Cars is a 2006 American
computer-animated comedy-
adventure sports film produced by
Pixar Animation Studios, and directed and co-written by
John Lasseter and released by
Walt Disney Pictures.
It is Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its
purchase by Disney. Set in a world populated entirely by
anthropomorphic cars and other vehicles, it features voices by
Paul Newman (in his final non-documentary feature),
Owen Wilson,
Larry the Cable Guy,
Bonnie Hunt,
Tony Shalhoub,
Cheech Marin,
Michael Wallis,
George Carlin,
Paul Dooley,
Jenifer Lewis,
Guido Quaroni,
Michael Keaton,
Katherine Helmond, and
John Ratzenberger as well as voice
cameos by several celebrities including
Jeremy Piven,
Jeremy Clarkson,
Richard Petty,
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.,
Bob Costas,
Darrell Waltrip,
Jay Leno,
Michael Schumacher,
Tom and
Ray Magliozzi from
NPR's Car Talk, and
Mario Andretti. The film is also the second Pixar film—after
A Bug's Life—to have an entirely non-human cast. The film was accompanied by the short
One Man Band for its theatrical and home media releases.
Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at
Lowe's Motor Speedway in
Concord, North Carolina, and was released on June 9, 2006, to positive reviews. It was nominated for two
Academy Awards, including
Best Animated Feature, and won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It was released on DVD November 7, 2006 and on
Blu-ray Disc
in late 2007. Related merchandise, including scale models of several of
the cars, broke records for retail sales of merchandise based on a
Disney·Pixar film,
[2] bringing an estimated $10 billion in 5 years since the film's release.
[3] The film was dedicated to
Joe Ranft, who was killed in a car accident during the film's production.
A sequel,
Cars 2, was released on June 24, 2011,
[4] and a spin-off,
Planes, produced by
DisneyToon Studios, was released on August 9, 2013.
[5] A series of short animated films, named
Cars Toons, has been airing since 2008.
Plot
Cars takes place in a world populated by
anthropomorphic
transportation. The film begins with the last race of the Piston Cup
championship, which ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran
Strip "The King" Weathers, infamous runner-up
Chick Hicks, and rookie
Lightning McQueen. The
tiebreaker
race is scheduled for one week later at the fictional Los Angeles
International Speedway in California. Lightning is desperate to win the
race, since it would allow him to leave the unglamorous sponsorship of
Rust-Eze, a rust treatment for old cars, and allow him to take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative
Dinoco team. Eager to start practice in California as soon as possible, Lightning pushes his
big rig,
Mack, to travel all night long. While McQueen is sleeping, the exhausted Mack drifts off and is startled by a gang of
reckless street racers,
causing McQueen to fall out the back of the truck into the road.
McQueen wakes in the middle of traffic, and speeds off the highway to
find Mack, ending up in the run-down town of Radiator Springs and
inadvertently ruining the pavement of its main road.
After being arrested and impounded overnight, guarded by a rusty but friendly
tow truck named
Mater, McQueen is ordered by the town's judge and doctor,
Doc Hudson, to leave town immediately. The local lawyer,
Sally Carrera, insists that McQueen be given
community service
to repave the road, to which Doc begrudingly agrees. McQueen tries to
repave it in a single day, but it turns out to be shoddy and McQueen is
ordered to repave the road again, which takes several days to complete.
During this time, he becomes friends with several of the cars, and
learns that Radiator Springs used to be a popular stopover along
U.S. Route 66, but with the construction of
Interstate 40 bypassing the town, it literally vanished from the map. McQueen also discovers that Doc is really the "
Fabulous Hudson Hornet",
a three-time Piston Cup winner who was forced out of racing after an
accident and quickly forgotten by the sport. McQueen finishes the road,
which has invigorated the cars to improve their town, and spends an
extra day in town with his new friends, before Mack and the media
descend on the town, led by a tip to McQueen's location. McQueen
reluctantly leaves with the media to get to California in time for the
race, while Sally chastises Doc after discovering that he had tipped off
the media to McQueen's whereabouts, not wanting to be discovered
himself instead.
