Easter Eggs You Missed In Incredibles 2
Pixar took their sweet time delivering Incredibles 2, but the advancements in animation tech over the last 14 years certainly haven't hurt this long-awaited follow-up. Just the opposite, actually: The animation in Incredibles 2 is at times jaw-droppingly gorgeous, with style to spare and bracing action sequences that make you so tense that you forget that nothing on the screen is actually real.
In short, Incredibles 2 does not disappoint. Not the old fans (who, 14 years later, are now actually old) nor the new ones, who will be just as enthralled with this adventure as we all were the first time we met the Parr family, ages before superhero movies became the biggest game in Hollywood.
With Incredibles 2 also clocking in as the longest Pixar movie to date at 118 minutes, you can't say you didn't get your money's worth. In that hefty runtime, Pixar has scattered a mind-boggling number of Easter eggs and little references to reward sharp eyes and repeat viewings. It's nearly impossible to catch them all while you're enjoying the movie for the first time. Whether you've seen the movie and are wondering what you missed or are going to the movie and want to be prepared, here's a roundup of all the Easter eggs we caught in Incredibles 2.
Baby Mozart
Edna Mode and Jack-Jack Parr are the best team-up in Incredibles 2, unless you count Jack-Jack and the backyard raccoon fighting as a "team-up."
The diminutive inventor (voiced in hilariously over-the-top fashion by director Brad Bird) is at first resistant to spending time with a child, as you'd assume such a haughty diva would be. But she becomes completely won over when she sees the breadth of Jack-Jack's powers, and the duo end up spending hours together while the sleepy Mr. Incredible gets some rest.
When Bob returns to pick up Jack-Jack (as well as the super-suit she designed to manage Jack-Jack's powers), Edna fills Bob in on her rapidly-accelerating bond with the kid. In particular, she mentions that Jack-Jack is taking a liking to Mozart. It's not a random reference — when it comes to classical composers, this Easter egg reiterates that Jack-Jack has a well-established preference.
In the 2005 short film Jack-Jack Attack, Jack-Jack and his teenage babysitter spend time together at the Parr residence, with the babysitter setting up a wide array of neurologically stimulating activities for the youngest member of the Parr family — and the selection includes a Mozart CD. Turns out the music really does bring out something in Jack-Jack, inspiring him to make the babysitter really earn her pay by destroying his entire house. There's clearly something to Mozart's music that inspires the monster in the little man. The composer even gets a "special thanks" credit.
Smelling Ratz
One of Pixar's subtler long-running Easter eggs involves actor John Ratzenberger, whose voice appears in every single one of the studio's movies. He's got an even better record for appearances than the storied Pizza Planet truck.
Since his first appearance as Hamm the piggy bank in Toy Story, Ratzenberger has hung on as a sort of good luck charm for Pixar. In The Incredibles, he lent his voice to the villainous Underminer, who drilled up from underground at the end of the story to take the heroes on.
Since Incredibles 2 picks up exactly where The Incredibles left off, Ratzenberger is still in the mix, kicking off the movie with an opening bank robbery and battle. Interestingly, he lives to fight another day, which unexpectedly makes the Underminer Incredibles 2's one and only sequel hook.
The only thing the movie has in the way of a credits scene is a brief stylized glimpse of the Underminer's drill returning from beneath the ground at the very end of the reel. If they do end up making an Incredibles 3, they'll have to have the villain back just for the sake of ensuring that Ratzenberger has something to do. (Well, it's either that or the semi-truck from Cars.)
A113
One of the most famous Pixar Easter eggs shows up a number of times throughout the course of Incredibles 2 — but if you don't know what you're looking for, it's one of the easiest to miss.
"A113" is a short sequence of letters and numbers that does not, on its own, mean anything. So why has it appeared in so many Pixar movies?
The sequence refers to one specific classroom at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where many influential animators and filmmakers attended college. It's not just a Pixar reference, either — it's also appeared in an eclectic bundle of movies and TV shows, from Family Guy to The Hunger Games.
Since the Easter egg is so inconspicuous, it pops up in a lot of places throughout Incredibles 2. It appears on the side of the runaway Metrolev train that Elastigirl has to stop, shows up on a license plate during the opening parking lot fight, and also appears inside of Evelyn Deavor's laboratory.
Finally, just in case you hadn't managed to catch the others, the filmmakers stuck a big fat obvious one on the theater marquee at the end of the movie, with the title of the theater's only film reading Dementia 113.
