Cars

This article is dedicated to Joe Ranft (March 13, 1960 - August 16, 2005) and Paul Newman (January 26, 1925 - September 26, 2008)

"Speed. I am speed. One winner, forty-two losers. I eat losers for breakfast. Faster than fast, quicker than quick. I am Lightning."

- Lightning McQueen

Cars is a 2006 American computer-animated sports comedy-adventure and racing film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by John Lasseter, it is Pixar's final independently produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney in May 2006 as Pixar's 7th feature film. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic cars and other vehicles, the film stars the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman (in his final acting role), Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Joe Ranft (who co-directed this film), Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Guido Quaroni, Richard Petty, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond, and John Ratzenberger. The film premiered on May 26, 2006, at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina and was theatrically released in the United States on June 9, 2006. It was followed by two sequels: mh:awfulmovies:Cars 2 and Cars 3 in 2011 and 2017, respectively. The now-defunct DisneyToon Studios even produced the spin-off films: Planes and Planes: Fire and Rescue in 2013 and 2014, with John Lasseter as the executive producer for both films.

Plot
While traveling to California to race against The King (Richard Petty) and Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton) for the Piston Cup Championship, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) becomes lost after falling out of his trailer in a rundown town called Radiator Springs. While there, he slowly befriends the town's odd residents, including Sally (Bonnie Hunt), Doc Hudson (Paul Newman) and Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). When it comes time for him to leave to the championship, it is no longer his top priority.

Why It's Speed

 * 1) The premise is quite interesting since the film is about a race car who becomes lost in a forgotten rundown town after falling out of his trailer.
 * 2) Very solid and appealing animation, as well as nice visuals.
 * 3) Incredible world-building that is built around cars, even though everything else doesn't make any more sense.
 * 4) The opening race scene is very exciting and fun to watch.
 * 5) Likable and funny characters like Lightning McQueen, Mater, Sally, and especially Doc Hudson.
 * 6) Top-notch vocal performances, especially Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt and Larry the Cable Guy. For example, George Carlin did a good job voicing Fillmore, despite the fact he had fewer lines than in his other films.
 * 7) Well-delivered life messages. In the final race, where Chick wrecks The King, and Lightning doesn't win the Piston Cup, he goes back to help The King finish his last race and says, "It's just an empty cup."
 * 8) Proper character development: At first glance, Lightning McQueen is a selfish jerk who only cares about winning until he learns that there's more to life than winning by reaching the finish line and that the biggest victories are the people and friends we meet during the ride.
 * 9) Great soundtrack provided by Randy Newman, with notable songs such as "Real Gone", "Life is a Highway", "Sh-Boom", and "Find Yourself".
 * 10) The backstory of how Radiator Springs become forgotten, and the downfall is a really heartbreaking scene, especially with the song, Our Town that were well fitting choice.
 * 11) The scene where Mater tells McQueen that he considers him his best friend is pretty heartwarming.
 * 12) The scene when McQueen races Sally driving around Radiator Springs is perfect for their love chemistry.
 * 13) The scene where McQueen has a nightmare about Frank winning the Piston Cup after beating him, Chick, and The King is actually funny.
 * 14) The credits sequence makes several humorous references to previous Pixar movies, all presented as them watching movies based on previous works by Pixar, like Mack realizes that the same actor (John Ratzenberger) has been voicing characters in every film as well as pays tribute to Joe Ranft, who died in August 2005 for a car crash. The post credits scene also presents a decent gag with the two minivans showing up.
 * 15) The scene when McQueen, Sally, and the whole townsfolk drive along the newly paved road listening to music and seeing sights of glimmering, and shiny neon lights is amazing and dazzling.
 * 16) No filler seen in the film.
 * 17) Quotes like:
 * 18) * "KA-CHOW!!!"
 * 19) *"I AM SPEED!!!"
 * 20) *"He did what in his cup?" (Arguably the funniest quote in any scene out of all)

