Awesome / The Incredibles

Badass Family at its finest.

Dash: That was so cool when you threw that car!
Bob: Not as cool as you running on water!

— Bob and Dash lampshading how awesome their experiences are

The moment above isn't the only incredible thing audiences will see in The Incredibles.

---

• Mr. Incredible stopping a police chase, catching a bank robber, and rescuing a kitten stuck in a tree, all in one move.
• Young Mr. Incredible catching the jumper in mid-air. If you listen closely, you can hear the crowd outside, which had just been screaming uncontrollably as the jumper lept, stop screaming suddenly, giving a stunned silence, followed by cheering and applause when they realize what happened.
• Dash's teacher arguably gets one at the beginning of the film for discovering and explaining how he found out that Dash was the mastermind of the thumbtack prank. Since Dash has super speed, this is impressive. Dash even goes Oh, Crap! when the teacher reports this.
• Mr. Incredible and Frozone during the burning building rescue. Despite the fact that the building is collapsing and Frozone can't summon water to clear a path, they hightail it out of there and save everyone knocked out from the smoke.
• Frozone, undercover, immobilizes a policeman and the bullet that was being fired at him with "I know, I know ...freeze."
  • While we're at it, an understated one for the policeman: Frozone's ice shoots out of his hands at lightning speed, but the officer still manages to get a shot off that we can see must have been shot almost as soon as Frozone used his powers.
• Edna is a walking, talking, eccentric CMOA. When you're 3 feet tall and can flabbergast supers, you can't be anything else.
  • The fact that Edna has fire over 1,000 degrees, machine guns and missile launchers in a secret room that seems to be under her house.
  • Bob comes to her to simply ask for a patch job on his old suit. Using Awesomeness by Analysis, she can tell that it was torn through recently, despite being one of her creations, and asks what he's been doing. When Bob maintains Plausible Deniability that it must have happened before he retired, she essentially orders him to sit down and pose for a new superhero suit, all the while acting like it was his idea. After a few scrapped sketches, and tossing one at his head, she promises it will be ready in a few weeks, along with the "hobo suit".
  • Edna telling Elastigirl exactly what to do when they think Bob is having an affair. "Pull! Yourself! Together!"
  • May also be considered a Heartwarming Moment: Does Edna ever suggest to Helen that Bob is having an affair? No - she asks her if she wants to know where he is, implying Edna knows he's off doing top secret shit and his wife should know so that she doesn't think he's having an affair and potentially ruin their marriage.
• It seems to get lost under all the other cool moments, but one moment that rarely gets any recognition is Bob proving that Super-Strength (arguably one of the least useful power sets for stealth) can be applied with some creativity, good judgment, and quick thinking during his infiltration of Syndrome's base. He's the team muscle, but as he's shown, he's certainly not Dumb Muscle.
  • Speaking of quick thinking, Bob tricking Syndrome's life probe by hiding under Gazerbeam's skeleton. Allowing Syndrome to think he had been killed made it much easier for Bob to go into full stealth mode. Even Syndrome gleefully admitted how awesome that was!
• One for Violet: her mother put her in charge of the house while merely saying that Bob was either in trouble or going to be in trouble. Violet knows something is up when Dash finds super-suits tailored for their powers. She and Dash hire a super-competent babysitter, one who has a lot of experience and stow away on the plane. This little decision ends up having a snowball effect: Mirage pulls a Heel–Face Turn when she hears that Incredible's children are on board, Violet uses her shield powers to free everyone, and she comes up with a foolproof solution on how to fly a rocket back to the mainland: "Use the coordinates from the last flight".
• What about Elastigirl protecting her kids as the plane crashes? She's able to get both of them and herself away safely despite the fact that missiles have just impacted the plane! That's just amazing, Mama Bear realness. Then she grabs them as they're falling, shapes herself into a parachute, and helps them land safely in the ocean.
• It's a definite tribute to Helen's parenting skills that the threat of grounding Violet and Dash for a month if they don't calm down works in the middle of the ocean after the plane they were in got shot down.
• Dash and Helen quickly come up with a way to reach land: she turns herself into a boat, and he swims as fast as he can, serving as an impromptu motor. It tires him out, but she tells him he did great.
• The talk that the three of them have in the cave. Elastigirl realizes that this isn't her husband having a dalliance: he got in over his head with something worse and she needs to rescue him. She reassures Violet about being unable to generate a plane-sized forcefield, telling her she can do great things as she lets loose and orders Dash to run if he gets cornered by the bad guys.
• Elastigirl's infiltration of Syndrome's island base is truly awesome, and the Awesome Music is just gravy.
  • Syndrome's own base itself is really cool, with plenty of egg-shaped rail pods, entire rocket silos, a lot of guards, lots of tunnels and chambers, a massive computer room and some of the fancier rooms have a nice Art-Deco style to them as well. Not to mention that it is also built inside an active volcano!
• Mirage calling out Syndrome over him not trying to save her, leading to her Heel–Face Turn.
  Mirage: He's not weak, you know.
  Syndrome: What?
  Mirage: Valuing life is not weakness.
  Syndrome: Oh, hey, look, look, if you're talking about what happened in the containment unit, I had everything under control.
  Mirage: And disregarding it is not strength.
  Syndrome: Look, I called his bluff, sweetheart, that's all. I knew he wouldn't have it in him to actually…
  Mirage: Next time you gamble, bet your own life.
• After thinking his family was murdered by Syndrome, Mr. Incredible threatens to kill Mirage. Later, when she tends to him, we see he's a clearly broken man with nothing left to lose, so he grabs her by the throat like he's going to crush her skull, demanding what else they can do to him. Despite the fact that he's suffocating her, Mirage manages to communicate that his family survived.
• Elastigirl knocking Mirage out for the count. Yes, she did it under a wrong assumption, but knowing what Elastigirl thinks is going on is enough to see it from her side. Plus, Mirage's expression is hilarious, and she seems to silently admit she deserved that. Elastigirl must have one hell of a punch.
