My husband Bruno and I don’t have children, but we go and see each and every Pixar movie anyway. They’re good, and in LA, you never know when you’re going to run into John Ratzenberger socially.
Bruno liked “Cars.” It was zippy, and all the cars were actual cars, he tells me, each a cunning reference of some kind, plus he also enjoyed the fact that at no point did the disembodied voice of Sarah McLachlan start singing something by Randy Newman.
Me, I was weirded out.
“The Incredibles” made you believe that yes, if there were Superheroes, this is what their life would be like. “Finding Nemo,” the same: if there were varied, brightly colored fish swimming in the ocean, rather than the mutated krill that keeps washing up on our beaches, well, yes, I guess at least one of them would sound very much like Ellen DeGeneres.
But what the hell? These are the questions I kept asking my husband as the credits rolled and he looked to see if any of his C-list actor friends got to do a crowd voice:
If the cars “drink” gas and oil, just like real cars, why do they have mouths? And even weirder, a tongue? If my car stuck out a tongue, I’d ruin its upholstery.
Every car make and model seemed to reflect its position in the world. So, for example, the Bonnie Hunt Porsche was a LA Lawyer, making the big bucks. Which it would need to, in some weird logic, to be able to afford itself, right? But how does that work? Each car is made, and then takes its place in the world according to its sticker price? The Porsche gets to be a lawyer, the Ford Escort an insurance broker, the Mercedes S-Class an Iranian expat now running a falafel stand in Westwood? This is pre-destination that would make a Calvinist feel short-sticked.
Plus, what’s death for a car? The movie suggest it’s rust, but that’s ridiculous, my cars don’t rust. I sell them and buy new ones. So what happens in “Cars 2,” when Lightning McQueen confronts its own mortality: all of a sudden he’s in a CarMax lot, being looked over by a 17 year-old from Santa Clarita who’s got big ideas about “Korn” decals?
And that’s another thing, I said to Bruno, as we got into our Lexus, which seemed to have even less of a personality than it usually does, what exactly is the moral of this movie? When you’re a hot shot big star, be nice to the little people? I’m sure that’s a useful lesson for the tots of America… don’t screw with the lunch lady, kids. ‘Cause, she serves you lunch. Of course, this only applies to the ones among you who were born special, painted bright red, destined for the glamour.
The rest of you: I’d like my lunch, now, please.





28 comments
dee
July 16, 2006 at 1:50 pm
1Sienna! Swell of you to finally weigh in here. And on such a timely subject, too.
I believe there are many lessons to be learned from “Cars.” For me, the most important one is keep your front end aligned and your injectors cleaned, or that $29.99 Earl Scheib repaint job won’t mean a thing.
Maximum Bob
July 16, 2006 at 3:01 pm
2What’s death for an automobile? Reincarnation!
No joke too obvious…
piglet
July 16, 2006 at 4:40 pm
3I boycotted Brave Little Toaster for the same logic. Let’s not pretend our appliances have little angst-ridden lives. Life is complicated enough, what with the mermaids and the singing lobsters and whatnot.
Harold
July 16, 2006 at 5:30 pm
4I was convinced this was a sequel to the Stephen King short story “Trucks” (badly made as “Maximum Overdrive”) and was too terrified to go.
hedera
July 16, 2006 at 8:49 pm
5I’m with Sienna. This thing sounds like a total weird out. And I like cars, and can usually tell the model from the styling except for the very new and the very old…
Rust is death for cars in states where they salt the roads to melt the snow. This is why a Californian thinks cars never die. Listen to Car Talk and you’ll hear about rust. Trouble is, from the ads I’ve seen, “Cars” seems to be set in California, which makes NO sense…
hedera
July 16, 2006 at 8:57 pm
6Not to mention that I don’t WANT my automobile - or any other appliance or device - nattering at me! Just shut up and do what I tell you. It’s bad enough when they flash idiot lights at you, and print FASTEN SEATBELT on the console.
Evan
July 16, 2006 at 11:33 pm
7While we’re at it, can we talk about why, in a world entirely populated by cars, with no humans at all, they grow food crops? And why every city and town is named after a body part (i.e., Radiator Springs, Carburetor County…)? And how the hell George Carlin’s character had heard of Jimi Hendrix? Was Jimi Hendrix a car? How can a car play guitar?
Bombadil
July 17, 2006 at 8:39 am
8Would this be an appropriate time to point out that “Cars” is a cartoon?
YLlama
July 17, 2006 at 10:49 am
9Harold, did you say badly remade as Maximum Overdrive? That was Emilio Estevez’s finest hour. “I got eggs on.” Genius.
Kip W
July 17, 2006 at 11:40 am
10How could anything that’s not Repo Man be Emilio Estevez’s finest hour?
That’s a good place to start, as RM was a movie about an Otto. (ba-DUM!) One of the characters has a theory that the more you drive, the less intelligent you are. Yet, here are beings that drive constantly, yet they’re smart enough to talk and have a civilization and Jimi Hendrix and tongues. And they act like they’re, well, possessed.
It’s like this is the anti-Repo Man.
Maybe if I watch it, I’ll understand. When it comes to TV, perhaps.
historyenne
July 17, 2006 at 12:02 pm
11It’s never a very good idea to subject children’s movies to logical analysis. I remember hearing that after Finding Nemo kids were flushing their goldfish down the toilet to “set them free in the ocean.” That said, I had many of the same thoughts as Sienna while watching Cars, particularly about the predestination based on make and model.
norbizness
July 17, 2006 at 12:37 pm
12I can’t believe people are blathering on about Emilio Estevez’ finest hour without the final part of The Mighty Ducks trilogy being mentioned.
