It seems powers can be a recessive trait. What happens to super powered kids with 'muggle' parents?
They get recruited after their powers manifest, and change schools.
But how does the school know about them?
Civilian reports (mostly from parents wanting to teach them control over dangerous powers), monitoring of the news for bizarre incidents, and sci-fi machines searching for abnormal energy levels.
At least in this world being a super isn't exactly a secret, like being a wizard is in Harry Potter. Heroes may have secret identities, but the fact that some people are super is common knowledge in this universe.
What about kids whose parents can't afford the tuition mentioned?
There is probably a scholarship for those.
Or a work-study program. Even kids who haven't been trained to use their powers in battle can still use them for Mundane Utility purposes, e.g. Speed could empty every wastebasket in the school in half a minute if he needed a work-study remittance of tuition.
What if a kid didn't want their powers, let alone be a hero?
It's possible that's a tabboo in this world. However considering the fact that there is already a de-power room there is a very high chance of there being a permanent version in the form of something like a ray gun.
On a related note, why is Layla going to a school for superheros when she's reluctant to use her powers offensively? Are her parents pushing her to do it? Is she just following the boy she has a crush on? Are all superpowered teens required to go to Sky High? You'd think from her interests that she'd be better at a school that specialized in environmental studies or the like
High schools generally don't specialize like that. Presumably, anyone with powers or potential powers goes to Sky High.
Also, security. It's implied that the Sky High kids are all the children of heroes (or villains) and it's outright stated that Sky High is designed to protect them from their parents' enemies.
Layla has no issues using her powers offensively. She specifically says she only uses them when the situation calls for it. There’s nothing to suggest she has any issues being a hero. She just thinks the classifications of hero and sidekick are flawed. Also, Sky High isn’t specially to teach kids to become heroes. It’s to teach them to use their powers. Principal Powers tells this to Warren and and Will. “What you do with your powers is up to you.”
She may also be interested in learning about other people's powers, both by taking classes and by observing her classmates. Given how Layla seems interested in "saving the world" in ways other than beating up villains, she could be interested in how others' powers might benefit humanity and the natural world in non-combat situations.
Why did Will get in trouble for the fight against Warren? He was merely acting in self defense against someone attempting to literally burn him alive for accidentally spilling food on him because he was intentionally tripped and would have been killed had he not. There also were several witnesses, including his teacher, yet nobody defended him or explained the situation to Principal Powers.
The school probably has a Zero Tolerance policy for fighting. And "fighting" is what Will did, justifiably or not, when his strength emerged and he switched from ducking and dodging to save himself to lifting up tables to defend his fellow-Sidekicks.
Unfortunately for many American schools, this is often Truth in Television, where the victim is held to equal culpability as the aggressor even if they only fought in self-defense.
Unlike regular schools, Sky High's students have powers that could hurt people, so it is somewhat more justified here.
Aren't all the students technically sidekicks since none of them actually battled villains and the main point of a sidekick is to learn from a hero so they can be a hero when they grow up.
Sidekicks seem to be permanent assistants and gophers in this world.
The designation "Sidekick" in the school is dependent on the powers, not the prowess or experience. If it's a power you would expect a "sidekick" to have, you are deemed a sidekick. They aren't literal "Heroes" or "Sidekicks".
It's more like talent scouting or the minor/major leagues. If you know someone has great talent and only needs a little fine-tuning, you just put them straight in the major leagues and groom them from there. If they are good but not great, you would put them in the minor leagues and leave them there unless they prove themselves ready for the majors.
Why is there no class for being the Badass Normal for kids without powers? It seems like they would be natural targets for supervillains, especially in Ron's case as he has two superhero parents and probably had twice as many people gunning for him. The fact that there's no Badass Normal heroes at all is kind of annoying in and of itself.
Presumably, such Badass Normal students would just be sorted into the Sidekick stream and left to get on with it.
We DID see what happens. Will had no powers at the beginning and placed into the sidekicks classes. Note how the training included gadgets and a utility belt.
