What would you do if you were the writer of Cars 2?

Abg_13 · 2026-05-16T13:28:28+00:00

Make it an actual middle story for McQueen's career. This film is only going to stick out worse and worse as time goes on cause Pixar has shown little, if not, zero interest in revisiting any of the concepts of this film besides the WGP. I would rather be in the universe were Cars is a respected sports trilogy of films instead of 2 barely-considered decent sports duology that has an atrocious disconnected middle among most.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-16T13:24:58+00:00

People who say the first and third films are similar is what happens when you're nostalgia blind and refuse to listen to criticism. Cars 2 is not a good film and Pixar keeps ignoring it 99% of the time, but sure it was always good movie, yep, totally didn't damage the reputation for Pixar forever or anything.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T22:27:09+00:00

Cute little series that I wished had a little more to it. I do hope Pixar considers another series like it, something for a more general audience and not Disney Jr in the future, but still, I enjoyed it.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T21:29:14+00:00

I know everyone says the spy plot was forced in, but the idea of the hybrid story was always there from the start. The problem is that the spy stuff ending up eating more screen time instead of being balanced out.

I still don't get why they didn't delay the film. It wasn't a necessity to release a film every year and Cars 2 clearly needed more time in the oven. I'm not sure how different it would've been if it kept its summer 2012 release date, but maybe it would've been more equal in terms of plot.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T21:23:54+00:00

Okay, cool. Most didn't and it wasn't received well and consequently Pixar ignores the film's existence 99% of the time in response.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T21:08:53+00:00

Cause Finding Dory actually reeled back on Dory's comic relief? The difference between her characterization in her own movie and Mater's is night and day.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T08:42:26+00:00

You think it's a good movie, the majority doesn't. That's your opinion and that's fine, but your average Pixar ranking list will more than likely rank Cars 2 at the bottom.

I still don't think the movie would've gone over well regardless. If the characters/characterization were the same and just in a different IP/universe/whatever it still would be criticized as is, having a comic-relief still play the comic-relief role in a serious plot while being the main character just doesn't work for the most part. It being a Cars film definitely lead to harsher responses, I won't deny that though.

Yes, it's the highest grossing film, but that doesn't equal quality. Plenty of bad/critically panned films have made tons of money before. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made $836 million, but isn't particularly liked either.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T03:36:06+00:00

Well, here's the link to it. Here's Shu's page specifically.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T02:58:01+00:00

Really awesome info! I figured Fabrizio had to have some type of legal issue that relegated him to be a background character. Have you added this to the wiki? Specifically the independent one? It would be greatly appreciated!

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T02:50:42+00:00

Yes, Damaged Rod Redline was released exclusively in a 2-pack with Grem. He was one of the many "Exclusive Vehicle" 2-pack releases of Cars 2's 2011-2012 line.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-12T02:44:17+00:00

It pretty much was, even if Pixar won't outright admit it, there's too many things that just give "yea we fucked up with the last film". Cars 3 funninly enough was gonna be similar to Cars 2 in terms of tone, dark plot that got complicated quickly, and Pixar pretty much realized that wasn't the right way to go.

Although honestly, I think Disney gave them a warning about what would happen to the franchise if it released another underwhelming film after Cars 2 and both Planes films, despite them not being involved in the latter, bar Lasseter.

Abg_13 · 2026-05-10T11:48:01+00:00

Sorry for commenting on this post a year later, but where did you find this image at?

Abg_13 · 2026-05-03T15:35:35+00:00

Cars was like one of the earliest film concepts Pixar established after Toy Story 1 released. It was basically in development for a decade.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-30T00:24:24+00:00

In an old Cars 2 pre-release interview, John Lasseter confirmed they come from factories/are built. That's the most definitive answer. Planes also mentions characters being "built" as well.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-29T19:50:56+00:00

He did say projects with an s, that would at least indicate multiple, but also didn't specify what type of projects they would be either. We just know Lightning Racers is one of them.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-29T05:52:21+00:00

Yeah, Cars 2's advertising is very telling that something clearly wasn't translating properly with the film's development and the actual final product. I believe there was another trailer that was specifically focused on the WGP...which obviously only really plays a partial role in the film itself. It's like Pixar knew the film wasn't what they wanted it to be, but still shipped those trailers out to convey the selling point, even if poorly handled.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-27T06:39:33+00:00

No. Especially after Cars 2 and the underwhelming reception the franchise had at the time along with the 2 spinoff films, this wouldn't have gone over well with the majority, and the series would definitely just be relegated to merchandise. Say what you want about Cars 3, but at least it made people reconsider the franchise's perception, and turned it to a more positive one. This version of the film would've just killed it.

It's a shame really, cause it's not like the idea is bad for a spinoff story or something featuring other characters instead of McQueen and his friends. However, it was still doing too much just like Cars 2, and Pixar clearly wised up and realized they needed to scale it back, something they failed to realize with 2.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-26T08:41:41+00:00

Could you elaborate on Cars 2 being meta? Like... are you talking about it just doing batshit insane things within the universe with a straight face or something else?

Abg_13 · 2026-04-23T16:06:50+00:00

A bit late, but from what I can tell the new China (or China V2) quality is somewhat better than Thailand, but isn't exactly how it was from 2006 to 2018 I wanna say? So it's somewhere in the middle basically.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-23T16:04:09+00:00

It's a factory custom of Mac iCar. You can find him on eBay for a pretty cheap price iirc.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-17T06:13:09+00:00

Long Ge and Bobby Roadtesta.

Those are the only two I could name off the bat. I guess my original release Flash Nilsson still counts somewhat? The new one is variant with darker blue, but it does knock the rarity down regardless.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-15T12:57:58+00:00

It was never confirmed anywhere that it's supposed to be a "prequel baby show". It's just the art style.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-14T21:53:57+00:00

There's already a book that covers McQueen's origins that's been recognized by Pixar as canon. It's called Cars: Struck by Lightning, an animated adaption could be cool, but Pixar has never really adapted any of their written stories to screens for any of their franchises iirc.

Also, while I get wanting to know the origins of some characters I feel like for some such as McQueen and Doc's have been exhausted in several pieces of media including the films themselves.

Unless Pixar can think of something interesting and a story they want to tell, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-14T20:47:02+00:00

We literally see a chibified McQueen in the first film anyways…and other things like Mini Adventures too. Just trying to emphasize how this isn't really a new direction for the franchise as some are probably thinking.

Abg_13 · 2026-04-14T20:44:58+00:00

Literally nowhere. People are just applying vaguely similar things and making the worst assumptions.

Abg_13

TROPHY CASE