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Cars

Cars 3 – We Need Each Other

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The film Cars opened with a blank screen as Lightning McQueen pumped himself up for the upcoming race: “Speed.  I am speed.”

The film Cars 3 opens with a blank screen as Lightning McQueen pumps himself up for the upcoming race: “Speed.  I am speed.”

If there’s nothing else you take from this review, know that the third installment of the Pixar animated series returns to its original roots, eschewing the 007-like escapades of the second film.

I’ve always been a fan of the anthropomorphic cars, but always felt cheated that the second film was more about the wisecracking sidekick Mater than Lightning and his role in the Cars universe.  Our Steve Norton felt the same way and recently posted a list of items that would make the new film a good one.  Happily, this version brings back the whimsy, excitement, and fun, along with a darker theme that will resonate with adults.  It’s pretty formulaic and sputters in places, but is still worth a theater viewing.  The kids, of course, will eat it up regardless of when and where they see it.

As I mentioned, the plot is reminiscent of the original film.  Lightning (voiced by Owen Wilson) is still quite successful on the Piston Cup tour and has even found a few friends along the way.  But he’s straight up blindsided in a race when Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) comes out of nowhere and wins, setting up a seven-race winning streak.  Jackson is part of a new generation of cars that are able to drive faster and train better than Lightning, forcing the older generation to retire.  Of course, Lightning wants to win at all costs, so he pushes himself to the limits in the last race of the season—and violently crashes (this scene caused one kid in the viewing to scream “Oh, no!” in panic).

Lightning has to figure out what to do, and instead of doing something, he throws a pity party in Doc Hudson’s garage.  Hudson (the late Paul Newman) ‘died,’ so Lightning is left with the lovable cast of characters in Radiator Springs to encourage him to keep going.  A phone call from the owners of the Rust-eze team convince him to train at their new facility in Florida, so he heads out and finds a state-of-the-art facility, spearheaded by new owner, Sterling (Nathan Fillion). Sterling loves Lightning, but secretly believes his days are up, seeing him as a way to market all sorts of products.  However, Lightning wants to keep racing and is willing to use the fancy technology to get faster, including a fancy high speed simulator.  The trainer for all the cars is a shiny yellow speedster named Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), who sees Lightning as her senior project.  When things don’t work out in training, Sterling gives Lightning one chance to win—or retire to the life of a marketer.

Cruz comes along for the ride and endures the life of a car in a demolition derby where Miss Fritter (Lea DeLaria), a school bus on performance-enhancing-fuel (okay, not really), runs the show—and even steals the spotlight from Lightning and Cruz. Soon, Lightning realizes that Doc Hudson had to have a mentor, so he and Cruz travel to Thomasville GA to find Smokey (Chris Cooper), an old truck reminiscent of Mater (Larry the Cable Guy).  Once there, Lightning makes a discovery that may change his life.  Perhaps the race in Florida means more than anyone thought possible . . .

As always, Pixar continues to push the limits of technology with their animation, which is jaw-droppingly photorealistic throughout. While Cars 3 returns to the ways of the first film, it doesn’t quite reach its level of fun.  Laughs aren’t as prevalent and the subject matter is darker (the crash, for example).  You’re not going to hear Lightning yell “Ka-chow!,” but at least the tractors make a return.  Cruz is a fantastic addition to the ecosystem and little girls will gravitate to her character.  I also appreciated the nods to the first film—especially the loving tributes to Doc Hudson.  Chick Hicks (Bob Peterson) is still obnoxious and smacks Lightning down every chance he gets.  Thankfully, Mater is relegated to a minor character, as he’s best in small doses. But Sally (Bonnie Hunt), Lightning’s romantic interest, is basically a throwaway character for the second consecutive film.  This was an opportunity wasted.

Director Brian Fee provides a story replete with themes of overcoming obstacles, thinking outside the box, the need for others, and empowerment.  Regarding the need for others, it’s important to have people in your life who can laugh with you, cry with you, cheer you up, and push you to be the best you can be. The Bible has something to say about this topic in the book of Ecclesiastes: “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 NASB).  In the case of Lightning and Cruz, the two create a symbiotic relationship that pays dividends for each before the film’s credits roll. Without each other, the two fail in their individual pursuits and goals.  It’s a great reminder for us in our fast-paced, hectic lives.

There is an animated short before the film entitled Lou that will bring back memories of the schoolyard bully.  It’s well done (as the shorts tend to be). And don’t forget to stay through the credits!

 

Cars 3 Needs Repair: Saving Radiator Springs

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Over the years, the Cars franchise has been widely viewed as the flat tire of the Pixar world.  Despite decent reviews, the first entry remains one of the lowest financial successes in their canon (not counting merchandise, of course).  When the utterly unforgivable second film was released, the franchise found itself left in a twisted wreck along the side of the road, better forgotten than salvaged.

