The Incredibles

I went to see The Incredibles last Friday, and in my opinion, it did live up to the hype. The story was simple but nuanced, and the visuals were stunning, as we've come to expect from Pixar. The characterization was fairly good: I did cringe a bit at Elastigirl turning into a stereotypical soccer-mom type, but I liked the wardrobe artist Edna (I hear she was voiced by the director) and the subplots for the children, Dash and Violet. Plus, the movie was genuinely funny; not in a slapstick way but in an intelligent way.

This afternoon I was reading a Slashdot review of the movie, and I ran across an interesting comment about the "weird streak of Ayn Randism" running through the plot:

There were a couple of lines thrown in like "And when everybody's super, then no one is," announced by the bad guy. Or when Dash is told by his parents that everyone is special, he retorts with "that's just a way of saying that nobody is."

This movie encouraged exceptionalism in a way that was striking for a kid's movie. It actively lobbied against the idea of everybody being unique in their own way, it argued in favor of there being Nietzche-esque supermen among us who should be lifted up above the masses for the betterment of society.

I don't know if I agree that the movie was subscribing to a Rand-like belief system, but I like that the question was raised at all. When was the last time anyone came out of a Disney film debating philosophy?