Cars (film): Difference between revisions

Cars
Theatrical poster
Directed by	John Lasseter Co-director Joe Ranft
Written by	Story John Lasseter Joe Ranft Jorgen Klubien Brenda Chapman Screenplay Dan Fogelman John Lasseter Joe Ranft Kiel Murray Phil Lorin Jorgen Klubien Additional screenplay Robert L. Baird Daniel Gerson Bonnie Hunt Don Lake Steve Purcell Dan Scanlon
Produced by	Darla K. Anderson
Starring	Owen Wilson Bonnie Hunt Larry the Cable Guy Tony Shalhoub John Ratzenberger George Carlin Jenifer Lewis Cheech Marin Michael Keaton Paul Newman
Cinematography	Jeremy Lasky Jean Claude Kalache
Edited by	Ken Schretzmann
Music by	Randy Newman
Production company	Pixar
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date	June 9, 2006
Running time	116 minutes
Country	Template:FilmUS
Language	English
Budget	$120 million[1]
Box office	$461,983,149

Cars is a Template:Fy American animated feature film produced by Pixar and directed by both John Lasseter and Joe Ranft. It is the seventh Disney/Pixar feature film, and the final film by Pixar before it was bought by Disney. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic cars and other vehicles, it features voices by Owen Wilson, Paul Newman (in his final non-documentary feature), Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, Jenifer Lewis, Tony Shalhoub, John Ratzenberger, George Carlin, Larry the Cable Guy and Michael Keaton as well as voice cameos by several celebrities including Jeremy Piven, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Bob Costas, Darrell Waltrip, Jay Leno, Michael Schumacher, Tom & Ray from Car Talk on NPR and Mario Andretti.

Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, and was released on June 9, 2006, to generally favorable 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 in late 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, with an estimated $5 billion in sales.^[2]

A sequel, Cars 2, is in pre-production and set for release on June 24, 2011.

Cars is set in a world populated by anthropomorphic vehicles, including cars (hence the name "Cars"), trucks, trains, and airplanes.

The last race of the Piston Cup stock car racing season ends in a three-way dead heat between retiring veteran Strip "The King" Weathers, perennial runner-up and dirty fighter Chick Hicks, and the self-centered rookie Lightning McQueen. A tiebreaker race is scheduled for one week later at the Los Angeles International Speedway. McQueen, eager to start practice in California as soon as possible in order to become Piston Cup champion and take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team, pushes his driver Mack to travel all night long.

Mack tries (unsuccessfully) to avoid falling asleep, but becomes a victim of a gang of reckless street racers, subsequently causing the sleeping McQueen to roll out of the back of the truck unnoticed. Waking up in traffic, McQueen speeds off to find Mack, but mistakes a waste disposal tractor-trailer, a peterbilt 362, for Mack, becomes lost and ends up in the run-down town of Radiator Springs. A mishap with the local sheriff causes McQueen to inadvertently tear up the town's main road. McQueen is promptly arrested, then tried the next day by the town's judge and doctor, Doc Hudson, who at first wants him to leave Radiator Springs immediately; but at the insistence of local lawyer Sally Carrera, Doc instead sentences him to repave the road as community service.

McQueen initially tries to rush through the job, but makes a sloppy, bumpy mess of the road and is forced to start over again. As the days pass, he becomes friends with many of the townsfolk, and learns that Radiator Springs was once a popular stopover along U.S. Route 66. However, the construction of interstate 40 pretty much forced cars to bypass the town to save 10 minutes of driving, thus causing many of the businesses and residents to leave. McQueen also discovers that Doc is actually the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, a three-time Piston Cup champion who was forced out of sight after a serious racing accident ended his career over 50 years ago.

Encouraged by his new friends and a countryside cruise with Sally, McQueen successfully completes the road and spends an extra day in town, visiting the local shops to outfit himself with new tires and equipment. That night, Mack and the media converge on the town, having been tipped off by Doc as to McQueen's whereabouts, and McQueen reluctantly sets off for California. Sally is upset with Doc for thinking only of himself and not everyone else in town when he called the media.

As the tie-breaker race begins, McQueen's thoughts keep drifting back to Radiator Springs and he is distracted from performing well. However, he is surprised to discover that his new friends have come along to serve as his pit crew, with Doc — once again outfitted in his old racing colors — as his crew chief. Heartened by their presence and Guido's incredible pit stop speed, and using tricks he learned during his time among them, McQueen is able to counter Hicks' dirty driving tactics and take the lead of the race. On the final lap, Hicks, fed up with being seen as the perennial loser, purposely rams The King, causing him to veer off the track and end up in a terrible wreck as deadly as the one that ended the career of the Fabulous Hudson Hornet.

