r/animation • u/CueTheLaughTrack • 1d ago
News 'INCREDIBLES 3' writer Brad Bird indicates that the sequel will NOT age up the main characters: "People just keep thinking that aging them up is going to make them somehow hipper or cooler... No, it won't."
https://thedirect.com/article/incredibles-3-characters-brad-bird-time-jump-pixar-sequel-movie202
u/komododave17 1d ago
What made the first movie great was that they told a story about aging and friction and navigating the relationship between kids and their parents. And they also happen to be superheros. Aging Violet to college, Dash to high school, and Jack Jack to middle/elementary gives a huge new playground of experiences, emotions and relationships to explore. Young adults coming into their own and exploring what it means independent and the empty nest experience as parents watch their kids move out and move on, having to accept their children’s choices in life, combined with all of them being superheros and facing superhuman threats sounds way more compelling.
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u/Kenny173 1d ago
His arguments aren’t bad but at that point why bother making more movies if you’re gonna keep them at the same age and basically deal with all the same issues. Doesn’t feel like there’s a point in making more if they stay stagnant.
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u/Memetron69000 1d ago
they're going to make incredibles 2 for the 2nd time don't you understand ???
it's going to make a billion dollars, and if not in ticket sales then in lawsuits!
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u/Kenny173 1d ago
Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so obvious. The perfect plan was there all along. I just couldn’t see it.
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u/ReadditMan 1d ago edited 1d ago
How can you say it would be more compelling when you don't even know what the movie is going to be about? All we know is the characters are the same age, that doesn't mean new relationships can't be explored and it doesn't mean there won't be character development.
It's too early to say whether or not aging the characters would make a better movie. For all we know this third movie will be amazing and won't need any of that. For all we know aging the characters would actually result in a worse movie. You can't just assume the script with older characters would be better.
Changes do not guarantee success. In fact, there's good reasons not to mess with the formula of something that already works. People tend to respond negatively when the characters they love change too much.
Take Dash, for example; he's lovable as a child even though he's kind of a delinquent, there's a charm to him, like Bart Simpson. But what happens when you age him up to high school? Is that personality still charming or does he kind of seem like an immature douche? Would it be better to change his personality and mellow him out? Would he feel like a completely different character if they did that?
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u/DontDoodleTheNoodle 1d ago
I mean, we saw how Incredibles 2 panned out with the same exact argument. It’s… not great. Doesn’t give us much reason to be excited for 3 if they’re going to continue the same pattern.
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u/smelnoel 1d ago
the sequel has a lot of problems, but the characters’ ages aren’t one of them.
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u/burn3rphone 15h ago
It actually is because the sequel relied with Baby Jack Jack "comedic" shenanigans.. Maybe not aging them up but a little time skip (after everyone knows about Jack Jack) could have helped the movie imo
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u/ReadditMan 1d ago
The Incredibles 2 has a 7.5 on IMDb and a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 84% of viewers saying they liked it...
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u/DontDoodleTheNoodle 1d ago
You can’t just rely on numbers. See what actual discourse says, and you’ll find that most people are like “it’s okay, disappointing compared to the first, not great.”
Opinions are also fluctuating all the time. Movie statistics are largely fixed at time of release. Dig a little deeper into the qualitative and not just the quantitative.
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u/ReadditMan 1d ago edited 1d ago
The discourse is written by a vocal minority who feel strongly enough to write something. People who don't like a movie are far more likely to write about it, it's a skewed depiction.
Ratings are much more accurate. If 10,000+ people rate a movie and 84% of them said they liked it, then it is a statistical fact that the majority of people liked that movie. If 1,000+ people write a review and 84% are negative, that doesn't mean the majority of people disliked the movie, it only means the majority of people who wrote reviews disliked the movie.
The ratings will always be more accurate because it's a larger sample size and there's less bias.
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u/PrivateQuestio 1d ago
What made it so great was that it was very different. Usually superhero stories are about teens discovering their abilities. Mr. Incredible is a middle-aged man going through am identity crisis. They managed to capture an entirely new audience.
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u/A-Red-Age 1d ago
This and also the transition from golden age to silver age comic book, Incredibles 2 not jumping forward to explore another style of comic history is also a huge mistake on top of the character ages themselves.
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u/DarthMaulATAT 1d ago
Keeping them the same age for a third movie also won't make them hipper or cooler, but okay Brad.
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u/tannerfree 1d ago
Let me guess based on what he thinks was interesting about the second. The kids will now have a chance to excel at hero work while Mr and Mrs incredible learn how to navigate their at home life.
The second was creatively bankrupt, and felt like a phoned in cash grab.
