Cars

CARS. ("Route 66" and "The Cars," US working titles). John Lasseter, dir., co-script. Dan Fogelman et al., script, from a story by Jorgen Klublen and Joe Ranft. USA: Disney/Pixar (prod) / Disney, Buena Vista (main dist.—see IMDb for details), 2006. Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, featured voices (with comparable talent in supporting roles).

A Disney/Pixar animation, for medium and, in part, genre, in the tradition of the beast fable. In a fantasy America of plants and machines and impressive scenery, the dominant sentient forms are motor vehicles, with apparently unsentient miniature VW Beetles as insect-analogs. See for anthropomorphized cars replacing beasts in the beast fable and for a G-rated vision of machine rule: the one threatening machine is a combine—a hippy voiced by George Carlin sells organic fuel, for a possible explanation of what is farmed—and even the attack-combine has the motivation of protecting cow-analog tractors. Since we're in an alternative-universe of fantasy and not an SF future, we need not worry about what happened to all Terran animal life, but Manohola Dargis, reviewing Cars in the New York Times for 9 June 2006, notes that the film outdoes J. Cameron's TERMINATOR in its removal of life-forms. One might use the Search function on the Wiki for "automobile," "car," "truck," "vehicle"—and cf. and contrast.

(RDE, 09/06/06, 27Dec14)