The Incredibles 2: all the commentary, trailers, and updates for Pixar’s next superhero film

This piece contains significant spoilers for The Incredibles and Incredibles 2.

It’s been 14 years since Brad Bird’s animated superhero movie The Incredibles hit theaters, but the new sequel, The Incredibles 2, is remarkably consistent with the first movie in a number of obvious ways. It picks up at the exact moment where the first movie ends, with the appearance of the villainous Underminer. It follows up on the date plans Violet made with her crush, Tony, and on the fact that no one in the family has seen Jack-Jack use his powers yet.

There are 14 years between the first Incredibles movie and its new sequel Incredibles 2, but one thing that’s thrilling to see pay off in both films is watching baby Jack-Jack play with his various powers, sometimes at the expense of the family.

In the first movie, the only people who see Jack-Jack’s powers are the babysitter, Kari McKeen, and the villain, Syndrome. From their vantage point on the ground, the Parr family missed out on the aerial fight between Syndrome and Jack-Jack, and they’re certainly not home when he tortures the unwitting babysitter.

Pixar Animation Studios has built its reputation on a lot of elements: computer animation that was miles ahead of the competition for more than 15 years, memorable humor and memorable characters, and stories that are accessible to children but sophisticated enough to keep adults engaged. But past a certain point in its history, Pixar became known above everything else for its willingness to explore emotional depths its contemporaries wouldn’t touch. Pixar films like Finding Nemo, Up, Toy Story 3, and Inside Out deal directly with death and other very personal, deeply felt losses, from letting go of childhood to letting go of the possibility of motherhood. The Pixar “brain trust” — a core group of insiders who push the studio’s chosen writers and directors toward high-quality and immense risks — has a knack for emotional insight and a track record that speaks for the value of pushing the limits of what animation can do, visually and narratively.

But occasionally, Pixar films jump back from those heavy emotional burdens and just take their characters on a big adventure. Incredibles 2, Brad Bird’s sequel to his 2004 superhero adventure The Incredibles, is a case in point: Bird describes it as “just a popcorn film,” a fun action movie without elaborate themes or painful feelings. It feels like a conscious step back from Bird’s original Incredibles, which was openly about a middle-age crisis, a slowly disintegrating marriage, and two kids coming to terms with their superpowers. Incredibles 2 is a lighter and more incident-packed adventure. The same characters are running through some of the same emotions but with much less of a sense of weight and impact.

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services, and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.

“Now Museum — Now You Don’t” is the ninth episode from season 3 of the animated superhero / pulp spoof The Venture Bros. Since debuting in 2004, the Adult Swim series has put a dark twist on old-fashioned, family-oriented adventure cartoons like Johnny Quest, reimagining stock heroic characters as older and seedier as they fail to live up to their legacies. Written and directed by The Venture Bros. co-creator Christopher McCulloch (aka “Jackson Publick”), the 2008 episode “Now Museum — Now You Don’t” directly contrasts the glorious past and the drab present, as the diminutive second-generation super-scientist Dr. Jonas Venture Jr. attempts to monetize the memory of one of his dad’s greatest triumphs. His opening of the famed supervillain lair “Spider-Skull Island” as a tourist attraction draws the series’s main characters — including Jonas Jr.’s hack brother, Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture — as well as an array of past-their-prime costumed adventurers.

Pixar is a tightly knit company full of creative visionaries, but few of them are as versatile as writer-director Brad Bird. After starting his feature film career with the traditionally animated feature The Iron Giant, Bird joined Pixar to direct The Incredibles and Ratatouille. He then moved into the world of live-action filmmaking, directing Tom Cruise in the action film Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and George Clooney in the aspirational science fiction adventure Tomorrowland.

With Incredibles 2, Bird has returned to the animated superhero family of Bob and Helen Parr (voiced by Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter, respectively) and their three children. This time, Helen’s alter ego Elastigirl gets to take center stage as part of a plan to prove to the world that superheroes should be made legal again. A sinister new villain named Screenslaver has other ideas.

Pixar has released a new trailer for its upcoming animated superhero movie, The Incredibles 2, which shows off how the family is adjusting to their new life as superheroes and a look at the new villain.

The film is a sequel to Pixar’s 2004 film The Incredibles, which depicted a world that outlawed its population of superheroes, forcing them to go underground. Two heroes, Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl settle down and have three kids: Violet, Dash, and baby Jack-Jack. But Bob Parr, Mr. Incredible’s secret identity, is bored with the minutia of life in suburbia, and moonlights as a hero, listening to the police scanner after dark. When he’s enticed back into the world of heroics with the emergence of a new supervillain named Syndrome, the whole family dons their new outfits to save the world.

The Incredibles 2 is one of this year’s most highly anticipated sequels and a new trailer shows off thrilling new footage, including a further glimpse into baby Jack-Jack’s developing powers. There’s also a seedy businessman who wants to bring superheroes back into the sunlight and Elastigirl seems to be the one to spring back into action, while Mr. Incredible looks after the three kids. (The Incredibles 2 director Brad Bird has previously said the sequel will center on Elastigirl.) The humor is as you’d expect from a Pixar film that looks to be equal parts heartwarming and funny.

The first Incredibles film came out in 2004, and this sequel is due out in theaters June 15th, 2018.

Our first look at The Incredibles 2 is here. The sequel to Pixar’s 2004 superhero film The Incredibles will bring back the super-powered Parr family, and will pick up immediately after the closing of the first movie.

The trailer shows off one thing: babies with superpowers are dangerous. At the end of The Incredibles, Jack-Jack began to manifest powers after he was kidnapped by the super villain Syndrome. Babies are already destructive in their non-superpowered state, but in this teaser, we see just how dangerous they can be with them.

It's not just a day for Marvel; Disney has announced a slew of new release dates for upcoming animated and live-action films, including The Incredibles 2. The Pixar sequel is now scheduled to arrive June 21st, 2019, with Toy Story 4 — originally slated to open in 2017 — pushed to June 15th, 2018. That will leave room for Cars 3, which is now scheduled to open on June 16th, 2017 (Pixar really likes mid-June openings, in case you were wondering).

Disney also confirmed that its animated take on Jack and the Beanstalk will in fact be called Gigantic, as teased at D23 earlier this year (the film opens on March 9th, 2018). We're including the new announcements as listed by Variety below, many of which are mysteriously untitled Pixar or Disney live-action fairy tale films. With the dates stretching all the way to 2020 (and that's not counting the full Marvel or Star Wars slates), you can't really accuse Disney of not planning ahead.