"Life's a journey. Enjoy the trip." —Tagline

Cars is Pixar's seventh feature film. It was released in theaters on June 9, 2006. A sequel, Cars 2, was released in theaters and 3D on June 24, 2011. A second sequel, Cars 3, was released in theaters on June 16, 2017. This film is the final Pixar film produced independently before it was purchased by Disney. A spin-off, Planes, produced by the now-defunct DisneyToon Studios, was released on August 9, 2013, followed by its own sequel Planes: Fire & Rescue on July 18, 2014.

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Synopsis

The story of Cars is set in an alternate universe where every character is a vehicle of various sorts, whether that be an automobile, an aircraft and a watercraft. The film focuses on a rookie race car named Lightning McQueen who discovers the lost town of Radiator Springs on his way to the biggest race of his life.

Plot

The film opens in the last race of the 2006 Piston Cup stock car racing season and championship in the Motor Speedway of the South where a skilled but arrogant rookie racecar Lightning McQueen has overtaken his opponents, past a huge wreck, and has built up a huge lead over the cup's defending soon retiring seven-time champion Strip "The King" Weathers and perennial runner-up Chick Hicks . However, because of his refusal to make regular pit stops and get new tires, his rear worn tires burst into flames on the final lap, causing him to skid and ultimately crawl to the finish line, barely managing to tie the King and Chick Hicks in a photo finish by sticking his tongue out at the edge of the finish line. Race officials announce that because the three racers are also tied in overall season points they will compete in one final tiebreaker race to be held at the Los Angeles International Speedway in one week to determine the champion.

While traveling down Interstate 40 to California, Lightning becomes separated from Mack, his transport truck, and while trying to catch up becomes lost on U.S. Route 66, catching the attention of the local Radiator Springs Sheriff in the process. A chase ensues, during which Lightning crashes and gets tangled in wires, damaging part of the town's main street in the process.

Lightning is taken to traffic court, where the town's attorney Sally Carrera pleads against Lightning. He is sentenced to repave the road using " Bessie ", an asphalt-laying machine. Only interested in leaving and extremely furious, he makes an escape attempt before being hooked up, only to figure out his gas tank was siphoned. Lightning rushes through his first day of paving and the new road surface is so bumpy, unusable, uneven, and poor that he is told he must scrape it off and start over again.

When Doc Hudson offers Lightning a deal beat Doc in a race around Willy's Butte and he is free to go, Lightning eagerly accepts. He leaves Doc in the dust at the starting line, but loses control on the loose dirt turn and crashes into a cactus patch. While the town's tow truck, Mater, hauls Lightning out of the cactus patch in which he landed, Doc effortlessly cruises to the finish line after informing Lightning that he races like he fixes roads. Lightning is compelled to scrape off the botched pavement and start over again. After Lightning completes a section of the road for the night, Mater asks if he would like to do something fun. He finds out that Mater was talking about a game called "Tractor Tipping." Lightning tries to back down but is convinced by Mater. Mater shows him how to tip a tractor. He sneaks up to one sleeping and suddenly blares his horn causing the tractor to react and tip over backward and fart (backfire). Lightning having a go approaches a tractor with Mater urging him to do it. Lightning then roars engine waking ever tractor in the field with all of them tipping over and farting all at once. They have a laughing moment, but suddenly awake Frank, a red combine harvester with the personality of a bull who chases them out of the field by threaten to grind them up with his blade.

As the ensuing days pass, Lightning is disturbed by nightmares of Chick Hicks winning the Piston Cup and landing Dinoco. He starts to befriend the town's residents and learn more about the town in the process: how Radiator Springs was once a thriving town until completion of the nearby interstate bypassed the little town, depriving it of its business traffic and visitors and ironically, depriving those passing visitors of the natural beauty found in the scenery along the old highway, how Sally left behind her rich but unhappy life as an urban lawyer, what tractor tipping is, and how Doc Hudson was once a famous racecar himself the Hudson Hornet and 3-time Piston Cup champion -- until a horrible crash in 1954 ended his racing career.

