The automotive Scrooge?

Folks who regularly read this blog can guess that I'm (figuratively) bouncing up and down on my seat for this week's premiere of Pixar's newest movie, Cars. The early reviews are starting to trickle in, and to no surprise, it looks like John Lasseter and his team of artists have crafted another fun-for-all-ages classic (Never underestimate the power of Pixar! ).

I do, however, want to shine the headlight on one particular review, this from the animation-oriented O-Meon web site:

If all of this sounds familiar…well, it should. With a few scene changes and a different setting, it could almost be the four-wheeled version of Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, with McQueen standing in as the NASCAR equivalent of Ebenezer Scrooge. Crusty old Doc Hudson, a '51 Hudson Hornet with something to hide, beautifully voiced by Paul Newman, could be the ghost of racing's past with loveable, laughable, trustworthy tow truck Mater, voiced by the usually politically incorrect comic Larry the Cable Guy standing in for Bob Cratchit. There's even a small forklift that could play the part of Tiny Tim.

The point not being that the story of Cars may be a familiar one but, rather, that like all great storytelling, it doesn't matter how often we've heard, or seen, a tale such as this before, what's really most important is how much we come to care about the story's characters.

And that, perhaps, is another key to the success of Pixar's movies: while other studioes use animation simply as an opportunity to launch a "wacky" premise, and then fill it with one-liners and potty jokes (I'm looking at you, Shark Tale), Pixar goes much deeper, giving characters and themes and subtext that's just as carefully detailed as the photorealistic backgrounds and texture-mapped visuals on the screen.

Ah, time to go bounce on the seat again...