Here’s why none of the Incredibles have aged *a day* since the last movie, 14 long years ago

The most anticipated superhero movie of the summer also happens to be one that’s 14 years in the making — obviously, I’m talking about The Incredibles 2. When we pick back up with the Parr family, nothing has changed. Literally, nothing has changed, and no one has even taken a breath, because the sequel to 2004’s movie opens shortly after the Underminer starts wrecking havoc in the city.

From there, don’t worry, there’s a massive time jump into the future…of about three months. Yes, we’re sticking with the Parr family at *this time* so don’t expect to see Violet going off to college or Dash learning how to drive. That’s not the story that returning director Brad Bird is trying to tell, because according to him, that story “sucks.”

“I thought about aging everybody the way everybody does, then I thought ‘no, that sucks,’” he explained during a press day for Incredibles 2 at Pixar earlier this month. Bird’s reason is simple: He’s more focused on the fact that Bob, Helen, Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack are a family, rather than the fact that they are superheroes. So why age them up when there’s still story left to tell about them coping with life and powers in the here and now?

“I realized I’m not very interested in the powers…What interests me is the idea of having a family and having there be a reason to hide the powers,” Bird continues. “Once I had that insight into what I wanted to do, I picked the [family’s original] powers based on who they were in the family. Men are always expected to be strong, so I had Bob have super strength. Women are mothers are always pulled in different directions, so I had [Helen] be elastic. Teenagers are insecure and defensive, so I had Violet have force fields and invisibility. Ten-year-olds are energy balls. They can’t be stopped, and babies are unknowns. Maybe they have no powers, maybe they have all the powers, we don’t know. So, that’s what Jack-Jack was. He was seemingly the first normal one in the family, and then at the end of Incredibles, you find out that he’s a wild card and that he’s sort of a Swiss army knife of powers. That to me reminds me of the way babies can grasp language easily and adopt them easily.”

Bird realized that if he were to age the characters up even in the slightest bit, “the insight into those periods of your life, and those particular perspectives disappears once you age them up.”

“I’m not interested in a college aged Jack-Jack,” he joked. “I’m interested in my sons growing up, but in terms of the interest for me in these movies, it stays more iconic if everyone kind of situates themselves. I also was on the first eight seasons of The Simpsons, and that’s worked out rather well. So, yeah, I’ll stick to that.”

However, you and I might be interested in college Jack-Jack, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe…Incredibles 3? Don’t we all want to see what Bob is like trying to move his wild card youngest into a tiny dorm room? That sounds like a great way to round out a trilogy.

Incredibles 2 hits theaters on June 15th.