That scene involved the Sidekicks handing the gadgets to the Heroes, which could imply that there are some Badass Normal types running around, if not at Sky High, or that some Heroes carry gadgets to cover all bases that their personal power/s can't handle.
I don't see how some of the hero powers would be classified as hero powers. How is having six arms going to help you?
They're being trained to fight crime, having four extra arms would give you an advantage in any hand-to-hand fight.
Four more guns. Four more fists. Four more saved civilians. Plus the strength and coordination to use them effectively. If six arms isn't "hero material" by your standards, then why is technopathy or turning into stone? Flight? Creating copies of yourself? Creating fire? Super strength?
Bug, not feature. It's heavily implied that Coach Boomer is the first, last, and only word on sorting, and he relies heavily on his first impressions (remember the guy with super-spit, who was going to be a sidekick, until he tells Boomer to keep watching, showing the super-spit is acid spit.) The sorting relies less on actual usefulness or utility, but how impressed Boomer is by your particular powers. There are likely some guidelines: powers like flight, superstrength, durability, and offensive energy projection are probably "Hero" by default, but with more esoteric powers, it's all just down to Boomer's own judgement, which isn't shown to be consistent, fair, or unbiased.
Notice the acid spit. It's pretty powerful, true, but it's also extremely dangerous, and something that should be approached with caution. However, it's flashy, and that's enough for Boomer. All the "hero" powers are flashy, with some obvious advantage or physical boosts, in other words the more flashy and cool looking ones, regardless of their actual utility.
More importantly, "Sidekick"-caliber powers seem to consist of anything Coach Boomer judges to be embarrassing, by default. If Magenta had turned into a falcon or a wolf or a cobra, she'd have been in the Hero classes for sure.
It seems like in the school's eyes, a "hero" is mostly someone who has powers that can be used offensively. Ethan and the bouncy ball girl both got put as sidekicks despite the fact that their powers could actually be great for defense. But I think that helps underline how flawed the system is. While kids like Larry would likely be able to fight villains on their own, most of the other powers of the "hero" kids wouldn't really be that useful if they were completely solo (like the kid who can copy other people's appearances, the acid spit kid, and the kid with six arms, who would be useful for normal criminals but probably not for a dangerous supervillain). They would be way more effective if they were in a superhero team. The whole movie proves a point that it's not about what your powers are, it's using your powers the right way and working as a team, like how the main teens all successfully used their powers together to stop the Big Bad.
A room full of superheroes cannot stop four supervillains, with one just stands around and cackles.
Not to mention that a large portion of them are teachers, with the sole purpose of teaching the kids for just such a situation.
Considering that they had just seen the world's two best superheroes taken down effortlessly, they were probably panicking. Of course, this leads to the question of how none of them were able to break down a standard steel rolling gate, but we can assume Gwen reinforced them.
They were probably reinforced in the first place to make sure they actually do their job.
Does no one else recall that Royal Pain was turning everyone in the room into babies? Apart from the panic this was causing, there's no way for anyone to approach her without getting zapped.
The weapon seems to only operate in semi-auto. Duck and dodge, slowly advancing, then hit In the Back.
Plenty of the dance's attendees would've had powers that can't be used under the circumstances, because there's a growing crowd of helpless babies in the villain's immediate vicinity. Not the safest circumstance under which to be hurling fire or frost or sonic-boom screams or whatever around.
Perhaps none of them used their powers because that would be breaking the school rules. Or... since most of them might have not known each others powers, they were all afraid of causing some sort of chain-reaction of disaster, which could ruin the entire school, or worse. Say, one of them has the ability to explode if they're under attack, or one of them causes everything to melt when attacked by a different power etc.. There's just too many unkowns.
The class isn't that large, and this is at least half-way through the school year, if not more. They'd all have seen each other's powers in action, and we know for a fact that several of them have powers that would have easily let them break down a simple metal door without any collateral damage or interference from others.
