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thedragonemperess · 2 years

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👀 You should give me a run down on *checks notes* everything Cars related. Assuming I only remember like four events from all the movies combined. And that time the dude with the hitch was a spy.

You just opened a fucking HUGE can of worms, and now you gotta lie in it.

So we start off with Cars 1. I mean this in the best way possible, I am not telling you anything about the opening scene. The opening scene is the BEST scene in the ENTIRE FRANCHISE and if there is anything I want you to experience first-hand, it is that. Even after watching this movie a million times (which I may or may not have done), this scene still gets me hyped. Go watch it. (Also, the song is a fucking banger. Stream Real Gone by Sheryl Crow.)

Okay, and so here we're introduced to Strip Weathers, Chick Hicks, Lightning McQueen, and LMQ's main motivation.

Strip "The King" Weathers is planning to retire after this race, and he's kind of like the last of the elders left on the track, if that makes sense. He works as someone to give LMQ advise and be a rival to who is basically the primary antagonist of this movie.

Chick Hicks is the primary antagonist of this movie. He does not mind cheating to win, he is a fucking asshole to others, he has willfully almost committed manslaughter on like three separate occasions, and I hope he dies a million deaths.

Lightning McQueen is the main protagonist, okay? We all know this, this is a surprise to literally no one. He starts out as this cocky, full-of-himself asshole who would rather have fame than be a genuinely nice person. This changes later on through being in Radiator Springs, but that's how he starts off.

Anyway, from the scene I showed you, Chick starts a giant car pile up, Lightning makes it through, when they all go for a pit-stop, Lightning doesn't get new tires because he's a fucking idiot, while he's in the lead his tires pop, and there ends up being a three-way tie between Strip, Chick, and Lightning, but Lightning only managed to tie by the tip of his tongue. Literally.

This is revealed after Strip tries to give Lightning some advice but Lightning spaces out the entire time because he's imagining what it would be like to race for Dinoco. Big surprise, the winner of this race was supposedly going to be Dinoco's new Golden Boy! A tie-breaker race between Chick, Strip, and Lightning is scheduled to happen in California, but Lightning has to do a meeting with his sponsors, Rusteeze. He doesn't like the people at Rusteeze because he doesn't like rusty cars. Totally not racist, McQueen, totally not racist.

Anyway, McQueen tells Mack, his transporter, to pull an all-nighter to get to Cali, but then we get another fucking AWESOME music scene. LIFE IS A HIGHWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY-

Then another really cool scene happens were Mack is falling asleep while driving and four hot rods show up and start fucking with him. Best scene in cinema history, I swear on my LIFE. Anyway, Lightning McQueen falls out the back of the trailer and ends up on the highway and speeds off, looking for the Interstate, but winds up in RADIATOR SPRINGS.

He, uh, he destroys the town, to put it simply. He then ends up being arrested and is taken to court the next morning. The person that takes him to the courthouse is Mater, who, get this, is a rusty tow truck. The judge ends up being Doc Hudson. (This is a surprise tool that will help us later!) Doc wants LMQ out of town but then Sally shows up, who LMQ confuses to be his lawyer, and Sally ends up getting Doc to force LMQ to fit their road.

Doc challenges LMQ to a race to get out of things, LMQ agrees, it's one lap around the butte, and LMQ loses because he can't drive on dirt. Not that important but two cars named Mini and Van (they're a couple) accidentally makes it to town. Lightning asks them for help and they just kind of run off, thinking he's insane.

Slowly but surely, the townspeople start to forgive him and he starts to grow as a person. (Doc gives him racing advice at some point but Lightning doesn't listen.) Because the road is looking so much better than it was before, the townspeople start fixing up their respective establishments. Lightning goes to Doc's clinic while looking for Sheriff so he can get his gas to finish up the road but Doc is doctoring on Sheriff so he leaves. He ends up finding Doc's garage, and, surprise, Doc is actually the Fabulous Hudson Hornet!! Lightning tells the town, they laugh, that's that. Lightning and Mater go tractor tipping and LMQ talks about what it would be like to work for Dinoco.