It's fitting that the sequence would show up a number of times In Incredibles 2, considering that director Brad Bird is the one who started the tradition in a 1987 episode of the show Amazing Stories.
♪ Here comes Elastigirl! ♪
One of the most fun aspects of The Incredibles movies is the energetic score by Michael Giacchino. It's a throwback full of brass instruments recorded on analog tapes, and never fails to get one's blood pumping, regardless of how cheeky and cheesy it is.
Of course, the only thing cheesier than a good theme song is a theme song with vocals, and Incredibles 2 has a bunch of them — they're just Easter eggs buried in the credits.
Anyone who waits for Incredibles 2 to finish will be treated to three different theme songs for the heroes, and it seems like they're meant to be real things in the movie's universe. When Evelyn makes her true plans known to Elastigirl, she lightly taunts the heroine by saying that her brother Winston knows all the words to her theme song.
In the middle of the movie, it's hard to tell if Evelyn is joking or not — but during the credits, you actually get to hear the song. It's no wonder Winston memorized the track — it's simple and it's catchy, with a chorus of wailing vocals that evokes classic superhero songs like Spider-Man's.
Elastigirl's theme is followed in the credits by a sultry, Marvin Gaye-style Frozone theme song, and a rousing Mr. Incredible track as well. They're great little tunes, and fit perfectly within the Incredibles' idealistic universe. Slap those catchy jingles in a commercial, and you're gonna move some toys.
Safari Court
After an exploding jet falls on their modest suburban home during the action-packed climax of The Incredibles, the Parr family ends up with their backs against the wall, temporarily displaced. Incredibles 2 picks up with the characters living in a very vintage-looking motel called Safari Court. The distinctive building, colored with yellow and pink hues, is recognizable for a reason: It's based on a real place.
When you look at the two side by side, the Parrs' temporary residence is clearly modeled after the Safari Inn, a semi-famous hotel in Burbank, CA located only a few streets away from Walt Disney Studios. Clearly, the photogenic location made an impression on the filmmakers — and they wouldn't be the only ones. The inn has played host to scenes in popular movies such as True Romance and Apollo 13, as well as a number of locally produced television shows. Its ubiquity in pop culture makes it the landmark equivalent of a familiar face, and its resemblance is beautifully realized as an Easter egg in Incredibles 2.
Dash's second place
A big part of the original Incredibles plot had to do with the supers going incognito after vigilante crimefighting is outlawed. As a result, the Parrs are forced to limit their shows of strength, pretending they're normal people, even when it drives them crazy to constantly throttle their talents.
The end of the first movie sees Dash using his powers in a foot race at a track meet, with the Parr family finally having reached a compromise regarding vulgar displays of power. Instead of winning, Dash's parents encourage him to come in second — an impressive showing for a "normal" kid, and a moral victory for a superhero.
In the second movie, after the opening battle with the Underminer, Dash can be seen sitting at the dinner table with a t-shirt that says "2" on it for second place, which he was awarded just before the track meet became a fight scene. It's an Easter egg, like the Underminer's voice actor, that comes into play in both movies. Dash wore the shirt during the original movie's race, providing a handy visual metaphor for that movie. When he keeps it on through to the dinner scene in Incredibles 2, it helps to establish continuity of both story and theme.
The Ambassador
One of Incredibles 2's most thrilling set pieces involves Elastigirl trying to keep a high-profile ambassador with the United League of Nations safe from the clutches of the Screen Slaver. The ambassador, voiced by Isabella Rossellini, is a slightly geeky fan of Elastigirl. As it turns out, her name is a slightly geeky reference in itself.
While the character is only listed in the credits as being the "Ambassador," there is a quick reference to the character's name being Henrietta Selick — an Easter egg tribute to animator Henry Selick, a student of the California Institute of the Arts much like director Brad Bird, who's had his hands in a number of Disney productions over the years. He's most known for his work with stop-motion animation, directing the movies The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline, which he also wrote the screenplay for.
There's not much else about the Ambassador character that ties back into Selick's career — he's an animator from New Jersey, not a politician from another nation. The reference appears to just be a wink and a nod to a fellow creative, and to the audience that enjoys his unique work.
Increasingly suspicious leftovers
Lots of different Chinese restaurants in the real world use generic designs for their takeout packaging, so why wouldn't that trend stay true in Pixar movies?
One of the Easter eggs that keeps popping up in Pixar productions is a distinctive Chinese takeout container, featuring a red pagoda surrounded on all corners by Chinese lettering. It's the sort of box that would look familiar to anyone who's ever eaten Chinese takeout — or watched a movie, where Chinese takeout is often shown alongside down-on-their-luck characters, serving as a metaphor for being up against the ropes in life.
