Why Cars is a Conceptually Bad Franchise

Schaff discusses the thematic insanity of the Cars franchise because this is his life now I suppose

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[AJ-fdph]

I’m just disappointed that, in all three movies, we never saw a car wipe it’s tears with its windshield wipers.

[weaslelysherbeard]

In 10 years people will be talking about how horrifying the live action remake of cars looked.

[xweert]

3:00

I'm sorry, but, this is objectively false. A vast majority of environments and stories being told in the Cars universe relates to both American and Automotive history, especially in regards to things like NASCAR, as American Automotives are a very rich culture that has a long history behind it. Radiator Springs for example is directly inspired by actual dying cities and routes from Route 66, the Piston Cup is a parallel to Grand Prix trophies, a large amount of cars are even voiced by racing or driving legends, and more. Obviously you could tell these stories with humans driving cars, but why not make it with sentient cars? That's just a lot funner and creative as it's very interesting to bring to life the various personalities of automobiles, like how Sally is a Porsche, despite originally being planned on being a Mustang, due to the fact that Porsches are a lot more feminine. Even little things like making tractors cattle is really interesting and creative. There isn't a point to overthinking it.

by that, I mean, Car lovers tend to imprint personalities onto their vehicles, based on their condition, age, etc., in the same way that a child would imprint personalities onto their toys, so it makes sense to a certain degree as to why they would tell very human stories with anthromorphic cars; it's basically a romanticized story of what would happen if a car lover's cars actually were sentient, and the personalities we imprinted onto them became their actual living personalities. A way you could look at it is that it's effectively a human story of the driver's ambitions, told from the perspective of their cars. They obviously don't have to literally BE Cars, but if you think the franchise is bad for that reason, then you are missing the point of it, and the creativity factor of the franchise would be exceptionally dull if it wasn't using anthromorphic cars.

Ironically, your mentality of "them being sentient cars has to actually be relevant to the plot" is something that lead to Cars 2, which is easily the worst movie in the franchise by a very large margin, by making various plot points explicitly depend on them being Cars. Even you attest to this.

In Cars 3, keeping what I said in mind about it being a theoretical driver's ambitions told from the perspective of the Cars themselves, Lightning McQueen is getting old because he's an old NASCAR model. He isn't literally an old man; he is, instead, an outdated model being replaced by far more advanced technology than him. This is exactly what happened to Doc previously. This plot point is very clearly presented, I'm genuinely not sure why you missed that.

Doc died because, in reality, even Cars stop working after a while. Doc was a 70 year old Hudson Hornet. There is only 19 Hudson Hornets left in real life due to the reality of automotives aging and deteriorating, and those 19 Hudson Hornets are requiring constant heavy maintenance to stay running. It really isn't a stretch to assume Doc simply succumbed to age and lack of maintenance considering they chose to live in the Desert for their last couple of decades.

I think the real shortcoming is that there is far fewer passionate car lovers than toy lovers and such, especially with young people. These movies were made for car lovers who are passionate about cars and want to see their beloved hobby and inanimate objects they care about be brought to life. But, because of this, it kinda failed to find it's target audience since it was a Pixar film marketed towards kids. Cars 2 tried to address those two issues by both being explicitly made for kids and also directly tying the fact that they are cars into the plot, which sounded good on paper, but it ultimately fell completely flat by alienating it's existing fanbase, and Cars 3 was made to properly provide a send-off to the people who "got" it and really latched onto the movies. Even the characters themselves are testaments to Automotive History and every car brand was very deliberately picked, because every car in the movie needed to have a very rich and deep history behind it.

I personally have a passionate fondness for vehicles. So Cars really stood out to me as an incredibly creative idea that brought beloved vehicles to life and showcased their history and what kind of personalities they would have if their drivers had their personalities imprinted into them. Of course it leads to all the funny hypothetical questions like "Where did all the humans go", "Why are these cities made for cars", etc., but if you ask that question seriously, and criticize the film for it, then you have missed the point of why it's the way that it is, y'know?

[lovefromwonderland]

I like how Schaff is just detailing why the Cars franchise is nonsensical and pointless and everyone’s just like, “Well… I liked it!”

[baloproductions]

The good dinosaur should've gotten the wall e treatment, little to no dialogue, just a human boy and a young dinosaur finding out they aren't that different

[TheMacroShow]

That NordVPN plug was smooth

Just like the street that Lightning McQueen paved in Cars 1 🚘

[Tuxlion]

Cars 1 could be argued as having a car theme. 2 was just a thrill for kids with little to no plot. 3 was missed opportunities and pain

[edbob]

The concept of a demolition derby in a world of sentient cars feels like an underground bloodsport

[TheIcyWizard]

I think this entire franchise was built upon the idea of "hey the front grill of a lot of cars kind of look like faces"

[MrJoStar]

They should have called Cars 2 "Mater: A Car's Story" and Cars 3 "Cars 2"

[metademetra]

The thing about these movies is very clearly the writers didn't expect anyone older than ten to take a deeper look at them. Because if they did, they would have needed to consider that the locations all being 1:1 to real locations suggests that history is relatively unchanged. Meaning that there very well could have been a car Holocaust, a car Cold War, and a car 9/11.

[Christopherbellfan]

The unlucky tug actually brought up some good points in his big retrospective of these movies, like how cars 3 gives an actual purpose to them being cars, and how cars 2 is the reason why the world is confusing. It’s a good watch, I recommend it. I’m not saying it’ll change your mind about these movies, but it does answer some questions about these movies.

[pogchimp]

"Cars don't die of old age"
Have you ever had a car?

[oddfuturestudios]

In the Cars movies, the characters can be arrested for speeding. And since they are LIVING cars, it would be the same thing as getting arrested for running too fast.

[nightcrawler]

"Why are they cars?"

Because humans are boring and it's fucking cool

"None of the themes are car related"

I guess car racing doesn't exist then

[mnvr-pdwz]

I watched the Cars franchise last month and it was far better than I expected it to be. You say that there’s no emotional moments but when he’s starts “fading fast” in Cars 3, it was a feeling of sadness that all sports fans have felt. Last year I watched Cristiano Ronaldo, a soccer icon for 20 years, play for Manchester United and he was so bad it was genuinely uncomfortable to watch. There’s nothing worse than that as a sports fan and that Cars 3 scene demonstrated it perfectly. That scene is used constantly on twitter too whenever a player has gotten too old.

[doodoofard]

In McQueen's defence, he was becoming outdated, and thus, getting old. The film plot already says that he can't keep up with the other racers who are fresher, more updated and better performing.

[DepravedCoTApologist]

When there's no "That was his mistake" joke in the video


*THAT MISTAKE WAS HIS*

[rudeonion]

This was the first movie franchise that introduced me to Pixar as a whole. I agree to an extent that some aspects of the trilogy don't make a lot of sense, but I can't bring myself to dislike this franchise. It is just too nostalgic.

[jaelie]

For those unaware he was in a car accident this morning. Two of his buddies died and James is in crit