People don’t want invulnerable heroes - Brad Bird - LA Times

Excerpts:

I would not say that we ever have  have completely locked scripts [at the beginning of the animating work]; they are in the process of being remade as the film is in the works. There are some films like "Toy Story 2″ and "Ratatouille"  where it is really last minute, chaos reigning, trying to get the stuff ready for the animators so no one was sitting idle and drawing a paycheck.

There's no secret at Pixar, but there is a belief in letting people pursue something with passion and take chances, and most of Hollywood, really, doesn't like that. It's too scary. Some studio executives will say they love obsessive creators who take risks, but really most of them would rather play it safe.

To make something really great and different and interesting means taking risks and following these ideas in your head.

If you worry too much about that, you're just bound to fail. You have to kind of go into stories with a strong sort of "I'm doing this" sort of attitude, or else it comes off as sort of tiptoeing.

Part of the reason "Die Hard" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and things like that work so well is that the actors really get that people don't want invulnerable heroes. It's far more interesting to see heroes who are afraid and then go ahead anyway.

One of things that people get wrong is they toss off too many witty comments — and this isreally true in animation — and we tried to avoid that like the plague in "The Incredibles." When you're in danger, be in danger, don't be making wisecracks and tossing things off. You don't need to be sweating and crying but at least show that you're worried. 

The trouble we have in animation is that the medium itself encourages the audience to believe that people can't be hurt.

The challenge was showing people that do amazing things but still have feeling.

You know, in the prologue of the film, there's a moment when Mr. Incredible positions himself in front of a hurtling train and, for a fleeting second, he winces. "It's quick, maybe a second long, but it's a shot to tell everyone that 'This is going to hurt.' Those little touches, if you are diligent about them, they get the audience really involved, because that's the reality that they know. This is blown often with superheroes.

Brad Bird: Hollywood isn't brave enough to copy Pixar process | Hero Complex – movies, comics, fanboy fare – latimes.com