The Incredibles is a Disney Pixar film that was released in November of 2004. And luckily for us. the sequel is due in 2018.

That’s right. I’ll have waited 15 years for a sequel. Move out of the way, kids, I’m reserving my seat for opening night!

It was a widely successful Disney movie that surrounded a family of superheroes trying to balance normal life with their alter egos – which was nice, since that’s not usually what superhero movies focus on. This was as much about trying to keep a nuclear family together as much as it was about saving the world, and all of those things that superhero movies normally have. It had the best of both worlds!

There are a whole bunch of weird and wonderful facts about this movie you may not have known, so read on and hopefully this will tide you over until the second movie!

15 Edna E. Mode Is Voiced By The Movie's Male Director

Edna is one of the few people that actually knows about the family’s identities. In fact, she created their costumes and creates new ones for them in the movie, including some cute ones for the kids. Mrs. Incredible is less than happy about that fact, but you can’t deny they look pretty amazing. Good job, Edna!

What most people wouldn’t guess, however, is that this little old lady with the nasally voice is voiced by the movie’s male director.

He was originally supposed to be just helping out by supplying some lines, but they ended up liking his voice so much that he voiced her in the real deal. Listening to Edna’s voice though, impressive as this is, I’m not sure it’s a compliment to him…?

14 Syndrome Also LOOKS Like The Director

As if the director didn’t appear enough in this movie…

Syndrome becomes a superhero–well, more like supervillain–after he spent most of his time being rejected by Mr. Incredible. As an annoying fanboy, he was constantly following the superhero around looking for a shot at helping, and eventually took matters into his own hands when Mr. Incredible still wouldn’t take him on as some sort of superhero apprentice.

If you check out Brad Bird, and you’ll see this is literally an animated caricature of him. Which again, is not really a compliment, but clearly this director is a really good sport and up for anything.

Hopefully, he’s not as annoying or as vindictive as Syndrome in real life. I hope for the sake of all those around him that the similarities end at appearance.

13 It Was The First Pixar Movie To Have Primarily Human Main Characters

Pixar was no stranger to successful movies by the time The Incredibles was released, but there’s one thing you might not have realized – it’s the first Pixar movie that featured primarily human main characters.

Other Pixar movies featured humans only as side characters. For example, Darla in Finding Nemo, the annoying relative of the dentist who shook bags to kill fish. Or Andy in Toy Story, the boy who owned all of the toys that the movies were about. For the most part, the main characters were animals, toys, or anything else – even bugs at one point. Never humans, because clearly that wasn’t magical enough.

After seeing how successful The Incredibles was, I bet they wished they’d tried having some human main characters a little sooner.

12 It Was Also The Longest Pixar Movie When It Was Released

I sometimes forget Pixar movies are primarily for kids – mainly because I’m an adult who loves Disney movies, and I like to think there are little shout outs to grown-ups in there; like jokes or references that might go over a kid’s head — Disney is pretty good at catering to everyone.

But the fact is that Disney movies are meant to be family friendly and that means, for the most part, they need to be kid-friendly too. This means keeping a kid’s attention and not dragging the movie on and on. Pixar movies are generally short, but The Incredibles was the longest ever at its release, clocking in at almost two hours.

It must have been good to keep a kid’s attention for that long.

11 The Director Was Told It'd Be Near Impossible To Make

Why does this seem to happen so much?

Once, JKR was told that Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone wouldn’t be successful because it was too long as a kid’s book. And then it became one of the most successful books in the world. Professionals sometimes seem to lose the idea of magic, and decide things just won’t work, when in fact, they have great potential – and this actually happened with The Incredibles.

Director Brad Bird was told that the budget would end up too high and the film would be impossible to make. The team proved them wrong, and made the entire movie look and feel great, coming in well under the expected budget. I bet that release day was a great (and slightly smug) day for everyone who worked on this.

10 Mrs. Incredible's Actress Insisted On Learning Military Flight Lingo

There’s a scene towards the beginning of the movie in which Mrs. Incredible has to go fetch her husband, who has gone on a dangerous secret superhero mission and gone missing – which he didn’t tell her about.

This involves flying a private plane to get there. Something goes wrong on the plane, and Mrs. Incredible and her kids are in extreme danger as she tries to call for help. She uses advanced military lingo to do so, which most of us would not understand but sounds impressive.

What most people don’t know is that Holly Hunter, Mrs. Incredible’s voice actress, insisted on learning the real military flight lingo to make this scene authentic. Props to the dedication! Even though we can't see Holly Hunter, she still went above and beyond for her character.

9 It Used Four Times As Many Locations As Any Other Pixar Movie

If you think about it, Pixar movies tend to be pretty contained. The world has to be small enough that a child can easily follow along and understand; and with how short the movies are too, most of them take place in one area. Just like how much of Finding Nemo takes place off the coast of Australia — that sort of thing.

The Incredibles wasn’t only ambitious in length though. It actually used four times as many locations as any other Pixar movie, making it by far the most expansive one.

Of course this is an animated movie and the locations aren’t real, but this is still some pretty impressive world-building they had to — not to mention more locations the artists had to make. It’s becoming clear that a lot went into making this movie…

8 A113 Made It In Because, Of Course

Kudos to you if you’re already familiar with the A113 Easter egg present inside most Pixar movies!