At the speedway, McQueen's mind is not fully set on the race, and he
soon falls into last place. He is surprised to discover that Doc Hudson,
decked out in his old racing colors, has taken over as his crew chief,
along with several other friends from Radiator Springs to help in the
pit. Inspired and recalling tricks he learned from Doc and his friends,
McQueen quickly emerges to lead the race into the final laps. Hicks,
refusing to lose, sends Weathers into a dangerous accident. Seeing this
and recalling Doc's fate, McQueen stops just short of the finish line,
allowing Hicks to win, and drives back to push Weathers over the finish
line. The crowd and media condemn Hicks' victory and give praise to
McQueen's sportsmanship. Though offered the Dinoco sponsorship deal,
McQueen declines, insisting on staying with his current sponsors as an
appreciation of their past support. Later, back at Radiator Springs,
McQueen returns and announces that he will be setting up his
headquarters there, helping to put Radiator Springs back on the map.
Cast
- Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen, described by John Lasseter in the LA Times as "A hybrid between a stock car and a more curvaceous Le Mans endurance racer."[6]
- Paul Newman as Doc Hudson, a 1951 Hudson Hornet, later revealed to be the Fabulous Hudson Hornet.
- Bonnie Hunt as Sally Carrera, a 2002 996-series Porsche 911 Carrera.
- Larry the Cable Guy as Mater, a 1951 International Harvester L-170 "boom" truck[7][8] with elements of a mid-1950s Chevrolet.[9] One-Ton Wrecker Tow Truck.
- Tony Shalhoub as Luigi, a 1959 Fiat 500. *
- Cheech Marin as Ramone, a 1959 Chevy Impala Lowrider.
- Michael Wallis as Sheriff, a 1949 Mercury Club Coupe (police package).
- George Carlin as Fillmore, a 1960 VW Bus.
- Paul Dooley as Sarge, a 1941 Willys model jeep, in the style used by the US Military.
- Jenifer Lewis as Flo, a 1957 Motorama show car.
- Guido Quaroni as Guido, a custom forklift, resembling an Isetta at the front.
- Richard Petty as Strip "The King" Weathers. The car's design was based on Richard Petty's 1970 Plymouth Superbird
- Michael Keaton as Chick Hicks, described by Pixar as a generic 1980s stock car.[9] Strongly resembles a 1978–88 General Motors G-Body such as a Buick Regal or Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
- Katherine Helmond as Lizzie, a 1923 Ford Model T.
- John Ratzenberger as Mack, a 1985 Mack Super-Liner.
- Joe Ranft as Red, a 1960s style fire truck (most closely resembles a mid-1960s) and Peterbilt, this was Ranft's last voice role before his death in August 2005.
Production
Cars is the last film worked on by
Joe Ranft, who died in a car accident in August 2005. The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after
Corpse Bride (that showed the roles he'd done in the other films directed by
John Lasseter during the credits). This is also the last (non-documentary) movie for
Paul Newman before his retirement in 2007 and his death in 2008. It turned out to be the highest-grossing film of his career.
Development
The original script (called
The Yellow Car, about an electric
car living in a gas-guzzling world), some of the original drawings and
characters were produced in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars
could be the next movie after
A Bug's Life and would be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4. However, the movie was eventually scrapped in favor of
Toy Story 2. Later, production resumed with major script changes, like giving Mater, Doc, and a few other characters a bigger part.
[citation needed]
John Lasseter has said that the idea for
Cars
was born after he took a cross-country road trip with his wife and five
sons in 2000. When he returned to the studio after vacation, he
contacted
Michael Wallis,
a Route 66 historian. Wallis then led eleven Pixar animators in rented
white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research
the film.
[10][11][12]
In 2001, the movie's working title was
Route 66 (after
U.S. Route 66), but in 2002, the title was changed to prevent people from thinking it was related to the 1960
television show with the same name.
In addition, Lightning McQueen's number was originally going to be 57
(Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (the year
Toy Story was released).
Animation
Work-in-progress screenshot.
John Lasseter on technical challenges in
Cars (2006)
For the cars themselves, Lasseter also visited the design studios of
the Big Three Detroit automakers, particularly J Mays of Ford Motor
Company. Lasseter learned how real cars were designed.
Unlike most
anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles the
Tonka Talking Trucks, and the characters from
Tex Avery's
One Cab's Family short and Disney's own
Susie the Little Blue Coupe), rather than within the headlights. According to
production designer Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this project,
John Lasseter
had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one
thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where
you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought
that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car
feels more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point
of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be
involved in the animation of the character.
[13] This decision was heavily criticized by automotive blog
Jalopnik.