It seems as though only teachers are allowed to use their powers at all times, though. Add that to the fact that using powers for any reasons outside of class (as Ethan stated) isn't allowed, it sort of makes sense. As for the adults not using their powers; As another troper pointed out: in a DVD commentary, Mike Mitchell said that all the adults were written as completely insane. Perhaps this is just the adults expressing that insanity by not taking proper actions. Or perhaps they all had Blind Obedience. Minus the Big Damn Heroes, of course. Because Plot.
That supposed rule does not stop any of the students from using their powers at will throughout the movie, sometimes in full view of the teachers, and definitely not in a classroom setting. The establishing shot of the school when they first arrive is literally, "a bunch of students using their powers willy-nilly." The ice girl freezes a dude solid and he's left there for what appears to be weeks. And none of the teachers are "completely insane." That is just plain not a thing that comes across in any of the acting or writing. Certainly not to the extent that, when attacked by a supervillain, they go, "I'mma do nothing because that's ca-raaaaaaazy!" And it's moot because we do see the adults attempt to fight. Boomer is about to sound blast her when she hits him with the Pacifier, for instance.
I just thought of something. Think about how the teachers act when they're trying to defend the people: Boomer starts to talk about getting the kids out, so does the Principal, and it looks like Mr. Boy doesn't even try to run away after catching Baby!Josie (and instead chooses to go on about how much he loved her) and all of them got zapped while doing so. In other words, they were all Caught Monologuing. Why would they do this? Because everyone who goes to Sky High is trained to start big monologues (not all the time, of course)! The people in the prom were all afraid to be Caught Monologuing, and also because they didn't prepare one in time. Also, another troper mentioned that Sky High was incorporating a degree of Genre Blindness into the students who would go on to be villains (see the Fridge Logic section if you want more of an explanation), so it would make sense if the good students, heroes, sidekicks etc. also had a degree of Genre Blindness. Plus, it seems as though Royal Pain's Pacifier has an auto-aim feature, as despite the fact that she aimed the gun at the disco ball, it "bounced" off to hit her target anyway. Anyone who stood out from the crowd would be an easy shot.
Don't forget Royal Pain went for all the adults first before they could coordinate or come up with a backup plan. The other supers may have fantastic powers, but they are also underage kids. It's not unreasonable that they panicked because their Class President is aiming a gun at them that has deadly accuracy, and more so when they're locked in the gym. Warren is the only one who has faced deadly situations — nearly getting suffocated during Save the Citizen — so it stands to reason that he's the only teen that keeps his head and makes an exit.
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If having no real powers means you can't be a superhero, what would Batman be in this universe?
A superhero anyway. He just wouldn't have gone to the school. Not even every superhero with powers can have gone to Sky High, after all some must have been empowered after school age.
Some, but the nurse makes it clear that superpowers manifest before or at puberty in all except the rarest cases; even Will eventually gets his well within the limits of young adulthood. Excepting cases like Ron's, where random chance gives you superpowers in adulthood, it seems like post-grad power awakenings don't happen all that often.
Will is stated to be "third generation", indicating at some point his family did not have powers. It also indicates some people may gain abilities in ways other than genetics (Ron Wilson, Bus Driver for example), and so it is entirely plausible a Muggle can gain powers at any time.
He's the goddamn Batman. If any non-superpowered hero could make them put him in hero class, it's him.
We don't see enough of the classes to really tell if the school's curriculum would meet the needs of a Non-Powered Costumed Hero. If it's all focused on either being a super or assisting one, then a Badass Normal like Batman is better off homeschooling anyway.
Which would explain why Robin doesn't follow the school's "Sidekick dresses in the Hero's colors" rule.
Warren Peace can breathe through his own fire, but can't breath inside a tornado generated by a speedster. Fire consumes lot of air, so Warren, that clearly need to breath, should collapse when ignited. Maybe his fire is self-sustained? Sounds more like magic than anything else.
It wouldn't be unusual for the comicbook-style universe, where magic and "scientific" powers (like those possessed by the Marvel mutants) aren't always distinct types of abilities.
One possible explanation is that his powers are extensions of his physical self. No air for the fire, no air for Warren. In effect, he "breathes through his own fire." Just WMG.
