Kids don’t usually go to the movies by themselves. Disney™ figured that out a long time ago. No one makes animated features these days without putting in something for all members of the audience.
Some of the stuff is intentional and we delight in sharing the easter eggs (ShadiRoxan had never noticed that the hills in the background look like the fenders of 40-50s “swoopy” cars or that the clouds are tire tracks until I pointed them out) Some of the stuff is unintentional, and tells us interesting things about the animators based on the assumptions presented. Some of the stuff isn’t really there, and tell us interesting things about the person reading that into the work.
My oldest was into this movie and we watched it like a million times as well. I started doing the same thing (analyzing the movie) just for fun.
My theory-
It is 20 years in the future and our computing abilities and modeling technologies have increased to an astonishing point. Supercomputers, housed and shared by Universities and Governments, can model complex groups of people and civilizations (think almost Matrix like) to better understand how changes can impact groups and people.
A few grad students (and car buffs) decide to tinker with a standard civilization model, removing the people and assigning intelligences to the cars and other vehicles just to see what will happen and how the computer will fill in the details and make rules. The inconsistencies we see are the areas the model failed to find adequate rules to address the demands from the creators (grad students).
My niece was (and still is) a big “Cars” fan. (IDK if she’s seen “Planes”.) She would write “Cars” fanfiction, and translated Guido and Luigi’s dialogue into Italian, using Babelfish. She was about 10 years old at the time.
And yes, there is pornographic “Cars” fanfiction, for the people who wonder how they reproduce. There’s also a scene where the Miata twins flash their headlights.
Your epiphany seems merely to exchange one set of questions for another.
However, it has also provided the inspiration for the next movie, Pixar’s Circus Cars! Come one, come all to The Greatest Car Show on Earth, The Lincoln Brothers Buick and Bentley Circus!
SEE astounding acts of acrobatic vehicular stuntwork, performed without an hydraulic safety lift!
THRILL to the spectacle and thunder of Colonel Grand Cherokee’s Wild West Show!
GASP as Caterpillar trainer Maximilian Mercedes-Benz commands a fearsome menagerie of savage earthmoving machinery!
LAUGH at the the Clown Cars, including the hilarious antics of Emmett the Prius!
And of course, visit the Sideshow to be amazed and educated by the strangest collection of Automotive Oddities ever assembled under one tent! Including Bigfoot the Monster Truck! The Smart Family, smallest family on Earth! Hilda the Hummer, 8600 pounds of seductive SUV! Tesla the Electric Car, who drinks nothing but a thunderbolt cocktail of fiery lithium ions! And the astounding Millie, the Mermaid Car! (Millie is actually a boat.)
Somehow, despite having a nephew who loves racecars and CGI movies, have never seen Cars. I’ve seen a few bits and pieces here and there, so I get the idea. Reading through this topic, I have to ask, are the cars with subservient roles happy? Because if so, then it seems that Cars is remarkably similar to Brave New World. Everyone is born into a certain caste as is perfectly happy in the role they are given. Anyone who doesn’t fit that mold is any outcast.
Planes addressed this point. Dusty Crophopper is a crop duster airplane who isn’t happy with his role in life; he wants to be a racing plane. At the risk of spoiling the movie, he achieves his dream.
Out of nowhere, a lonely neuron fired this morning, and it suddenly occurred to me that my casual association of dwarfism with the circus profession was in fact tremendously inappropriate, the sort of joke that I would not make to the face of a person with dwarfism. I apologize.
I realize this is a zombie thread, but the OP would likely be interested in The Pixar Theory, which goes much deeper down the rabbit hole than even the OP. Fascinating concept.
The film kinda suggests that those little forklifts are the most numerous vehicles in the Cars universe. The vast majority that are watching the competition are those forklifts. They also seem to be the only vehicles that can proficiently grab and use tools. The maintain the aircraft on the aircraft carrier for example. Seems to me all other type of vehicles have been created for their use and amusement.
