Dashiell Robert Parr

Dashiell "Dash" Robert Parr is a fictional superhero, created by Brad Bird for the Pixar franchise The Incredibles. The character is voiced by Spencer Fox in the first movie and Huckleberry Milner in the second film. Restless, relentless, curious—with the remarkable power of super speed. Dash sports a hearty sense of adventure and a boundless supply of energy. He’d love nothing more than to show off his special skills and fight a few bad guys along the way—and doesn’t understand why he has to keep his powers a secret. Dash is a speedster.

Development

When designing the Incredibles family, Brad Bird wanted each of their superpowers to be related to their personality. He stated that ten-year-old boys are hyperactive energy balls thus conceived Dash as "the average ten-year-old boy that can move twice as fast as anybody else".^[1][2]

The filmmakers cast rising eleven-year-old Spencer Fox who made his feature film debut in The Incredibles to voice the diminutive and mischievous son of Bob and Helen Parr.^[3] Brad Bird wanted to give Dash a realistic out-of-breath voice in certain scenes such as the jungle scene so he made Fox run four laps around the Pixar studio until he got tired.^[4] Due to Fox's voice maturing he was replaced by 10 year old newcomer Huckleberry Milner in the sequel.^[5][6][7]

Producer John Walker said of Dash in the sequel, “Dash got a taste of life as a crime fighter in the first film. Returning to regular life doesn’t really interest him—he loved fighting crime with his family and, even better, showing off just how fast he can be.”^[8]

Powers and abilities

Dash possesses the superhuman capacity to move at great speeds and is sufficnet enough to allow him to be able to run over water without submerging. This speed also appears to extend to his other individual limbs as he is able to punch at a rapid rate. He seems to also have enhanced durability which is implied in the film by the amount of incidental high-speed collisions and crashes Dash endures without apparent injury. Dash's increased speed also augments his practical reaction time, making his reflexes much faster than those of an ordinary human. Edna Mode designed his super suit to be resistant to air friction, wear and heat when Dash is running at super speed.

Personality

Dash as described by Helen as a "highly competitive boy, and a bit of a showoff". He has a reckless and impulsive nature. Dash believes that he shouldn't be ashamed of his abilities or need to hide them, believing it makes him special. Although he bickers with his sister violet a lot, He has a strong caring side shown when he beat up one of Syndrome's minions in the first installment who was about to kill her. Dash is extremely reckless and relentless, he always wants to have his way and doesn't like taking no for an answer.

Appearances

In the 2004 film The Incredibles, Dash would like to go out for sports, but his mother Helen will not allow it because she thinks that he would show off his superspeed and blow the family's civilian cover. To vent his frustration, Dash uses his power to play pranks on his teacher, Mr. Bernie Kropp, which also threatens their cover. In one scene, he teases her about her crush on her classmate,Tony Rydinger. This erupts into a fight, in which Dash runs around the table, hitting Violet, and Violet retaliates by generating her force-field that Dash crashes into. The fight is broken up when Frozone rings the doorbell. Dash squirts water at Lucius for him to freeze.

As Helen packs her bags to rescue Bob, Dash sees the suit made for him and puts it on, naming himself The Dash. Dash then goes after his mother, wanting to find out what his mother is up to, with Violet. When Helen finds them in the plane, the siblings argue on who's fault it is, and Helen is shocked that they have left Jack-Jack alone to which they respond that they hired a babysitter. During the flight Syndrome sent missiles to close in on the plane, making Dash worried about getting killed by the missiles. Helen is forced to save her children's lives by wrapping herself around Dash and Violet. The three then fall from the sky, but Helen then grabs the two and turns her body into a parachute. Landing in the water, Dash despairs that he, Violet, and Helen are all going to die which Helen told him to get a grip. Helen then changes into a lifeboat with Dash serving as the outboard motor to get to an island. In their camp out, she warns Dash and Violet that the bad guys they will be facing will be different from those on cartoons and those bad guys are merciless and will kill them if they got a chance. Thus, she encourages Dash to run as fast as he can should things go wrong, to his excitement at being allowed to use his powers, before she goes off to Syndrome's base.

He and Violet have another verbal disagreement due to Violet being in charge, in which she is concerned Dash thinks this is merely a vacation. Dash then decides to explore deep into the cave, but is forced to retreat when flames come in his direction. Dash and Violet narrowly escape the flames, just in time to see a rocket taking off into the night sky. They spend the rest of the night in a jungle, huddling together to keep warm. The next morning, Dash hears a monitor robot (disguised as a wild bird) asking for identification. Their curiosity triggers a deafening alarm prompting them to run. Later, the two are cornered by three Velocipods that are patrolled by Syndrome's security guards. Dash starts running at super-speed. Two of the security guards chase him. Dash discovers just how formidable his superpower really is: he has a superior reaction time, he can deliver rapid-fire punches, and at full speed he can run on water. At the end this "100 Mile Dash", he gets cornered by the two Velocipods. He stops on the lagoon's surface and immediately submerges, saving his life as his pursuers collide into each other. Eventually, Dash returns just in time to save Violet from the third guard. Dash lands on the guard and punches her for trying to harm his sister, but the guard punches Dash off and threatens to shoot her. Seeing the danger her little brother is in, Violet jumps in and encloses herself and Dash within her force-field to protect them from gunfire. She and Dash discover that she can float inside her force-field if she generates them in mid-air. Dash then proceeds to move the force sphere by running along its inside surface, propelling it at considerable speeds and mowing down everything in their path. After destroying a couple more Velocipods, they literally run over their parents. After a brief and joyful reunion, the family works as a super-team for the first time as another wave of henchmen find them and attack them. Dash runs around the family to create a dust cloud, from which the Incredibles attack the guards, taking them down one by one. Syndrome arrives at the scene and immobilizes them in his zero-point energy.