Breathe through his own fire? Where in the movie is he ever surrounded by that much fire that it would be eating up all the available air around him? Do you suffocate when standing next to a camp fire?
I thought it was more of a case of Speed moving so fast that he sucked up all the air in that area. No air for Warren and definitely no air for his flames.
No-one thought that creating a caste-system based on perceived utility of superhuman powers might be a bad idea? High school can be difficult enough with normal kids, what's it like in a school where the kids are sorted based on "usefulness" (not anything they have control over) and are apparently ingrained with the Hero/Sidekick mentality? The Hero classes seem pretty normal but the cliqueishness of a normal school can get significantly more dangerous - or at least worse - when your bullies have superspeed and the like, not to mention teachers like Coach Boomer encouraging the divide if not the bullying; what we see of the Sidekick classes seems bent towards eliminating individuality, with the answer being "Let your Hero handle things" and hero careers being dependent on the Hero they're assigned... especially considering that you might fall by the wayside and be unable to separate from your sidekick persona, like All-American Boy. And while it's clearly not intentional, Heroes who come away thinking that a person's worth is based on their superpowers may have issues once they leave school and have to deal with non-powered people.
Given the blind eye that many public schools turn towards the attitude of cliques of real world students towards the students that they as students deem lesser, let alone ones who are not fully supported by the system due to whatever reason, this is sadly all too believable.
Given human nature, some students would probably enforce their own systems if the school didn't have any.
Not at all different from real schools. Students are sorted based on their "perceived usefulness" (grades in general, years in school, advanced-placement classes versus normal classes versus remedial classes, athletic ability for school sports teams), and these divides form "castes" based on the students in similar areas (jocks versus nerds, seniors versus freshmen, etc.).
But real-world schools don't involve kids with super-speed, pyrokinesis or the ability to psychically control technology. This all seems like it would require a much higher level of oversight than we see, although there could be some kind of government involvement we just didn't see.
Will claims he has no superpowers. Yet before his super-strength manifests, he takes a brutal amount of punishment without receiving as much as a scratch. His father throws a heavy weight at him with enough force to collapse his bed; a car is dropped on him; he's flung halfway across the gym and slammed into a concrete pole... no one notices he has invulnerability?
It's possible that invulnerability or reduced vulnerability is such a common Required Secondary Power that no one in-universe bats an eye to it. For the viewer, it acts as foreshadowing.
How could Gwen have been "written off as a science geek"? Her power is moving technology with her mind, that's not something "Science geeks" can do. Did she for some reason not show her powers and just say "I'm a technopath"? Why not just do some big flashy display to show them what you can do?
It didn't seem as if they didn't know she had a power, so much as they didn't consider it a "real Hero power" like flight, super-strength, laser-vision, or Hulking out. Technopathy (which this troper still thinks should be technokinesis since she isn't shown mentally/psychically interfacing with technology) probably just wasn't recognized as a viable hero-ranked power until relatively recently, in the technology-based present-day.
So basically none of these kids get an education past 8th grade? They're shown to not be taking any kind of math or English classes. What if they want to go to college? Is there a super hero college or does Sky High forge "normal" grades so a student is eligible? And if they don't go to college do they just get assigned to a career as their secret identity and get a check in the mail?
Best guess, there were normal classes, they just thought we'd lose interest if they were shown onscreen.
They ARE shown solving word problems, though it's of course not really proper math.
Apart from Will's Traumatic Superpower Awakening being necessary for the plot, is there any reason why Layla didn't step in to protect him when Warren started throwing fireballs? The movie explicitly shows in other scenes that Layla will abandon her pacifism to defend others, and- even if Warren's fire burned through her plants- her power would have been very helpful in that situation. She could have restrained Warren with vines, for example, and done so too fast for him to attack them.
Because it would be breaking school rules—and were there even plants there?
