The Incredibles DVD

[Skar]

ya I know it's styleized, but the reveiwers more or less stated it was revolutionary which its not.  I don't have a problem with the look of them (though I agree with EUOL's toystory comment), and think they fit the movie but it's not "soaring to new heights in technology" as the reveiw said.

I see your point.  Perhaps it would have been better if they had said soaring to new heights in the USE of technology, or taking the technology to new heights or something along those lines.

Didn't WoW do something similar by making the graphics look great but not requiring the niftiest/latest card to see them at their best?  That was probably just good commercial sense.  The more cards work, the more people can buy the game.

[Patrick Gibbs]

Wow, it's looks like a lot of people have a lot to say on this. Normally, I don't like to reply to discuss of reviews I write - if people dissagree with me, I think it's bad form to argue the point. But I did want to make one thing clear.

I LOVED, LOVEd, LOVEd Spider-Man 2. It was aweseome - the thing that sets Spiderman apart from Batman is that you actually care what happens to the characters. Peter and Mary jane are so lovable, and real, that you can't help but root for them. I did not say that The Incredibles beats Spidey hands down, but I still feel it has a more cohesive storyline. The Spidey film,s brillaint as they are, still follow the Btaman "bad guy wants to kill the good guy, so that's the plot" storyline. Spidey 2 had more to it than the first one, with the whole Doc Ock dynamic, but the plot felt just a little muddled and over crowded to me (again, Iloved this movie. It was one of my favorites of the year, and I rank Incredibles, X2, Spidey 2 and Superman II as the best films ever in the genre.

I stand by what I said, but you make a strong argument. I love Spidey, and I can't wait for the third one.

Now, two other points: "Final Fantasy" was fun, but I defy you to describe the plot at gunpoint , and what in the hell does ANYONE have against "Finding Nemo?"

[Skar]

Welcom to the forums Patrick.

I see you have, as usual, jumped in with both feet.  Great to have you on board.  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

feel fre to register, introduce yourself formally, and read the FAQ

[Fellfrosch]

Thanks for dropping by, Patrick. I thought your review was great, even if I did disagree with it in spots.

I seem to be in the minority in my opinion of the Incredibles. The only character in the show who struck me as deep or well-rounded was Helen/Elastigirl, and the rest all seemed to be pretty standard. I suspect that most people (and here I'm putting words in your mouths, purely by conjecture) like The Incredibles because it is aimed more squarely at their age group and interests. It's more appealing to many adults than something like Toy Story because the characters are cool humans who kick butt instead of little toys that want to be loved. And in that sense it was an awesome story that enjoyed a great deal. But I continue to believe that Toy Story 2 is a much better movie overall, with stronger, deeper characters, a more interesting and original story, more humor, and layers of interest that make it accesible to any age group--it wasn't aimed at you as directly as The Incredibles, but you could enjoy it just as much as the three-year-old sitting next to you.

Now, it's perfectly possible that my opinion of The Incredibles is jaded because there was, in fact, a three-year-old sitting next to me and she was, in fact, quite bored. But consider that the same three-year-old can watch Spider-man 1 and 2 and be enthralled. I just don't think The Incredibles has that level of depth (by which I mean, anyone at any level can watch it and get something out of it).

A quick answer to the Nemo question: Finding Nemo is the most visually beautiful animated film to date, I think, but easily the weakest Pixar film in terms of story and character. I could watch it for hours, but I would be just as happy with the sound turned off. Maybe I could set it up to run continuously and pretend it's a fishtank....

[Oldie Black Witch]

The short Jack Jack Attacks is absolutely hilarious.  I am very amused by his levitating through the house flying through walls.

[Spriggan]

Now, two other points: "Final Fantasy" was fun, but I defy you to describe the plot at gunpoint , and what in the hell does ANYONE have against "Finding Nemo?"

Finaly Fantasy's plot was very simple, stop the alien invaders, it's not that confuseing nor was it that good, I'd say it was an adverage Sci-fi film.   If you want something else to compaire use "Last Flight of the Osiris" from the animatrix, it used the same engine that built the movie.  My statments with FF movie were it looked better then Increadibles but you cannot really compaire them since they were targeted at different people.

Finding Nemo looked good (until they left the water) but was increadably boreing.  I almost fell asleep in the theater.

