Interesting pattern. I’d note that one film that broke the trend was “The Incredibles”, which (IIRC) didn’t have any intelligent nonhumans, and essentially did have magic. (Incidentally, “The Incredibles” was my least favourite Pixar movie.)
Even then, not all of them follow it exactly; I don’t recall any humans in “A Bug’s Life”, and “Monsters, Inc.” had a nice inversion of the pattern where the non-human protagonists had to learn to see humans as people.
Not just a transhumanist playing God, but a transhumanist playing God in a universe that already has people with those same godlike powers living among baseline humans more or less as equals. Adam Cadre was spot-on when he described Syndrome as nouveau-riche.
I liked it too, but what irked me was that what felt like the underlying problem—normals are intolerant of supers and require them to hide their powers—was “resolved” by the supers continuing to hide their powers, but not as thoroughly (e.g. Dash at the end). It felt incomplete to me.
Interesting pattern. I’d note that one film that broke the trend was “The Incredibles”, which (IIRC) didn’t have any intelligent nonhumans, and essentially did have magic. (Incidentally, “The Incredibles” was my least favourite Pixar movie.)
Even then, not all of them follow it exactly; I don’t recall any humans in “A Bug’s Life”, and “Monsters, Inc.” had a nice inversion of the pattern where the non-human protagonists had to learn to see humans as people.
I really enjoyed “The Incredibles,” but I agree that it very much irked me that the transhumanist was the unrepentant, stupid bad guy.
Not just a transhumanist playing God, but a transhumanist playing God in a universe that already has people with those same godlike powers living among baseline humans more or less as equals. Adam Cadre was spot-on when he described Syndrome as nouveau-riche.
I liked it too, but what irked me was that what felt like the underlying problem—normals are intolerant of supers and require them to hide their powers—was “resolved” by the supers continuing to hide their powers, but not as thoroughly (e.g. Dash at the end). It felt incomplete to me.
Agreed.
The superheroes themselves kinda play the intelligent-nonhuman role in “The Incredibles”, no?