Film Theory: Which of The Incredibles Is THE MOST Incredible? (Disney Pixar's The Incredibles) 

Also Violet and Dash are kids. Imagine them as adults

To be fair, Mr Incredible did not give out when the train hit him, the ground beneath his feet did, so he could be much much stronger than his environment allows him to be.

Violet might also have the best reaction time of the family. At the start of the film, she put up a field remotely in Dash’s path to intercept him. So her force fields aren’t just insanely strong but can appear basically instantaneously.

I love how MatPat determines at the beginning that the movie takes place in 1962 and then, a couple of minutes later, uses modern missiles to determine Elastigirl's strength.

You forgot frozone. Oh wait, he can't find his super suit.

His search history must be pretty suspicious.

If violet is literally stronger than both of her parents at 14, imagine a fully grown version of her

there's one thing you missed in the calculation: friction. no matter how strong the father is, it's still the rails that hold him. friction only resists up to a certain amount of force, which depends on the rails' friction coefficient and mr incredible's mass, so unless he weighs like a few tons he is gonna slide no matter what.

“Who’s the strongest?” Mr Incredible: *Very poor choice of words.*

I want to hire Matpat as my lawyer

He forgot a very important part: Edna’s suits. They are the reason elastigirl was able to take the explosion and they enhance everyone’s abilities

I came here to see who would win in a death match, but I got an amazing message that family is forever and that our parents love us more then we could ever know. 😭

Pixar is just Disney without having all the characters singing every 10 minutes

Actually if Mr Incredible stopped the train at once, it would most likely get destroyed in the impact killing everyone in it, so he couldn't use his full strength on it.

In your analysis of Violet’s powers, you forgot to account for gravity on the robot - mass and weight are not the same thing. Since the robot is under the effect of gravity, its mass should be multiplied by 9.8 m/s to get the weight. Both Violet and Mr. Incredible are vastly more powerful than your calculations show.

The strenght of the force field would be a lot stronger if you take into account that bullets apply their force over a very tiny surface area. To create a force field that properly blocks bullets from all direction you should be able to apply that force over the whole surface area of the shield and in very short timeframes (hence a lot more power is needed) , which makes it a lot more impressive.

There's a simpler explanation: Stopping the train with his full strength would have decelerated it so quickly, it would have killed the passengers. He was hoping he had enough track left to decelerate the train without killing anyone

Mat: “who is the strongest incredible?” Jack jack: “hah easy-“ Mat: “we aren’t including jack jack” Jack jack: **sad noises**

7:44 I believe her suit is designed to be super durable, and in the demonstration, we can see that it is resistant to a large variety of hazards, including intense heat. Now, typically, blast force would be a hazard, but this is a character who is naturally durable as heck, and naturally immune to blunt force, like Luffy from ONE PIECE. However, assuming here body has a similar chemical structure to a character like Luffy, who is composed entirely of rubber, heat would be extremely dangerous, as rubber and other flexible materials are not immune to melting. On the matter of the exposed parts of her form, in the original scene, she can be seen tucking her head and arms into the shield as she rolls into a ball. This was just a thing I noticed and wanted to bring up, so yeah.

Idk why anyone doesn't notice that Bob doesn't really get hurt from blunt attacks and only gets wounded by the Omnidroid's sharp claws. His durability is off the charts too and he has a jar containing bullets that bounced off him during his prime and in his room with all the newspaper and achievements, one of them shows he swam through a typhoon in an ocean and rescued a ship full of people off the ocean.

Couldn’t it also be that Mr Incredible is a little smarter than we think he is? I mean, if he had exerted a hundred times the force he used in the train scene, he would have stopped it instantly, killing everyone. We know that he can control his strength due to him being able to punch people and not turn them into a bloody pulp. Also, look at him saving the guy who tried to commit suicide, if Mr. Incredible had used the force he used in the train scene, he would have murdered him. It seems like Mr. Incredible could just be using the absolute minimum force he needs to in every situation we see him in for fear of completely destroying what he is trying to protect. In the robot scene, he uses as much force as he can since he either saves his kids or fails and all three die. I just like this explanation more than the ‘family love’ explanation

The fact that Jack Jack got kidnapped and everyone was like "Oh No Jack Jack!" And Jack Jack was out here like "Nah I'm OP I got this". The funniest part in the movie.