After Will walks Gwen home in the middle of the movie, a man assumed to be Gwen's father opened the door and asked Will if he was the boy with the six arms. We find out later that Gwen is secretly Royal Pain in disguise and had been turned into a baby, leaving Stiches to raise her up until puberty again and allow her to act out her Evil Plan. But if Stitches had been the one raising her, then who was the man who answered Gwen's door?
That was Stitches, just not in costume.
This raises the even bigger question of where Gwen's real parents were in the first place. You'd think you'd notice if your daughter was turning into a supervillainess.
Not necessarily. How many 17 and 18 year olds get up to all kinds of shenanigans, without their parents noticing? Also, her parents were likely heroes or villains who were off doing their thing. AND she was assumed to have died in the first fight with Will's dad, when she was turned back into a baby.
Her real parents would be at least 20 to 30 years older than Will's parents, and therefore in at least their 60s or 70s. They're probably just not in the picture any more.
A number of things don't make sense about the buses: 1) Why were only freshmen on the bus route? It seems to be a normal bus for all practical purposes when picking people up (i.e. no magical Polar Express or whatever) and it's explicitly said no one knows where Sky High is they need to have buses for other students too, which is shown when they first touch down. But this later statement brings up that Ron says he's the "only one" authorized to drive the bus. On top of all that, how did everyone get to Homecoming? I can't imagine even in fantasy high school people would take a school bus to a school dance.
Ron says he's one of a few, not the only one.
Kids of superheroes probably borrow their parents' flying vehicles when they need to arrive in style. And the school was probably parked in a fixed location for the evening unlike its normal M.O. of flying randomly.
Some of them also probably fly there themselves, carpool (flypool), and there might be a staggered bus schedule. There aren't really that many students at the school.
It was the first day of the semester. Picking up all the new freshmen on the same bus probably makes it a lot easier to ensure they'll all be present and accounted for at Principal Powers' Student Orientation than having them all dropped off separately.
The two boys Freeze Girl "ices" at the beginning - later on, during the sidekick montage, some other students take note of them, and Magenta taps on them. We've seen Will at home in the interim, so it's been at least one day, and the placement in the montage suggests several days or weeks. Not that anyone should feel sorry for them, but what exactly is going on here? Freeze Girl clearly doesn't expect to be (and doesn't seem to be) punished for it, and the fact that they stay "iced" for at least a day or two suggests she doesn't think it her responsibility to thaw them, if she even can. Can she "ice" anyone she likes without consequence, and it falls on the school to help them? If so, did they refuse to do so as a form of detention for harassing her? Isn't the school worried about the classes they're missing, then? Or Freeze Girl abusing the power they're giving her, to exact sentence upon people rendered incapable of cross-examination? And what message is that giving her for when she's outside the institution? In short, it's hard to interpret that gag as anything other than Freeze Girl having a quasi-license to kill.
And what about the two boy's families? Aren't they allowed to go home ever?
Alternatively they get thawed out everyday but never learn their lesson. They continue to try a flip Freeze Girl's skirt and she freezes them in retaliation but because they're thawed so quickly it's never enough of a consequence to make them stop.
The kid with laser eyes is later seen at the party, so it seems they at least didn't die.
Professor Medulla can be heard instructing another student to thaw out the classmate who was shot by the freeze-ray Gwen assembles in class for Will. Judging by his tone of voice, it's nothing serious or even unusual to need to thaw a freezing victim.
Boomer picks who goes hero and who goes sidekick, on the first day of school? I know it's just for a movie, but geez, you'd think there would be a committee of superheroes visiting the kids before they get to school and evaluating their powers on a case-by-case basis.
It's part of the moral. As Will says, "If life were to suddenly become fair, I doubt it would happen in high school."
It's supposed to be akin to the humiliation of getting picked for sports teams, in a stereotypical way.
