Daily Dialogue — April 13, 2016

SYNDROME: Huh? Huh? Oh, come on, you gotta admit this is cool! Just like a movie! The robot will emerge dramatically, do some damage, throw some screaming people, and just when all hope is lost, Syndrome will save the day! I’ll be a bigger hero than you ever were.
MR. INCREDIBLE: You mean you killed off real heroes so that you could pretend to be one?
SYNDROME: Oh, I’m real. Real enough to defeat you. And I did it without your precious gifts, your oh-so-special powers. I’ll give them heroics. I’ll give them the most spectacular heroics anyone’s ever seen. And when I’m old and I’ve had my fun, I’ll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. Everyone can be super. And when everyone’s super (evil laugh), no one will be.

— The Incredibles (2004), written by Brad Bird

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Villain. Today’s suggestion by Will King.

Trivia: Brad Bird got the idea for the film in the early 1990s, basing the story on his own experiences trying to balance a career with family.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: “Syndrome’s final statement creates an interesting corrlation between himself and Dash. It’s a callback to a complaint voiced earlier in the story by Dash. After being accused of putting a thumbtack on a teacher’s chair, Dash and his mother Helen discuss Dash’s situation. Dash is frustrated because he has super powers he can’t use; Syndrome is jealous that he doesn’t have super powers and wants to render them inconsequential. Syndrome wants to achieve what Dash fears.”

HELEN: Right now, honey, the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we gotta be like everyone else.
DASH: But Dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of, our powers made us special.
HELEN: Everyone’s special, Dash.
DASH: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is.