As a train nerd, I love to hear MatPat using accurate terms for railway stock. Awesome! -Jack

Me : Reading comments Also me : Missing the whole video Also me : Watching the video again bc Matpat's videos are the best things on RU-vid.

Considering Violet is still a teen, and we would not know what would she do if that happened to her future kids, she might still be the strongest

A couple quick notes, if I may: 1) When calculating Mr. Incredible's strength using the train, you didn't account for traction. It doesn't matter how strong he was, his feet were planted on wood and concrete, which broke under the force of the train. You can see the wood flying away as he speeds down the track. It doesn't matter how much force he can personally exert, he could exert ten times your estimate and still run into the same problem. If he can't brace himself, he can't slow the train down enough. Not to mention, he wouldn't WANT to stop it dead in its tracks, since that would kill everyone on board. 2) Your missiles are misdated. You made sure the train and passengers were set in the 1940's, but the missiles you referenced began development in the 1970's. 3) You didn't consider Elastagirl's supersuit. Edna Mode SPECIFICALLY stated it was resistant to missiles. In her demonstration scene, she shot two at the suit, and there was no damage at all. 4) This entire premise is based entirely on one definition of raw strength, and doesn't account for usage. Mr. Incredible may have a physical advantage, but his powers would have a hard time injuring anyone in his family. Elastagirl's stretch would make it easy for her to evade direct contact. Dash is just too fast to hit. Usage wise, Violet could potentially have the deadliest powers. Not only can she stealthily attack just about anyone, but her forcefields are solid and can appear anywhere. We see her use them to disrupt electromagnetic fields, so why can't she use them to slice through matter? However, her age is a disadvantage. She has NO IDEA what the capabilities of her powers are. She is one of the least trained of the family. Unlike her parents, with years of experience, she works on instinct, and doesn't even know that her forcefields could deflect bullets.

Remember, violet had been struck MULTIPLE times so she had withstood at least three times the force her dad struggled with! But omg it’s amazing how you can devote so much time and effort into this.

This was an incredible movie that I encourage everyone to rewatch. You really appreciate the nostalgia.

When Bob stops the train, the force he can exert is limited by the friction his feet has with the tracks.

Imagine how concerned Mat’s parents were when he was a kid

About Mr. Incredible being stronger when his child’s life is in danger, it _can_ be described as hysterical strength, but I believe what you were referring to was neural inhibition which is more well researched. Humans do not use 100% of their actual strength due to neural inhibition, where the nervous system uses a series of inhibitor neurons that are attached to other neurons in the body so that as a signal is sent to to a muscle to move, it gradually loses some of the signal sent which reduces the action potential (the actual movement of that muscle) of a given muscle. While scientists do not know for certain why this exists, what we do know is it essentially keeps you from using all of your strength at any given task. This is likely an evolutionary trait that keeps your body from operating on a knives edge, where using all of your strength without a reliable source of food renders your body incapable of finding something to eat before starving to death whereas a more efficient approach may make you able to last longer between meals as well as keeping strength in reserve for when it’s needed. Scientists know that your body mediates these inhibitors, meaning they are not roadblocks, they are doors that your brain can open or close when needed. What could make them open? Desperation. The mix of endorphins and adrenaline is likely to cause one of the greatest fight or flight responses of your life, which could cause your body to open the neural pathways and giving you access to your body’s full strength, while afterwards you would be incredibly tired and exhausted, you would likely feel almost twice as strong for time. Also the reason this is not scientifically proven is because it can’t be tested with a control, since reproducing an experiment where the subject believes they are going to die is a board of ethics violation, but it is well documented

I would like to point out one thing about your calculation with Mr Incredible and the train: while he may have the strength to push large objects, at the same time the train itself is a fragile object. He is most likely not exerting his max force because if he did, he'd tear through the front (it'd be like that scene in Invincible). He'd have to accommodate for the low (relative to him) tensile strength of the train metal and glass and use selective bouts of his strength to decelerate the train rather than push against it with all his might

