THE INCREDIBLES 2 Director Brad Bird Weighs In On Jack-Jack's Seemingly Limitless Amount Of Powers
The Incredibles 2 finally explores the unlimited amount of abilities the super-heroic infant, Jack-Jack, has in his arsenal. But just how unlimited is it? Hit the jump to find out...
Helen can morph her body like elastic, Bob has super-strength, Dash is super-fast, Violet's can turn herself invisible and create force-fields - pretty simple so far, right?
Well the final member of the Parr family, the infant Jack-Jack, can shoot lasers from his eyes, emit electricty, turn himself into steel, a dollop of goo, or even a demon, create multiple copies of himself, warp his size, travel into alternate dimensions, hover and fly, telekinetically move objects or phase through them, change his appearance like a chameleon, is totally invulnerable, and he's inherited his father's super-strength.
That's a total of 15 powers by our count, give or take a few, and that's just what we've been shown he's capable of so far. The young Super could have an unlimited amount of abilities for all we know - that is the question which CinemaBlend posed to, director and writer of both The Incredibles films, Brad Bird.
Here's what he had to say:
Babies are able to speak multiple languages easily, at the beginning, but then they start to harden like cement, and certain things drop away. So, you know, maybe Jack-Jack will start losing powers, because he starts to rely on this one or that one... I think we kind of choose our powers by what we're encouraged with, and what we enjoy doing, and all of that.
Usually people, if they have multi-talents, they're kind of interested in a lot of things, and they're passionate about a lot of things. So who knows! He may have more, he may start dropping a few off. You never know. That's what babies are.
This is consistent with what Bird supposed as to why each character has their specific power - mentioning how baby's can adapt easily. Much like aspirations, at a young age the world is your oyster and your path is uncertain until you begin to focus a paticular eventuality.
As to what kind of limits Bird and co. placed upon themselves from a writing standpoint; John Walker, the film's producer mentioned that they "tried to make rules for ourselves about how many... because more of them just kept coming. 'We gotta slow... he can't have powers every sequence," to which Bird continued, "Yeah, so our rule was by Act III, no new powers. And then we got there, and went, 'Nah, one or two more!'"
What do you think about the director's comments? What are your opinions on Jack-Jack's powers? Which one is your favourite ability?