The Incredibles – Widescreen 2-disc Collector’s Edition
Skwigly
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One of the best things about Pixar is that they are at once encompassing and individual. They have a recognizable brand—everyone knows what you mean when you say “a Pixar film,” even if you can’t put it into words—but their films have a personal touch. John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Brad Bird have all produced films with their own particular sensibilities while staying true to the Pixar spirit, whatever that may be. What’s interesting is that this principle seems to apply to their DVD releases as well. I admit that I haven’t had time to savour the Monsters, Inc. or Finding Nemo DVDs as yet, but the Incredibles DVD is noticeably different from, say, the Bug’s Life DVD—about as much as the two movies are different—and yet it fulfils the apparent Pixar mandate of extras and features that expertly mix nuts-and-bolts analysis, irreverent humour, and technical fastidiousness. It’s the kind of film-nerd ambrosia that the DVD format promises, but doesn’t always deliver.
The jumping-off point on the DVD of The Incredibles is the first commentary track, with Bird and producer John Walker. I found it particularly interesting that the two spent as much time discussing what didn’t go into the movie as what did, illustrating how paring an idea down to its essentials can make for a stronger and more resonant story. Also, from a production standpoint, it showed how good but unnecessary ideas have the potential to create a vortex that just consumes resources.
Some of the best parts of the commentary are where Bird talks about doing things that are typically ignored in animated films. Like many of us, Bird is tired of the pasteurized, kid-friendlyghetto that animation often finds itself in, and takes a few opportunities to rail at the lack of imagination this entails. (When he threatened bodily harm to the next person in his presence that refers to animation as a genre, I almost cheered.) But he also advances his agenda in more subtle ways, such as when he talks about giving animators the chance to do a scene in which Mr. Incredible and Frozone sit in a car, talking—something found in countless live-action films and few animated ones (discounting anime, of course). His comments on camera techniques, lighting and staging also delve into areas that are usually ignored in animation. And, of course, he talks about some of the practical and aesthetic challenges of making the transition from hand-drawn to computer animation.
These themes carry through to the deleted scenes and alternate opening found on the second disc. These extras, often added to DVDs with barely enough context to get by, are extensively discussed here. Over the course of half an hour, Bird explains every aspect of why a given scene was created in the first place, why it was altered, edited or removed, and even goes into his reluctance to remove some scenes or his regrets about losing others.
It was while watching the deleted scenes that I realized the true value of the Incredible s DVD. When I was teaching myself the principles of animation in the early 1980’s, I had books and a handful of videotapes for reference. But this DVD is like a miniature master class, where the theory is side-by-side with its practical application.
This feeling was also borne out by the movie’s second commentary track, where a half-dozen animators relate how they approached different aspects of the film, occasionally complementing the comments on the Bird/Walker track. Some of the discussion gets a little technical (if you don’t know what “ones,” “twos,” “squash and stretch” and “ key frames” are, some of the subtleties of an early comparison between CG and hand-drawn animation will be lost on you), but overall it’s an enlightening experience.
While I imagine many students of animation will be furiously scribbling notes and making sketches, the extras aren’t all about training a new generation of animators. A new short, Jack-Jack Attack, fills us in on what happened to the poor babysitter charged with minding the Incredible infant. (Kyle Baker mined the same territory years ago in his short comic “Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter!”, but both it and Jack-Jack Attack compare favourably to each other.) The supposed “lost episode” of a short-lived Mr. Incredible cartoon mocks cheesy 1960’s TV superhero cartoons, then tops itself by including commentary from Craig Nelson and Samuel Jackson in character as Mr. Incredible and Frozone. And the “Vowelett” short, in which Sarah Vowell, the voice of Violet, talks about herself, is a nice look at an overlooked breed of voice actor—the kind that isn’t a celebrity, but has an interesting voice that fits the part.
Everything I’ve mentioned here just scratches the surface. Whether you pick up the DVD for its educational or humour value, there’s a lot of great stuff to explore; it would be worth the cost even if they hadn’t included the movie.
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