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"Cars", "Cars", and more "Cars"

Robert Jung's picture
Submitted by Robert Jung on Mon, 03/13/2006 - 11:07am.
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Continuing my unofficial and unreliable pimpin' for Pixar's next animated movie, here are a trio of recent updates of interest to the Cars enthusiast:

  • The official Cars web site gets a major overhaul. Appropriately enough, it's set up like a showroom for an automobile manufacturer, complete with sexy showcase photos, specifications, and lots of shiny chrome everywhere. And as with other promotional sites, they plan to unveil more goodies every week, so you have an excuse to return to the site and give them more hits. Winking smiley

  • After dinking around with race-loaded previews, the first official bona-fide trailer-type Cars trailer is finally available. Unlike the afformentioned teasers, this one actually does a decent job of conveying the movie's plot and characters, including some of the movie's gorgeous (virtual) scenery.

  • Finally, USA Today recently ran a fun read on John Lasseter, Pixar's creative wunderkind and Cars director. Most of it will be familiar grounds to Lasseter-watchers, but it's still worth reading for (a) some insight into how the recent Disney-Pixar deal was received by Disney's animators, and (b) what kind of changes we can expect to see at Disney with John as Chief Creative Officer (No more cheapquels! Huzzah!)

Category - Entertainment
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dvandom's picture
The trailer killed my interest
Submitted by dvandom on Mon, 03/13/2006 - 11:56am.
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There was a full length trailer on the Howl's Moving Castle DVD, and after finishing it I had lost most of my interest in seeing Cars. Sure, it looks good, and it looks like it'll have some good humor (and the Paul Newman character is bound to have some good bits motivated by his history and that of NASCAR). But it's got the Doc Hollywood plot. Can't stand that plot (the addition of amnesia in The Majestic made it tolerable for me, but it looks like a straight use here in Cars).

Robert Jung's picture
Original plots
Submitted by Robert Jung on Mon, 03/13/2006 - 3:19pm.
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Well, there's that old saw about how there are just three (or five, or seven, depending on who you ask) true plots in all stories ever told. The "'Doc Hollywood' plot" is essentially just "Hero goes on a journey of self-discovery" with a shorter name. Smiley

One of the things that piques my interest in Cars is seeing how the entire automobile-based society works, especially in regards to the characters not having hands. Maybe it's the engineering geek in me, but just trying to work out how the characters go about their everyday lives will be fun -- which is one of the goals of moviemaking, to take you to worlds that you've never seen before...

--R.J.

dvandom's picture
Not exactly
Submitted by dvandom on Mon, 03/13/2006 - 7:49pm.
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There's finer divisions than that. The Doc Hollywood Plot is more specific than a journey of self-discovery. It's "Hot shot urbanite gets stuck in a podunk little town and learns from the simple inhabitants that there's more to life than whatever it was he thought was important." The virtue of rustic life in a backwater (and, of course, of the prettiest girl in town).

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