None of the characters in the Incredibles intrested me, except elasti-girl, the kids were annoying and the plot trite.  It's a lot like Minority Report, very well acted, and shot (in this case rendered), with good production vales but the story was lame and perdictable.  Any movie that I can guess all the major plot-twists and the ending 10 minutes into it I enjoy less.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

wait... the plot of incredibles was more lame than "stop the alien invaders?"

Which isn't an accurate description of FF unless you consider "stop the orc invaders" to an accurate plot summary of Lord of the Rings. There were all sorts of things going on all over the place that had little direct relation to "Stop the alien invaders" and much of their revelation information was hackneyed.

[Spriggan]

I didn't say it was better then the increadables, I don't know why you people keep on trying to claim I said things I obviously didn't.  

And yes the FF movie's plot was that simple, there wasn't much else going on in it.  Heck the only side plot was the romance, besides that there was nothing else going on.  I'm not trying to defend FF's plot here either, I've never tried to compaire it's plot to the Incredibles or anything else so I don't know why you are trying too, besides that they're both CG they have nothing else in common.

And my comments in the last post, and maybe you'll all read them this time instead of ignoreing them, are right on for my thoughts on the incredibles:

None of the characters in the Incredibles intrested me, except elasti-girl, the kids were annoying and the plot trite.  It's a lot like Minority Report, very well acted, and shot (in this case rendered), with good production values but the story was lame and perdictable.

So in other words: while the Incredibles plot/story was well written and produced the story is self was unoriginal and not very intresting.

[Spriggan]

I see your point.  Perhaps it would have been better if they had said soaring to new heights in the USE of technology, or taking the technology to new heights or something along those lines.

Didn't WoW do something similar by making the graphics look great but not requiring the niftiest/latest card to see them at their best?  That was probably just good commercial sense.  The more cards work, the more people can buy the game.

Sorry didn't see your post until just now.  I would argue that they brought new things to the CG feild such as the production value and such, quite frainkly Incredibles didn't add much new techology wise.  Monsters INC and Shrek were more revolutionary technology wise in my opinion, Shrek had the muscle modeling under the skin and MI had the detail of Scullys hair among other things.  The only think PIXAR said they had to write up a bunch of new code for was the girls hair, and while nice looking isn't anything amazeing since others have had the same looking long female hair before.  Now that everyone's has more or less gotten the tech and skills in the medium to a certain level studios are focusing more on the other parts of the movies, which Increadibles has done better then any so far.  Nor have they really used it in much of a new way, it's all the stuff behind the scenes that was a great improvemnt.  So even though I think saying "takeing Techonology to new hights" isn't valid, saying "takeing CG films to new hights" is.  

I don't really see how your WoW statment applies to this, but ya Blizz managed to make WoW run on a wide spectrum of cards without have a huge loss in overall quality.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Why is "predictable" a bad thing? Did people go to The Passion expecting some surprise? Like maybe Jesus would jump down off the cross and, with stunt-double Jackie Chan, beat up all the Romans and the Sanhedrin? Do people expect an original plot when they go to an Arthurian movie? (answer: producers think so, and they create lame movies by doing so, the best King Arthur movie being Excalibur and having a fairly unoriginal plot). Are we expecting unpredictable ideas from Revenge of the Sith (I'm not, I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen and it doesn't diminish my enthusiasm at all). Was Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings original (nope, he pretty much just took it out of Tolkien)?

Predictable plots are too often used as a criteria for giving thumbs down to a movie when really, that's not usually a valid criterion. Few movies are terribly original in their plot structure, but The Incredibles  approached it in some fairly original ways. Esp how they brought all the characters into the conflict.

And yes the FF movie's plot was that simple, there wasn't much else going on in it.  Heck the only side plot was the romance, besides that there was nothing else going on.

Saying this just goes further to demonstrate my point. If you're going to be that reductive, I stand by my idea that LOrd of the Rings' plot is "repel the orc invaders." Star Wars is just "overthrow the empire"

My point is, that's not a plot, that's a conflict. It doesn't summarize the movie well at all. I didn't think FF was well written, but it can't be summarized like that.

[Spriggan]

Why is "predictable" a bad thing? Did people go to The Passion expecting some surprise? Like maybe Jesus would jump down off the cross and, with stunt-double Jackie Chan, beat up all the Romans and the Sanhedrin? Do people expect an original plot when they go to an Arthurian movie? (answer: producers think so, and they create lame movies by doing so, the best King Arthur movie being Excalibur and having a fairly unoriginal plot). Are we expecting unpredictable ideas from Revenge of the Sith (I'm not, I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen and it doesn't diminish my enthusiasm at all). Was Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings original (nope, he pretty much just took it out of Tolkien)?