And yet, here comes Cars 3.

It’s not a secret that, despite their poor showings at the box office, the Cars films have been motivated largely by merchandising.  (In fact, even though it was the lowest financial success in Pixar’s history at the time, the original Cars still brought in over a billion dollars in the toy store itself!)  Still, after the release of Cars 2, the franchise has been left with egg on its bumper and a stench from its tailpipe.

In light of that, much of the early marketing for the third entry into the franchise seems to be attempting to get return to its racing roots.  (In fact, even rumors of the return of Doc Hudson, long-deceased Paul Newman’s mentor to Lightning, suggests that Pixar is trying to reclaim the chemistry of the original film.

Still, with ‘race day’ upon us, I thought it might be wise to see what tinkering needs to happen in order for the world of Cars to cross the finish line at top speed.  With that in mind, let’s take a look under the hood…

BODY REPAIRS: Remember Who You Are

One of the most glaring issues with Cars 2 was simply the fact that they changed their tone so dramatically.  John Lasseter clearly cares about these characters but, in developing the sequel, abandoned them in favor of an action piece.  Excited about making his James Bond movie, Lasseter completely dropped any of the charm and character development of the first one for a fast-paced comedy with globe-trotting set pieces.  (Ironically, had they opted to create new characters, the film would likely have worked far better by freeing them up from the burden of characters and interactions they’d already established.)  The result was jarring and reeked of marketing opportunities.  To save the franchise, Cars 3 has to remember the characters that they began with and allow them to be themselves.

BRIGHTEN HEADLIGHTS: Focus your Story

It doesn’t take a road map to follow Lightning’s journey in the original Cars.  Whether or not you were a fan of the film, you can’t deny that the film had a specific goal in mind.  From the opening race, we had a clear understanding of what the film sought to do and where it wanted to go.  Lightning’s emotional journey was clearly going to be the central narrative arc with racing providing the central background.  By Cars 2 though, we were ‘treated’ to such misadventures as a race around the world, Mater’s mistaken identity, drummed up tension between Mater and Lightning, a bizarre plot about a villain who makes gas only to destroy it, AND a romantic subplot between Mater and Holly Shiftwell.  In other words… what was that movie about?  Even after watching it twice, I still have no idea.  For Cars 3 to succeed, it needs to offer a more streamlined story with a deeper focus on its primary characters.

WHEEL ALIGNMENT: Build on Lightning

Look, I get it.  Mater is highly marketable and, at times, steals the first movie from Lightning McQueen.  The temptation to focus on his adventures in the second film was incredibly high but, unfortunately, some characters don’t do well in the spotlight.  Like the Minions in the Despicable Me franchise, Mater’s role is best served in doses.  In Cars, he provided humble grounding to Lightning’s arrogance.  In Cars 2, that emotional grounding was all but stripped of him, emphasizing the fact that he simply didn’t belong in the larger world.  With a stronger confidence and a more interesting character arc, Lightning McQueen needs to be the foundation that the franchise builds itself around.  (Thankfully, based on all the early previews and trailers, it appears as though this mistake has been corrected through their emphasis on Lightning at every possible opportunity.)

ENGINE CHECK: Rediscover the Soul

One of the harshest criticisms leveled against the original Cars was the story’s emphasis on seemingly simplistic messages like ‘Slow down to enjoy life’ and ‘Friends first.’  To many, it was ‘hokey’.  To me, though, it was holistic.  In truth, the film’s messages are some of Pixar’s most counter-cultural in many ways.  While many other Pixar entries focus on common 21st Century cultural ideas as ‘be true to yourself’ or ‘never give up’, Cars actually introduces the idea of living a life of wholeness, rest and the value of the other over our own.  In a world that’s lost all sense of Sabbath repose, Cars is a reminder that there are greater things in life than what we’re being sold on a daily basis.  In many ways, it is a sensibility that remains at the deepest core of our spiritual longings.  However, in Cars 2, all of this is lost in favor of a poorly developed environmental theme.  (Don’t get me wrong.  I have no opposition at all to this line of thinking—in fact, it too is a deeply spiritual one—but the film offers no passion or heart behind it.  It offers nothing new to the viewers emotionally or spiritually.)

Cars 3 opens in theatres Friday, June 16th, 2017

The Good Dinosaur: The Importance of Others

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Arlo and Spot with firefliesWhen a person sees the name Pixar attached to a film, they immediately think of fantastic animation, exquisite attention to detail, wonderful storytelling, and memorable characters. These are the reasons why their studio in Emeryville CA is so renowned for making films that are beloved by kids and parents alike yet still pass the test of time. With their newest release The Good Dinosaur, Pixar builds upon their canon of work and yet manages to amaze at the same time. It’s a familiar yet different film that is definitely worth taking a look at.