• The fights on the island:
  • Mr. Incredible gets his groove back; his infiltration of Syndrome's base only blown because of the tracking beacon coming out of the left field.
  • Elastigirl infiltrates the base and rescues her husband without being noticed at all.
    • The best part? They're creative. They might be out of practice and out of shape, but this is far from their first rodeo, and it shows in how they think and react to obstacles.
  • Dash and Violet using their powers professionally for the first time and learning that, yes, they're super, and they can hold their own against fully grown bad guys.
  • The chase scene on the island (titled "Hundred Mile Dash" on the DVD chapters). Dash realizes that running fast also means you can punch fast and dodge, and he can use the environment to his advantage. What really makes it awesome is Dash's laugh after discovering that he can run on water.
  • Four words: Don't! Touch! My! SISTER! A Mook is about to shoot an invisible Violet, and Dash pulls a Big Damn Heroes, punching the guy in the face repeatedly.
    • Even more awesome on Violet's part is just before she forms the hamster ball with Dash, she saw that Dash was about to be shot by a mook. Violet threw herself in front of her little brother and was surprised that she formed the force field. She was about to die for her baby brother. This girl has got guts.
    • Mixed with Heartwarming, Dash is amazed by his sister's ability. He immediately makes use of the Incredi-Ball and uses it to wreck any and all obstacles in their path.
    • They learned from their parents: their parents have had to improvise on this mission, so they do to. Now they have a giant shield ball that can run things over... so they use that to their advantage.
  • The looks on the kids' faces when they finally get to see what Mom and Dad are really capable of.
    • It was awesome for them to see this side of Bob and Helen. Their parents had been two of the greatest superheroes there were during the Glory Days but this was before they were born. All they knew were just their parents as civilians. But we see despite this, they have not lost their badassness from their superhero days.
  • Violet and Dash have never been superheroes like their parents and have never been allowed to use their powers publicly, but they still manage to absolutely kick butt.
• Dash and Violet have one together when Violet forms her forcefield ball and Dash runs it along, hamster-ball style. Then they accidentally run over their parents.
• A production notes example has to go to Holly Hunter for learning what the radio protocol for pilots meant. The result... a nail-bitingly intense scene that doesn't feel scripted or acted, which for an animated film is truly mind-blowing.
• A random foot soldier manages to avoid The Guards Must Be Crazy. When Violet turns invisible and jumps into a pond in an attempt to hide from him, he just throws some dirt into the water to determine her location.
  • Extra points for doing a good John Wayne impression. ("You can't hide from me!")
  • It also gives further credibility to Elastigirl's warning that these villains are not Saturday-morning cartoon villains and are a serious threat to their lives.
• Syndrome owning Mr. Incredible in all of their confrontations. Not bad for someone who once was completely useless...
  • In particular, this scene demonstrates a lot of Syndrome's skill and intellect. Whether it's from the Omnidroid's design, his "Now I'm A Threat" monologue, or the now iconic "You got me monologuing" and nonchalant beatdown, it is a clear showing that he is not interested in being a hero anymore.
• Violet freeing herself and her family from Syndrome's energy-powered restraint. Not even Mr. Incredible (whose Super-Strength is so great he has to lift trains to put on some muscle) could do anything, yet she easily freed herself by blocking the energy flux with her forcefield, used the ball-shaped forcefield to roll to the controls, and deactivated the restraints with a grin on her face.
  "Well, I think Dad has made some excellent progress today, but I think it’s time we wind down now."
• "'Greater good'?! I am your wife! I'm the 'greatest good' you EVER gon' get!" It gets even better when you realize that ^{whoever this woman is} A little trivia, Honey Best was voiced by singer, rapper and songwriter Kimberly Adair Clark, she is telling off Samuel L. Jackson.
• The first battle against the Omnidroid is nothing short of awesome. Despite being caught off-guard, and being fifteen years out of shape, Mr. Incredible shows he's still got it. He deftly avoids the robot's swift strikes, and when does land, he only receives a glancing cut. Then he leaps over and around the Omnidroid and HAMMERS it with a punch so hard, it smashes through the trees.
  • Not to be outdone, the Omnidroid is completely undamaged from this attack. It recovers and charges Mr. Incredible, who tries the same maneuver... only for the robot to calculate the trajectory of his leap, and swat him out of the air, sending him into a tree. Like Mirage warned him: "It's a learning robot. Every moment you spend fighting it only increases its knowledge of how to beat you."
  • And indeed, as the battle progresses, the Omnidroid continues to adjust its strategy. First it tries running him over in sphere form. When that fails and Mr. Incredible starts hurling boulders at it, the Omnidroid starts throwing boulders right back. When it tries pushing him into the lava, and Mr. Incredible throws it in instead, it gets out and rotates its claws like razor blades so that Mr. Incredible can't grab it again.
• How Mr Incredible defeats the Omnidroid. After ripping off one of its claws, he hides underneath it. When the Omnidroid tries to locate him with its second eye, he simply rips that off and crawls inside. The Omnidroid desperate starts piercing itself in a vain attempt to kill its prey. Mr Incredibly calmly allows the droid to wreck itself for a while, then, after punching off its main eye, whistles and baits the robot into ripping out its central processing unit! In the end, Bob, proved that he is incredible in more than just the muscle department.
  • Lets not forget that this was Omnidroid Version 8, and that Syndrome had used Operation: Kronos to specifically build an Omnidroid capable of defeating Mr. Incredible, and had tested Versions 1-7 on at least 14 other Supers; each one with various powers ranging from Thinking Up Portals, Gravity Master, Super-Scream, and Atomic Superpower that were all killed by these Omnidroid iterations; and had Syndrome adjust his techniques to build a better Omnidroid... And Mr. Incredible; who only has Super-Strength on his side was able to defeat this version of the Omnidroid.