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Unfortunately, we have to get the cat out of the bag: The premise that the characters are cars makes no sense or has an impact on the story. Think about Toy Story, the characters are toys and the premise of each movie is based on the fact that they are toys or Zootopia, the plot is based on the characters being animals; In here, the characters act like humans, talk like humans, live in a human-like world, and practice human sports (in this case, the races in every Cars-related content and/or demolition derbies as in the third movie) so there's no reason for the protagonists to be cars other than to make car puns and sell toys for the movie. It shares the same problem as mh:awfulmovies:Shark Tale and Sing which is that there's no reason for the characters to be what they are since it has no impact on the plot to the point where the movie has weird logic has become a popular meme raising more questions than answers like:
 * 2) * The cars only have wheels as hands. So, who actually built anything?
 * 3) * Why do the cars even have door handles? Wouldn't that have led to their insides?
 * 4) **However, there are some very notable exceptions who don't have door handles. Especially with Lightning McQueen.
 * 5) * If all the cars are basically people, why are there animals like the tractor cows?
 * 6) * Why do they have teeth if they feed from gasoline?
 * 7) * Where do the little cars come from?
 * 8) Some product placements for car companies like Mack, Apple, Porsche and Mercury (though these are subtle and make sense, since there are no human characters).
 * 9) There are even animation errors. For example, in one scene, Snot Rod was missing next to Mack, but suddenly appears in the next scene. Also, during the first race, Darren Leadfoot's rims are yellow, but when they show his entire appearance, he gets his actual black rims instead. And the biggest of all, the cars' tires' speed is limited, most notably on all the Piston Cup Racers, especially Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks, and The King.
 * 10) There are two plot holes:
 * 11) *Why didn't the race officials disqualify Chick Hicks if he cheated in the race while he caused The King to have a hard crash?
 * 12) **Though it is likely that his crowd did notice and somewhat gave him a punishment by going against him after what he did to the King for the final Piston Cup race.
 * 13) *When The King/Strip Weathers crashed in the final race, how come no tow trucks or emergency vehicles came by if in Cars 2, a group of several ambulances came when McQueen won the Porto Corsa race in Italy? And McQueen's crash in Cars 3, even tow trucks, his friends this time, and emergency vehicles again did come by.
 * 14) Instead of having the movie being produced in widescreen, Pixar produced it in its original 4:3 ratio and then cropped the film into the 2.39:1 widescreen format to make a "widescreen" version of the movie. This even occurs in later DVDs from post-2006, Disney+, and also right after the movie was released in theaters. Not to mention, it misses out on half of the picture from top to bottom, which makes it look fake and it quite so ruins the experience for anyone that watched this movie in the original 4:3 cut in 2006.
 * 15) There are two death scenes shown on-screen, including a green SUV in McQueen's first Dinoco dream, and while funny, Chick dies from the combine harvester Frank in McQueen's second dream.

Critical Response
Cars received generally positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 74% based on 203 reviews and an average rating of 6.90/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Cars offers visual treats that more than compensate for its somewhat thinly written story, adding up to a satisfying diversion for younger viewers.". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 73 out of 100 based on 39 critics reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. However, it was considered the weakest film from Pixar until mh:awfulmovies:Cars 2 was released five years later in 2011, which received much worse reviews than the first movie, and is the only Pixar film to have a "rotten" rating, despite the box office success.

Box Office
Cars grossed $462 million at the box office against its $120 million budget, making it a box office hit.

Awards & Nominations
Cars was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature but lost to Happy Feet. Despite that, it won various awards like the inaugural Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature, the Annie Award and the Critics Choice Award for Best Animated Film.

