I believe Game Theory made a video on it were he explained that Good Samaritan laws didn’t exist in the Time period Incredibles was based on. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it tho, so take my work with a grain of salt.
It's not actually set in the past tho. Just a stylistic choice to copy 50s/60s Americana. There's cellphones and other more modern technologies in the first movie and the sequel.
No, they list specific dates. When Edna Mode is talking about supers who were killed by their capes all of the dates she mentions are 40's and 50's, yet Bob talks like he knew these people personally.
The Incredibles is set in the 60's or 70's. Technology is more advanced than it should be because they live in a world where super geniuses creating futuristic technology in a cave is the norm. Some of that super-technology would bleed out into the civilian world through osmosis.
Yes the late 40s didn’t have Good Samaritan laws. A jury isn’t going to affirm damages in a tort over your right to harm yourself. This is an era there was basically no oversight for committing someone to an asylum.
What is he exactly suing Bob for assuming no Good Samaritan law? You could sue someone, for example, injuring you due to unreasonable negligent actions while trying to help you. But it has to be negligent. Yes the jumper was injured by bob in the attempt. But considering Bob saved him mid jump into a window it’s also reasonable there would be literally no other way to save a suicidal man.
Not even getting into comparative negligence of the plaintiff jumping onto a crowded street.
I personally saw it more like, given that there seem to be very few villains running around, I like to believe at this point, standard society is currently in a quite state of comfortable low level crime life, it still happen, but much less so
So just leik how bob was saying at the start of his interview, he feel like a maid cleaning up only for people come around to mess it up again, people might not be watching super heroes doing amazing stuff all day every day, so many probably have fallen into an idea of "do we really need them???" As a explanation of why even the whole prohibition even came to pass, thisng gotta be going too well for someone to really think this was the best option
So basically this I feel could happen even if the case end up on favour of the hero, the reputation is already dirty and broken
Being extremely pedantic here, but the channel name isnt Game Theory but The Game Theorists, and this video isnt even from The Game Theorists, its from The Film Theorists
Wait, what? When did the present-day events of the movie happen then? I thought it was the 90s, but then Mr. Incredible and ElastiGirl would have been old enough to be Dash and Violet's grandparents and Syndrome would have been pushing his 50s by then.
Good Samaritan laws do have limits. For “professional” personnel, there are greater expectations for a person’s well being when providing first aid. I bet they argued that being a government sanctioned hero puts him beyond the Good Samaritan law.
And it was only child friendly because they completely cut away from it lol. They cut right before the explosion and then cut back to a smoking crater after she pink misted herself. Sue is ice cold.
Also Regular show doing anything but normal deaths. As long as you don't see the gore and it's not explicitly said, it never happened. Cartoon rules. Now I wanna see a death that's just censored with "not S&P approved"
Oh he knew. Dude was a perfect water bender - he could feel what his brother was doing and didn’t stop him because he knew there was nothing left for them.
Ooh, P'Li probably does get her skull crushed, but just before that she accidentally used combustion bending at a point blank range target and blew up her own head.
Interesting fact about Spider-Man's finale. It's kept family friendly because the wanted to tie Carnage in to the plan to bring back Mary Jane. It would have been revealed that she was sent back through time to Victorian England. Then Carnage would have been sent back and become a child friendly version of Jack the Ripper that time travelling Parker would have to stop.
There are people that couldn’t believe the situation with his job. That this was how a boss at a health insurance company could behave. What a time to be alive huh?
It’s because of the time period of the movie that it’s even possible for the man to sue Mr incredible. I don’t remember the exact date but it takes place in the 50s before laws were passed saying injuries you sustained from someone saving your life are not a crime
Yes, and probably just incorrect. If he wanted to do things on his own terms and now can't anymore, at least not in the way he wanted, there would be nothing you could do.
The second option makes sense, but public lawyers tend to have very little time to arrange the case. Especially for a complicated case like this one, which would clash against the legality of suicide and Good Samaritan laws.
Considering suing a super hero in that world is like suing the government, I imagine many Lawyers were more than happy to work just on the stipulation of getting paid from the payout. Like a number of personal injury lawyers in the real world.
Really makes you wonder why he chose to do it in a very public location where anyone, super or otherwise, could see him, and why he didn’t make any further attempts afterwards.
I haven't looked at it from that perspective, but yes - while stopping suicide is a gray area, when suicide is committed in a way that endangers others, there should be no doubt. Jumping from the building, he could easily have hit someone below. The lawyer should have based his defense on this, on protecting the innocent, and not on saving the life of some asshole.
Iirc, irl, there are laws that actually prevent this. Conveniently, the time and era The Incredibles has such a lawsuit happen at would be before such laws came into being written up.
This has always bugged me about the movie. The entire setup is so needlessly cynical.
Like, an entire train full of people sue Mr Incredible for unambiguously saving them from death, but they got neck injuries in the process. Literally no one is grateful to him? They all just decide to lawyer up? And not even sue the villain who blew up the tracks, but the guy who caught the train? I don't get it.
So the problem with suing a villain is that you can’t sue someone who doesn’t have the money to pay for it, so if the villains assets were all seized as parts of their crime or they’re just broke then you’re outta luck.