• The Omnidroid Mk. 10 gets an even bigger one when it becomes self-aware and turns against Syndrome and sends him flying across the city when he tries to flee. Unintentionally foreshadowed by Mr. Incredible earlier during his first “assignment” when he guessed the earlier Omnidroid “got smart enough to wonder why it had to take orders.”
• The big family fight against the giant robot ... which was only surpassed by The Incredibles fighting together against Syndrome's mooks.
  • A rather underrated scene when the Omnidroid attacks Dash and Violet. The latter produces a force field to protect her and Dash but is knocked out when the Omnidroid just drops its entire weight on the forcefield, cratering the street. A few seconds later, she is carried by her mother and taken to a safe place (Dash following behind). She tells her mother that she's okay. Let's reiterate: a teenage girl resisted the full weight of a giant robot (one that was purposefully built to be able to fight and kill a seasoned superhero like her father) and was back on her feet in under a minute. That is the epitome of badass.
• Violet outright refusing to flee from the approaching Omnidroid 10, even when told by her mother to get out of there. Quite the far cry from the withdrawn teenager who turned invisible whenever her high-school crush looked in her direction.
• Dicker gets a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome version when he has Syndrome's assets frozen, thus crippling his organization.
• When the battle is won and Dicker is driving the family home, Dash is excitedly talking about how this was the best vacation ever. "I love our family!"
• The babysitter, Kari, manages to mitigate the damage Jack-Jack's superpowers cause to the Parr house. She winds up not dying, and eventually becomes prepared to respond to anything JJ does at an instant's notice, without flinching, despite staying up all night.
• Just when it looks like Syndrome is going to abduct Jack-Jack, the baby suddenly manifests a smorgasbord of powers.
  • Helen's solution to getting Jack-Jack away from Syndrome is to have Bob throw her. She rescues Jack-Jack and uses her stretching powers to turn herself into a parachute. As Syndrome is raging and delivering his "I'll be back" rant, Bob gets fed up and chucks the family car at him.
    • Even funnier when you realize it's not the same family car Bob drove at the beginning, but the Sports Car he bought with the money he got from Syndrome.
  • Jack-Jack escapes from Syndrome by surprising him with his morphing powers, and breaks one of his rocket boots, forcing him to let go.
    • Yes, Jack-Jack has a temper tantrum (as babies tend to do) and escapes because of it.
    • Even better when you realize that all the powers he displays are exactly what Edna prepared for in his suit. No wonder that woman is still in business - she can probably see the future!
    • Impressive considering Jack-Jack is one year old and is able to figure out that Syndrome is attempting to kidnap him. He cries for his family but when he realizes his family can't help him, he decides to fight back himself. And he's successful. A literal serial killer of superheroes was bested by a baby.
    • Even more impressive considering, as the sequel reveals, that he managed to do all of that without anybody but Syndrome actually seeing it.
• Fridge-Awesome: Buddy lived long enough to grow up to be Syndrome because Mr. Incredible narrowly removed Bomb-Voyage's bomb from his cape. In the present, Mr. Incredible brought Syndrome to his downfall by throwing a car at him, leading him to getting sucked into a jet intake. (Bonus points that both the first near-death experience and the actual death were caused because of a cape.) One might say Mr. Incredible was correcting a mistake he made years ago, when he saved a creature not worth saving.
• Just when you feel the family has reached a new understanding and all the loose ends are tied up, a colossal mole machine tears its way up from the depths of the earth, and grating tannoys bellow to the entire city that the Underminer has arrived! And we get one last super-hero trope on the way out, as Bob pulls open his shirt to reveal his costume beneath... just like that other guy.