The visual asset first appeared in the movie A Bug's Life, and has since gone on to show up in Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, Inside Out, and now, Incredibles 2.
Many of the distinctive boxes appear in the movie during the first dinner scene, after Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl have been thoroughly chewed out by detectives following their fight with the Underminer. You can also later spy the box holding leftovers in the fridge.
Evelyn's Deavor's evil endeavors
Incredibles 2 keeps up the Disney/Pixar track record of having a character who appears to be an ally of the main characters turn out to actually be the ultimate villain. It's a story trope that's turned up so often that you can expect it — an easy way to engineer a third-act twist with some built-in impact.
To Incredibles 2's credit, it doesn't try particularly hard to hide the fact that the brilliant engineer Evelyn Deavor is the true villain behind the Screen Slayer's mind-controlling crime spree. She's framed in creepy ways and knows things only a villain would know, making it easy for the perceptive viewer to call this shot well before it occurs.
One of the most telling hints as to her true nature? That would be her very name: Evelyn Deavor. Instead of reading her name as "ev-uh-lynn", pronounce her name as "eve-uhl." Say it all at once, and it sounds like "evil endeavor," which pretty much says it all, right? It's enough evidence to let an engaged viewer see the plot turn coming from miles away. The real twist, by comparison, is that Evelyn's brother Winston actually does turn out to be a pretty solid guy.
Happily ever after
As the action-packed plot of Incredibles 2 concludes, the story pivots toward wrapping up some character arcs, reuniting the lovelorn Violet Parr with her crush Tony Rydinger.
By the time they meet again at the end of the movie, Tony has had his brain wiped by the only-kind-of-helpful Rick Dicker, losing all of his memories of Violet, including the fact that she's a costumed superhero.
After the Parr family has managed to defeat the Screenslaver, a.k.a. Evelyn Deavor, Violet reunites with Tony in the stairwell of their school, reintroducing herself to him with the hopes of a fresh start. While adolescent life isn't very kind to Violet throughout the movie, this scene is like a nice, warm hug to wrap things up. Everything worked out! Those crazy kids will be all right!
How do we know for sure? Well, the movie goes out of its way to let you know the two will get their happily ever after by literally staging their reunion next to a poster for the school's "Happily Ever After" dance. Coincidence? Sure, in their world it is. But in a movie, the on-the-nose poster is just another way of signaling to the audience that everything's going to be okay. So what if Violet's dad accidentally destroyed part of Tony's brain? He's a kid — he'll get it back.
New math for life
Bob's difficulty in helping Dash out with his math homework is one of the funniest gags in Incredibles 2, and hits the hardest for parents around Bob's age. In case you haven't been around an intermediate school math class for awhile, you may be surprised to learn that they really did change math — whoever "they" are. It wasn't just Bob being clueless — this is a very real thing.
The "New Math for Life" book full of indecipherable new ways of solving math — why would they change math — is a reference to the often-confusing Common Core method of learning and doing arithmetic.
It's often debated just how drastic "new" ways of learning math are compared to the so-called "old" ways. We can't pretend to understand what's going on here — we, like Bob, learned math the old way, and don't have the patience or the willpower to learn this stuff again. But it's the sort of thing that goes viral often, igniting debates between parents in which no one really knows what they're talking about and everyone is frustrated. If you hear some parents cackling particularly loudly at the homework sequence in the theater, the Common Core callout is probably what got to them.
Future proof
Put a pin in this one, because the word is there's an Easter egg in Incredibles 2 that's designed not to be identifiable at the time of the movie's release.
Apparently, tucked away somewhere in Incredibles 2's two-hour runtime is a flash-forward reference to the upcoming Toy Story 4 — one that audiences won't be able to identify until that movie sees release in 2019. If true, it wouldn't be the first time Pixar planted a reference to a future project in one of their movies. After all, a lot of these movies are in production at the same time, allowing animators on different projects plenty of time to see what's coming, and tip their hats pre-emptively.
It's a phenomenon that preceded the release of Incredibles 2, with a poster for the superhero sequel making an appearance in Pixar's previous movie Coco. But what could the Easter egg in Incredibles 2 be? For now, only the animators at Pixar seem to know, though it we had to make any guesses, we'd say a few of those background superheroes — especially the guy with the crochet costume and a big hand-stitched "C" on his chest — would be pretty primo toy material. Only time will tell.