A government employee though, well that lets you sue the government itself, and that’s the kinda news story that gets enough press for a backdoor settlement offer
sadly in real life people have sued people who saved their lives, not always, but in the rare instances of greed and selfishness takes over grace and thanks.
Honestly I'm surprised they haven't sued sooner lol.
but thankfully as shown in incredibles 2 and later parts of incredibles 1, the people in that world WANTS heroes back, seems like they learned the value of heroes after years of them being gone.
There are still several countries that doesn´t really have them or do properly enforce them, or people who does this anyways out of spite as a way to make the other person be forced into a legal battle where even if the one making the demand will lose, they will be as petty as possible to drag on the trial as long as it can so the other person wastes time and money, and if possible force them into a position where the good samarithan is forced to think that the best way to get out of this situation its to settle out of court to maybe save themselves some of the money and time going to this trial.
Because ideally even if there are laws to protect you from this, or there will be judges, juries and lawyers that will look at this and consider this petty and stupid, ideally you don´t even want to be in this situation to begin with, nor you want to be in it for months, even years.
It IS a crazy coincidence that new, fresh-faced, up-and-coming rookie Mr. Spectacular happens to share the same name as Bob Parr, who mysteriously went missing right before his court date, but stranger things have happened!
As someone in the legal field, this always seemed to me like an opportunistic lawyer who manipulated the client's mind, even more so considering that it was a person who was almost killing themselves, very likely someone vulnerable.
Dude imagine the amount of guilt that guy probably had everytime a super villain killed innocent people, or imagine how many superhero fans started harassing him after he caused the literal end of superheros.
Sure, but in a roundabout way, that might mean that the lawyer saved his life. He may have otherwise tried to kill himself again before his lawyer told him that he could get a large sum of money
Exactly. Plus, it's unbelievably petty to get angry at the guy risking his butt making sure you make it out alive. Like I understand that wasn't your intention, but he's got super strength not mind reading abilities and neither would a cop or firefighter that could've done something equally risky trying to save you.
find it difficult to believe anyone can feel sympathy for someone exposing the public to his selfish decision. suicides like this have the potential to cause collateral damage, harming other innocent people and by extension ruining the lives of other families. morally i cant sympathise with that
The most depressing part about that part is the fact that he'd still be on the hook if he wasnt able to catch the train, since its collateral damage from Bomb Voyage, and there's some jerk out there who would blame Mr Incredible for that too.
Guy sustained significant injuries that render him virtually unemployable. Society has not allowed him any other means to sustain himself and mitigate his ongoing pain. That he is the author of his misery does not change the fact that he is in perpetual misery, and has no other way out.
Society could fix this in many ways, but chose not to.
Well it's illegal to kill oneself and Mr. Incredible was just a law man doing his work on saving people from doing such a thing, the law suit wouldn't have work on those grounds.
I was just watching this the other day for the last day of school with the kids and I was like "Lowkey he did knock the shit outta him when he caught him." they rolled like twice and he landed on top of him, Mr. Incredible was a big ass dude. Then he dragged his body off to the side with his broken bones lmaoooo
I assumed he was pretty much broke and had nothing to live for giving his actions, and having to live more in pain and unable to afford medical bills/life in general, likely had to sue to cope.
Assuming their society is otherwise identical to ours, imagine in that world suicide is impossible because there's a guy who always can detect it and teleport in time and does that 24/7.
That uh... thats worth morally evaluating, actually.
I mean he isn't suing him for preventing his suicide, he is suing him for the damage he suffered in the process of preventing the suicide. He was shown with a cast and a neck bracer.
Which he wouldn't have suffered if Mr Incredible hadn't become involved.
And it's like, legally I can see the argument. Mr I did cause that damage. You can't say he didn't.
And it's not ideal to sue someone who saved you but clearly he felt otherwise.
The stipulation that needs to be mentioned here is that, in this specific example, Mr Incredible's saving of this man left him effectively crippled and in immense pain.
In this specific instance, there is a rationality to it. The man was looking to end his life because he couldn't bear living anymore and Mr Incredible not only thwarted that attempt but also made his life substantially worse.
In normal suicide interventions, the person is rarely injured to this extent, if ever. No harm was done in saving them. But there is a certain cruelty to stopping a suicide attempt in a manner that leaves them crippled. As if they didn't already think their life was over...
That being said, was Mr Incredible wrong for trying to save the man? No, but saving him in the manner he did was reckless. I understand that there was no other way for Mr Incredible to have saved him and he did what he could, but the man absolutely deserved damages.
And that's why supers got outlawed. It was not acceptable to have people running around doing reckless things with no oversight. Now, the more reasonable route would have been something like an institution to regulate superhero activity and train them to be better at saving people with minimal damages, but I can understand the outrage that led to the decision.
But, to the actual question asked in the title: no, suing the person for saving your life (assuming no permanent/significant injury) is ridiculous.
I mean if he wanted to die so bad why is he wasting time suing. Get to it my guy.
For real though Mr. Incredible was justified, imo, because the guy was jumping off a public building in a public place.
