It’s hard to believe, but it’s been 11 years since the first Cars movie hit theaters. Now Pixar is revving up the third installment in the popular racing series.
A decade can affect all of us, including Cars character Lightning McQueen. In Cars 3, Lightning will be dealing with Father Time when a new generation of cars takes over as rulers of the race track.
Hypable visited Pixar Animation Studios in early March to learn about the threequel. An evening at Pixar during which we screened a big portion of the film (It looks really good!) was followed by a day of interviews at Sonoma Raceway.
A film for everyone
In Somona I sat down with Cars 3 helmer Brian Fee, a first time director who took the Cars reigns from Pixar legend John Lasseter, director of Cars and Cars 2. As we sat in a club box overlooking the active raceway, Fee and I discussed how Cars 3 will appeal to everyone — a message that’s been difficult for Disney to push because the series has been slapped with a “For Kids” label by the general public.
“We don’t like that, to be honest,” Fee told me when I brought up the characterization. “We say it’s for everybody.”
Fee explained that the people who saw the original Cars all those years ago will have grown up just like McQueen has, thereby making this a relatable story. Both the character and the viewers are dealing with the struggles of aging and taking on new challenges against younger generations.
“This character that was once part of their being when they were younger is now going through these life changes.”
I brought up how the first teaser trailer had a very surprising scene that made it look like they were seriously hurting Lightning. “I love people’s reactions to the trailer,” he said. “I take it as, they weren’t seeing a movie, they were seeing a character.”
“Lightning is now out of control,” Fee said of the car’s trouble in the trailer, “and it gave a visceral reaction that [viewers] may not have been expecting to see. I love that, because it means they really cared about the character.”
A new trailer released on April 26 includes the aforementioned scene that originally appeared in the teaser trailer:
In Cars 3, Lightning will be pushing himself to the point of destruction in order to compete with Storm, a next generation racer. Storm’s design and technology make him hit speeds that are faster than Lightning can achieve.
John Lasseter was always around to help Brian Fee develop the story, but one thing John really pushed was Storm’s design. “He really wanted Storm to make McQueen look old,” Fee said.
But Storm is not a villain. “I don’t think our movie has a villain, as far as … you think of a mustache-twirling bad guy that just wants to take over the world. I think Storm is one of the antagonists in the movie.”
And there’s another antagonist in Cars 3 who’s a part of all of our lives: Time. “If Storm had not come into the picture, it doesn’t matter; McQueen is still going to have to be up against the same thing, which is you can’t get any younger.”
“You can’t outrun time. There’s a realism there that was important for me. The weight of the movie was not on Storm’s shoulders to be the sole antagonist. His job is that when he is on screen, is to poke McQueen’s buttons and get McQueen to a place that helps us tell the story.”
In the footage we saw at Pixar, Lightning makes a deal with his new sponsor following his big accident: He’ll have a chance at winning one more race to prove he’s still relevant, still got it, still young. If he doesn’t win, he’ll retire and spend the rest of his days putting his face on car-related merchandise. If he wins, he’ll continue racing. Lightning begins his training with a bit of an ego before realizing that he needs to accept the help he’s been offered. A new car, Cruz, is his trainer (And she’s going to be a big hit with viewers).
Still, no amount of training can compete with Storm’s design.
Designing the next generation
A couple of events at the press day focused on how Pixar has now designed three generations of cars, from Doc, to Lightning, to Storm. It made me wonder: Since Doc and Lightning were inspired by real cars of the past and present, is Storm previewing the future?
Storm was partly based on what they expect stock cars to look like 10 or 15 years in the future, Fee told me. “We took some liberties of course. We looked at high performance cars. NASCARs tend to base themselves on Camrys or something; a little more pedestrian, I would say. But we wanted Storm to look fast, so we looked at high performance cars and took lines from that. We looked at modern car design and then pushed it even further.”
“We wanted Storm to feel like a shark. We made him really low to the ground. He’s lower than McQueen. I wanted to feel like you could barely slide a credit card under his body; he’s that streamlined.”
Fee isn’t sure they’re previewing the future, but “if [Storm] ever influenced future car designs, that would be pretty cool.”
My interview with Fee came just a few weeks before Pixar would wrap production on Cars 3. With that in mind, I asked him how he was feeling as the clock wound down. “It’s bittersweet,” he said. “I’m also sad that I no longer spend my days in animation. I no longer spend my days working with them closely. I can see these folks, but I’ll always miss that. I already miss it.”
Time waits for no one.
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