[14]
The characters also use their tires as hands and feet, the exceptions
being the various tow truck characters that sometimes use their tow
hooks, and the various forklift characters, which use their forks. Some
cars are shown shuffling sideways by moving their wheels about on their
suspensions.
Computers used in the development of the film were four times faster than those used in
The Incredibles and 1,000 times faster than those used in
Toy Story. To build the cars, the animators used computer platforms very similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.
[15]
Settings
The track on which the opening race (Motor Speedway of the South) takes place is based on an enlarged version of
Bristol Motor Speedway.
[16] The venue for the Piston Cup tiebreaker race (the Los Angeles International Speedway) is a conglomeration of the
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the
Arroyo Seco in Pasadena where the
Rose Bowl is located, as well as the
Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. The Scoring Pylon (showing numbers 43, 86, and 95) is taken from the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The sign "City of Emeryville – Closed for the race" is a nod to
Pixar's headquarters in
Emeryville, California in the
San Francisco Bay Area.
Radiator Springs and vicinity
The setting for the fictional town of Radiator Springs is situated between
Gallup, New Mexico and the
Sonoran Desert in California. However, the physical location of Radiator Springs in relation to
I-40 is similar to that of
Peach Springs, Arizona.
Lasseter told film critic
Joe Williams of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch that much of the story is based on the recollections of barber Angel Delgadillo in the Route 66 town of
Seligman, Arizona, where business withered soon after the opening of I-40.
Willy's Butte resembles the landmark of
Mexican Hat, Utah, but also resembles a classic
Pontiac hood ornament.
There is an "Ornament Valley" (a reference to
Monument Valley).
The
epilogue shows a map of the area of
Arizona
around Radiator Springs, including car-related place names such as
"Carburetor County" and "Cadillac Range". The latter is a large
north-to-south mountain range with many fin-backed jagged peaks, a
reference to the famous
Cadillac Ranch sculpture in
Amarillo, Texas. Where the main road crosses the Cadillac Range is marked "Tailfin Pass 5942" (i.e.
feet altitude, = 1.8111 kilometers).
Lizzie's Curio Shop in Radiator Springs resembles the Route 66 jumble of memorabilia and
knick-knacks at Hackberry General Store in
Hackberry, Arizona and the Sand Hills Curiosity Shop, aka the City Meat Market building in
Erick, Oklahoma.
The bridge that McQueen sees Sally driving on resembles several bridges on Route 66, including the
Cyrus Avery Route 66 Memorial Bridge in
Tulsa, the
Colorado Street Bridge in
Pasadena, California, and the now-closed bridge over Diablo Canyon at
Two Guns, Arizona.
Flo's V8 cafe is designed to look like a
V8 engine
head on, with a circular air filter, tappet covers, spark plugs,
pistons and connecting rods as the supports for the shelter. The
blinking neon lights on the spark plugs blink in the firing order of a
Ford
flathead V8.
[6]
The railroad
grade crossing
at which Lightning McQueen outruns a passenger train on his way to
Radiator Springs is protected by a pair of antique "upper-quadrant"
wigwag crossing signals which accurately depict those once made by the
Magnetic Signal Company
in both appearance and start-up. Few are left in actual operation in
the United States, and many have been replaced with modern crossing
gates, red lights and bells.
Continuity
During the closing credits, the characters are at a
drive-in watching clips of the Pixar films "Toy Car Story" (
Toy Story), "Monster Trucks, Inc." (
Monsters, Inc.) and
A Bug's Life ("Bug" as in
Volkswagen Beetle), whose characters have been rendered as vehicles in the style of
Cars. Mack the red
Mack Super-Liner comments that "they're just using the same actor over and over", an
in-joke referring to
John Ratzenberger, who voiced Mack and characters featured in the clips.
There are a few sights of the front page of a newspaper named
The Daily Exhaust.
Route 66
Many characters and places in the movie are directly inspired by real
Route 66 places and people.
[17]
To quote the Pixar crew:
- "As we traveled on Route 66, we were privileged to visit many places
and to meet a number of people who live and work alongside 'The Mother
Road'. The following is a list of the places and people we wanted to
honor by including their names in our 'Special Thanks' credits at the
end of the film.[18]
Among the many references to Route 66 landmarks and personalities:
- The Cozy Cone Motel's design is based on the two Wigwam Motels along Route 66, in Holbrook, Arizona and Rialto,
California. These were once two out of seven built motels, with
individual cabins shaped like teepees. Three Wigwam Motels remain; the
third (and oldest) is in Cave City, Kentucky, far from Route 66. The
recently restored Tee Pee Motel in Wharton, Texas, south of Houston, is of similar design but unrelated. The name "Cozy Cone" was inspired by the Cozy Dog Drive-In of Springfield, Illinois, which lays claim to being birthplace of the corn dog.
