Elastigirl
Helen Parr, also known as Elastigirl or Mrs. Incredible, is a fictional character in Pixar's The Incredibles franchise. A superhero with superhuman elasticity, she is able to stretch and contort her body to extreme lengths and shapes. The wife of Bob Parr and mother of their three children, she first appears in the animated film The Incredibles, where she and her family defy government-mandated retirement to battle the supervillain Syndrome. In its sequel, Incredibles 2, she is recruited to lead a public relations campaign in relegalizing superheroes, while a new villain attempts to tarnish their reputation permanently.
The character was created by The Incredibles screenwriter and director, Brad Bird, who gave her elasticity to symbolize the multitasking demands placed on mothers. Animators used a layered rig system and custom deformation tools to animate her stretching abilities, establishing her as the most complex rig Pixar had used up to that point. For the sequel, which shifts focus to Helen, technological advancements made in the 14 years since the original film granted more complex animation of her stretching, hair, and clothing, while the writers also made a concerted effort to humanize her character. She is voiced by actress Holly Hunter.
Helen received a positive response from film critics, who praised her characterization, the animation of her superpowers, and Hunter's performance. Her depiction prompted discussions about feminism and gender roles, with some critics praising her confidence, while others argued that she reinforces traditional domestic expectations and offers mixed messages about working mothers. Helen has been recognized by multiple publications as one of Pixar's greatest characters and one of fiction's most notable on-screen mothers, while critics have discussed her role in relation to the scarcity of lead female superheroes in superhero films.
Following the release of the sequel, Helen's exaggerated physique became a topic of widespread media discussion. Some commentators viewed her curvy appearance as a positive representation of women's bodies in animation, while others expressed concern that the character was being sexualized in a film primarily aimed at children. The character's likeness has been used in various tie-in media and merchandise.
Role
Helen Truax first appears in The Incredibles as Elastigirl, a superhero with superhuman elasticity. Following the government's ban on superheroes due to a series of accidents and lawsuits, she marries fellow superhero Bob Parr and retires. The couple has three children, Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack, and insists that they conceal their own superpowers to remain undetected among civilians. While Bob struggles with the loss of his superheroic identity, Helen adapts to domesticity as a housewife easier than her family, but grows concerned by Bob's aloofness as he secretly resumes hero work. Suspicious of his behavior, Helen consults costume designer Edna Mode, who reveals Bob's actions and location, restores her confidence, and outfits her with a new super suit. She tracks Bob to Nomanisan Island, where she infiltrates the base of Syndrome, a crazed inventor and former superfan of Mr. Incredible's, who has turned against him for dismissing him as a child. Violet and Dash stowaway aboard her chartered jet, and they narrowly survive an attack from Syndrome's missiles. After reuniting with Bob on the island, the family is captured but manages to escape and return to Municiberg, where they defeat Syndrome's final Omnidroid. Back home, Syndrome attempts to abduct Jack-Jack, but the baby unexpectedly manifests powers and escapes. Helen catches Jack-Jack midair by transforming into a parachute, while Syndrome is ultimately killed when his own cape is caught in his aircraft. The film ends three months later, with the family preparing to confront a new threat, the Underminer.In Incredibles 2, Helen is recruited by telecommunications moguls, siblings Winston and Evelyn Deavor, to lead a public relations campaign aimed at restoring public support for superheroes, who remain outlawed after the Parrs fail to apprehend the Underminer. Selected over Bob due to her lower history of collateral damage, Helen becomes the public face of the movement and undertakes solo missions designed to demonstrate the value of superheroes, while Bob remains home with their children. During one of Helen's missions, she encounters a mysterious villain called the Screenslaver, who uses hypnotic signals transmitted through screens and goggles to control others. Helen eventually discovers that Evelyn is the Screenslaver, motivated by a belief that society's reliance on superheroes contributed to her parents' deaths. Evelyn hypnotizes Helen and Bob, and attempts to sabotage the campaign by forcing them to crash a luxury ship carrying several dignitaries into the city. Helen is ultimately freed when Jack-Jack uses his powers to remove her goggles, allowing her to free Bob and Frozone, and intercept Evelyn. With her family's help, Helen apprehends Evelyn during her attempted escape and, after stopping her from throwing herself to her death, hands her over to the police.
Development
Creation
Screenwriter and director Brad Bird had pitched The Incredibles to Pixar as a scenario where a superhero family is forced to live as civilians in a witness relocation program. While the father is stuck reliving his past, Helen embraces their new life to the point that she has, according to Bird, set aside a part of her personality she believes she no longer needs, only to discover that she does miss it to some degree. Bird said that, by the end of The Incredibles, Helen "has no intention of slowing down ever, and is rediscovering and reawakening side of her". He created Helen as a tribute to "the typical modern-day mom", and cited his own wife, Elizabeth, as inspiration for the character. Wanting the family's powers to symbolize typical nuclear family roles, he gave Helen elasticity to represent mothers who are constantly balancing countless responsibilities and being pulled in multiple directions.Originally, the script included a scene where Helen defends her decision to be a stay-at-home mother from a businesswoman who openly mocks the term. It was inspired by interactions Bird's wife had with her peers when she had first decided to be a homemaker and found that several people reacted dismissively. The scene was storyboarded but cut when the writers decided to open the film by introducing Helen and Bob as younger superheroes instead of a normal couple. One of the earliest ideas Bird had conceived for the film was when Helen notices her reflection after breaking into a supervillain's lair, and wearily acknowledges the weight she had gained since last donning a supersuit. Bird said this demonstrates some of the mundane, relatable feelings the titular family struggles with despite their extraordinary talents. Although there were some concerns that this moment would unintentionally undermine or sexualize the character, most of the crew understood Bird's intentions to make her more interesting, flawed, and relatable, and the scene was retained. Pixar had asked Bird to rewrite an argument between Helen and Bob because they feared it looked like she was being bullied by her husband. Instead of changing any dialogue, the director had Helen stretch to meet Bob's height to visually establish that "she's not intimidated by him, she's just as tough as he is".