"No more rusty old cars-"

"What's wrong with rusty old cars?"

"....Well, not you, Mater. Other rusty old cars."

LIGHTNING MCQUEEN, DO YOU HEAR HOW RACIST THIS SOUNDS?!

Whatever, the tractors end up running through the town the next day, Lightning sees Doc driving, there's this big argument, Lightning finishes the road, buys something from every single towns person and fixes the lights that the town used to have. The lights were used to impress Sally because....there was a romance plot going on that I forgot to bring up. Honestly they just went on a drive to an abandoned restaurant and talked about what the town used to be and Sally offered him a room at the Cozy Cone Hotel, it really wasn't that much.

Lightning is forced to go to California because Doc called the media, Doc realizes that this wasn't best for everyone but was only best for him (just like how Lightning said that Doc hadn't done anything for anyone other than him in a while because he's lived in this town for decades and none of his friends knows who he actually is [part of the big argument]). Doc and the towns people go to the race as his pit crew.

Chick, oh my fucking God, CHICK, decides to ram into Strip and causes Strip to have a really bad crash. Lightning forefeits winning in order to help Strip, no one likes Chick anymore, Lightning is offered to work for Dinoco, he declines in favor of Rusteeze, and Lightning moves his base to Radiator Springs, therefore putting this long-abandoned town back on the map.

So that's the first movie, right? Now for me to get into analyzing different parts of this movie because I enjoy this far too much.

So, like, Doc ended up in Radiator Springs because he was forced to stop racing after a big crash. He became pretty closed off and bitter, so LMQ, a famous race car, coming into town isn't exactly the best thing that could have happened to him. But with Lightning becoming a better person through this town helping him, Lightning is kind of helping Doc go through some of the same character development. Doc learns to really come to terms with everything, realizes that he's been lying to himself and others for an unreasonably long time, and steps back into the racing world as Lightning's crew chief. I just think that Lightning and Doc's character development paralleling each other in opposite directions is kind of cool.

(Also, I don't think Lightning was an entirely different person because of Radiator Springs, I just think that fame changed him a lot and RS brought out the him before that.)

Also, I saw someone say that when Chick was talking to Lightning about the twins (Lightning's biggest fans, Mia and Tia), Lightning's mind wanders to that drive with Sally, and how that shows that before RS, he thought that what the twins were giving him was love, when it was really just adoration from a distance, and that what he had with Sally was actual love. And I fucking love that observation so much.

This post is so long already and I'm only just starting Cars 2 XD

(I also would just like to say for the record that as I started writing this part, I started watching Cars 3, too.)

Alright, so, Cars 2's plot is so out of left field in comparison to the plot of the first one, it's fucking insane. It starts off with Finn McMissile sneaking onto an oil rig because a secret agent that was in deep cover ended up being killed on the job. Finn is then spotted and a bunch of lemons (the name for a specific group of cars) then start chasing him and shooting at him, and a huge part of the rig blows up, therefore killing a bunch of lemons, and then Finn jumps into the water and becomes a fucking submarine car and what the actual fuck is happening?

So the big bad guy (or so we think) is like "Now that that bitch is fucking DEAD, who could possibly stop us now?" and then it cuts to Mater who says "Mater! Tow Mater! That's who! Is HEREEEEEE to help!" because his friend, Otis, who is a lemon, broke down outside of RS.

Blah blah blah, McQueen is back in town, it's revealed that Doc died, Mater breaks into Wheel Well and pretends to be a waiter so that he can eavesdrop on McQueen and Sally- wait, did I just say that Doc fucking died?!!?

Yep. I did. They just kind of... gloss over that. Like, it's just a simple thing about how it felt wrong to have someone else win the Piston Cup the first year after Doc died. That's fucking it. Like, what the fuck???