Videos
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Trivia

 * Cars was originally going to be released on November 4, 2005, but on December 7, 2004, its release date was moved to June 9, 2006, delaying their next movie from that date to June 29, 2007. 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. When Pixar's chief executive 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 usually occurring during the holiday shopping season, except for November/December releases, which get DVD releases usually over March Break, March releases, which get DVD releases during Memorial Day weekend or the Summer season, and Luca, which came out in time for back to school season.
 * 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.
 * It was released on the studios' 20th anniversary.
 * This marks the first Pixar film to have just one word for title. Multiple movies followed.
 * This film is the last Pixar movie released on VHS. It came out in February 2007 as a Disney Movie Club exclusive. It's also the last movie ever to release on VHS. All future Pixar films were not released on VHS.
 * It is also the only Pixar film on that format not to have previews, a "Feature Presentation" message (because it retired twelve months prior), nor a warning screen.
 * Strip "The King" Weathers' crash at the end of the movie is a virtual frame-by-frame recreation of racing legend Richard Petty's crash in the 1988 Daytona 500.
 * Originally, Lightning McQueen was given number 57, the birth year of director John Lasseter. It was changed to 95 in reference to the year Toy Story was released.
 * In inspiration, John Lasseter looked back on his childhood road trip vacations for this movie. When he recreated one with his family during a summer vacation, he felt inspired. He realized that there were many towns on the old routes that people missed out on once the freeways were built, and wanted to pay homage to these sleepy, long-forgotten places.
 * This marks the first Pixar film to be released in June. All Pixar movies (with the exceptions of Up, The Good Dinosaur, Coco, Onward, Soul, Turning Red, and a currently untitled film) would later be released in June for certain years.
 * The animators drew more than over 43,000 sketches for designs of the cars.
 * Developers even stopped people on roads to take photos of their cars for early character sketches.
 * Each frame of the movie took an average of seventeen processor hours to render.
 * To build the cars, the animators used computer platforms very similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.
 * A "City of Emeryville" sign briefly appears in the movie. Emeryville is where Pixar's offices were formerly located.
 * In the sky scenes, all the jet trails look like tire marks.
 * The hill at Radiator Springs (with the white letters "RS" which it stands for) resembles the top of a car's radiator with a cap.
 * The hills around Radiator Springs resemble the back-ends of 1950's Cadillacs. They are even known as Cadillac Range.
 * One of the bumper stickers on Fillmore reads "I Brake for Jackalopes", a reference to the Disney/Pixar short Boundin'.
 * The tires are named "Lightyear" which is a word play on tire brand Goodyear and Buzz Lightyear's name.
 * The animation was apparently going to be rubberier and more cartoony.
 * The movie was originally going to be called The Yellow Car way back in 1999. Also, there were originally no race cars, and the main character was a foreign yellow electric car trying to win approval from the gas-guzzling small-town folks in the movie.
 * Mater's name was originally Zeb. John Lasseter changed the name after visiting the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina and meeting an employee, Douglas Keever, whose nickname was Mater. Keever and his friend Larry Benton recorded voice cameos in both the opening scene and the scene at the Los Angeles Motor Speedway.
 * Mater was also originally a much more minor character, but John Lasseter loved Larry the Cable Guy's performance so much that he wrote new scenes for him.
 * Fillmore's original name was Waldmire, which was going to be named after Route 66 resident Robert "Bob" Waldmire. However, upon learning that toys of the character would be featured in McDonald's Happy Meals, Waldmire, a vegan, didn't want his name to be used.
 * Operation Lifesaver requested that Disney edit a scene in the film in which Lightning beats a train to a railroad crossing while the crossing lights are flashing. Disney/Pixar has removed the scene in question from theater showings, despite that the VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and Disney+ releases, as well as television broadcasts of the movie still include the scene.
 * Chick Hicks' racing number is 86. 86 is a slang term for getting rid of someone in a forceful way, which is what Chick does when he cheats on the track. It is also a reference to 1986, the year that Pixar's first short film Luxo Jr. was released.
 * Chick also has many sponsor tags on him due to him being a sellout.
 * It was initially titled Route 66. It was changed to Cars to avoid any mix up between the movie and the 1960's television show Route 66.
 * This was the last Pixar film to be THX-certified. All future Pixar films after this would not use THX.
 * Bob Pauley, one of the Cars production designers explained "We took the best of our favorite things, from GT40s to Chargers, just sketching them out, we came up with what McQueen looks like... the most prominent design choices for McQueen are drawn directly from the Chevrolet Corvette C6."
 * Jay Ward (Pixar Studios' art director for all things related to the movie Cars) stated in 2016 that he originally thought Sally was a Mustang, because we thought about the song 'Mustang Sally'. The problem with the Mustang is, it has a very thick grille in the front that looks like a mustache on a female car. People say, "Why did you guys use a Porsche for Sally? That's kind of a guy car." A Porsche has a rear engine and no radiator grille in front, perfectly smooth, like you want a female shape to be."
 * Cars is a very popular film in France and has a strong presence at Disneyland Paris.
 * There are a bunch of rip-offs/copycats of this film, which are The Little Cars in the Great Race (2006), A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure (2006), The Autobots (2015), CarGo (2017), and fortunately, ultimately the final one ever, Wheely (also known as Wheely: Fast and Hilarious) (2018).
 * It also inspired of talking vehicle characters by other media, notably Auto-B-Good, Bigfoot Presents: Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks (which was released by three months later, Trucktown, and Blaze and the Monster Machines which were both released in 2014, although the latter has no human characters except for AJ and Gabby in the second said show). Furthermore, although this isn't really a show, but a short, it also includes Inventif Animation's Talking Truck exclusively on YouTube.

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