Brad Bird on the Origin of The Incredibles Powers

With comic books giving us every kind of superpower imaginable, Brad Bird has picked some very specific powers for the Parr family in The Incredibles. We'll be seeing them again in The Incredibles II, and Bird comments on his choice of powers for the characters and why Jack-Jack gets multiple ones in the film.

During a Pixar Q&A event (via ComicBook), Bird explains:

"...so men are always expected to be strong, so I had Bob have super strength. Women, mothers are always pulled in a million different directions, so I had her be elastic. Teenagers are insecure and defensive, so I had Violet have force fields and invisibility. Ten-year-olds are energy balls that can't be stopped."

And babies are unknown, maybe they have no powers, maybe they have all powers, we don't know. So, that's what Jack-Jack was, he was seemingly the first normal one in the family and then at the end of Incredibles you find out that he's the wild card, and that he's sort of the Swiss army knife of powers. And that to me reminds me of the way babies can grasp languages really easily and adopt them easily."

What's interesting about The Incredibles II is that instead of making a story jump in real-time, the movie will start just where the first one ended back in 2004. Though some may have wanted to see a character like Jack-Jack grow up, Bird has said that he prefers telling the story of the characters as they are in the film.

In an age where superhero movies are popping up left and right, The Incredibles still manages to stand out not just as a superhero film, but a family drama as well. Hopefully this new movie has something to say about the state of superhero movies we have today. We already got that Batman reference from one of the trailers.

The Incredibles II comes out June 14.

See Also: Closer Look at the New Supers of The Incredibles II