*** Official CARS Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Casey Trowbridg]

Quite simply, they did it again.

7 films, 7 good to great films, 7 hits.

Thank you Pixar for making this movie.

More later, but wow.

 

[DonRoeber]

Pixar started making this film years ago, when gas was cheaper. And I noticed absolutely no product placement in the film, at least of real commerical products that I could go to the store and buy.

The tires were Lightyear brand, and there was even a Lightyear blimp.

Get over yourself and go have a great time at the movies.

 

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now designated the Official Discussion Thread for "Cars" please, post all comments, links to outside reviews, film and box office discussion items to this thread.

All HTF member film reviews of "Cars" should be posted to the Official Review Thread.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.


Crawdaddy

 

[mattCR]

They at one point in the film talked about the oil conspiracy with the government and bio-gas as an alternative

 

[Shawn.F]

Dan, relax. It's a cartoon.

And for the record, this project started development six years ago, long before gas prices started to skyrocket upward.

 

[DaveB]

Just returned from the theater. Most enjoyable theater experience we've had in 2006.

I need to see it a few more times to know for sure, but for now I place it just below Incredibles and the 2 Toy Stories and above Bugs, Monsters and Nemo. Very worthy of the Pixar pedigree and a fantastic film.

At some point, Pixar will stumble (they have to, right?) but it hasn't happened yet.

Looking forward to Ratatouille! (sp?)

 

[DaveB]

Also, the short One Man Band was great!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Agreed! I've not liked some of the other Pixar shorts, but "Band" was quite good. Very funny, good pay-off...

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I loved the movie. Pixar has yet to produce a dud. The character development was even better than the amazing animation.

Nice work Lasseter and team.

P.S. One Man Band is available for download from iTunes.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Absolutely agree. I always forget that they have the shorts before the films, and then when they start, I always think "Oh, that's right, the short," then I sit back and watch it.

Then I saw The Incredibles, and I can't remember what the short was or what happened in it, but I hated it. In fact, I was astonished by how awful I found it.

So when I saw One Man Band, I was a bit anxious about how I would respond to it. But it was perfect. A nice touch of whimsy, great humour, and some nice characterisation in a dialogue free short. A pure delight.

 

[Scott McGillivray]

Wow. I am a pretty harsh critic of movies, but this one was just great. A real treat. I thought that they really did an amazing job with this movie both with the story told and the visuals. Great laughs and a fun cast.

My only tiny, minor complaint was that the song "Life is a Highway" was not sung by Tom Cochrane. Not sure why he did not sing it. Minor point.

I love the bits at the end with the Cars versions of Pixars other movies and John R. making fun of himself.

Go see this movie! It is just solid fun!

 

[Joel C]

The short before Incredibles was Boundin', about the hopping sheep. I didn't like it the first time I saw it, but after learning about the guy who wrote/sang it, Bud Luckey, a long-time Pixar employee, on the Incredibles DVD, I actually found myself warming to it. It's just that it's so sweet and heartfelt, without the usual Pixar hint of comedy or sarcasm.

 

[Edwin-S]

"Boundin" was the short in front of the INCREDIBLES and it sure wasn't awful. It was a well done, lyrical, piece of character animation. Out of all of the Pixar shorts I would say that, in terms of quality and execution, it comes in a very close second to "One Man Band".

When I saw the trailers for CARS I was sure that the movie was going to be awful and become Pixar's first big bomb. It is possible that the film will still bomb, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to find that the film is very good. Not THE INCREDIBLES good but right on par with their other output such as TOY STORY. CARS may not be as big a hit as some of Pixar's other films, but I think that this film will actually grow in stature over time. I'm sure this film has myriad of details that will be missed on a first viewing. The only thing that marred this flick was the use of some iconic pop culture voices such as Schwarznegger. I really don't much care for celebrity voice cameos in animated films. I find it disruptive, because the cameos create too much of a topical connection to current Hollywood celebrity culture.

One of the nice touches in this film was the use of actual cars like the "Dinoco" Super Bird. It will be interesting to see how many automobiles a person will be able to pick out when the DVD streets. Another nice touch was the bugs which were actual VW "bugs". This show may actually rate a repeat viewing at the theater.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Pixar could have cleaned up on product placements. Probably could have funded the entire film with them. They chose not to.

I took my 2.5 year old. He was a little terror, but it was an 11 AM on Sunday. What I saw of the film (about 80%) was typical Pixar. As Casey said, 7 up, 7 down.

 

[GeoffBr]

I would give Cars a B+/A-. As others have mentioned, I liked the opening short a lot, and much like Pixar's other shorts, it set the right tone for the movie. Cars itself opens well, and introduces Lightning's character with a lot of fun, although Owen Wilson was just a bit too recognizable for my taste, sounding more like Wilson talking than like him playing a character.

As for the remainder of the film, I'm always struck in Pixar movies by just how much fun the people making it seem to be having. Great concepts like the car insects, the tractor-tipping, and that dream sequence early in the movie when Lightning imagines all the great things a Dinoco endorsement would bring him really make me want to work for them myself. And the creators do a great job making what is at heart a fairly conventional story come alive in a way that most other studios would fail miserably at.

I do think Cars runs into a few problems along the way, though. First, although Pixar does everything conceivable to make the cars into real characters, I was definitely conscious at various points in the film of how constrained the animators were in their ability to animate them distinctly. There were points at which I definitely felt like the cars needed to do something organic - like shrug, or gesture differently - and which they just couldn't do... this made it much more difficult to identify with them as something other than machines. Also, I wasn't all that sympathetic to the storyline; I think a lot of how you feel about this movie will depend on how you feel about its nostalgic bent. Personally, I'm a bit too young to be misty-eyed about Route 66, and small towns don't have much appeal to me, so I think I missed some of the emotional "kick" Cars aims at. This is certainly not a flaw of the film itself, but it definitely shaded my perceptions of it.

Overall, I would rate Cars highly relative to most animated fare - and movies in general - but it's in the bottom 2 of the Pixar canon for me. Definitely a fun movie, and certainly worth seeing!

 

[Thomas Newton]

There was also the King's sponsor: "Dinoco"

 

[Joel C]

Dinoco is also the fuel company from Toy Story, the gas station where Woody and Buzz get left behind.

 

[todd s]

I loved the spoof of the other Pixar films and of John Ratzenberger at the end during the credits....."What a fine actor".

 

[Chris Will]

So there was a short before the movie. Guess I'll have to go see it again. My wife and I saw it at sea while on a Disney Cruise this past weekend and they didn't have any previews or shorts before the movie started. we both loved it and thought if was just another fun Pixar movie and, now that I know there is a short before it we have a great reason to see it again.

 

[Andy_R]

The wife, my 4 year old son, my 2.5 year old daughter, and I saw Cars this past weekend, and we all loved it. For my daughter it was her first movie in a theater, which is special thing.

The movie struck a nice balance between warmth and action. All the subtle things (many that I'm sure I missed) were fun to look for.

For me, this was one of the best Pixar films yet. I'd probably rank it only behind Toy Story 1 & 2.

-Andy