Choosing who's a Hero and who's a Sidekick might be based more on durability and the flashiness of the power. In the film we see the heroes or, pardon the World of Warcraft analogy, the tanks fighting the big bads and distracting them while the sidekicks/hero support are doing the behind the scenes stuff like defusing the device that causes the flight mechanism to fail. So you have heroes out there distracting the villain, taking the beating while their sidekicks are evacuating the area, or defusing the bomb, or finding the solution to the plague. Hero-support is just that. Of course there's the stigma that sidekicks don't do anything because who looks more impressive crawling out of the wreckage? The banged up Commander they all just saw going toe to toe with the bad guy? or All-American Boy holding what's left of the control pad he'd just painstakingly decoded? Mr. Boy knows how important everything the sidekicks do is but is resigned to the fact that he'll never get the credit for it. The Commander never recognized his contribution but surely there are other heroes out there who do otherwise they would do away with the sidekick classes and send those kids home after they learned power control. Hero-support is important. The movie is about recognizing that. Layla seems like she already knew that. Maybe her mother is one of those who's nice to their sidekick, maybe her father is a sidekick and she wants to use her powers as hero-support as opposed to heroing because she'd prefer the role of hero-support to tanking. As she proudly states, "I am a sidekick."
Not that there's anything wrong with that, though. It should be obvious that a student with six arms or super strength or fire powers is more versatile than one who can melt into a puddle at will or transform into an extremely vulnerable animal. In certain situations, those powers can come in handy, but that's why they're sorted into Hero support, while the generally-more-useful-in-everyday-situations heroes are chosen as heads of the team.
When do you expect students to be sorted into Heroes and Sidekicks, if not the first day? They have classes to get to. The Sidekicks' classes and the Heroes' classes follow different curricula. Naturally, they need to be assigned to a program ASAP if they're to attend the right courses from the start.
How does Speed manage to stay so fat despite moving at incredible speeds? He's still using the same muscles and burning the same amount of fat he would be if he ran normally, but at greatly increased levels. If anything, he should be dangerously underweight.
How do you know he's using the same amount of energy?
His powers do not appear to be mystical in nature, meaning he would use much, much more energy to move at super-sonic speeds.
A. That's not proof he's using the same or more energy. B. Even so, why not ask the same question of everyone else? Flying unaided must use some kind of energy. Lifting a ton must use some kind of energy. Nobody in the movie is eating nearly in the amounts that would provide energy for what their superpowers are doing.
His powers do not follow our known laws of physics. Because, y'know. He's fictional.
How do the heroes master their powers, assuming that the kids can only use/control a small amount of their powers when they start high school? They must have been different types of powers: elemental, psychic, physical etc. Are there classes for heroes with elemental powers, or for heroes with physical powers? Standard education (math, English, science) won't really help you when it comes to using your powers in practical manners.
I'd say they can control a lot more than just "a small amount" - they've had most of their coherent lives up until that point to get some practice in. Also, when you're a superhero, you won't always be faced with the situations in which your powers will automatically be ideal, so I think it's more important for students to learn to re-adapt them for use in a variety of different scenarios.
Petty revenge aside, why would Royal Pain want to destroy Sky High? She wants to raise all of the school's students and staff as an army of supervillains, so obviously, she's going to need a place to train them all. Why not just leave the school intact and use it for that purpose?
Unless Sky High has both travel capabilities, and serious cloaking technology, it'll be useless for training the new villains because all the other superheroes, plus the government that funds them, would storm the place. Destroying it though, in addition to petty revenge, would cover her tracks somewhat, cost the government and heroes billions, and leave both parties on more equal footing when it comes to training.
Gwen states that when she faced the Commander in the past, she was turned into a baby when the Pacifier "exploded." A.) How could the Commander and Jetstream have missed that? A baby appearing suddenly on the battlefield seems like a pretty difficult thing to skip over. B.) If the Pacifier did explode, then how is intact when Steve shows it to Will inside the Sanctum? Did he go to the trouble of having it repaired? If so, how, and why?
We never did learn what Stitches had as a Sidekick power. Possibly his too-lame-for-a-Hero ability is that he's so damned boring that he's easy to overlook, and he used it to sneak Baby-Royal Pain out of there.
Gwen probably meant "catastrophically backfired due to {insert Technobabble here}", but simplified it to "exploded" because she was hardly in the mood to give the tech-inept Will yet another lesson about rays.
