actually her pushing for a consequence of Conceiving ? If I remember correctly the analysis of The Iron Giant (goal of Progress, consequence of Preconscious), the Antagonist pushes everyone towards paranoia and irrational fear. It is emphasized quite a lot in the story yet the goal is still Progress.
I was wondering if it couldn’t be the case here too, and the corporate siblings working on “giving the public a new idea of the supers” more of a Physics story : it seemed to me to be less of a matter of manipulating, deceiving and revealing potential (that would be the domain where the Antagonist operates) than a matter of fighting / recording good scenes, saving people, and generally doing whatever it takes so that the strategy of the rich guy (still can’t remember his name lol) succeeds and brings the supers back.
We don’t really see them come up with a plan on how best to manipulate people, it’s already figured out during the first meeting (ie we need to use cameras) and all they need to do is get down to business with Elastigirl : fights, interviews, meetings, etc. The only person who questions the idea behind the plan and the whole manipulation thing is Evelyn, and we then see it through the Screenslaver’s actions. At least that what I thought when writing my previous reply.
But yeah, either way it’s still super messy!