McQueen sees the King wreck out, and stops just short of the finish line, letting Hicks win. McQueen thinks back to Doc's career-ending shunt, then backs up to push The King the rest of the way across the line so he can finish his last race and retire with dignity. Hicks's win is rejected and booed off the awards ceremony stage, his Piston Cup victory hollow and meaningless, while McQueen is praised by The King and his wife, Dinoco, the press and the crowd for his sportsmanship. The king is given as the winner. Lightning is offered the Dinoco sponsorship but turns it down, saying that he would rather stay with the team that brought him this far. McQueen returns to Radiator Springs and decides to move his team's headquarters there, helping to revitalize the town and its businesses, much to the pleasure of his new friends.

• 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."^[3]
• Michael Keaton as Chick Hicks, described by Pixar as "A generic 1980s stock car."^[4] Strongly resembles a 78-88 General Motors G-Body such as Buick Regal or Grand National.
• Richard Petty as "The King" Strip Weathers. The car's design was based on Richard Petty's 1970 Plymouth Superbird

• Paul Newman as Doc Hudson, a 1951 Hudson Hornet, later revealed to be the Fabulous Hudson Hornet.
• Larry the Cable Guy as Mater, a 1951 International Harvester L-170 "boom" truck^[5][6] with elements of a mid-1950s Chevrolet.^[4] One-Ton Wrecker Tow Truck.
• Bonnie Hunt as Sally Carrera, a 2002 996-series Porsche 911 Carrera.
• Cheech Marin as Ramone, a 1959 Chevy Impala Lowrider.
• Tony Shalhoub as Luigi, a 1959 Fiat 500.
• 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, hybrid between Isetta (front) and Messerschmitt Kabinenroller (back)
• Katherine Helmond as Lizzie, a 1923 Ford Model T.
• Joe Ranft as Red, a 1960s style fire truck (most closely resembles a mid-1960s Pirsch pumper but also resembles American LaFrance models).

• John Ratzenberger as Mack, a 1985 Mack Super-Liner.
• Darrell Waltrip as Darrell Cartrip. The car's design based on Darrell's love for flames for a scheme and chrome wheels with his famous "17" on the side.

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. 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.

The original script (called The Yellow Car, about an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world) and some of the original drawings and characters were produced in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars would be the next movie after A Bug's Life, and would be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4. However, that movie was eventually scrapped in favor of Toy Story 2. Later, production resumed with major script changes.

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 11 Pixar animators in rented white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research the film. Throughout the trip, the animators collected items they found by the roadside, like wheat, thistles, snake skin, and road kill. They attached the items, which they called "Okie hood ornaments" to the cars and at the end of the trips, they buried them in the desert during a ceremony.^{[citation needed]}

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. 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).

For the cars themselves, Lasseter also visited the design studios of the Big Three Detroit auto makers, 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, as well as 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.^[7] The characters also use their tires as hands and feet, the exceptions being the various tow truck characters who sometimes use their tow hooks, and the various forklift characters, who use their forks.

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.^[8]

The track on which the opening race (Motor Speedway of the South) takes place is based on an enlarged version of Bristol Motor Speedway.^{[citation needed]} 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.

The setting for the fictional town of Radiator Springs is situated between Gallup, New Mexico and Kingman, Arizona. However, the physical location of Radiator Springs in relation to I-40 is similar to that of Peach Springs, Arizona.

Willy's Butte resembles the landmark of Mexican Hat, Utah.

Nearby "Ornament Valley" (a reference to Monument Valley) is derived from the rugged Black Mountains in Arizona, and the famous Cadillac Ranch sculpture in Amarillo, Texas.

Lizzie's Curio Shop in Radiator Springs resembles the crazy Route 66 jumble of memorabilia and knick-knacks at Hackberry General Store in Hackberry, Arizona and the SandHills 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 and 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.^[3]

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.

Many characters and places in the movie are directly inspired by 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.^[9]

Among the many references to Route 66 landmarks and personalities:

• The Cozy Cone Motel's design is based on the two Wigwam Motels along Rt. 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, now a vegan, preferred not to see his name put on a character that would become a McDonald's Happy Meal toy.^[10]
• 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.

The group of small birds from the 2000 Pixar short film For the Birds made an easter egg 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. These birds are not only the only characters to appear from a different Pixar film, but are also the only non-motorized forms of life seen in the film.^[11]

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.

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.^[12] 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.^[13] When 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.^[12]

Cars opened on June 9, 2006 to positive reviews. William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praised it as "one of Pixar's most imaginative and thoroughly appealing movies ever"^[14] and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called it "a work of American art as classic as it is modern."^[15]

However, some critics expressed that Cars did not hold up to the standard of other Pixar films, especially after the acclaim received by The Incredibles, Pixar's previous film. "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun," wrote critic Roger Ebert, "but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films.^[16] 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.^[17]

Rotten Tomatoes gave Cars a fresh 75% (with an average of 6.9) and it earned a 73/100 on Metacritic, both the lowest attributed to a Pixar film.

