Cars (film)

This article is about the 2006 film. For the film series, see Cars (franchise).

Cars
Theatrical poster
Directed by	John Lasseter
Screenplay by	Dan Fogelman John Lasseter Joe Ranft Kiel Murray Phil Lorin Jorgen Klubien
Story by	John Lasseter Joe Ranft Jorgen Klubien
Produced by	Darla K. Anderson
Starring	Owen Wilson Paul Newman Bonnie Hunt Larry the Cable Guy Tony Shalhoub Cheech Marin Michael Wallis George Carlin Paul Dooley Richard Petty Michael Keaton John Ratzenberger
Cinematography	Jeremy Lasky Jean Claude Kalache
Edited by	Ken Schretzmann
Music by	Randy Newman
Production companies	Walt Disney Pictures Pixar Animation Studios
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release date	June 9, 2006 (2006-06-09)
Running time	116 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$120 million
Box office	$461,983,149

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, bringing an estimated $10 billion in 5 years since the film's release. 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, and a spin-off, Planes, produced by DisneyToon Studios, was released on August 9, 2013. 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

Main article: List of Cars characters

• 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."
• 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 with elements of a mid-1950s Chevrolet. 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. 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.

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.

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.

File:John Lasseter - Pixar - Cars - interviewed by Maximilian Schönherr 2006.ogg

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. This decision was heavily criticized by automotive blog Jalopnik.

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.

Soundtrack

Main article: Cars (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. 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 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.

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 featured the Pixar short Boundin'.

According to the Walt Disney Company, five million copies of the DVD were sold in the first two days it was available. In its first week it sold 6,250,856 units and 15,370,791 units in total ($246,198,859).

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. Additional extras not seen on the DVD have since been released on the official DVD website.

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.

Cars was also released on a Disney Movie Club exclusive VHS in 2007, 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.

Video game

Main article: Cars (video game)

Reception

Critical response

Cars was met with positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave Cars a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 74% (with an average rating of 6.9/10), 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.

William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praised it as "one of Pixar's most imaginative and thoroughly appealing movies ever" and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called it "a work of American art as classic as it is modern." 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." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "Fueled with plenty of humor, action, heartfelt drama, and amazing new technical feats, Cars is a high octane delight for moviegoers of all ages." Richard Corliss of Time gave the film a positive review, saying "Existing both in turbo-charged today and the gentler '50s, straddling the realms of Pixar styling and old Disney heart, this new-model Cars is an instant classic." Brian Lowry of Variety gave the film a negative review, saying "Despite representing another impressive technical achievement, it's the least visually interesting of the computer-animation boutique's movies, and -- in an ironic twist for a story about auto racing -- drifts slowly through its semi-arid midsection." Robert Wilonsky of The Village Voice gave the film a positive review, saying "What ultimately redeems Cars from turning out a total lemon is its soul. Lasseter loves these animated inanimate objects as though they were kin, and it shows in every beautifully rendered frame." Ella Taylor of L.A. Weekly gave the film a positive review, saying "Cars cheerfully hitches cutting-edge animation to a folksy narrative plugging friendship, community and a Luddite mistrust of high tech."

Gene Seymour of Newsday gave the film three out of four stars, saying "And as pop flies go, Cars is pretty to watch, even as it loops, drifts and, at times, looks as if it's just hanging in midair." Colin Covert of the Star Tribune gave the film a positive review, saying "It takes everything that's made Pixar shorthand for animation excellence -- strong characters, tight pacing, spot-on voice casting, a warm sense of humor and visuals that are pure, pixilated bliss -- and carries them to the next stage." Bill Muller of The Arizona Republic gave the film four out of five stars, saying "The truest measure of the movie is that eventually we forget we're watching a bunch of vehicles with faces and start to think of them as individual characters. It's quite an accomplishment, and perhaps one only possible by Pixar." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film four out of five stars, saying "What's surprising about this supremely engaging film is the source of its curb appeal: It has heart." Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post gave the film a positive review, saying "It's the latest concoction from the geniuses at Pixar, probably the most inventive of the Computer Generated Imagery shop -- and the film's great fun, if well under the level of the first Toy Story." Jessica Reaves of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "While it's a technically perfect movie, its tone is too manic, its characters too jaded and, in the end, its story too empty to stand up to expectations." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three out of four stars, saying "While Cars may cross the finish line ahead of any of 2006's other animated films, it's several laps behind its Pixar siblings."

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 number 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 Pictures, 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.

Accolades

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Cars

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.

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.

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.

Sequels

Main article: Cars 2

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.

Michael Wallis, the voice of Sheriff and a Route 66 consultant for the first two films, said in August 2013 in an interview with WGBZ radio that Pixar will make a third film in the series, which will go back to Route 66 and will also include Route 99.

See also

Mandeville-Anthony v. The Walt Disney Company, a federal court case in which Mandeville claimed Disney infringed on his copyrighted ideas by creating Cars

External links

• Official website from Disney
• Official website from Pixar
• Cars at AllMovie
• Cars at Rotten Tomatoes
• Template:Bcdb title
• Cars at IMDb
• Cars at the TCM Movie Database
• Cars at the Internet Movie Cars Database