(Yes, I’m wink-teasing the whole Bird-is-a-Rand-loving-Objectivist debate, which I don’t quite buy into.)īut lately, with “Finding Dory,” “Monsters University,” “Cars 3” and the upcoming “Toy Story 4,” Pixar’s been quite OK mining its past to mint its present. Wanting more of the Parrs at a time when the animation studio was careful about follow-ups, and when Bird was eager to flex his fantasy-tinged stories of exceptionalism with culinary cartoon vermin (“Ratatouille”) and Imagineered live action (“Tomorrowland”), seemed like greediness from us mere moviegoing mortals.
Whether you find the dominance of superhero pictures a glut or a bonanza, a cause for artistic concern or a boon to the movie business, the prospect of a sequel to “The Incredibles” always seemed to glide above that fray: Brad Bird’s whizbang 2004 Pixar feature about a nuclear/power family was atomic entertainment that in the years before our Marvel age felt like its own thrilling, funny, stylish universe.