The alternate opening explains this: a blinding light flashed, and suddenly Royal Pain was gone, leaving the damaged Pacifier behind. Stitches had desperately grabbed the baby and wrapped her in Royal Pain's cloak. Commander and Jetstream got too distracted flirting with each other and talking real estate to wonder where Stitches went, and completely forgot about leaving American Boy tied up. It's also established that Commander isn't the brightest bulb in the shed, given he orders his sidekick to not call for help. You could say with Irony that heroes' dismissal of sidekicks doomed them. The Pacifier itself being repaired could be explained by Gwen installing that function; she does seem that Crazy-Prepared. Alternatively, Commander got someone in the school science club to fix it so that it wouldn't misfire.
Wouldn't Royal Pain have a completely different personality after being raised by a crazy jester? I'm surprised she isn't acting like Harley Quinn. She seems to have memories of her high school years. When you get turned into a baby, do you keep your memories?
Apparently you do in this movie verse.
Maybe Royal Pain has a secondary power that allows her to keep her memories after being de-aged.
Who are the school staff to determine what your future is, or what costume to wear? What if a sidekick says "screw the rules", and decides to become a super hero after graduation? Would he/she be arrested? Is there a law that prohibits a sidekick from becoming a super hero in the streets after graduating?
Principal Powers says "What you do with your powers is up to you". So, presumably, there's nothing to stop a sidekick from quitting their position. (Except for a bad rep.)
Although I find Royal Pain's plan very unique, how were she and Stitches planning to raise a dozen babies by themselves? She doesn't strike me as someone who wants to be a mom. Changing their diapers constantly, and feeding them, would be a pain (pun intended).
She could build robots to raise them for her. Bigger problem: Since the "Pacification" thing isn't shown to erase memories, why doesn't she just turn them into babies and then kill them when they're helpless babies? Otherwise, they'll do the exact same thing that she did as soon as their powers come in- reveal that they had their memories all along and turn on her en mass.
It's possible that she was planning to brainwash them.
There's no indication that she kept her memories, Stitches could have just explained who she once was and given her all she needed to go off of that growing up. The one super-intelligent teacher could simply talk and invent as an infant because his power of super-intelligence manifested that early the first time around.
So the principal has a room that can disable your powers, right? What if the villain is a tech based human, meaning the powers come from his or her suit?
You take off the suit.
It's not that much of a stretch that a room which can block normal superpowers is also capable of disabling artificial devices like Royal Pain's suit.
So the principal has a room that can disable powers? Well, the powers in Sky High are genetic-based. So how does Sky High punish a magically-powered student?
There's no indication in the movie that magic exists.
We don't know how Power Nullifiers work in the Sky High universe. It's possible that they are at least partly magical in nature.
How is melting a sidekick power, and growing six arms a hero power? Seriously, melting is shown to be an incredibly useful and versatile power in the movie, with Ethan able to constantly confuse, trip up, and dominate foes using the power, and with a little training and a few gadgets, could make an excellent Combat Pragmatist type hero. Six arms, though we're never shown any applications, seems useless in comparison, without some form of strength upgrade, or some ability to sprout them away from the user, a la Nico Robin. So why is melting considered a "bad" power, and a limited amount of extra limbs a "good" power?
This has already been discussed in the fridge page. Basically it boils down to how flashy and offensive Mr. Boomer finds your power. If he isn't impressed (like if he doesn't see how your power can be useful in say, a fight) or just isn't "wowed" then you're a sidekick. Boomer was immediately going to place the kid with super far spitting as a sidekick... Until he saw that the spit was also acidic. Ethan hasn't shown much versatility in his power. This is what he said to Magenta after she transformed into a guinea pig: "is that it? Not even a swarm of guinea pigs?". He recognizes that seemingly useless powers CAN be surprisingly strong, but Ethan didn't demonstrate to Boomer that he could do any of those things that we the viewers saw... For all he knew, the only thing he could do was turn into a puddle and literally do nothing else while he's a puddle.