The premise director Peter Sohn uses for The Good Dinosaur involves a hypothetical question: What if the asteroid that supposedly led to the extinction of dinosaurs never crashed into the earth? As a result, we’re able to get a glimpse into the lives of a family of apatosaurs who live off the land. Momma and Poppa (voiced by Frances McDormand and Jeffrey Wright, respectively) watch in expectation as their three eggs hatch—Libby, Buck, and Arlo. Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), despite having the largest egg, is the runt of the litter and is pretty much afraid of everything—including the chicken-like creatures he has to feed on the farm.  He desperately wants to be like his bigger siblings and make his mark on the side of the family silo (accomplishing something “bigger than yourself”), but can’t muster the courage to do so. However, Poppa tells Arlo, “You’re me—and more.” But a scene that will immediately remind viewers of Mufasa’s death in The Lion King changes everything for Arlo and the family, forcing everyone to pitch in to keep from starving during the upcoming winter. When Arlo finds a human child named Spot (Jack Bright) in the silo, it leads to an adventure involving scavenging pterodactyls, T-rexes cattle-driving longhorns, and some harrowing encounters with nature itself.

The Good Dinosaur LandscapeDoes the film work? I think it does, but there’s something about The Good Dinosaur that feels a bit trite.  At its heart, the film is about overcoming fear but is disguised in the form of an “I’m-lost-and-need-to-get-back-home” story.  I was reminded of a number of films as I watched: The Adventures of Milo and Otis, City Slickers, and the aforementioned classic The Lion King. It surprised me that Pixar would choose to go with a basic story, but it more than made up for it on the back end with the visuals.  Do you remember the sequence in Cars where Sally is out for a drive with Lightning and passes underneath the waterfall? The hyper-realism of the visuals astounded me. Fast forward nine years to The Good Dinosaur, whose visual landscapes are so realistic that the National Park Service could use them in commercials. There were at three occasions where I had my mouth open in astonishment at what I was seeing on the screen.  The visuals actually threaten to take away from the film, but there’s just enough adventure included so that doesn’t happen. The voice casting works fine—a positive, considering the entire film was re-recorded less than six months ago by a completely different group of actors and actresses (save McDormand). There are a few emotional moments in the film, so you may need some tissues by the time the credits roll.

(The animated short preceding The Good Dinosaur is entitled Sanjay’s Super Team and is quite different, adding a Power Rangers-type vibe to a seemingly innocent time of meditation. Our Darrel Manson will have a separate review of it.)

Climbing the mountainTwo major themes in the film involve making one’s mark in the world (literally and figuratively) and the importance of family.  However, I saw something else in the budding relationship between Arlo and Spot. The two aren’t on friendly terms for a good portion of the movie, but that changes when Spot shows Arlo where to get some berries.  The two learn how to weather the storms they face together so that, when the climax arrives, it feels earned.  It brings to mind a passage from Ecclesiastes: “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up” (4:9-10 NASB). The two will need each other many times in the film, and in doing so, they grow closer together.  It’s an important reminder why it’s good to have friends and companions in one’s life.  A me-against-the-world mentality (especially today) will lead to frustration, depression, and even further isolation from those who might want to help and come alongside to befriend and help. Companions provide an outlet to share successes, hurts, fears, and dreams—not to mention their ability to strengthen others in areas like accountability and determination.

On that note, grab a few folks and take them to an afternoon (or evening) at the movies.  The Good Dinosaur, although a bit trite in its story, provides incredible visuals and lessons that can last long after leaving the theater. And isn’t that what good films are supposed to do in the first place?

 

The Best Of Pixar: How 4 Films Changed The Way We Watch

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"MONSTERS, INC. 3D" ©2012 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

What if we had never met Dory? Or if Buzz and Woody had never become friends? Would our world be different?

Most of us think that Pixar burst onto the scene with the release of its first feature film in 1995, Toy Story, noting its fifteen Academy Awards coinciding with the partnership with Walt Disney Studios. But the real Pixar Animation Studios originated sixteen years earlier as a division of Lucasfilm, aiding in the special effects for The Wrath of Khan, Young Sherlock Holmes, and others. But when we reflect of the legacy of Pixar, we do so with an eye toward the fourteen feature-length films and its wealth of awards. But what makes these films rise above any others in the animated genre?

With the release of Inside/Out on Friday, a film receiving rave reviews from advance screenings, we should recognize that PIXAR has changed animation, and our expectations for how good a ‘toon’ might look. No more are we stuck with the flat objects on screen, moving around in jerky motions (like those flip books we used to make in elementary school). No, we have real-life motion with toys, bugs, and rats! The thing is though, while we can get caught up in the visual wonders (and there are plenty of those!) that the minds at PIXAR bestow on us, there’s more to this brand of storytelling than the “average animated movie.”