The fact that Violet was almost over her dad. Is prob the fact she hasn’t trained her power unlike her father. She has tried to hid it. But if she trained like her dad or got older. Yikes she is unstoppable unless she’s allergic to kryptonite

Hellen could only survive the missiles, and protect her kids, because Edna made her suit to be able to protect her from dangers like that. There is even a scene in the movie of Edna shooting multiple missiles at her suit from a very close distance and the suit is left in perfect condition

I would like to point out, the Death Battle referance at the very beginning of the video. Brought the biggest smile to my face, my two favorite channels in one place BUT I was really hoping to see Wiz and Boomstick in this episode

If you think about it, people with super speed also have super endurance because of the fact that they can run for so long, and so quick. Not to mention, the fact that they would also have really tough or special skin to not give the person friction burns.

Are we just going to forget the fact that Mr. Incredible punched the Omnidroid 8.0 well over 30 feet with only his right hand? He didn't even seem exerted afterwards, and it was before he did his exercises too.

You forgot Frozone, his strength to deal with his wife not finding his super suit ore godly.

The thing is: all the moments picked out for the superheros were life and death situations٫ except for dash. Helen was saving her kids from death٫ Bob was Saving his kids once٫ and the lives of dozens of strangers a different time. And Violet was protecting herself and her brother. Meanwhile٫ Dash was pulling a prank٫ so the stakes were not as high

Maybe Dash dosent actually run fast, but perhaps he can create time bubbles around him that slow down or speed up the environment around him. So the reason he didn’t create huge blasts of wind when he places the tack on his teachers chair is because he isn’t going fast. It’s just time perception. That is my theory on fast superheroes

Spider-Man: I JUST STOP A MOVING TRAIN AND ALMOST DIED Mr. Incredible: hold my beer

I’m late but I thought it was Edna’s “Virtually indestructible” suits that saved Helen, Violet, and Dash in the crash as foreshadowed by the missiles in Edna’s display case

I'm so happy I found this. Incredibles was always my favorite PIXAR movie (It's between it and WALL-E). Also regarding MatPat's idea of "what the movie was about" the director's cut gave a little insight on that; it's a balance between the fantastic and the mundane within family bonds. Hence why the whole climax battle is the family arguing over the remote. :)

I think dash running and catching the football that Mr incredible threw in like 2 seconds is a bigger feat

When Violet grows up and her force fields mature more/become stronger, she’ll most likely be one of, if not the, most powerful supers in the world

When I re-watched this movie, I took the message as being not that you have to be born special to be super, but that even people who aren't born with special powers (Syndrome) have the potential to be super, but because he became too obsessed with the approval of others, he lost sight of his true goal and was brought down by his own inferiority complex. If he had used his intelligence for the betterment of people and not focused on Mr. Incredible's discouragement, he could have been just as heroic as the rest of them. It's not about whether or not his intelligence counts as a power, but how he chose to use it. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.

Even though I'm pretty late I recently been hooked on your theories, I like to listen to them while doing chores around the house

Helen's Suit was designed to absorb exposions so I feel that the estimate of the force she absorbed is faltered.

So here's a second theory about Mr. Incredible stopping the train vs catching that robot. I don't think he was struggling to stop the train. If he wanted to, he probably could have stopped it dead in its tracks. I think he was more so struggling with slowing it down bit by bit to not harm the passengers with the momentum of the train when it DID come to a sudden stop. It's actually harder to limit yourself sometimes than it is to just go all out. You have to focus much harder in the precise amount of strength you're exerting. I've had to work with moving large, heavy object and moving them carefully and precisely. It is definitely much easier to give it all your might, than it is to limit yourself to something more precise. All and all, 100% is easier to muster than say, 40.2%.

Frozone's wife could have beaten Syndrome because she would have put his SUPER SUIT away

In the movie, Edna says that she made Elastigirl's suit missile proof, so the fact that she was able to defend her kids from the missiles could just be her suit.

I like how they bring up the cool quote death battle makes in their videos and amazing theory and great video man :]

Imagine Baby Ollie is like “Dad, I need help on my homework.” You’ve just unleashed Professor Pat.

