Meet some old friends — just as they were — in the new trailer for one of Pixar’s most anticipated sequels.
Our first look at the long-awaited follow-up to Brad Bird‘s 2004 animation hit, The Incredibles, arrived over the weekend to stellar reactions. The Incredibles 2 teaser may be light on the plot details but is surely heavy on the nostalgia factor.
Here’s the official synopsis: “Everyone’s favorite family of superheroes is back in ‘Incredibles 2’ – but this time Helen (voice of Holly Hunter) is in the spotlight, leaving Bob (voice of Craig T. Nelson) at home with Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell) and Dash (voice of Huck Milner) to navigate the day-to-day heroics of ‘normal’ life. It’s a tough transition for everyone, made tougher by the fact that the family is still unaware of baby Jack-Jack’s emerging superpowers. When a new villain hatches a brilliant and dangerous plot, the family and Frozone (voice of Samuel L. Jackson) must find a way to work together again—which is easier said than done, even when they’re all Incredible.”
This franchise truly is trapped in time itself, which makes The Incredibles 2 all the more exciting. Whereas a Pixar franchise like Toy Story benefits from having big time lapses between each film, it absolutely works that The Incredibles 2 picks up pretty much where it left off 13 years ago. Jack-Jack’s burgeoning powers provided an excellent, satisfying twist in the first movie, and it’s far more interesting to see how a family copes with a highly superpowered baby than watching them simply move onto the next generation with no fuss.
Having a narrative that keeps within the struggles of a dysfunctional nuclear family also harks back to one of the reasons The Incredibles is so revered in the first place. Sure, The Incredibles is a kids’ movie, but as Farah Cheded points out in our epic 51 best superhero movies list: “the film’s nuanced portrait of a flawed family, director Brad Bird’s characters are instantly relatable for adult audiences. Mr. Incredible’s nostalgic inclinations, plus the everyday frustrations of parenthood, marriage and working life he shares with wife Helen (née Elastigirl), mean that there’s plenty of credibility in The Incredibles.”
Of course, the fact that The Incredibles 2 is set so soon after the first film also brings about a sense of sentimentality — it’s a giant literal throwback to childhood, which I am all for. Ever since the initial announcement that a sequel to The Incredibles was actually in the works, fans came out in troves declaring every The Incredibles 2 screening a no-children zone. The first film didn’t need to be overly convoluted to mean something profound to viewers of all ages, and the idea of classifying The Incredibles as just a movie for kids is strangely reductive.
Furthermore, The Incredibles 2 will introduce us to some new characters voiced by Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener, so the film is not entirely based on the nostalgia. However, their roles are still kept tightly under wraps for now. But if we’re honest, the running Twitter joke of waiting anywhere between 80 and several hundred years to see The Incredibles 2 is all too real, and it is safe to say that every original fan of the first film will turn up for the sequel anyway. Luckily for us, we don’t have to wait too much longer. The Incredibles 2 is slated for release June 15, 2018.
Related Topics: Pixar, The Incredibles, Trailers