• There is something awesome about the fact that, while just about all of the other superheroes were killed by the Omnidroid, some still managed to beat it at least once- even in its later stages.
• A posthumous one for Gazerbeam. Much like Mr. Incredible after him and likely many other supers before him, he got suckered into testing the powers of the Omnidroid and was pushed into a state where he would have been killed by the droid, or possibly by Syndrome due to finding out about Syndrome's Evil Plan. He not only managed to escape both, but despite knowing he would be Dying Alone, with little if any chance of anyone finding him, he used the last of his strength to carve the password for Syndrome's supercomputer into the cave walls in a way that it would be difficult to find unless you knew where to look. Without Gazerbeam, Bob may very well have never been able to find out about Syndrome's plan until it was too late.
• Likewise, Syndrome's files reveal that five supers (Gazerbeam, Macroburst, Gamma Jack, Hypershock and Downburst) actually managed to defeat an Omnidroid before being defeated by the next version. Downburst just had the ability to reshape matter in what had so far only manifested as treatment of wounds, while Macroburst had the power to emit gusts of wind (both impressive powers, but not to the point of what Gamma Jack, Hypershock and Gazerbeam had to use against the robots). Yet somehow, they won, quite likely due to an It's Personal motivation, as the Omnidroids they were facing had killed two members of Macroburst's former team, and Blazestone (who Downburst had been in love with) respectively.
• In a deleted scene, Helen hits a point for moms everywhere when she calls out a snooty woman who thinks that motherhood is only for people who can't handle the real world.
  Beth: Throw away my prime years trailing after a bunch of snotty kids. No thank you. Hello, NO THANKS. Hello, I want to DO SOMETHING with my life.
  Helen: Wait a minute! You consider raising a family nothing?
  Beth: Well it's fine if you're not suited for more substantial things.
  Helen: Do you have any idea how much suffering would fail to take root if more people were just good parents?
  Beth: Well I uh...
  Helen: What's more important than that? What kind of job? A job saving lives? Is that important? What about risking my life? What about confronting evil on a daily basis for years so that people like you can sleep in safety and security? Would you consider that kind of job "substantial"?
  Beth: Uhm y-yeah I would, yes I would.
  Helen: Well that's the job I gave up for my new job: raising a family. And nobody is going to tell me it's any less important.
• Another deleted scene showed Snug, the guy who lent Helen the plane, actually being their pilot. Note that Helen is a super who could protect herself: Snug is an ordinary guy. Yet he outflies the missiles for a good long time while shouting instructions to abort. Despite paying for it with his life, Snug saved the family by buying them enough time for Helen to shield them with her powers.
• It's more subtle than others, but the way Mr. Incredible weaponizes the bureaucracy of Insuricare^note  Sorry, PENETRATE the bureaucracy. to authorize payment of insurance claims for his clients. The speed with which he is able to help highlight the specific and legal means his client has to re-file and receive a payout demonstrates that he isn't just a Flying Brick superhero: he's a bit of a Guile Hero as well. And it's heavily implied that Mr. Huph knows that Mr. Incredible is maneuvering through the system yet can't do anything about it because Mr. Incredible is simply that good at figuring things out.
  • In fact, up until the point where he loses his temper, Bob handles the meeting very well, derailing Huph's rant with the simple questions "Did I do something illegal?" and "Are you saying we shouldn't help our customers?"
  • For that matter, Bob venting his frustration against Huph, albeit in the worst possible way considering the situation. He gets fired but godDAMN is it ever satisfying!

---