Brando
July 17, 2006 at 1:48 pm
13“Plus, what’s death for a car? The movie suggest it’s rust, but that’s ridiculous, my cars don’t rust. I sell them and buy new ones.”
That would seem to condone automotive slavery and/or euthanasia.
I think Pixar is trying to push us toward a Logan’s Run future, first with outdated toys getting relegated to the toybox, now with rusting cars.
SeattleDan
July 17, 2006 at 2:31 pm
14Maybe if the movie was called “Carz”, I’d get more excited about seeing it.
cooper
July 17, 2006 at 4:30 pm
15Or “Czar”, SeattleDan, a parody of Dr. Zhivago, where the Whites kickbutt and continue to rule.
Off Target, well I’m certainly feeling chipper for a Monday, at least since I’ve been home. The ferel cat that pumped out the kittens in my garage; that hasn’t let me near her; that I’ve been feeding for 2 months now and still hisses at me - that cat - is now safely imprisoned in a very primative cat trap fabricated from a laundry basket sitting on a piece of plywood, with one end propped up by a stick with a fishing line tied to it. I put some cat food on a dish, slid the dish into the back of the trap and waited out of sight. My son was stategically and non-chalantly placed out in the yard. The cat went for the food, I pulled the stick out from 15 feet away and Adam and I dove on top of the basket and secured it with cable wraps.
Tomorrow she gets spayed, rabies and distemper shot, tested for feline leukemia and dewormed and she & the planet will be better for it. If she just doesn’t chew her way out of the basket tonight…
Dale
July 17, 2006 at 5:37 pm
16If the movie was called “Car Talk” I’d be more interested in seeing it. (And given the recent spate…okay one…of NPR-show-themed blockbusters, why not?)
jack*
July 17, 2006 at 5:48 pm
17Agreed, this movie weirded me out too. Sure it’s a fantasy, but unless it’s supposed to be surreal, fantasies need to operate by some consistent set of rules. The pitch for this one was “It’s like a regular movie, but they’re all cars!” and it never really went beyond that. They have a highly advanced, technological society which they operate by, what, bumping things with their tires?
Also I was left cold by the odd automobile fetishism. The cars are photographed in a slick sexy way, and everything’s shiney and fast. All the old models are lovingly maintained and beautifully painted, possessing a strange nostalgia for ’50s-era Route 66. Ick.
One final mistake, which fits with the story but it nonetheless wrong, is the eyes. Everyone knows that headlights are the eyes of a car, not the windsheild.
Just Jay
July 17, 2006 at 5:52 pm
18The Tappet Brothers do make a couple of appearances in the movie, so I guess it’s semi-NPR-show-themed.
Extra credit to those who get the pun.
Jay
Not a pipe
July 17, 2006 at 8:51 pm
19I just had a thought about weekend NPR show based movies:
If they made a Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me movie would Roeper have to recuse himself from reviewing it?
Maximum Bob
July 17, 2006 at 9:48 pm
20Had to get a new keyboard; the old one melted down when I tried to type, “Emilio Estevez’ finest hour.”
ice weasel
July 18, 2006 at 8:11 am
21Randy Newman called, he said he has your lunch *all* ready for you.
Oh, and I got a note from Sarah McLachlan as well, she wanted me to pass along that it was odd your husband found her “disembodied voice” disturbing since he appears to be married to a pseudonym.
Just sayin.
scw
July 18, 2006 at 9:24 am
22This is a world inhabited by cars. Not people. So, therefore, they are not our appliances anymore. There would be no 14 year old shopping around. It was an allegory, not a story about ACTUAL cars.
Dale
July 18, 2006 at 9:44 am
23Wonder what’s in the works at Pixar: A Virus’s Life (with that 70s-style “retrovirus” and the hip, urban bacterium E. Ko Lie. What up E?) Can they develop resistance before the drug companies come out with a new antibiotic? Or “Lint”–fall in love with those cute, fluffy dust bunnies, as they struggle to avoid the broom.
vachon
July 18, 2006 at 5:44 pm
24I’m afraid if my car ever started talking, it’d snicker about how I have no life and then tell every other vehicle in Publix’s parking lot.
Murray
July 19, 2006 at 7:52 pm
25All my car would say is “Oh yea? Let’s see how you look at 350,000 miles.
Murray
July 19, 2006 at 7:58 pm
26Back in the 40’s or 50’s there was a Disney cartoon about earth from an alien’s view. They saw that the dominant life on earth was cars. Between roads, parking lots (social gathering) and garages (homes) the terrain appears to be devoted to them. They also noted that often the cars were plagued with parasites, (humans).
Pete IVDL
July 23, 2006 at 3:12 pm
27Coop, I have the strongest premonition that you may have said something to your son like “Now, watch and learn how to catch a
mousecat, Junior…” while unpacking the ACME laundry box and ACME string… Are you sure that no violins were pizzicato-ing as you snuck away to pull the string?And if it didn’t work, your son would have said (with an oh-so-cute lisp, “Oh Father, I’m tho athhamed”.Pete IVDL
July 23, 2006 at 3:26 pm
28Ohhh. I didn’t even notice the byline. Welcome, Mrs. Sienna!
Murray, someone (I think Ray Bradbury) wrote a short story involving aliens coming across the remnants of civilisation, and their only artefact from the extinct civilisation was a Walt Disney cartoon; so they assumed that the dominant lifeforms on earth were cartoon cars with big bouncy wheels, and physics-defying abilities to turn and fly.
If I was predestinated as a car, I think it would be a Hillman Hunter. It’s an old Australian car, much like a square volkswagen with tiny pointy tailfins, bicycle-thin tires, swept-back roof (made it look like it was wind-tunnel tested, but I think was a smudge left on the blueprint by a coffee spill that made it into production). Boxy but bad.