Doc bitterly refuses to reveal much about his past despite Lightning witnessing him expertly drifting through the loose dirt of Willy's Butte where Lightning crashed, labeling his old trophies as a bunch of empty cups.

By the time Lightning finishes repaving Radiator Springs's main road, he has formed a bond with the town and its residents. Rather than immediately leaving for California as he had initially been eager to do, he spends the day touring the town's businesses, receiving a fresh coat of paint and new tires in the process, and participates in a cruise party that night. But he is suddenly found, then whisked away in his truck, Mack, without even a chance to bid farewell to Radiator Springs. The town's residents are sad to see him leave, and Sally is grumpy to learn that it was Doc who ultimately informed the media of Lightning's whereabouts.

The final race among Lightning, the King, and Chick opens with what the race's commentators call the biggest race in history. Lightning is distracted by his memories of Radiator Springs, losing time to The King and Chick Hicks, and begins to fear he will simply lose. To his surprise, Doc Hudson has arrived at the race, with Mater and a few others from Radiator Springs who will serve as his pit crew, Doc, once again wearing his original Hudson Hornet racing stripes, takes over as Lightning's crew chief. With Doc's coaching, a record-fast pit stop for new tires, and a few tricks learned from the small town's inhabitants, Lightning is not only able to overtake his opponents, but has built a considerable lead by the final lap.

As Lightning approaches the finish line, Chick sideswipes The King in a desperate attempt to avoid finishing behind him yet again, sending The King into a terrible rollover crash. Lightning, fearing that the King's racing career will end in the same way as did the Hudson Hornet's, comes to a full stop right before the finish line, choosing to accept loss. After Chick gleefully crosses the finish line and celebrates his victory, Lightning then backtracks to push the veteran racer across the finish line ahead of him, saying that "I think the king should finish his last race!" Although Chick Hicks has officially won his first Piston Cup title, he begins to learn that it's a hollow victory as he is jeered and despised by the fans and media for taking out the King, while McQueen is cheered as a hero for his good sportsmanship. Tex from Dinoco, The King's sponsor company, offers to support Lightning as his new sponsor, but Lightning, having now had a change of heart, respectfully declines, saying that his current sponsor Rust-eze gave him his, big break, and he wanted to continue with them.

Two days after the race, Lightning returns to Radiator Springs, announcing that he will establish his racing headquarters there. This helps to revitalize the town and draw back visitors and tourists, with the once-abandoned Route 66 being reclassified as Historic Route 66.

Voice Cast

Production

Development

While Pixar was wrapping up production on A Bug's Life in the Fall of 1998, story development artist Jorgen Klubien began writing a story for a brand-new animated feature. [3] The original script was 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. [3] However, when John Lasseter reviewed the script, he didn't think it was strong enough to support an entire animated feature, saying that a bigger, stronger character needed to be dropped into the small town setting that Jorgen had initially dreamed up with. Later, production resumed with major script changes, like giving Mater, Doc and a few other characters a bigger part. [3]

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 series of the same name. Also, 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), the number seen in the movie today.

Joe Ranft's death

Cars is the last film worked on by Joe Ranft, who died in a car crash in 2005. The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after Corpse Bride.

Animation

Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles 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 made the character feel 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." [4]

The characters also use their tires as hands, the exceptions being the various tow truck characters who sometimes uses their tow hooks, and the various forklift characters, who use their forks.

The lighting team had major challenges throughout the production of Cars, as the characters needed to have photo-realistic paint, including shine, sparkle, and reflection. In order to do this more efficiently, Pixar's simulation department developed "Ray Tracing" capabilities that were added to the Renderman software, which allowed the lighting department to determine the path of the different beams of light and thus have more accurate paint effects. This was done manually from this point on until the beginning of production of Monsters University in 2012, in which time upgrades to Renderman automated most lighting functions.