Predictable plots are too often used as a criteria for giving thumbs down to a movie when really, that's not usually a valid criterion. Few movies are terribly original in their plot structure, but The Incredibles  approached it in some fairly original ways. Esp how they brought all the characters into the conflict.

It's just personaly prefrence.  I didn't read any of the LoTR books so I would enjoy the movies more, I never saw Passion of the Chirst becaue I knew what it was about and had no intrest in seeing it.  When I pay $8 for a movie I want to be entertained, I want a comedy to be funny, I want an action film to be violent and I want drama/thrillers not to bore me to death.  Incredibles was kind of a mix of all of those and it was funny in parts, had good action, but the drama part of it wasn't intresting and the plot twists were perdictable.2 out of 3 aint bad, and not worthy of a 6/6 in my book.  Thats why we're haveing this discussion, becasue many of us don't think its a perfect movie.   I don't care if something has been done before, as you said not many original things out there anymore, but if it follows an a-typical plotting then that's a valed arguement.  If, as I have said, I can guess the majority of the plot and how it will end in the first few minutes and be right for most of them then that movie is less intresting to me.  

I know you probaly want a better arguement or for me to actualy try to answer your question, but it's not worth argueing since it's all a mater of taste.  And I've learned personal tastes are never changed via arguments, especially in this forum.

[42]

I just watched the Incredibles DVD yesterday. I really do think it was one of the best movies that came out last year.

I found the animation to be great. From what I've read, it is the work done on Helen/Elastigirl that is really considered ground breaking. There really is fluidity in the characters that hasn't been achieved in previous full-length CG films. And there is ground-breaking technnology used in the Incredibles, but like all good movies you can't see it. Something that annoys me to no end about squaresoft is that they include so many pointless scenes just to show-off their tech and artisitsc skills. There is no reason I should have to suffer for their vanity.

I think the art direction and characters design is also great. There is a really awsome mod look going on with a hint of pop.  A look that is really appropriate for the subject matter.

And I think the plot is great. There are a lot of direction they could have taken the plot and I'm glad they didn't go those directions. I'm impressed with how much depth each character is given is such a short amount of screen time. The film is well deserving of the praise it has recieved for its script, having been nominated for best screenplay at nearly every major awards ceremony. Something that is a near herculean task for an animated film.

[Spriggan]

Saying this just goes further to demonstrate my point. If you're going to be that reductive, I stand by my idea that LOrd of the Rings' plot is "repel the orc invaders." Star Wars is just "overthrow the empire"  

My point is, that's not a plot, that's a conflict. It doesn't summarize the movie well at all. I didn't think FF was well written, but it can't be summarized like that.

On my way home from work I thought about this a bit more and I did miss a few things.  But more or less I think I'm right, normaly for most movies I agree with you SE but I think that was part of the problem with FF.

So really the only other things that happened in the move where them testing out the theories of how to stop the aliens (which happens really fast) and the other was the girl getting infected and the baldwin wanting to save her.  But besides that it was the aliens are invadeing we need to stop them, yes the ailens invade the base and other things happen along those lines, but they basicly involved bland fights.  I'd argue that "stopping" the aliens was about 80% of the plot of this movie.

I found the animation to be great. From what I've read, it is the work done on Helen/Elastigirl that is really considered ground breaking. There really is fluidity in the characters that hasn't been achieved in previous full-length CG films. And there is ground-breaking technnology used in the Incredibles, but like all good movies you can't see it

if there was it was stuff like faster rendering or a more effiecnet way of doing something, becasue it wasn't anything on screen.  Again I'm not argueing the quality of the animation, it is great, but it's not as amazeing (pun advoieded) as others here are saying.  It's on par with Monsters INC to me.

Something that annoys me to no end about squaresoft is that they include so many pointless scenes just to show-off their tech and artisitsc skills. There is no reason I should have to suffer for their vanity.

Your right about that when talking about the movie, but not anything else they've done.  But I know you haven't seen anything from Square exept maybe the movie and parts of FFX when either Dan or Promethious are playing it.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I actually hated the FF animation because it tried too hard to look real and IMHO failed...