The Incredibles 2 Review

The Incredibles 2 Review

Very minor spoilers ahead

I just saw the Incredibles 2 and loved it. It doesn’t cover as many mature themes as the initial movie, but it still brings the heart and Parr family that we know and love. Bob and Helen continue to be one of the most realistic animated couples and the family is still relatable despite all the new developments within the film. The characters are the reason for watching both this film and the original. The family still fights, but at the end of the day they care about each other and wouldn’t give it up for the world

The family is taken in a new direction from the original; Helen gets a job trying to legalize supers again, Bob is staying at home taking care of the kids, Violet goes through boy troubles, Dash doesn’t understand his homework, and Jack-Jack develops a whole slew of powers. Their problems are things everyday people struggle with and Violet, Dash, and Jack-jack’s problems helped move Bob’s storyline forward. He is now the hands-on parent who isn’t gone all day for work. He’s trying his best to be there for the kids and gets frustrated when he has trouble. He works to understand Dash’s homework so he can teach Dash, He tries to help Violet’s boy problems, and he brings Jack-Jack to Edna for help with all of his burgeoning powers. Unlike most cartoon fathers he is competent at being a stay at home parent. Helen’s new job is a fun part of the film that shows just how good she was at being a superhero before having to retire. The villain she has to face is interesting and brings up a different viewpoint on superheroes as a whole. The screenslaver believes that superheroes made the people complacent and neglect protecting themselves which leads to tragedy.

All in all this was a great addition to the Incredibles franchise and I’m glad we got it even if it is fourteen years later. This is the type of movie I would go to see in the theaters twice. I appreciate all the hard work Brad Bird, the animators, and voice actors put into this film and encourage everyone to go see it with their own eyes.

My Thoughts on Rose Quartz and Pearl in a Single Pale Rose

Spoilers for the new episodes below.

A single pale rose confirmed many of my suspicions about rose quartz as a person. In every previous episode centered on rose quarts she always seemed more curious and fascinated with humans and life on earth in a way that seemed more like she was more entertained by them than truly seeing “inner beauty”. The way she saw people seemed less than natural. Rose quartz/pink diamond created the human zoo which confirms her perception of humans. In this episode it all but confirms her warped perception.

 In the scene where pearl and rose are talking about staging her shattering it didn’t seem like rose had thought the plan through, like she was doing it on a whim because she wanted to. She also emotionally manipulated Pearl. She lead pearl on and let her believe that she had a future with rose. This really bothered me because while I had suspected this for a while, but having confirmation made it worse. Rose clearly knew that Pearl loved her and used that love to get pearl to do her bidding. And because of the actions taken in this scene pearl probably believes it is her fault for the diamonds turning their focus on earth and shattering all but a select few of Rose’s followers. She believes she caused the death of so many gems. Rose has caused many problems for pearl that I can’t help, but empathize with because I have watched Pearl’s struggles to move on from them. We have seen Pearl’s absolute devastation with Rose’s choice to be with Greg, have Steven, keep secrets from her, etc. Rose had long lasting mental scars on pearl. I hope that the issue of Rose’s emotional manipulation of pearl is addressed and Pearl eventually accepts and moves on. 

I never believed Rose was as great as the gems seemed to believe she was. She always seemed like a figure looked back upon riddled with nostalgia and rose tinted glasses. I never thought she would be this morally ambiguous. She lead a war from both sides until getting pearl to “shatter’ her which only made the situation worse. Then she goes on like nothing happened and has a kid and passes all of her problems onto him. She also bubbled bismuth without telling anyone and hid her away. She is incredibly childish and doesn’t think her actions and how they will effect others through. In the episode jungle moon when we see pink diamond complaining about not having her own colony and when she gets one she doesn’t want to tell them she doesn’t want that colony she tries to sidestep and make up excuses. Her shattering plan didn’t take into account the fallout. She didn’t consider the diamonds getting revenge for her, how it would hurt the other diamonds (blue diamond has depression and yellow is sad but tries to repress it), how her emotional manipulation of pearl causes pearl so many problems down the line, her manipulation of her followers on both sides of the war, etc. All of these show a sense of entitlement and immaturity. Rose quartz never existed just a pink diamond who had a fascination with humans because they entertained her like humans who go the the zoo to see the lions, tigers, monkey, and elephants. 

Why Killmonger is my Favorite Marvel Villain

Erik “Killmonger” was told stories of the utopia that was Wakanda by his father and saw the worst the world had to offer. When he was just a boy his father was taken from him by the very people he was told stories about. The people who had the means to stop the violence and save others like them had taken his fathers life because he wanted to “share” their technology with their less fortunate people. I believe that the death of his father caused him to adopt his father’s ideals and work towards the realization of them with unparalleled focus and resolve. To him Wakanda was the villain for killing his father and denying the rest of “their people” their technology. His ideal was noble, but it was taken to an extreme because the world had taken all he cared about and never gave him anything in return. The rage and hatred he held was there boiling just below the surface and the only reason he didn’t self-destruct was because he had a cause to channel it towards. Erik’s life was a tragic story of a man working towards a “noble” cause that got warped because of loss and neglect.

