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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marius Delphus" data-source="post: 4992286" data-attributes="member: 447">One more time: Syndrome's threat and Dash's lament aren't the message the film is trying to get across. Those statements, coming as they do from untrustworthy sources, should be read as the antithesis of the film's actual message: that when you're true to yourself, you become special. Never settle for mediocrity: aspire higher, serve the collective good (not yourself), and find self-fulfillment (paraphrased from a review).In the film's first act, we're treated to a world where no one is special, and consequently no one is happy (read: self-fulfilled). Bob's act of kindness at the office, and his clandestine super-heroics, show his craving for a world where this isn't the case. The boy on the tricycle craves the same thing (and incidentally provides a "voice of the viewer" character -- when will the movie live up to its promise, he asks with a wink).As I said, I take the film to be demonstrating instead that when no one is special, no one is. We're shown a world where the supers can't be super, where workers are just cogs in a corporate machine, and where (we're told) mediocrity is celebrated. This is not a world where everyone really is special. Even the superheroes have become coggy to the extent that they're easily duped by what appears to be the world's one extant supervillain. When the "special" people do their thing and are allowed to shine, that's when the situation presented in the movie improves.</blockquote>

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