Setting

The landscape in the distance behind Radiator Springs is made up of rock formations intentionally reminiscent of Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. The road map shown in the montage history of the town calls the area, "Cadillac Range." Some of the mountain peaks in the Cadillac Range, shown during the movie, resemble the quarter panels of late-50's Cadillacs, with their distinctive tailfins.

The setting for the fictional town of Radiator Springs is situated between Gallup, New Mexico, and Kingman, Arizona. A landmark, called Radiator Cap, overlooks the town, and has two white letters ("R" and "S") written upon it. The style and relative positioning of these letters on the landmark closely resemble the "RS" badge used on the first-generation "Rally Sport" Camaros.

Radiator Springs is loosely based on Amboy, California in the Mojave Desert -- a town that showed a decline in almost all traffic when I-40 opened in 1972. Sally references this in the film.

Nearby "Ornament Valley" (a reference to Monument Valley) is made of rock formations that project from the valley walls or rise from the valley floor and resemble the front ends of late 1930s to early 1940s American automobiles.

The Flo's V8 Cafe logo is similar to that used by the '32 Ford V8, the first V8 for mass marketed cars. This logo also appeared on Ford V8 in the sixties as well as third-generation Ford Explorers.

The track on which the opening race (Motor Speedway of the South) takes place is actually based on and an enlarged version of the real life Bristol Motor Speedway. 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 California Speedway.

Route 66

Many characters and places in the movie are directly inspired on the real Route 66 places and people.

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." [5]

The Cars Soundtrack has two versions of the classic Nat King Cole jazz standard 'Route 66' song, one by Chuck Berry and a new version (which also has an extended version) recorded specifically for the first song of the film's end credits performed by John Mayer.

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 (3 remaining), with individual cabins shaped like teepees. 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.

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.

In the background of one scene, there is a yellow billboard reading "HERE IT IS" and has an image of a Model T. It is based after the Jackrabbit Trading Post on Route 66.

Sheriff is voiced by Michael Wallis, an American historian and author of Route 66: The Mother Road.

Locations

Reception

Box office results

In its opening weekend, Cars grossed $60.1 million, lower than previous Pixar films such as The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. In the United States, the film held onto the #1 spot for two weeks before being surpassed by Click and then by Superman Returns the following weekend. It went on to gross $461,981,522 worldwide (ranking #6 in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the U.S. (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 highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the U.S., but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown in worldwide totals.[2]

Critical reception

Cars received positive reviews, and has 75% on the Tomatometer. Critics stated that Cars did not do as well critically as the other films. "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun", says critic Roger Ebert, "but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films." 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.

Rating

Although the movie was rated G in the United States, it was rated PG in the United Kingdom.

Attached Short Film

Theatrical and home video releases include One Man Band, released in 2005, a year before this movie is released.

Another short film, Mater and the Ghostlight, featuring the film's characters, is released exclusively on DVD and Blu-ray.

Sequels

A sequel titled Cars 2 was released on June 24, 2011. Another sequel titled Cars 3 was released on June 16, 2017.

Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales

Pixar produced several episodes of a new short TV series Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales which aired on Disney Channel on October 27, 2008.

The plot features Mater telling a story of something he has done in the past. In his story, Mater often finds himself in an inescapable predicament. When Lightning questions Mater over whether the events in the story actually occurred, Mater responds, "Don't you remember? You was there too!" and continues the story including Lightning's sudden participation. The cartoons end with Mater leaving the scene, often followed by characters or references to the story that was being told, suggesting the story might be real.

This time around, Mater is the protagonist, with Lightning McQueen becoming the deuteragonist and not featuring as the main character as he does in the movies.

Gallery

Posters

The first teaser poster showed Lightning McQueen under a tarp with part of it hiked up to show his smiling mouth. Teaser poster #2. French poster. Korean poster. German poster. Chinese poster. Eat Cinema poster #1. Eat Cinema poster #2. Eat Cinema poster #3. Eat Cinema poster #4. Eat Cinema poster #5. Final poster #1. Final poster #2.

Character Images

Concept Art

Trailers

Clips

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