Let’s look at a few of the films that shouldn’t be missed. With apologies to the others (quite honestly, Monsters Inc. is my favorite), here are the five deep PIXAR movies that visually wow us but have more going on under the hood.

 

toy storyToy Story  (1995)

When we’re introduced to  Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen), we meet a pair of toys, one old and one new, owned by a six-year-old boy named Andy. Over time, and I’ll cheat a little here by incorporating all three movies, the two foil a bully who destroys toys for fun, a collector who steals Woody, and each other, but it’s their friendship (and bickering) that add much of the fun to the films. We (adults, that is) see something of our own childhoods, recognizing that there’s a time and a place for play, and probably feel a desire to nurture that in our own children (a la The Lego Movie). While other real-life films like The Sandlot or The Goonies might also provide the same sense, there’s a certain amount of magic that the PIXAR crew bottled up here.

For me, the “you had me at hello” moment is in Toy Story 2, when Buzz comes to rescue Woody. Woody has been sort of brainwashed into thinking that being a collectible is all there is to life; he’s forgotten his purpose as a toy to entertain Andy and to be loved. Buzz reminds him that there’s more to the world, and in a moment of clarity, Woody wipes off the new paint from his boot, revealing “ANDY” scrawled across his foot. Like Woody, we can get deluded into believing that “this is all there is,” or that we don’t matter. It often takes an outside force, or someone who God uses, to break through and remind us that we are loved by the God of the universe, that God’s name is written on our hearts and in our DNA.


 finding nemo

Finding Nemo (2003)

It’s amazing who you meet on a cross-ocean journey, and better still when that journey is animated by some of the best in the business. While Finding Nemo has some of the typical Disney sadness (Nemo’s mom), there’s still a sense of love, community, and recovery that’s greater than the average two-dimensional animated flick.

While some might say that Dory’s (Ellen DeGeneres) “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” is the best life advice they’ve ever received from an animated flick, I’ll again refer to the more Biblical tones the story reverberates with: The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Our friend Nemo (Alexander Gould) strays from the safe confines that his father (Albert Brooks) set up for him and ends up netted, transported, and dropped in the dentist’s tank. But his father doesn’t stop searching for Nemo. He just keeps going and going and going, until he’s able to save him. That’s pretty consistent with my understanding of God’s love for us: even when we’re in a mess all on our own, God won’t give up on us.

 

Walle

WALL-E (2008)

Stanton (who also did A Bug’s Life) directs a film I’ll never forget. With a few hours to kill before officiating the wedding of a good friend (who happens to be our site manager here at ScreenFish), my wife and I tripped into the least family-friendly animated flick I’d seen at that point: Wall-E. [Editor’s note: this was before seeing the animated Watership Down…] But the “Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth-class,” who sounds a bit like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, had a profound thing or two to say about childlike wonder, believing in the best of humanity, and never, ever giving up.

Before Tomorrowland and Mad Max: Fury Road proposed that we needed to rejuvenate the community we’re in (and to some extent, the Earth) instead of bolting for some better promised land, Wall-E proposed that the Earth could be cared for if we would all waste less, recycle more, and care about each other. Less jettisoning lifeboat and more life-restoring ark, Wall-E is still not really a kid movie, even if it masquerades behind a wall of eye-popping animation.

 

up

Up (2009)

Russell (Jordan Naga), an earnest “Boy Scout” type, and his grumpy, elderly neighbor, Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner), end up taking a ride via lots of balloons and … a house. While there’s plenty of amusing stuff going on here, this is another film that seems more for the adults than for the kids. Sure, the excitement is worth diving into but there’s plenty of social/psychological commentary going on here.

Carl never lived out his dream because death got in the way; he’s being marginalized and diminished by the people making decisions all around him because of his old age. The overall vibe moves toward the positive, but the power in the story is recognizing the ways that we push people to the side when we think they’ve outlived their usefulness or we don’t understand their pain. What Up pushes us to consider is that we can still learn from our elders even if we think they move too slow or don’t like the new things that we’re into technologically or socially. In fact, we might even propose that understanding our “cloud of witnesses” and embracing mentorship is strongly on the minds of those who created Up.

 

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So, there you have it. Four movies. Four stories of faith and family, of powerful characters with big challenges, who live out stories that are true to our human experience. “Cartoons?” These are narratives, moving pictures that are bigger than just a throwaway afternoon of entertainment, movies that move us and make us dream, think, and love.

Can Inside/Out join the pantheon of the greats?

I know you won’t all agree. That’s what the comment section is for. What did I miss about your favorite PIXAR film? Show me the error of my ways with your response below!