T’Challa ended up learning from Erik. He realized he couldn’t keep Wakanda’s resources separate from the world. That doing so was wrong and was the reason for his current conflict. He saw the ideal that Killmonger had beneath the radicalization and ended up acting on what he learned. The best villains are the ones the heroes can learn from

Reyna and Nico-the Perfect Unlikely Friendship

Both Reyna and Nico suffer from isolation and loneliness brought upon by their respective reaction to their negative past experiences. Reyna strove for power to have the ability to prevent tragedy to herself and others and ended up causing herself more pain through the isolation the power brought. Her pursuit is ironic in that her pursuit to prevent pain caused her pain. She is truly isolated from her peers not truly of her own free will, but because the position requires her to be strong for everyone around her. Nico on the other hand isolates himself. This is due to the negative atmosphere created by the community he initially lived in. The community was strongly anti-gay and he was forced to fear a part of himself. His isolation is ironic because in his want and need to be accepted he didn’t give anyone a chance to really get to know him and accept him. 

Both Nico and Reyna have trouble trusting others and hide behind tough exteriors. They hide the broken remnants of their respective lives. Reyna through her position. Nico through self isolation. Because of their similarities in dealing with their hardship and shared isolation and loneliness they are able to find someone to open up to. Nico and Reyna share a mutual understanding of loneliness and loss. This coupled with their quest together created a bond that is my favorite friendship in the Heroes of Olympus. I look forward to seeing Reyna in the Tyrant’s Tomb and hope this friendship get more focus in the coming books.

Tigress-Subtle Characterization and Growth

At first glance tigress is the stereotypical hardcore, feels nothing, and shuts everyone out character, but upon a further look there is so much revealed through the lengths the writers went through to develop her naturally and subtly.

Tigress does start out cold and no nonsense. She initially is angry at Po for being chosen as the dragon warrior. This is revealed to be due to her relentless pursuit to hone her kung fu skills and impress Shifu. She wasn’t truly mad at Po or want to be the dragon warrior what she wants is to be acknowledged by Shifu. Because Shifu believes that he led Tai Lung down the dark path he took Shifu is emotionally distant from tigress. This leads to her reckless behavior; Punching ironwood trees for twenty years until she felt no physical pain, training non-stop, leaving to face Tai Lung alone. These were all in an attempt to win his affection. She used to live in an orphanage where everyone feared her and said she was a monster. She was in an environment devoid of affection and the first person to ever show her any was Shifu. He trained her and helped her control her strength so that she was no longer feared by the children or caretakers at the orphanage. Shifu ended up adopting her. From a young age all she sought was approval and love and she rarely was shown either. It is through Po that that starts to change.

When the second movie rolls around Po and Tigress are close. This is the direct result of the first movie. Their relationship kickstarts because Po got through Shifu’s tough exterior. Po causes Shifu to change after the events of the first movie. Shifu realized that his tough love mindset may not be the best course of action and that his emotional distance actually hurt those he cared about most. He realized worth wasn’t just from how much kung fu you knew, but what you did with your strengths. This directly effected his relationship with Tigress. He believed it was his show of love and affection that led Tai Lung to grow arrogant and believe that he deserved the dragon scroll and power, but it was his lack of show of pride in what tai Lung had already accomplished. Their relationship became more open and more like that of a father and daughter than teacher and student. In the credits of the first movie there are scenes of Tigress and Shifu joking around. This large step in Tigress and Shifu’s relationship causes a shift in Po and Tigress’s relationship as well. Tigress now has no ill will towards Po because she now has Shifu’s approval, so now their relationship can progress.

A lot of Tigress and Po’s relationship growth is due to their shared circumstances. Tigress understands Po’s struggle with identity in the face of his newly discovered past. She was the kid with no family and no identity and much of her inner struggle has been centered around that. It is through this connection that Tigress was the ideal member of the furious five to support and sympathize with him throughout the second movie. Po believes that he needs to hide this beneath the surface and that it shouldn’t bother him. Ironically it’s Tigress, the one who hides her pain behind a self made wall, that reaches out to him and tells him it’s okay to feel pain and starts to lower her walls as well as his.

Tigress is a character of action and that is seen clearly through the animation. Most of this development is seen not outright said. If you were to remove the sound from any of her scenes be it when she told Po the story of Tai Lung and part of her past is seen, when she talks with Po on the boat, or the fight and subsequent hug in gongmen jail, you can still understand the emotions this character is conveying and not truly lose anything from the character. This is a strong point in characterization especially in an animated movie. The great sound and voice acting help though.

