Patreon Letter: 8th July 2019

Hey folks, Jackson here! Been a while since I've done one of these. Last month was very busy, but I haven't forgotten you. To make up the backlog of letters I owe, I'm going to be writing one every week this month. Em will still write on their normal schedule, but I'll be doing weekly too just as a nice little bonus for everyone. 

I'll probably be writing about: movies. One, because they're kinder on my free time than video games, but also because starting up a movie podcast again means I'm excited about movies again. I would like to find the time to watch at least one movie a week that isn't for the podcasts, and if I have anything to say about them I'll write about them here. I won't be doing any formal polls, but if you get these letters and are in the discord, then you can suggest what I should watch in the discord, if there's anything you'd like me to cover in the next few weeks.

Today, I was going to watch a good movie - I'm on the hook to watch it immediately after finishing this up - but last night I played myself and put on Incredibles II out of sheer curiosity and also because I thought it would be watchable enough to fall asleep to and maybe politically on one enough to post a take about, both reasonable expectations when it comes to Brad Bird. Instead it was so bad that I was just kind of confused watching it and so that's what I'm talking about today. The Incredibles II.

So, The Incredibles, right. It's pointed to as the big starting point for Brad Bird's weird thinking emoji randian tendencies, but also and much more crucially for considering the sequel, it's a really good movie. Leaving aside the implications of its central theme, its deeply thoughtfully constructed around that theme, balancing four protagonists who each get their own arc, moment to shine, and all these stories blend together to make the movie's conclusion work. By the end of the movie, two things are certain: the family will no longer hide their superheroic powers, and the family will work together while doing so. 

The very first thing that happens in Incredibles II? Tony, the boy Violet asked on a date in the first movie, gets his memory erased. Then their big fight with the Underminer causes a bunch of collateral damage because the family doesn't communicate properly, with both Bob and holy shit wouldn't you know it: Superheroes are now double illegal again. All the growth of the first movie is completely destroyed in this opening, and the characters reset to their starting points, leading into a story which is: just the first movie again it's the exact same movie. An extremely not suspicious guy shows up with a proposal to bring back the glory days of superheros, one of the parents goes on a mission, the other stays at home, it turns out the proposal was just a false flag to destroy superheroes! And then they defeat the bad guy, learn to be a family, and resolve to never again hide their powers from the world.

It's all so half hearted and inept that it becomes hard to dig into the deeper implications of what the movie is saying because its storytelling is too muddled on a more fundemental level. The main plot is literally: the Incredibles fuck up so hard they make superheroes even more illegal and despised, so the main villain begins a false flag campaign for superhero legalisation, in order to crush that campaign and turn society against superheroes for good. Which, if you flip back to the first part of the sentence, they already are. 

It has lofty ambitions of being this metacommentary on superheroes, on superhero movies, on how superheroes make us complacent and stop taking responsibility for ourselves. Which, sure, if that's the path you want to go down Brad Bird, I won't stop you. I think that's wrong and cynical, but it is a theme that at least makes sense as a progression from the first movie, which ended with everyone just stoked that "the supers have returned!" But that's not the world that this movie takes place in, it takes place in one where everyone hates superheroes, and the people we see who love them are explicitly part of a minority rights campaign??? It has two directly contradictory theses: people hate superheroes for being better than them, and they are evil to do so. But also, people love superheroes for being better than them, and they are evil to do so. It flips between these two ideas so often depending on the momentary affecy of that specific scene but makes no attempt to reconcile, synthesises or even slightly interrogate this. Its just bad writing, top to bottom. 

The only explanation has to be that Brad Bird was so mad that nobody liked Tomorrowland that he just stopped caring. Because while I think that movie is repugnant in many, many ways. It's well made, it's coherent, and it's something he clearly cared about deeply. When I critique Tomorrowland, I feel like I'm responding to an argument made by a man through their work. When I critique the Incredibles II i just feel like I'm ranting at noise. And it's a shame. It's not even satisfying to dig into, there is no catharsis here.

Okay not to go on too much longer - I don't like these kinda ranty critiques, I will make sure to watch a good movie for next week - but I do have to mention how weird all the domestic life stuff is in this movie. It feels ancient. Bob is such an unbelivable asshole in this movie, he's actively furious with Helen that she's been chosen for the mission and not him. There's a whole run of scenes playing up how funny it is that he shakes with rage and humiliation at the idea that he's not the greatest superhero in the world always, and that his wife might get to exist outside of his shadow. 

It's so strange because it's not really... resolved? It's not like Helen's suspicion of Bob in the first movie, which begins with their police scanner antics, drives the middle section of the film, and leads directly to his rescue in that scene where he's momentarily kissing another woman for Reasons. That was a central conflict of the movie, and the equivalent stuff here is just really shitty and mean spirited and then eventually dropped because it was never a real conflict in the first place. Just weird.

Anyway. Very bad movie. Next week someone force me to watch something if not good then at least interesting and coherent. I would like that. Again, suggestions in the discord, please feel free!!

That's it from me, see you in a week