Pixar has earned its place as the powerhouse studio in the field of animation, and as such it has seen a lot of success, but one specific trilogy is the studio’s wildest movie franchise for various reasons. Pixar began its reign in animation in 1995 with Toy Story, the first entirely computer-animated feature film, which marked the beginning of years of high-quality animated movies. Toy Story continues to be Pixar’s biggest and most successful franchise, but it has also built other, smaller franchises.
Pixar began with a story about talking toys with feelings, and since then, it has explored other fun and unlikely scenarios, such as talking bugs, a world of monsters, rats who are exceptional chefs, and more. At the time of writing, and leaving Toy Story aside, Pixar has five franchises, some bigger than others: Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, and Inside Out. While they all explore different scenarios with lots of fantasy, the strangest one is, by far, Cars, and it also happens to be Pixar’s wildest franchise to date.
The Cars Trilogy Is Pixar’s Most Inconsistent Movie Franchise
Cars Failed To Have A Consistent Tone
In 2006, Pixar asked “what if cars were sentient?” and so it gave us Cars. Directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft, Cars is set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic vehicles. Cars’ focus is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a young but arrogant race car who becomes stranded in a forgotten town on his way to the most important race of his life. There he’s forced to reevaluate his priorities and learns valuable lessons about love and friendship. Cars got positive reviews and was a commercial success, spawning a franchise.
Cars
was innovative back then and was ultimately a fun watch, but the same can’t be said for the sequel.
Cars was praised for its imaginative world but not so much for its story – surely, it’s not the most complex plot, but it didn’t have to be (it’s talking cars, after all). Cars was innovative back then and was ultimately a fun watch, but the same can’t be said for the sequel. The quality of Cars 2 was a downgrade from the first movie and it feels like a direct-to-video movie rather than a theatrical one. Cars 2 follows Lightning McQueen and Mater competing at the World Grand Prix, where Mater inadvertently gets involved in a dangerous espionage mission.
Cars 3
tried to take a more serious approach by focusing on Lightning McQueen’s legacy.
While I appreciate the effort of adding more action to Cars 2, its plot was completely absurd and lost the essence of the first movie. However, it performed well at the box office, and so Cars 3 happened. Cars 3 tried to take a more serious approach by focusing on Lightning McQueen’s legacy as he, now a veteran race car, had to prove he was still competitive against a new generation of technologically advanced cars. Although it gave Lightning McQueen a fitting ending, the tone of Cars 3 is so different from its predecessors that it only established the franchise as Pixar’s wildest and most inconsistent one.
Why The Cars Franchise’s Tone Changed So Much Between Movies
The Cars Franchise Feels Very Disconnected
Cars didn’t need a sequel, but it’s widely known that if it performs well at the box office, it will most likely get a sequel. The problem I see is that Pixar never truly understood what its franchise of talking cars should be about at its core. On top of that, every Cars movie had a different team of writers, and it was evident (especially in the sequels) that there were too many ideas and styles involved in the making of those movies.
Although Cars was ultimately a successful franchise when looking at its box office numbers (earning over $1.7 billion, though that’s counting the failed Planes spin-off movies), it’s unlikely it will be dethroned as Pixar’s wildest and most inconsistent one – though that doesn’t mean that it isn’t entertaining, especially the first movie.
Cars
The Cars franchise is a highly successful animated series produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic vehicles, the franchise began with the 2006 film Cars, which follows the story of Lightning McQueen, a race car who learns about friendship and humility in the small town of Radiator Springs. The series has since expanded to include two sequels, several spin-off films, short films, and a Disney+ series. Known for its vibrant animation, memorable characters, and themes of teamwork and perseverance, the Cars franchise is also one of Disney’s most lucrative properties, especially in terms of merchandise sales.
- Created by
- John Lasseter , Joe Ranft , Jorgen Klubien
- TV Show(s)
- Cars Toons (2008) , Cars on the Road