- The character "Fillmore", referring to the famous San Francisco music venue The Fillmore, was at one time to be named "Waldmire" after Bob Waldmire, a self-proclaimed hippie
artist known to Rt. 66 fans for his detailed pen-and-ink maps and
postcards of the route. Though Waldmire's family owns the Cozy Dog
Drive-In, Bob, having since become a vegan, preferred not to see his name put on a character that would become a McDonald's Happy Meal toy.[19]
- Ramone's House of Body Art is based primarily on the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas. It opened in 1936 as Tower Conoco (from its distinctive Art Deco
spire) with the U-Drop Inn Cafe and a retail building attached. Many
other establishments built along Route 66 in its heyday had Art Deco
elements that might be reflected in the design of Ramone's.
- The yellow billboard for Lizzie's Curio Shop reading "HERE IT IS" with an image of a Model T is based on the Jack Rabbit Trading Post signage in Joseph City, Arizona.
- Sheriff is voiced by Michael Wallis, an American historian and author of Route 66: The Mother Road.
Cameo
The group of small birds from the 2000 Pixar short film
For the Birds made a
cameo appearance
in Cars. As Mack is en route to California at 17:44 in the film, the
group of small birds can briefly be seen (and heard) sitting on their
familiar telephone wire. In addition, the Pizza Planet truck from
Toy Story also makes a cameo outside of the race track, at the final race in the movie.
[20]
Soundtrack
The
Cars soundtrack was released by
Walt Disney Records on June 6, 2006. Nine tracks on the soundtrack are by popular artists, while the remaining eleven are score cues by
Randy Newman. It has two versions of the classic
Bobby Troup jazz standard "
Route 66" (popularized by
Nat King Cole), one by
Chuck Berry and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by
John Mayer.
Brad Paisley contributed two of the nine tracks to the album, one being "Find Yourself" used for the end credits.
Release
Cars was originally going to be released on November 4, 2005,
but on December 7, 2004 the movie's release date was changed to June 9,
2006.
[21]
Analysts looked at the release date change as a sign from Pixar that
they were preparing for the pending end of the Disney distribution
contract by either preparing non-Disney materials to present to other
studios, or they were buying time to see what happened with Michael
Eisner's situation at Disney.
[22] When
Steve Jobs
made the release date announcement, he stated that the reasoning was
due to wanting to put all Pixar films on a Summer release schedule, with
DVD sales occurring during the holiday shopping season.
[21]
Home media
Cars was released on DVD in both wide-screen and full-screen
editions on October 25, 2006 in Australia and New Zealand, on November
7, 2006 in the United States and Canada, and on November 27, 2006 in the
United Kingdom. It includes DVD-exclusive short film
Mater and the Ghostlight and the film's theatrical short
One Man Band, as well as
Inspiration for Cars, a 16 minute long documentary about
Cars featuring
John Lasseter, the director. It also had a version of the Pixar short
Boundin' as an Easter Egg.
According to the Walt Disney Company, five million copies of the DVD were sold in the first two days it was available.
[23] In its first week it sold 6,250,856 units and 15,370,791 units in total ($246,198,859).
[24]
Unlike previous Pixar DVD releases, there is no two-disc special
edition, and no plans to release one in the future. According to Sara
Maher, DVD Production Manager at Pixar, John Lasseter and Pixar were
preoccupied with productions like
Ratatouille.
[25] Additional extras not seen on the DVD have since been released on the official DVD website.
[26]
In the US and Canada, there were bonus discs available with the purchase of
Cars at
Wal-Mart and
Target. Wal-Mart featured a
Geared-Up Bonus DVD Disc that focused on the music of the film, including the "Life Is A Highway" video,
The Making of "Life Is A Highway",
Cars: The Making of the Music, and
Under The Hood (a special that originally aired on the
ABC Family cable channel). Target's bonus was a
Rev'd Up DVD Disc that featured material that was mostly already released as part of the official
Cars podcast and focused on the inspiration and production of the movie.