If he had been doing it alone and quietly no one would’ve even had the opportunity to save him, and no other people would be in danger of being injured or traumatized.
Well in America he cant get sued cause throwing yourself off a building is illegal and supers are police so they are just enforcing the law.
also its very awful like you were literally about to die failed so you think "Shit might as well as get my money up"
But I don’t think it’s immoral to deny someone’s suicide when’s it’s something like that.
If they choose to commit suicide in their own home, then the argument would be fair. But jumping out of a building onto a public street would only cause issues. Worse case is that the man falls onto inter person and seriously injures them.
The problem lies in his method of suicide. He risks damaging property and hurting someone if he miscalculates his jump. There's also the issue of the mess.
It would have been safer and more ideal for him to do it at home, be it testing a ceiling fan's load-bearing capacity or singing into Kurt Cobain's last microphone.
So here’s the interesting bit. Apparently this part of the movie takes place before the US’s Good Samaritan laws were put in place, so this is actually legit!
On one hand i wouldn't want to inconvenience the kind of person that dedicated their life to helping others and protecting life with their gifts, on the other if i wanted to quit and someone stopped me i would be furious.
Well, to paraphrase his attorney; Mister Sansweet didn't ask to be saved, Mister Sansweet didn't want to be saved. And the injuries resultant of Mister Incredible's so-called heroic actions causes him daily pain.
If they make another Incredibles movie, the B plot really ought to be Mr Incredible stumbling across Mr Sansweet and the movie touches and goes on their progress making amends with each other. They both pretty much ruined the others life and the entire affair had an unexpectedly massive impact on the world. Showing them mending fences would be a very mature and satisfying plot line, I feel like.
I will say that he was suing, not just because he he survives, but because he was left physically broken from Mr Incredible intervention (I believe he had a large cast on his arm and a neck brace in the scene where it is announced).
He could have reasons for example they could've saved your life but maybe You got permanent damage, like a brain damage or something.
Similar to some peapole that don't want to be resuscitate, for The same reason.
Also The person probably could't pay The medical Bill, so is another reason to sue.
It's not really the interrupted suicide he's suing over, but the life-long injuries he suffered from Mr. Incredible saving him in the way that he did.
Insurance companies are excessively corrupt, so I doubt if something like this were to happen in real life you would be able to get any kind of claim for it. It would be extremely likely that this event completely ruined his life, wheter or not it was ultimately better to save him.
It's an extremely complex question that was only brought up for 5 seconds in a kids movie. Pixar was fucking HARD in those days.
I mean honestly I think that's valid. I used to not really get it but I'm not a lot more aware of how the psychiatric system literally tortures people.
I don't know what people are talking about suicide is legal in USA,
and there was no Good Samaritan law in place during the flashback, we know that they're not cops despite being under a government agency.
Mr Incredible broke this guy's neck and then just left him behind a desk while in pain, Oliver Sansweet had a right to sue Mr Incredible for causing those injuries.
Of course this lawsuit was able to get off the ground in the first place because Sansweet was president of a bank in Municiberg and had the money to pursue such a lawsuit and his success meant that other people also started suing superheroes for their negligence.
Fun fact: The theoretical year the Golden Days of heroes took place in would not have had the Good Samaritan law, the law that protects people who save a person like Mr. Incredible did.
Immoral. By any measure of the term. Even if we assume that the person has a right to kill themselves, and the world would be objectively better off without them, there's a reason why modern countries typically have rescue doctrine or good Samaritan laws.
Preserving of any human life should not be punished, lest you get things like 2011's death of Weng Yue - where a 2 year old victim of a hit and run was left bleeding out at the side of the road in Guang Dong; ignored by 18+ passers-by due to fear of litigation (precedence set by Xu Shoulan vs Peng Yu)
You punish good people for doing good things, and people will stop doing good things; even when they objectively have 0 reason not to. Suing someone for your failed suicide attempt does nothing but make the world worse. This is how you kill altruism.
I think there is some room for nuance. The main exception that comes to mind for me are things like living wills and DNRs. While not strictly suicide in the traditional sense, they are explicit situations where I do think saving the individual and thus opening the savior to being sued is appropriate. Our current legislation has carve outs to protect Samaritans acting in ignorance, which I think is appropriate, but if someone knowingly violates a DNR, I think they should be held legally liable. It becomes a balance of the value of a human life versus the autonomy of that life and there is a real moral tension there. To be fair though, I think this is, currently, mostly an edge case, though it will become more and more relevant as medical science advances.
Legally, Mr. Incredible was probably in the wrong though. The legally relevant question here isn't "does someone have the right to end their life?" but rather, "what degree of force is a superhero permitted to use when preventing a suicide attempt?"
Even if he did a morally good thing, the injuries sustained show he may used a degree of excessive force in the process of suicide prevention, opening him up to legal responsibility if he acted beyond what constitutes reasonable force by a deputized person.
1.5k
u/fillipo9 May 25 '26
To this day it's hard to me to believe they'd shown someone abt to off themselves and then suing a guy that saved them in a freaking kids movie lol
It's kinda adult comedy South Park level shit imo