Edna would of been super pissed when she found out you didnt use her new super suits resistance to damage when calculating moms strength..... You can say her face was exposed but it wasnt, you can clearly see it when she wraps everyone up. Also Edna was super surprised Dad tore through his old suits mega mesh.

i'm pretty sure the only reason elastigirl was able to withstand that explosion was because of the suit because we can hear edna describe how much force the suit can take

Another thing to note about him stopping that train is that he can only exert as much force as reactions will allow which is one of the reasons why people can't exactly stopp themselves from being pushed as well in water as on land.

When Mr. Incredible stopped the train he was basically just leaning against it, letting it crash into him and slowing it down only with the friction of his stance but when he lifted the droid he was actually in a position where he could use all of his muscle arsenal to push against it.

I would like to make what I believe is a valid point: Mrs. Incredible's suit is the thing that saved her against the explosion, NOT her own powers. When she got her suit, the person giving it to her said that the SUIT reflected everything. The SUIT.

I personally think Mr. incredible was holding back with the train. He knew there were people on board and such a sudden stop would damage them as it did in the movie. Not only that if he didnuse his full strength it's likely the train would bump into him and while hebstood his ground the train would get wrecked up pretty badly

Here's an idea for why Mr Incredible stopping the train was much harder than stopping the Omnidroid, hysterical strength aside. When he tries to hold back the train, the train track boards snap under his feet. He didn't have proper footing and support. Meanwhile, when the Omnidroid slams down on his family, Mr Incredible he has the Earth's crust against his back.

Helen doesn't absorb the missiles, the suit that Edna made, as set up earlier in the film is missile proof

But what about the Suits?!?! Edna says that the SUIT can take the missiles and we see a dummy wearing the suit take similar missiles. So it's more likely that the suit saved Helen and the kids, not Helen.

If I’m honest there were sibling instincts so perhaps that was her full strength with the extra adrenaline, but also he has the experience and has anger against syndrome so yeah, mr incredible, also plot armor was at play

I still stand by the theory that Syndrome actually had powers akin to Forge from Marvel Comics that allowed for him to make those inventions, but since it's not flashy no one picked up on it.

Roses are red, I am groot, Honey... WHERE IS MEH SUPER SUIT

there is one thing you forgot to take in calculation, sudden stop to the train will kill the passenger in the train, so super dad are actually holding back his strength when stopping the train. or else it too coincidental to stop just at the broken rail at that nick of time.

0:14. The moment that after all these years you find out the audio used in that moment is from Boomstick announcing death battle in the Goku versus Superman part 2 video

This is my favorite video of all the channels. Thank you matpat. You and dantdm were my childhood

at the train scene, dad is unable to apply enough force to counteract the train speed due to his shoes simply do not have enough grip/friction. later, the robot scene, he is stationary.... so he can easily use his full strength...

Elastigirl didn't survive the explosion by her own means. Edna mentioned in the suit-testing scene that their suits were, in fact, missle-proof. Edit: 14 replies and nobody told me that I spelled suit wrong?

Did anyone notice that when he was talking about dash and the clip of him putting a tack on the teachers chair (the clip was played nonstop) the teacher looked like he was doing the dirty......

I love how MattyPatty uses the most obscure things to calculate stuff like using trains and history to calculate Mr. Incred's strength