Four deleted scenes from the movie were featured in the bonus
features menu, "Top Down Truck Stop", "Lost", "Community Service" and
"Motorama Girls."
Cars was also released on a Disney Movie Club exclusive VHS in 2007,
[27] and on
Blu-ray Disc on November 6, 2007, marking it the first Pixar film to be released on Blu-Ray, and was re-released as a
Blu-Ray Disc and
DVD combo pack and
DVD only edition on April 2011. The film was released for the first time in 3D on October 29, 2013, as part of
Cars: Ultimate Collector's Edition, which included the film on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD.
[28]
Video game
Reception
Critical response
Cars was met with positive reviews. William Arnold of the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer praised it as "one of Pixar's most imaginative and thoroughly appealing movies ever"
[29] and Lisa Schwarzbaum of
Entertainment Weekly called it "a work of American art as classic as it is modern."
[30]
Some critics expressed that
Cars did not hold up to the standard of other
Pixar films due to its lengthy story, especially after the acclaim received by
The Incredibles, Pixar's previous film.
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times,
gave the film three out of four stars saying " It tells a bright and
cheery story, and then has a little something profound lurking around
the edges. In this case, it's a sense of loss."
[31]
Laura Clifford of website Reeling Reviews wrote that the film's "only
real drawback is its failure to inspire awe with its visuals and to
thoroughly transport with its storytelling.
[32]
Rotten Tomatoes gave
Cars a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 74% (with an average rating of 6.9/10),
[33] yet no other Pixar film, until the releases of its sequel,
Cars 2, as well as
Brave and
Monsters University, has ever scored less than 92% (both
Brave and
Monsters University have a score of 78% whereas
Cars 2
ranked 38%, the lowest ever attributed to a Pixar film). It earned a
73/100 on Metacritic, making it the fourth lowest ranked Pixar film on
that site.
[34]
Box office
In its opening weekend,
Cars earned $60,119,509 in 3,985
theaters in the United States, ranking number one at the box office. In
the United States, the film held onto the No.1 spot for two weeks before
being surpassed by
Click and then by
Superman Returns
the following weekend. It went on to gross $461,981,604 worldwide
(ranking number 6 in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the United States
(the third highest-grossing film of 2006 in the country, behind
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and
Night at the Museum). It was the second highest grossing film film released by
Walt Disney Picutres, behind
Dead Man's Chest and was the highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the United States, but lost to
Ice Age: The Meltdown in worldwide totals.
[1]
Accolades
Cars had a highly successful run during the 2006 awards season. Many film critic associations such as the
Broadcast Film Critics Association and the
National Board of Review named it the best Animated Feature Film of 2006.
Cars also received the title of Best Reviewed Animated Feature of 2006 from
Rotten Tomatoes.
Randy Newman and
James Taylor received a
Grammy Award for the song "Our Town," which later went on to be nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Original Song (an award it lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from
An Inconvenient Truth). The film also earned an Oscar nomination for
Best Animated Feature, but it lost to
Happy Feet.
Cars was also selected as the Favorite Family Movie at the
33rd People's Choice Awards. Perhaps the most prestigious award that
Cars received was the inaugural
Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
Cars also won the highest award for animation in 2006, the Best Animated Feature
Annie Award.
The film was also nominated for
AFI's 10 Top 10 in the "Animation" genre.
[35]
Similar films
Marcus Aurelius Canônico of
Folha de S. Paulo described
The Little Cars series (
Os Carrinhos in
Portuguese), a Brazilian computer graphics film series, as a derivative of
Cars. Canônico discussed whether lawsuits from Pixar would appear. The Brazilian
Ministry of Culture posted Marcus Aurelius Canônico's article on its website.
[36]
It has also been noted that the plot of
Cars bears a striking resemblance to that of
Doc Hollywood, the 1991
romantic comedy which stars
Michael J. Fox
as a hotshot young doctor, who, after causing a traffic accident in a
small town, is sentenced to work at the town hospital, falls in love
with a local law student and eventually acquires an appreciation for
small town values.
[37]
Sequel
A sequel to the film, titled
Cars 2, was released on June 24,
2011. It was directed again by John Lasseter, who was inspired for the
film while traveling around the world promoting the first film. In the
sequel, Lightning McQueen and Mater head to Japan and Europe to compete
in the World Grand Prix, but Mater becomes sidetracked with
international espionage.