In earlier drafts of the film, Bird had intended for Helen's friend, pilot Snug Porter, to fly her to Nomanisan Island himself, only to be killed when the plane is attacked and crashes into the ocean to emphasize the ruthlessness of the villains. Executive producer John Lasseter suggested that Helen fly the plane herself, which Bird protested, knowing he could not kill off Helen. Animators had also voiced concerns that it would be too time-consuming to design and cast a major character, only for them to die so early in the film. Eventually, Snug became too reliant on exposition at the expense of central characters and was ultimately reduced to a telephone conversation. Another discarded character, Xerek, had originally been envisioned as an ex-boyfriend of Helen's and the film's antagonist. He was written out and replaced by Syndrome, shifting the villain connection from Helen's past to Bob's and eliminating the ex-boyfriend subplot. Since the film's head of story was a military enthusiast, Bird made sure Helen's aviation terminology was authentic. Helen's call sign for her jet, India Golf Niner-Niner, is a reference to the animated film The Iron Giant, which Bird also wrote and directed.
The writers were challenged to create dozens of unique, meaningful names for their superheroes. Because the character shares her name and some abilities with the DC Comics superheroine Elasti-Girl, Pixar made an arrangement with DC's parent company, Warner Bros., to use the name "Elastigirl" in The Incredibles, but refer to her as "Mrs. Incredible" outside of the film. According to comic book historian Peter Sanderson, DC had possibly neglected to renew the name's trademark, unintentionally allowing Disney to use it in the film.
Characterization and animation
Bird based much of Helen's personality on both his wife and his mother. He described Helen as more emotionally developed than Bob, having transitioned from superhero to civilian easier. According to the director, she, unlike Bob, considers herself to be a parent and wife first and foremost, over a crime-fighter. According to Helen's voice actress, Holly Hunter, the character possesses "total fearlessness" as a superhero, but also "a very strong, protective instinct" that extends to both her children and civilians. However, she clarified that Helen "does not lead with a maternal kind of instinct at all as a superhero". As the first Pixar film with an all-human cast, The Incredibles posed several unprecedented computer animation challenges. Bird prioritized the human characters feeling real over looking real, and insisted that Helen's stretching use "real physics", despite being "physically impossible". Deciding each character should move differently from each other, Bird said Helen's "buttery movements... suggest that she could fit into any situation". Each member of the Parr family is based on a geometric shape, with Helen resembling a heart. Animator Lou Romano found it challenging to design her in a believable manner that showed her as both maternal and heroic. Incredibles 2 producer Nicole Paradis Grindle, who had worked as a simulation manager on the first film, specifically requested that Helen's second supersuit include tights to better represent women favoring less revealing clothing as they age, and referenced her own body to inform the character's design.Her character model was built in Maya, rigged and animated using Pixar's proprietary tools, and rendered in RenderMan. To show the turmoil she endures when using her powers, the director decided a simple morph would not suffice. Helen's musculature was particularly difficult to master, since the character must stretch, bend, and fold herself into various shapes. Animators developed a program called a deformer, which allowed them to twist and turn the character as required, and mold her body and limbs into different shapes. Character supervisor Bill Wise believes Helen was likely the most sophisticated articulation rig Pixar had created to that point. Character articulation artist Mark Therrell explained that one of the most significant challenges Helen posed was creating an "attractive woman" that could be articulated in a traditional way, using natural human joints and proportions. He added that the team also needed to transition this rig into a “monster-like” form that still appeared elegant, slender, and feminine while performing actions that were humanly impossible. To achieve this, Therrell created two different rigs: the first was a standard rig, traditionally articulated using Pixar's proprietary animation software; the second was a "snake" rig that used the curve deformer on a duplicate of her geometry. By layering the snake rig on top of the standard rig, they were able to control a nearly identical version of Helen's body that remains hidden from audiences. Animators would animate Helen like any other human character, switching to a different rig when they needed her to stretch, and using control points along the curve to achieve various effects, such as constraining objects and wrapping her arms around telephone poles. To return to animating the original Helen, animators reduced her control point values back to zero.
To create the effect of Helen transforming into a parachute, the team adapted the curve deformer to use flat, surface-based geometry. They developed a flattened gingerbread man-like version of her body that moved in sync with her standard skeleton, which allowed them to venture beyond simple linear stretches and transitions into broader, more malleable shapes. In certain scenes, her costumes were animated using completely different software, such as when Edna is showing her newly designed supersuit for the first time, where it was a 2.5D matte painting created with Autodesk 3ds Max and rendered with SplutterFish's Brazil rendering system. Animator Dave Mullins worked on the scene where Helen nearly drops her telephone during her conversation with Edna for six weeks, and referenced video footage of himself performing the same actions to understand their dynamics. Similarly, animator Karen Kiser filmed herself and her children jumping off a dock to animate the scene where Helen and her children freefall from their downed jet. In 2004, media outlets reported that Mister Fantastic's role in the final act of the then-upcoming Fantastic Four film was expanded once filmmakers saw what The Incredibles had been able to achieve using Elastigirl's special effects.