Anyway, at Wheel Well, Mater calls into the Mel Dorado Show and secures McQueen a spot in the World Grand Prix. At the first, like, I don't know, party or something? For the race, Mater accidentally gets in the crossfire of some spy bullshit and Finn (with his new partner, Holley Shiftwell) confuse him for some American spy.

They hack into Mater's headset during LMQ's first race in Tokyo, causing him to lose the race, LMQ yells at him (so we admit that LMQ is still an asshole, then?) and Mater decides to go back to RS, but gets completely pulled into the spy bullshit.

Throughout this entire movie, Mater is constantly being told in some way or another that he's nothing more than an incompetent, idiot tow truck, so that kind of fucks with him, y'know?

Anyway because nothing else in this movie really matters other that we kind of just skip to the end. Apparently, the lemon conspiracy was to create a fake biofuel that would have this giant race, the World Grant Prix, to promote it, in which all the racers would be required to use it. However, when aimed at with a high electromagnetic pulse, it'll cause your engine to blow. Therefore, the world would turn on renewable fuel and lemons, who were the lowest minority according to the Cars Universe (also, lemon is, like, an in-universe slur, just felt like I should mention that), would become super rich and powerful because, like mentioned before, they had complete control of the largest oil reserve in the fucking world.

The last race doesn't require the racers to use Alinol because it's supposedly dangerous, LMQ uses it anyway, Mater blows his cover because he's horrified that the lemons are planning on killing LMQ, he, Holley, and Finn get kidnapped, Mater escapes to warn LMQ only to realize that there was a bomb planted on him that could only be deactivated through the voice of the person that said it, Mater figures out that the real bad guy was Sir Axelrod (the guy that organized the WGP in the first place), and Sir Axelrod goes to jail while Mater gets knighted by the Queen of fucking England.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that Mater almost blew up the Queen of motherfucking England???

(Oh, and Holley and Mater are dating now. Felt like I needed to mention that.)

Yeah, this movie was a fever dream. It's my favorite one of the three, though, so I refuse to insult it.

Now for smaller moments, LMQ is introduced to this Italian race car named Francesco Bernoulli. There's this bit where they first meet that directly parallels the bit in Cars 1 where LMQ is flirting with Sally. I'm just gonna link the post I made on that bit here. Also, Francesco gets a custom bumper sticker made that just says "Ciao, McQueen!" and then at the end of the movie, LMQ makes one that says "Ka-ciao, Francesco!" Anyway, my point is that there is no heterosexual explanation for that.

And then there's the fact that Mater's character arch in this movie is basically "I'm being told to be different than I really am, and that I'll only ever be on thing, but what I need to do is embrace what I really am, regardless of what everyone else thinks, because I'm the only one that has any true authority over myself."

.........Mater is fucking trans-coded.

Then there's Lightning McQueen stuff. The first thing I wanna talk about with him comes from the first one and goes into the second one. One of my favorite ways to view the first movie is McQueen overcoming his personal, bigoted beliefs (rusty cars) on his own. Like, yeah, he gets some help every now and then, but it's not as if his hand is being held through every step of the way. And then the way he treats Mater and realizes his wrong-doings is him realizing and amending some of the beliefs that he still holds on a smaller scale.

LMQ is intersex coded. A running joke in the first movie is that LMQ doesn't have headlights and that they're just stickers because he's a race car and doesn't need real ones. And upon telling people this, only male cars are surprised by this, meanwhile female cars don't really question this. In Sally's case, she gives him an affectionate nickname based on it. However, we are told that Lightning McQueen is a man throughout this entire movie. Then in the second one, we see Lightning getting real headlights put in. Almost as if it was like, y'know, top surgery or something.

Also, two background characters, Sarge and Fillmore, are shown on a dinner date when the group was in Italy and then at the end, Fillmore is like "If you're saying that I switched out Alinol with my organic fuel because I never trusted Axelrod in the first place, you're dead wrong, man! It was him," while pointing at Sarge. Sarge says "Once big oil, always big oil *glances nervously at Fillmore* Man." Fillmore, teasingly, "Tree hugger." (Sarge calls Fillmore a tree hugger in a somewhat derogatory manner earlier in the movie.)