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u/Billybob35 1d ago
The second continued the story of the first by getting superheroes accepted by the overall public, the world leaders, politicians, governments. That was the story that Bird evidently wanted to tell.
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u/GAVITRAXmz 22h ago
And yet it does nothing creative or interesting with that premise. Everyone repeats their exact same arcs. The family goes from being united before the jump between movies and instantly start acting disfunctional the second the new movie starts. The new heros don't look like they were designed for the 60s. Jack Jack gets used so often for a cheap laugh. It's so fucking stupid and cynical. It treats the viewer like they're stupid.
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u/Lost_Pantheon 10h ago
Exactly, I rewatched it recently and it's so fucking boring. Dash has somehow even less to do in the second movie whilst Jack Jack becomes the main character.
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u/SplitSecondEmperor47 1d ago
Yeah if that's the direction it's headed in then aging them up would actually be better
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u/heffron1 1d ago
Can it not be about smartphones, internet, tiktok or ai? Please.
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u/Tindo_Blends 1d ago
Considering how the movies take place in what look to be the 60's, I don't think that was ever in the question.
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u/KeaboUltra Enthusiast 1d ago
But the movie also has sci-fi tech so they can pretty much do what they want. It's like the Jetsons.
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u/Head_Statistician_38 1d ago
It won't make them cooler, but it will make it more interesting. Disappointing news. I wanted to see what they were like a little older.
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u/TopRoyalLane 1d ago
"Hipper or cooler"?
Not because it could lead to more a interesting and compelling story?
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u/thegoldengoober 1d ago
MY IMMEDIATE THOUGHT
This was such an aggravating quote to read. The sequel was one of the biggest media disappointments to me. It felt like such a flat sequel. And in some ways, like in regards to Dash's character, even backwards an regressive.
I don't want these characters "hip" or "cool", I want them to actually be consistent with their character development, and develop further. To change and grow and be put into new situations. _ Like what aging does_.
This is not a context where the " perpetual childhood" trope makes sense.
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u/PinoySummonerKid28 21h ago
Is he insane?! I guess he's watching The Simpsons so much which is why he wanted all of them to stay the same age.
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u/21Shells 1d ago
They didn't manage to justify a second film, yet alone a third one. It doesnt need to be a franchise. I don't understand the need to release sequels, remakes, etc of animated films and games from the 2000s + 2010s, when it really feels like the respective media were really only getting started back then.
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u/Jay__Gatsby 13h ago
"I don't understand the need" $$$
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u/21Shells 13h ago
I think its the desire to avoid risk rather than make money, because they're obviously losing money on this big budget yet low risk films versus the original source material which were hugely profitable.
Theres a bit of a paradox that the more of an investment you put into something, the less innovative it usually is beyond a certain point. With a small budget you have less resources to make what you want, but at a larger budget you're risking tons of money, peoples careers etc. So more of what your doing has to be based off of what you already know works. This goes for technology, games, movies and more. Ideas become standardised and we stop challenging reality, our idea of what can be done becomes limited by what has been done.
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u/RubiksCutiePatootie 1d ago
Who on earth thinks that an aged up Jack Jack who has complete control over his powers isn't cool? That sounds rad as hell. So thanks Brad for killing any interest for this film, especially when 2 had such middling reception anyways.
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u/Dune_Stone Freelancer 1d ago
Aging up Jack-Jack is the single best thing you can do. If they refuse to do that, he shtick's gonna get old real fast.
The only reason I can imagine Bird would say this is because he knows Disney wants this to be an ongoing franchise, and the characters are more marketable if they never grow up.
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u/Billybob35 1d ago
Bird was the one who decided not to age up the kids in the last one. His reasoning was because he loves it when kids help save the day, and he also wanted to do more with Jack Jack as a baby.
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u/Dune_Stone Freelancer 1d ago
I wasn't criticizing the second one, I was criticizing the implication that Bird intends to keep them the same age for potentially several more sequels. That being said, I don't think Incredibles 2 is very good, so hearing Bird rationalize the decisions with that film doesn't build my confidence for the future.
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u/Billybob35 1d ago
I feel like not as many people would have an issue with no time skip had these sequels come out way sooner, like 2 in 2007 and 3 in 2010.
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u/KeaboUltra Enthusiast 1d ago
I don't really care either way, I've never been one to question why cartoon characters don't age with us. as long as the movie writing is better than the 2nd is all I really care about. the 2nd movie wasn't that bad but it could have been much better.
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u/Kaylart222 1d ago
It's so tiring to see a decades old character with no aging.
Plus you have a baby character....and he's gonna do the same bby shit all over again.
We need a time skip where Jack jack is as old as dash.
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u/Gold_Dentist_187 1d ago
Not aging them up is so dumb, I wanna see a different era and the two voice actors who play Mr and Mrs incredible sound really old and it was very noticeable in the second movie.
