The New York Times [free registration required] has a new article about the more possibly profound themes in the upcoming film The Incredibles. “‘The challenge in the post-9/11 world is that the news provides plenty of examples of genuine monsters, so how do you compete with that?’ [Martin] Kaplan said. ‘One way is going to the kind of fantastic figures you find in Batman and Superman. The other way is to return to this long tradition of taking our deepest societal fears, in this case now embodied in the news, and put them back in a story line where you get to defeat them.’ [Director Brad] Bird said the larger point he was making is that a nation, a superhero or an ordinary mortal can be rendered impotent by fear and the conflicting demands of life. ‘You don’t want someone going in with guns blazing but not thinking,’ Mr. Bird said. ‘You don’t want someone standing on the train tracks wringing their hands and getting run over by a train. You have to just be.'”