Imprisoning the family in his base's containment unit, Syndrome describes Operation Kronos: his plan to fraudulently become a superhero. Violet releases the restraints, allowing their escape. There are no jets in the hangar Helen saw during her arrival to Nomanisan Island, but Dash sees a rocket. Helen holds a van to the rocket as Dash maintains his impatience asking, "Are we there yet?" Upon their landing, Dash and Violet are nearly crushed to death by Syndrome's Omnidroid v.10, but Bob holds up the robot for Helen to reach for the kids and take them to safety. Bob then finds a remote Syndrome has left behind. Violet and Dash notice that "the remote controls the robot," and Dash calls to his father to throw the remote. Bob then throws the remote to Dash, who crosses the pond while catching it (garnering amazement from his dad). After the family and Lucius finally secure the remote, Violet and Dash still childishly fight over it—during which Dash presses a button that frees Bob from the robot's claw it has fired at him—until Helen takes the remote. The Omnidroid is finally destroyed when Bob fires the detached claw that penetrates through its bulk and rips out its brainpan. On their way home, Dash gets excited about how much fun he had during the entire adventure. When they arrive, they stop Syndrome from capturing Jack-Jack. Syndrome is then killed when his cape gets snagged in the turbine of his manta jet, and Violet saves the family from being crushed by plane wreckage, which totals their home. Dash now wonders if they have to move again, to that the answer is yes.

A few months later, Dash finally gets his chance to participate in track & field, but promise his parents that he cannot do anything to compromise the secret of the Incredibles nor grant himself an unfair advantage over the other contestants. Dash restrains himself, running only fast enough to win a silver cup. When celebrating Dash's athletic accomplishment, his victory is interrupted by a super-villain, The Underminer, who emerges from underneath the earth. Dash and the rest of the family don their masks and suits, showing their rededication to fighting crime.

In the 2018 sequel Incredibles 2, Dash is having trouble with math and approaches Bob for help which Bob only got frustrated with. Later that night, Bob wakes up and goes through the math book on his own. He wakes up Dash early in the morning to help him finish his homework. Bob later takes Dash and his siblings to the fast food chain The Happy Platter to reconnect Violet and Tony which Violet snorted water and made a run for it. Later Dash saw the incredimoble on TV that just got bought. Angering Bob he went and got to remote to control it which got Dash interested in it and wanted to fire rockets off it which causes a disagreement between Dash and Bob. While they fight over the remote Jack-Jack made his powers known surprising Violet and Dash. When they're in trouble, Dash calls for the Incredimobile which comes and saves them from mind-controlled supers. He uses the vehicle to escape and to get them to the boat where Bob, Helen, and Lucius are being kept prisoners. Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack are able to free their parents and Lucius after fighting their way through a bunch of supers. Together they manage to stop the boat from crashing into land and causing more destruction. At the end of the movie Dash accompanied his family to drop Violet and Tony off on their date at the movies. As more troubles irrupts with a new villain Dash and his family suited up and went straight to the action.

Critical reception

Hypable ranked Dash the sixth best Incredibles 2 superhero, with author Aaron Locke writing "Still young and learning important virtues like patience and restraint, Dash is full of potential that could make him a powerful superhero". Ana Luisa Suarez of Hollywood.com considers Dash celebrating victory as one of "15 Reasons Why 'The Incredibles' Is The Best Superhero Movie" Jonathon Dornbush of IGN identified "Dash’s desire to be his full self in a society that may not want him to. " among one of the reasons he believes The Incredibles remains one of Pixar's best.^[9] The Washington Post's Jennifer Frey described Dash as "the classic rambunctious little boy, driven nuts by the fact that his superhuman speed prevents him from being able to join any sports teams" ^[10] Joshua Tyler of CinemaBlend said "He’s completely in love with his superpowers, the way any kid would be if he knew he could run at the speed of sound. He’s crazy for adventure, drunk with the idea of being a hero and for him The Incredibles is one fantastic game where he’s finally allowed to run as fast as he can".^[11]

Some critics complained that the character was underused in the sequel relegated to being only a comic device.^[12] CNET contributor Mike Sorrentino wrote that the film's emphasis on Helen and Bob results in Dash being "relegated to the sidelines for most of the film"^[13] Molly Freeman observed that the character's arc "largely exist[s] to serve Bob's own storyline" and stated that "Dash receives less screen time, and even less development as a result, with him providing little more than comedic relief".^[14] Germain Lussier of io9 said "Dash takes a bit of a back seat this time around",^[15]

Critics praised Huck Milner for his performance of Dash in the sequel. Writing for Vulture.com, Edelstein praised Milner's performance for Dash "Huck Milner does justice to his first name — he could be Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer or any drivingly inquisitive kid hero".^[16] The New Yorker's Anthony Lane also praise Milner saying "the high-speed Dash, has been updated; his lines are now spoken, I rejoice to say, by a young actor named Huckleberry Milner. It’s ideal for Dash, whose permanent aim is to race around the river bend, as it were, and see what adventures await".^[17]

References