All of this development was brought about by the thought the writers put into the character and her backstory as well as fantastic animation. Even the end credit pictures help move the character forward to where she ends up. I think this is a testament to the care the creators have for these characters. Where they are able to make characters who feel real and relatable through subtleties such as an expression or inflection of the voice. This helps Kung Fu Panda be one of my all time favorite animated trilogies.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree...or Does It? (Jessica Jones season 2)

Anyone who has watched season 2 of Jessica Jones knows the importance of mothers and daughters holds. Throughout the season Jessica struggles with comparing herself to her mother whereas Trish believes she is nothing like her mother. Ironically the opposite is true for each of them.

The comparison between Trish and her mother never really dawned on me until the scene where Trish wakes up in the morgue and is mad at Jessica for stopping the experiment on her and she ends up saying that Jessica is a disappointment, she has all this power and does nothing with it. This sentence mirrors something Dorothy says once before in the show. Looking back the two seasons have been building to this revelation. The first season does it incredibly subtly, but looking back after the revelations of this season it is obvious. 

At the beginning of this season Trish is on a ratings high talking about the street level heroes within the city.  She talks about Jessica on her show against Jessica’s wishes, though she didn’t say her name she said she grew up with a superhero which makes it obvious who she is talking about. She coerces Jessica in every way she can to take on the case for IGH and discover what happened to her. She does this under the guise that it will give Jessica closure, but in reality she wants jessica to find the truth so she can go public with it and rise in the ratings. This is similar to the methods her mother uses in season 1. Her mother does Trish a favor and immediately tries to “casually” bring up something Trish can do for her. 

Trish throughout both seasons tries to live vicariously through Jessica because Jessica has powers and the ability to fight the “bad guys”. Trish isn’t complacent with what she is doing to help people and wishes she could engage in a more radical, hands on form of justice. Dorothy was living through Trish throughout Trish’s entire childhood. Putting her in the limelight and getting her public recognition through any means necessary even at the expense of Trish’s mental and physical health. Trish may not realize it, but she is doing the same thing to Jessica. Trish pushes Jessica towards danger in both seasons and Jessica suffers incredible trauma in both. 

Also Trish only says she is proud of Jessica when Jessica is doing what Trish believes is right this is briefly shown is season 1 when Trish tells Jessica she is exactly the hero she wanted her to be when Jessica decides to go through with a self-sacrificial way to stop Kilgrave. Throughout season 1 Trish rarely tries to talk Jessica out of anything when Jessica is trying to stop Kilgrave the only time she really tries to nudge jessica into making a different decision is when Jessica tries to run from Kilgrave instead of face him. She also has no qualms with killing the antagonist of each respective season, which goes along with her the ends justify the means mindset. Dorothy has the same mindset in her thinking towards her relationship with Trish. As long as Trish gains and maintains fame and popularity Dorothy believes she is a good person and mother because no matter the means she obtained her desired end goal.

Jessica on the other had has been proven to be a polar opposite to her mother in just about every way. Jessica’s mother is a sociopathic serial killer who blames everyone else for her actions and views the past, before the car accident, in an extremely negative light. Jessica on the other hand blames herself for all the bad things that happen to the people around her even if she couldn’t stop it.  She blames herself that her mother is after Trish, she blames herself for Reuben’s death, she blames herself for the car accident, etc. Jessica also feels extreme guilt for every life she takes and in every situation the choices were limited. Reva-Kilgrave made her kill Reva. Kilgrave-no jail would have been able to hold him and he would not stop until he had Jessica. Dale- granted she was in his apartment, but he was beating her and wouldn’t stop so she lashed out without thinking of her strength. Dale’s death was the only one that was avoidable, but it was entirely out of self defence and accidental. Jessica is literally blinded by nostalgia and views her childhood and herself before the accident through rose tinted glasses. Jessica believes she is a bad person. She views herself in a negative light, but she always ends up doing what is right. She gets lost along the way and is conflicted about her choices, but she comes out the other side making the right choice even in lose lose situations. 

Jessica believes that no matter the ends if the means were horrible or inhumane it doesn’t make you a good person. Her mother believes the exact opposite, if the ends were as desired the means don’t matter. This is shown through their conflicting viewpoints on Karl. Karl was experimenting illegally on humans with inhumane methods on people who couldn’t say no due to their varying circumstances, but his experiment were in gene splicing which could lead to curing genetic diseases and disorders in people after birth and heal people who look to be lost causes. Jessica believes he isn’t a good person and should go away for what he has done. Her mother believes that Karl is a good person even before they enter a relationship and wants him to be free.

This shows the duality within characters related or not that have inadvertent similarities and staggering differences.