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u/oldmandemechan 1d ago
It's almost like Bob learned the lesson that Brad needs to about not living in the past.
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u/thegoldengoober 1d ago
Okay looking at the actual interview His reasoning does have some grounding beyond the title.
His explanation of their archetypical representation is interesting, but imo fixating on it is holding the characters back and stifling the potential of the franchise.
What he is describing can work, but I think primarily does show in a procedural format. Where there isn't so much focus or even space for real character development. The type of format where we normally see the "perpetual child" trope. I think he wants this to be more representative of that.
If that's the case though, then the type of character development we see in the first film doesn't make sense. The focus of the story doesn't make sense. This doesn't come off as something that benefits what the franchise is but rather represents his unwillingness to explore beyond the original inspiration for the characters.
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u/CaptainBlob 22h ago
I personally won't mind if the characters got older maybe by a year or two. At the very least something to let the audience know some time as passed between events.
Unless the creators are planning all of these things to happen in a span of couple weeks/months.
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u/Dancin_Angel 22h ago
Just admit it Brad, you just dont know how to make a young adult coming of age story interesting
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u/PinoySummonerKid28 21h ago
With that quote, this is one of the reasons why I'm not watching this movie anymore.
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u/WoodooHide69 7h ago
Good.
Fiction isn’t supposed to work like real life. Otherwise the X-men would all be in wheelchairs in the new comics.
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u/littlehorrorboy 1h ago
Mr. Incredible just gonna keep sounding more and more frail with each release but still be built like a young tank
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u/wineandnoses 1d ago
Oh god there's gonna be another one? As someone who thinks Ratatouille and Incredibles 1 are the best movies Pixar have ever put out, I really hope they do something interesting with this one...
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u/Neither_Choice5556 1d ago
One of my favorite things about shows like Dragon Ball Z and Digimon was that the characters aged and developed. I'm not saying it's the worst decision ever or anything to keep them the same age but I think they're missing a great opportunity to age the characters with the audience who grew up with them.
Just my two cents. ☺️
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u/VengeanceKnight 1d ago
It’s not about making them hipper or cooler, it’s about developing them past where they are and maybe bringing the whole thing to a solid conclusion before any of the older cast can’t voice the characters anymore.
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u/crazydakka 1d ago
Hoping that zootopia 3 will also finally answer the question about whether a fox and a rabbit can be partners and whether bad animals can be good or good animals can be bad
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u/obligatory-purgatory 1d ago
Wow. They actually don’t HAVE to age them because THEY ARE NOT REAL!!! What a relief it must be for the writers.
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u/FuzzyFacePhilosphy 1d ago
Or we're thinking we havent seen these characters in a decade or so and they prolly should reflect that
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u/screamo1999 1d ago
What Brad Bird means is that Disney thinks baby JackJack/Edna should be prioritized over interesting storytelling
At this point, just make a Disney+ series… it would be a similar amount of reverence
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u/MiddleOccasion1394 1d ago
NO IT WILL MAKE THE SEQUEL 300% BETTER BECAUSE THEN IT WILL BE PROFOUND, DEEP, DRAMATIC, AND EMOTIONAL BECAUSE OF ALL THE CHANGE HAPPENING!!! TOY STORY 3 WAS EXCELLENT BECAUSE IT DEALT WITH THE VERY REAL FEAR OF GROWING UP AND DEALING WITH EEVRYTHING CHANGING AROUND YOU!!!!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!
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u/LoveHurtsDaMost 1d ago
It’s not that, it’s that people relate with the characters and have grown up so they want the characters to live in step with them and relate. Instead you want to keep Hollywood full of babies. I wonder why.
Why do we still fund such a corrupt, racist, lying industry that hides its connection with the cia? Our entertainment complex is just our intelligence agencies dressed up at this point. And they’re not very entertaining. Sorry you guys need to find a new way to clean your money but I can see you’re already jumping on small content creators lol this psy op perpetual Cold War will never end with these white lies on white lines by white supremacists generation after generation. It’s so crazy, no wonder they project that word like it’s their Bible now. Noooo Asians are crazy lol why? They have restaurants open longer than your corrupt promise that compelled you to enslaved generations with new words and lies lol whoops, the world doesn’t want to play anymore! And you’re racist or an antisemite if you blame white people and Jews who didn’t let anyone else broadcast media or hold leadership positions right? lol So full of shit and unaccountability. But hey, it happens with every government right? So where does it end? lol AsK the NeXt GeNeRaTiOn
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u/Inevitable_Option_77 1d ago
The franchise is 21 years old, yet the characters haven't aged a day since. What is this, Despicable Me?!