There was a classroom at the California Institute of Arts by this name, and it was used by many notable graphic design and animation students – including those you may have heard of such as John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Brad Bird.

It’s become a running joke to slip A113 into Pixar movies whenever they can, and they’ve gotten away with it pretty well; so this movie is no different. It can be seen displayed on energy levels, because if you need a nonsense symbol… why not just go with the Easter egg created? It’s almost like a game to see if keen viewers of the movies can spot it now.

7 It Was Originally Supposed To Be Called 'The Invincibles'

Did you know that The Incredibles had a name before it was The Incredibles?

This makes me wonder what goes into choosing a name, because The Invincibles is not actually that different from what was chosen. What made them decide against it? Was it simply that this was kind of inaccurate since they’re not invincible, but they are incredible, so best go with an accurate title instead?

Actually, this kind of makes sense, since they’re both just as catchy and this is pretty much the only distinction between them. Interesting.

I wouldn’t have minded either title, but I guess the one they went with works better in terms of overall plot. There wouldn’t really be a plot if we knew they were invincible.

No stakes makes for a boring movie!

6 And The Code Title Used During Production Was 'Tights'

When movies and TV shows are in the works, they’re given code names so that people involved in the movies can talk about them in public without anyone else realizing what it actually is that they’re talking about. It’s a pretty smart idea to stop information and secrets about the movie leaking early, and I can completely see why they do this. Good call, Pixar.

They took advantage of this idea while working on The Incredibles.

Tights is actually kind of an odd choice since… the superheroes seem to be wearing spandex bodysuits rather than actual tights, but I guess they hadn’t come up with their outfits when they came up with the code title. And stereotypically, superheroes do tend to involve tights in their costumes. Or they did, back in the day. Times have changed, though.

5 The Superpowers Of Each Character Are Based On Their Personalities

You might have guessed this one already, but each one of the superheroes actually has a power based on their personality – which is a pretty common trope.

Mr. Incredible has super strength, because he considers himself the man of the house and breadwinner, the one keeping everyone afloat (or that’s what he’s supposed to do anyway). Mrs. Incredible has to do a million different things around the house and take care of the kids, so she has the power of being flexible. Violet is shy and insecure, so can turn invisible to hide herself. Dash is full of energy and therefore can… well, dash.

And Jack-Jack is still a baby and changing, so he basically seems to be able to do anything. 

It’s kind of neat that they put this much thought into the powers though.

4 Metroville Is A Combination Of Metropolis And Smallville

Metroville is kind of a simplistic name, and is actually based on a combination of Metropolis from the futuristic science-fiction movie and Smallville, which is where Clark Kent resides. And since he’s Superman, well, it’s pretty obvious why they chose to base the city and its name on these two things.

It’s kind of neat that they’re paying homage to them, actually; this superhero movie may be a kids film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it obviously has real respect for superhero culture and actually tries — despite its silly nature.

We explore the city quite a lot in the movie, from homes to workplaces and just out and around it towards the end, which means a lot of thought had to go into this location.

3 Brad Bird Made Dash's Voice Actor Run Laps Around The Studio So He'd Be Authentically Out Of Breath

Judging from the fact he voiced Edna, and Syndrome’s appearance was based on him, we can already assume that director Brad Bird is sort of… quirky. But wow, this makes him sound like a nightmare to work with!

Dash’s superpower is running fast, so often when we hear him speak, he’s out of breath from doing so. Apparently, Bird wasn’t satisfied with Spencer Fox’s out of breath voice, because he made him run laps around the studio just so when he would come back and voice Dash, he would be authentically out of breath, and it would come across in Dash’s voice. Yes, really!

I’m not sure how I would feel about being told to do that as a voice actor but then again, it doesn’t take much to make me run out of breath.

2 It Was The First Pixar Movie To Be Rated PG

The Incredibles was the first Pixar movie to receive a PG rating, which, if you don’t use this rating in your country, means ‘parental guidance.’ Most Pixar movies receive a ‘U’ rating, which stands for ‘universal’ and generally means the movie is wholesome and safe for kids. There may be some things that go over kids’ heads but there’s nothing inappropriate, and you don’t need to worry about letting your child watch it.

Aside from some pretty heavy flirting between Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, there are people shot, stabbed, and plenty of explosions. Obviously we never see the blood, because that’d be a little much for a Disney Pixar movie, but there are definitely moments that might scare kids and it was the first Pixar movie not to receive a ‘U’ rating. Bold!

1 The Sequel Will Arrive In 2018!

Sequels were rumored for years. We were teased and taunted with the idea of a sequel that never came quite to light, nothing ever being officially announced, and finally we’ve been told that in 2018–14 years after the original–The Incredibles 2 will be released.

I want to see it more than any kid, believe me – and I have so many questions! Will it take place when the kids are grown up or shortly after the first? What will the plot be? Who will the new enemy be? Do they still live in Metroville?

Okay, maybe I’m getting a little over-excited, but can you blame me when I’ve waited fourteen years? This movie should be geared towards adults just as a thank you towards us for waiting so long.

Get hyped!