MatPat, your 'Hysterical Strength' explanation for Bob Parr's sudden dramatic increase in strength is logical, but there's something you failed to consider. When Mr. Incredible supports the Omnidroid, we see him support the Force directly, even being located at, or very near, to the centre of gravity, resulting in his ideal situation to support such a force. If you watch the train scene though, there is a very different system at work. You see, the limiting factor of the system when stopping a train is not how much force *Mr. Incredible* can exert on the train, but rather how much force his *feet* can exert on the ground. Because Mr. Incredible exerts this force on the train, we know that he is also exerting this force on the ground beneath him. The only way for him to exert this force upon the ground as he goes is through friction. We clearly see throughout the scene that he is moving, with his feet sliding upon the concrete, telling us that he is experiencing the weaker of frictional forces, "moving" or "sliding" friction (as opposed to the stronger "static" friction). Now, the equation of sliding friction is quite simple: F=N*u. F, where F is the force of friction, N is the Normal force (the force acting perpendicular to the surface), and u (technically a Greek letter 'mu') is the 'coefficient of friction', in this case, the 'coefficient of sliding friction'. Now, coefficients of friction vary dramatically with between each set of surfaces, but we have to make a few more assumptions before we get started. 1. When Mr. Incredible pushes against the Omnidroid, he is using close to his maximum strength, meaning that the maximum force he can exert is 181398476 N. 2. We see Mr. Incredible break crossties as he tries to slow the train. Now, these are pretty hefty pieces of wood, so breaking them neatly in half is normally a feat of strength. However, with the forces we're dealing with, it really isn't that much of a challenge, so we'll just accept that they break, and absorb a relatively substantial amount of the force. To account for this, we'll be generous and say that 30% of the total force is absorbed in the breaking of all of these crossties (though it is likely less). That leaves us with only 126978933.2 N of frictional force to exert. As well, to stop the train, the 30% absorption means that a minimum of 933.1 kN must be exerted to stop the train. 3. We also see Mr. Incredible brace for the impact of the train, setting himself at an angle to more easily transfer the force to the ground beneath him. With a protractor, I measured his chest to be at a roughly 45 degree angle to his feet, and his head at roughly a 60 degree angle. I'll be using the 45 degree angle for my calculations, as it will return a more conservative estimate of the frictional force applied by reducing the normal force (using 45 degrees also makes the math easier for me, because I don't have to do trigonometry). 4. Mr. Incredible is a pretty muscular guy, and relatively tall, so we'll put his weight at about 250lbs, or roughly 1.125 kN. This is fairly insignificant in terms of the forces we're dealing with, so we'll just ignore it. Mr. Incredible's weight will have a very limited effect on the end result, being about 1/1000th of the force of the train, even after taking off our 30%. Right, let's begin. Forces can always be split into their perpendicular components along the x and y axes, so we can say that the force Mr. Incredible transfers along his body can be split into components perpendicular and parallel to the ground. So, in order to stop the train, Mr. Incredible must exert a parallel force of 933.1kN. Since he's at a 45 degree angle, we know that he must also exert a perpendicular force that is also 933.1 kN. This perpendicular force is what we will use for our Normal Force. We know the maximum Force Mr. Incredible can exert is 181398476N (as per assumption 1), but he can only use 126978933.2N of that in Frictional Force, so by using our formula F=N*u, we can calculate the coefficient of friction that would be required for Mr. Incredible to use his full force to stop the train, and compare that to coefficients of other interactions to see how reasonable such a coefficient would be. Crunching the numbers, we get a coefficient of friction of... An astonishing 136.083! Now, to most lay-people, that probably doesn't sound very far fetched. Most lay-people, though, don't have experience with coefficients of friction. Anyone who has seen these equations before, though, can tell you, that coefficient of friction output by our calculations is simply ridiculous. To put that number into perspective, most coefficients of friction are less than 1.The highest coefficient of sliding friction I could find was Aluminum on Aluminum, at 1.4. Static coefficients don't help us here either, with Silver on Silver also coming at 1.4 (Aluminum is a bit of an anomaly, with a higher sliding coefficient than static coefficient). Rubber on concrete (a more comparable example) has a maximum coefficient of 0.8 As such, it's pretty simple to see that Mr. Incredible, try as he might, is *certainly* not going to be limited by his strength while stopping the train, but rather, by the strength of his boots. With any reasonable coefficient of friction, only about 3% of Mr. Incredible's strength could actually be used to slow the train, leaving 97% of his *possible* exerted force completely unused. So although hysterical strength is *an* explanation for why he could suddenly lift almost 200x his previous record, a much more likely explanation is that in his previous record, he was only using up to 3% of his possible output.

I am not biased, but even I would be afraid to look at MatPat's searching history.

What if Dash is tapping into the speedforce, considering he doesn't send a huge gust of wind when running to the front of the room and back, essentially putting the Incredibles in the Justice League universe? Just a loooooong stretch but could make a cool theory.