I'm sorry, but, like, those two are definitely dating.

But also, the idea that a minority just doesn't wanted to be treated like shit anymore, so they decide to do something bad, and we're supposed to root against them because they decided to do something bad, despite the fact that it came from genuine issues and trauma having to do with the way society functions??

Didn't realize we were gonna go there, Cars Universe, but go off, I guess.

And then there's Cars 3.

So, uh.... I don't like Cars 3?

Don't get me wrong, it's a really good movie, but I have my issues with it, y'know?

It starts of by mirroring Cars 1, with the whole "I am speed" and racing montage thing. Here, we're introduced to Cal Weathers, Bobby Swift, and Jackson Storm.

Cal Weathers is the nephew of Strip Weathers and is the new racer for Dinoco. He's a bit slow, and I don't mean that speed-wise, but, like, I am, too. He's adorable and I love him so much.

Bobby Swift is basically only there to take Chick's place since it was three cars in the first movie, however, instead of being an antagonistic asshole, he's the friend that completes the trio.

Then, finally, there's Jackson Storm. He's meant to be the antagonist.... I guess? Like, there's nothing that really makes me want to hate him, y'know? Like, with Chick, I hated him with a burning passion. With Professor Z (Axelrod's spokesperson for the lemons) and Sir Axelrod, I was conflicted because what they were doing was super bad, but they also had a point. Those are the two ways that you should really be looking for in a villain. Hell, even if the viewer likes the villain better than the protagonist, that's still good!! Because it means that you wrote a good villain!! But with Jackson Storm, he's just kind of..... there. Like, he's ageist. That's kind of fucked up. But that's..... that's it. And even then, it's ageism in the same way that you would hear someone say "You scream like a girl." It's wrong, yeah, but it's ingrained into our heads so even if we have progressive beliefs, we'd still end up thinking or saying it from time-to-time because that's just kind of how society works. Jackson Storm is such a dry antagonist and it honestly kind of sucks, because he has so much potential as a character.

Anyway, Jackson beats McQueen out of nowhere despite being a rookie, even more Next Gens start showing up which causes other racers to either be fired or retire, like Bobby and Cal, respectively. McQueen crashes and has to heal and decides that if he's gonna beat Storm, he needs to train like him. Rusty and Dusty, owners of Rusteeze, sell the company to an even bigger company run by a guy named Sterling (your stereotypical billionaire capitalist who claims to be on your side but has money as his first priority no matter what) and ends up being trained by Cruz Ramirez.

(Oh, also, Chick Hicks has a talk show now called Chick's Picks with Chick Hicks. He has a super smart data analyst on the show named Natalie Certain.

The thing about Chick is that, while he is an asshole, you aren't just born an asshole. Something has to make you that way. And while some of that can be chopped up to fame getting to him and the fact that he was always coming second to the same person, but there's no way that that can be it. Like, murder isn't really the kind of thing that something that simple will cause you to do. Which means that there was something from his past that caused this switch.

Which, when thinking about his character like that, it honestly makes him a lot more interesting. Especially since Doc's story kind of went the same way. He was this confident, happy kid until his crash, and then the racing world abandoned him, and he started to become more closed off and depressed and bitter towards the world. Having the main antagonist have such a big and clear parallel to the main role model is so cool, in my opinion.

Like, my love-hate relationship with Chick Hicks is definitely leaning on the hate side, but he is the kind of guy that I'd want to put under a microscope and study or put in a cage and poke with a stick, y'know?)

