Hey, brother!
Ben, oh my God! Look what came in the mail today. It is our silver Youtube button for hitting
100,000 subscribers. Ahhh!
Honestly I know, it's just a really shiny piece of little hardware here and
100,000 is just a number
But it really does mean a lot to us that you guys have continued to tune in
week after week and watch the show. We have so much fun making it and as long as you guys keep watching it we will
keep making it and so, to that end,
let's talk about the Incredibles.
*Theme Music*
Ben, one of the things that has always bothered me about The Incredibles
(and believe me it's a really short list)
Is that they never really explained the word
'Kronos'
Pixar actually has an odd habit of doing this, like leaving
unanswered questions in their movies. Like, in Inside Out,
they never really explained why all the memories keep turning sad
when sadness is touching them, but this isn't happening when other emotions touched memories.
Why in Brave is Mor'du even attacking Merida at all?
And what does 'Kronos' mean?
I mean the word or name,
I don't know,
is obviously important to Syndrome because he names his whole evil operation after it,
but you don't get a good explanation for where it came from.
Honestly when I saw it as a kid
I just thought it was an acronym for something because you always see it in all capital letters.
It's the name of a plan, and that's just kind of like a spy superhero movie trope like SHIELD or A.I.M
But we never learn an acronym or any other explanation, so I guess we should just assume
it's a cool sounding word, and that's the end of it, right? What? Is this your first video? That is not
how we do things on this channel. That's not how you get a silver play button! Let's dive into this.
First, what do we actually know about the word 'Kronos' from the movie?
Not much other than that it's the name of Syndrome's plan.
Mr. Incredible finds Gazerbeam's dead body and sees that he's
carved the word into the wall and then, later uses the word to hack into Syndrome's computer.
By the way the word
'Kronos' is also the password for the plan 'Kronos'.
Isn't Syndrome supposed to be a genius?
That's the worst password ever!
The plan itself has two phases,
the first of which is to have old retired Supers
invited to the Island and to have them face off against The Omnidriod, a robot
they are told became so smart it began to wonder why it had to take orders.
If they happen to defeat The Omnidroid,
Great!
Syndrome make some adjustments based on the new data
he's gained and makes another Omnidroid that is bigger, faster, and stronger.
Then he invites that hero to come back and fight the Omnidriod a second time.
Every hero loses on the second fight,
if they even make it that far and of course by loose,
I mean dies.
Syndrome rinses and repeats this process
over and over until he thinks he has an Omnidriod that is strong enough to face off against
who he perceives to be the strongest Super, Mr. Incredible.
You'll see how this relates the name 'Kronos' in a second.
But this is an important part of the plan because not only is he making the Omnidroid stronger,
but he's killing off Supers,
which is important because his eventual goal is to be perceived as the
greatest Super himself, which since he isn't a super, he obviously can't do if any other super still exists.
Phase two of the plan
is to release the Omnidroid into a nearby city and then after the military
fails the defeat it, come in and defeat it himself
because he has the remote control and then everyone will celebrate him as the greatest Super.
That's the plan but as we know it doesn't really work out all that well for him.
Which brings us back to the original question:
What does Kronos mean?
Well, it turns out that Chronos is also the name of a Titan from Greek Mythology.
His story is that he overthrows his father, Uranus,
who is the current leader of the Titans.
Then Chronos finds out about a prophecy that says one of his own children will
overthrow him, so in order to prevent this he EATS each of his newborn
children so they can't overthrow him until one of them, Zeus, is hidden from him long enough to grow up and
indeed overthrow his father, releasing his eaten siblings in the process.
Ugh
There are a lot of differences to be sure, but
Syndrome and Chronos actually mirror each other in a lot of ways. Just like Chronos wanted to kill off the other gods
so he could remain the most powerful,
Syndrome has to kill off the rest of the Supers so he can be perceived as the most powerful.
And then something of his own creation,
the Omnidroid for Syndrome, and Zeus for Chronos, eventually defeats him.
It's a really perfect fit, and I'm surprised there is no allusion to it at all in the film,
but surprisingly there was another Kronos story out there that is completely different and yet also fits perfectly.
That would be the 1957 film,
'Kronos'
Here's a brief plot summary. Let me know if it sounds familiar.
A spacecraft crash-lands on Earth,
much like the Omnidroid crash-lands in Metroville via a rocket.
From it emerges a massive four-legged machine.
Okay, the Omnidroid has five legs, but still.
Weapon after weapon is thrown at the machine who instead of being damaged, is able to absorb all the energy
from those attacks and grow larger and larger.
Hmm, what other machine continues to face off against powerful
super-powered opponents, only to come back bigger stronger each time?
The Omnidroid, that's who!
Although to be fair,
he's being rebuilt, not actually growing, but still!
And finally, the scientists in the movie realize the only way to hurt the machine is to have it attack itself,
just like how Mr. Incredible realizes the only thing that can harm the Omnidroid is itself.
'Kronos'!
Man, I really gotta find a way to watch that movie now!
For a name they don't bother explaining, there was a ton of backstory
and not one, but two completely different stories that just happen to have the same name
come together to create one of the greatest
villain plots of all time. Ahh, I love Pixar!
Ben, my question for you and everybody else out there is: Are there any other questions
left hanging out there and other pixar films
you'd like us to try and explore? Let us know down in the towel section and if you'd like to hear Ben
and I just discuss more Pixar stuff in general,
we were on a podcast earlier this week, 'The DCast'.
I will leave a link down in the description. We did an interview with the host Andy and his co-host Dale
They were great. It was a pleasure to be on the show. I highly recommend if you like listening to stuff about
Um Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, or Disney things we love here at Super Carlin Brothers,
go check them out, give it a download. Think it's episode 38. I'll leave a link anyway. That's it for me. Ben
I will see you in another life brother. These socks are amazing!
Oh my God, so many cool sock pictures today seriously if you haven't checked the hashtag for Super Carlin sock club,
go do it and if you're wondering to yourself, "Gee, I wish I could take place in Super Carlin Sock Club,
but I don't have any cool socks!",
I have an answer for you.
You can head over to nicelaundry.com/supercarlinsockclub,
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so you know they're Super Carlin Brother approved!
You can, uh, get a free pair of socks with your purchase,
there will be a code at the top of the page. Just copy and paste
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socks to show off on Tuesdays, or any other day of the week with #supercarlinsockclub. Again,
that's nicelaundry.com/supercarlinsockclub. I'll leave the link down in the description.
Go check them out they've got some really awesome great socks!