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 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 highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the United States, but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown in worldwide totals.^[1]

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.

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 the short films Mater and the Ghostlight and 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.^[18]

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,^[19] Additional extras not seen on the DVD have since been released on the official DVD website.^[20]

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 Blu-ray Disc on November 6, 2007.

The Mattel-produced 1/55 scale Toy Cars were some of the most popular toys of the 2006 Summer Season.^{[citation needed]} Dozens of characters are represented, with some having multiple versions available. Several stores had trouble keeping the toys in stock, and some models are still difficult to find^{[citation needed]} because of being shipped in lower numbers than other characters.^{[citation needed]} Some online Disney enthusiasts are comparing it to the same shortage that Mattel faced with its Toy Story line in 1995.^{[citation needed]} On August 14, 2007, the die-cast Sarge car, made between May and July 2007, was recalled due to "impermissible levels of lead" used in the paint.^[21] Another Cars product which followed the Disney-Pixar Cars Die-Cast Line were miniature versions of the characters which were painted in different colors to represent different events. These are called Disney-Pixar Cars Mini Adventures. Also, Lego will make some sets for the sequel.

On June 22, 2006 Disney Consumer Products announced that Cars merchandise broke records for retail sales based on a Disney-Pixar product, recording 10-to-1 more volume than Finding Nemo.^[22] DCP reports that product expansion will take place in the fall alongside the DVD release of the film. Mattel has announced that Cars toys will continue through 2008 with the release of at least 80 new vehicles. A 36 car pack called "Speedway of the South" will feature most of the race cars seen during the opening race sequence of the film.

Estimates from the New York Daily News indicate that sales of Cars merchandise two weeks out from the release of the film amounted to US$600 million. Estimates put out in November by the Walt Disney Company peg total sales for the brand at around $1 billion.^[18]

Kelley Blue Book, the de facto resource for appraising values of vehicles, has humorously "appraised" four of the cars, Lightning McQueen, Mater, Sally Carrera, and Doc Hudson according to their make/model and personalities.^[23]

The United States Department of Transportation has used scenes from the movie in a commercial regarding the Click It or Ticket campaign.

In conjunction with the film's release, a chocolate ice cream on a stick resembling a car tire was released in Australia. These ice creams were called "Burnouts". The naming of the particular product sparked controversy as the name "Burnouts" was believed to have encouraged street racing and committing burnouts. These acts are illegal and heavy fines and convictions are issued to those committing these acts in Australia. It is unknown as to whether the products have been discontinued or not.

In Norway, the candy company Nidar produced candy with the characters on the outer packaging and pictures of the characters on the packaging of the assorted candy on the inside. These bags also came with Cars themed tattoos.

In the U.S., an animated Wal-Mart truck can be seen on a Wal-Mart advertisements for Cars. In the Wal-Mart TV commercial the Wal-Mart truck was talking to Mater.

In South Africa, Italy, and several other countries where Opel is present (or with Opel models under Chevrolet and Vauxhall brand), GM has a campaign featuring an General Motors Astra, a Opel Meriva, and a General Motors Zafira as characters in the world of Cars, including TV ads made by Pixar, with the Opel models interacting with Lightning McQueen, Mater and Ramone.^[24] The first ad involved the Opels coming to Radiator Springs as tourists. The second involved their failed attempts at auditioning for Mater. In the end the Opels lost the part to the real Mater.

In July 2006, greeting card giant Hallmark unveiled its line of 2006 Keepsake Christmas ornaments. Among the collection was an ornament featuring Lightning McQueen and Mater.

There is also a Cars children's clothing line, which produces various T-shirts and shorts.

In May 2007, the Cars video game was announced to be a "Platinum Hit" on the Xbox, "Greatest Hit" on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, and "Player's Choice" on the Nintendo GameCube. A sequel is on its way to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii consoles.^[25]

A Cars-based attraction opened at Walt Disney Studios Paris in 2007 and scheduled to open in Disney's California Adventure in 2012.

In Japan, Disney Japan and Toyota backuped racing team Cars Racing replaced its racing car "Toy Story apr MR-S" and introduced the "Lightning McQueen apr MR-S" for the 2008 Super GT season. The car was based on the Toyota MR-S and the externals of the car were modeled on its of McQueen as much as possible.^[26] This include their number change from their original #101 to McQueen's #95. They won in Race 3 that season.

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.^[27]

It has also been noted that the plot of Cars bears a striking resemblance to that of Doc Hollywood, the 1991 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.^[28]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Cars.

• Official website from Disney
• Official website from Pixar
• Template:Bcdb title
• Cars at AllMovie
• Cars at IMDb
• Cars at Rotten Tomatoes

Template:Link FA