Sterling says that if McQueen doesn't win the first race of the next season he's gonna have to retire. McQueen agrees, Cruz starts training him, but it really ends up with McQueen training Cruz. There's this big thing where they end up at a demolition derby and by a stroke of luck Cruz wins and earns her first trophy. See, the thing about this was that they were undercover and at the end of this their cover was blown. While driving back to the training facility, McQueen blows up and is just a huge asshole to Cruz about everything that has happened so far. Cruz's tragic backstory is revealed here but what I wanna focus on is OH LOOK! LMQ IS BEING AN ASSHOLE AGAIN, AFTER CLAIMING TO HAVE LEARNED HIS LESSON!!!

I know that the whole point of Cars 1 was for McQueen to be a huge dick, but he learns his lesson in the end. In the second movie, that behavior is repeated, and then he claims to have learned his lesson. In the third movie, and you're not gonna believe this, that behavior is repeated, and then he claims to have learned his lesson. This is honestly one of the reasons why, while I love him, I just don't like him. He's kind of like the Sharpay Evans of these movies, y'know? He goes through character development in each movie, only for it to be scrapped for the next one. But the thing about why it's somewhat likable in Sharpay but not in McQueen is that Sharpay is A, the antagonist and B, a child. McQueen is neither of those things. It just becomes tiring and annoying at the end of the day.

Anyway, what I didn't mention is that Doc being dead is, like, a huge thing in this movie. LMQ and Cruz end up going to Thomasville, which is a fictional place in the state of George, because that's where Doc used to race and where his family lives. They help him and Cruz train and then they get to Florida for the race. McQueen races for half of it, but then when Sterling is trying to get Cruz to go back to the training center, McQueen stops racing and gets Cruz to take his place. Smokey, Doc's best friend (brother? Cousin?), who was acting as Lightning's crew chief, is then replaced by LMQ, who is acting as Cruz's crew chief, therefore cementing his place as the new Doc Hudson of the narative.

Cruz beats Jackson, it comes up as both Lightning and Cruz winning, Lightning can keep racing if he so chooses, but he decides to continue training Cruz. Tex, the owner of Dinoco, buys out Sterling. There's a quick clip with them racing at the butte that parallels the ending clip of the first movie, where Lightning was racing at the butte with Doc.

The only thing about this is that, like, we're also supposed to be really happy that they managed to beat Jackson, but, like, if anything, I'm just glad that Cruz proved her worth as a racer. Lightning beating Jackson is far from satisfying because I just..... didn't like any of them.

(There's also a series of movies called Planes. I've only seen the first one out of the two and I haven't watched them in years, but I wanted to at least bring it up because they take place in the same universe.)

That kind of leads us to where we are now. Last year, Disney announced that there was going to be a Cars series. A few days ago, the trailer for the series, which would officially be named Cars on the Road, was released. It's going to follow Mater and McQueen on a road trip to get to Mater's sister's wedding. You can watch it here, if you'd like!

To be completely honest, there is DEFINITELY some stuff that I missed while typing this out. I can talk about these movies for ages, and because it was already getting so long, I didn't bring up any of the shorts, comics, or books. But yeah, that's that. Imma just link my fics here, like you asked earlier, and that'll be it.

For now, anyway.

(Not) In A Rush

Something Straight Out Of A Postcard

Dancing With The Storm

The Stars Cannot Compare

Wild For Wheels

The Joy Of Painting (Each Other)

A Mornin' Cup Of Joe

Thinking Out Loud

Broken Walls (Hurt Like Shattered Glass)

Kiss Or Kill

#ive written a lot more cars fanfiction than ive thought #answering asks #bunny boo #cars stuff #my writing #no but genuinely there is so much stuff i could talk about #i didnt talk about how perfect the timing of the lyrics with the opening scene in the first movie is #i didnt talk about why most people thought that the time jump between the second and third movie was too big when it really wasnt #i didnt talk about how mater and lmqs song in the second movie also fits excruciatingly well as a lightning/francesco song #i didnt talk about finn mcmissiles character development and how important the opening scene of cars 2 is to understanding his character #i could talk for so much longer but this was already long enough XD #pixar cars

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