Don’t to be fooled by the simplicity of Cars — it pays homage to Miyazaki, Route 66, small towns and a code of honor. Unless otherwise noted, all images © Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved. 

Don’t be fooled by the trailers or promotional tie-ins: There’s more to Cars than meets the eye at first glance. It’s deceptively simple in its animation and storytelling — and the prettiest piece of 3D-animated eye candy yet — so there’s definitely more underneath the hood of Pixar’s latest animated feature (opening June 9, 2006, from Disney). In fact, there’s something for everyone in John Lasseter’s most mature and personal pet project, in which hotshot rookie race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) finds himself unexpectedly detoured in the sleepy Route 66 town of Radiator Springs, where he encounters life lessons with a slew of off-beat characters, including Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), a ‘51 Hudson Hornet and the cranky town leader; Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), a snazzy 2002 Porsche; and a rusty, lively tow truck named Mater (Larry the Cable Guy).

Cars is about enjoying life’s journey rather than speeding ahead to finish first (a nod to Miyazaki, to be sure); it’s an ode to Route 66, the Mother Road that serves as the legendary American artery connecting north to south and east to west; it’s a tribute to the vanishing community of small towns; it embraces the value of family and friendship; it’s about individual sacrifice, mentoring and respecting your elders; and childhood memories and super 8 home movies; and the thrill of NASCAR, racing movies and Paul Newman movies. (The Color of Money, anyone?) But most of all, it’s about Lasseter’s love of cars, from Hot Wheels right on up the line, and bringing them to life in the computer in that inimitable Pixar way.

Creating Cars on the Fly
After conquering humans in The Incredibles, the Pixar character animators literally had to switch gears with Cars, adopting a less is more philosophy, since, for the first time, they were forced to devise their own rules. “With The Incredibles, animators had to orient their minds toward very complex models,” recalls supervising animator Doug Sweetland, who concentrated on Mater. “They were definitely the most complex bi-pedal models that we’ve ever dealt with. Then going on to Cars, all of a sudden all that extra gear we had to use got stripped away. Obviously they don’t have any limbs; they don’t have anything down their fingers up to shoulders or feet up to legs. In fact, the head and the body are almost the same thing, so it became this minimal exercise in how to do the most gesture with less. Similar to Finding Nemo, but only more so. We did the most amount of research of any film on Cars: Car physics and truth to materials, which was the mantra of the show, making sure they were convincing as 3,000-pound objects. But research can take you only so far until you have to figure out a language for these living cars, because there’s no reference point.”

Pixar’s artists were compelled to use their imaginations to make the cars’ movements and gestures fit with the design. Tire movement and steering were used for dramatic effect.  

In other words, they were compelled to use their imaginations to make the movements and gestures fit with the design to achieve the fullest range of performance and emotion possible. The cars may not have arms and legs, but they could lean the tires in or out to suggest hands opening or closing in; and they could rely on steering to point to certain directions. Crucial was the design of a special eyelid and eyebrow for the windshield (inspired by the classic Disney short, Susie The Little Blue Coupe) to communicate expressiveness that cars don’t have.

“There were design elements, such as with the eyelids, which is a unique convention,” Sweetland continues. “Basically, because of the windshield, it’s like having two pupils in one eyeball. How do you suggest that the two pupils actually rest within two eye spaces? Eyes in windshield literally have more of a window to see into the character, particularly for the scenes with [Newman’s] Hud. John’s point was if you have eyes as part of the windshield, the head and body are fused. You have to reason everything through. With the eyes, we created a language specific to this movie. Not only to delineate eyeballs but also gender too. We came up with this rule that the stare step was a guy trait and the eyelid bowing up was a girl trait. There’s no reference for this, but even in fantasy terms they have their own logic.