Incredibles As It May Seem -

Once Again -
If you so much as whisper the merest zephyr of a hint that Conrad has mis-spelled a word, or gotten the grammar wrong, then you will find out just how a raw potato feels when placed amidst the coals of a fire.
     I am referring to that exemplar of animated excellence, "The Incredibles", and my long-term look at it in order to determine what year it is set in.
     Don't laugh.  A man's got to have a hobby.

     Kindly note the firearms being wielded by the uniforms here: automatic weapons with a distinct look of the M16 Armalite rifle about them.  Which boom-stick was not introduced until 1964.  That's not all in terms of military hardware.  Cast yer glazzies over this kit:

     More of the M16s, and that tank does bear more than a passing resemblance to the M41 Walker Bulldog, if with a welded rather than a cast turret.  The muzzle-brake is a definite South Canadian foible of the Fifties and Sixties, also.  If Art will put down his plate of coal and Mara Corday swimsuit calendar -

The M41

     Now, IMDB puts the time-range of "The Incredibles" as between 1947 and 1962, which Your Humble Scribe would jib at.  I would say 1951 to 1964. 
     Phew.  All that background, summed-up in 6 words.  It's also notable as to what we don't see or hear in TI.  There is no mention of the Second Unpleasantness in the first part of the film, an event only a few years in the past.  Come to that, no mention of the Korean Unpleasantness either.  Given the timeframe, we can't expect Vietnam to be a topic of conversation, so that's realistic.  However - no mention of nuclear weapons or Communism?  These years are when the Cold War ran hot, after all, and every red-blooded South Canadian feared either Reds Under The Bed, or being turned into radioactive vapour.
     So.  There you have it.  "The Incredibles" is set in a time period that stretches from 1951 to 1964, and My! How long has it taken to reach that conclusion?
    Of course, I may be over-thinking this ...

Ah.  Yes.  Does this need a timeframe research project?

     Okay, motley - this Ultra-Low Velocity Encephalotropic Missile is tuned in to your brain patterns, and the only way to escape is by diving into that pool of liquid cement!*

"Scran"
Raja, bless his little Southron heart, mentioned this last week, in a puzzled manner.  Lest you be unaware, it is Northern dialect slang for "food".  Because Your Humble Scribe is an anorak of the first order, I determined to look said word up in my Chambers Dictionary of Phrase And Fable.
     Not there.
     Neither was it present in my Collins Concise Encyclopedia.
     Egad!  Recourse to teh interwebz.
     Apparently it is of 17th Century origin and refers to the bill one was presented with when dining in a wayside inn.  From this it has spread in definition and now means food in general.

They say.

     Conrad remains highly suspicious.**  After all, it was found on the internet, and you know how trustworthy that is.
"Hard To Be A God" By The Brothers Strugatsky Yes, we are back to this novel.  Don't whinge so, it doesn't become you.  Not unless you've trodden barefoot on a piece of Lego; then you're allowed.

A warcrime waiting to happen

     I did mention previously that the description of Don Reba skated perilously close to how that Grey Non-entity Stalin slowly closed his paws around the levers of power.  Then, once he'd got them, how he killed off everyone who might have challenged him, and their families, and their friends, and their neighbours, and the man six streets over who once crossed the road behind them in another city thirteen years previously, and then a whole load of random strangers, just to keep in murder practice.

(The other hand is holding a knife)

     Perhaps in an attempt to decoy the censors, TBS include a couple of lines about how Hitler had been backed by rich and powerful industrialists.

Come on, you didn't think you'd get a picture of Herr Schickelgruber, did you?

     Interestingly, they also mention Ernst Rohm, as an intimation that the revolutionary process is going to finish off Don Reba.  I suppose this needs a bit of explication.


     But first!  let me check and see that The 1975 are still alive and breathing -


     - phew, they are, it was just a noisy shoot-em-up they were playing

There we go, hale and hearty and the life of the party

     ER was the head of the Nazi's paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung, and was one of Herr Schickelgruber's best mates.  He was one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich, and a homosexual to boot, which is no big thing nowadays but back in the Thirties - Oooh no.  Not at all.  He also cherished the notion that the SA (about a million strong) would merge with the army, which horrified the army which horrified Herr Schickelgruber.  The army didn't fancy the prospect of all these drunken thugs strutting up and down in uniform.  The rich industrialists didn't fancy the prospect of the "Socialist" part of "National Socialist" being put into effect, either, which is another thing Alter Ernie thirsted for.

Not an oil-painting.  In fact, a bit of a porker.

     Net result: Alter Ernie gets arrested and shot dead.  As I mentioned, this allusion by TBS may have been intended to divert the censors, who would 110% have noticed this byline.
     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...
Finally -
We only need a short article here to hit the ton.  Muse!  Right here, on me head.  Come on, come on, I've only got 3 minutes until lunch finishes.
    Aha!  Take a gander at this - Art?

CAUTIONI!  This man has absolutely NO qualms about murdering small children.

     This is the character that happily tries to kill Violet and Dash.  How are those family values coming along, Mister Bird?
     I did worry that I was being extra-specially nerdy in picking up this image, except that it's from the Internet Movie Firearms Database, and they worry about gun's bolt not being present -
     What I wanted to point out is that this thing must be using micro-calibre ammunition; matey blasts wildly away across the jungle several times, before standing there and blamming Violet's force-field for no less than twelve seconds (I timed 'em), at which point he still hasn't 1) Run out of ammo or 2) reloaded.  He goes through about 150 rounds, or 5 magazines-worth of normal ammunition, leading Your Humble Scribe to calculate the rounds must be 1.8 mm calibre -
     Of course, I could be overthinking this .....






*  Okay, it's not the only way.  But motleys are pretty gullible.
**  I know, I know, "Suspicious" runs through my core.  Make it "Extra suspicious"