7:38 I think the suit saved them and not Helen because it was demonstrated by E when she denoted missiles on the suit

I want this theory redone now that Incredibles 2 is out Edit: 2k likes?? tysm guys :D this is now my most liked comment

Did he just "forget" about the fact that Edna created Elastigirl's new suit to be able to withstand or reduce damage upon her body? We saw her shoot bullets and rockets at it right? And the suit was unscathed after the test too right???

Woah 10m subs amazing keep going!

God I want to see this guys search history

It's not Helen's body withstanding the blast, it's the suit. Look at the scene where Edna shows her the suits

There is also the fact that Edna shows Helen how her suit protects her from explosions, so maybe she didn't take on that explosion outright. Looked up the scene and Edna says, "Virtually indestructible," when the rockets fired at the suit, so we can't really tell how much force the suit absorbs from explosions just from Edna's words.

I don’t see any comments regarding the fact that Violet took that hit to her force field over and over and over again before passing out. Not to discredit Mr Incredible, but he only took one hit in the comparison.

I read this in an article somewhere so I'm not sure if it's true, but when the hysterical strength thing occurs, the human body's perception of how dangerous it would be to use that kind of power disappears.Often resulting to muscle related injury after they literally lift a car to save their children or whatever.

most likely violet didn't expect the massive metal body so she didn't use all her strength you can tell by here facial expression by the way she looks up.

Buddy was always kind of a sociopath. He showed no remorse for nearly getting an entire train of people killed and letting a supervillain get away. He was still screaming that he was good enough. He was always in it for himself.

Violet definitely is the strongest because in the second movie she literally make as force field to protect her family on a boat that’s about to crash onto the shore and her family doesn’t even have a scratch on them!

Keep in mind Violet isn't even at her full potential, she's only 14. You could argue that it goes the same for dash, but as mentioned by Matpat, it would take him quite a bit more pounds of force to catch up

With Elastigirl its actually the suit that helps her survive. If you watch it again, you could see that she actually remembered what Edna said about the suit within the moment the missiles were about to hit the jet. Also if you look closely, you could see that she ducked her head inside with her kids to protect it. Between the four I believe that Violet is the strongest, I've been holding on to that argument ever since I was a kid watching Incredibles multiple times. But from all five, Jack-Jack is by far the strongest seeing how he was able to go through Violet's shield in Incredibles 2.

But how did he find his supersuit? *top 10 questions science can't answer*

Fun fact : Violet is called that because Elastagirls original suit is red and Mr. Incredibles is blue. Also, how did they name Dash that without knowing his powers?!

This is one of your greatest theorys, oh true, your all theorys are PERFECT

The Government: WE FOUND A SUPERVILLAIN Matpat's FBI agent: naw he does this all the time

When you listen to more math in a 22 minute video than a year at school at 7 grade

Elastigirl is able to shield the kids specifically because, as Edna tells her, her new suit is "virtually indestructible". She even demonstrates that fact by firing missiles at it in the lab. Elastigirl shields the kids, yes, but it's the suit that pulls the weight in protecting both them and her.

Hearing all about the misles and plane honestly made my day😊

Imagine how Edna feels about the capes incident. She clearly remembers the date of when it happened, where it happened and who it happened to of all the cape incidents, meaning it had to be a traumatic experience. Imagine the guilt of knowing that 5 people died. (Idk how many it’s been a while) Imagine the guilt of knowing they died in suits you created. Now imagine the guilt of knowing that they died because of a certain design you used. No wonder she lives in an entire mansion alone, isolated from everyone but her customers.

The thing is... Violet also experienced the hyper strength at the end like Mr. Incredible. She had to save her brother, and of course she would get that rush of adrenaline. Still, she is only 16ish and will probably be stronger than her dad when she is an adult.

This is NO WAY the standard thickness for aluminum boeing commercial airline skin is 10cm. That's insanely thick. You can double check this with lived experience: you can literally see the aluminum panels as you board a plane. theyre more like a 10th of cm thick.

Violet is still probably stronger though because she’s barely tapped into her potential power. She doesn’t like using her power so unlike the others in the family she’s probably the least practiced at it. Had she been danger rooming the whole time she likely would more than surpass her father’s raw strength.