Doogie Hauser
Midfield
Cars 3 (2017)
I’ve seen this enough times now to know it pretty much off by heart. It’s interesting watching my little lad grow increasingly aware of the meaning behind what’s happening as he gets older. I’ve tried to look at the themes underpinning it on each watch. I’ve had to, since we watch every other week!
At face value, it’s about a racer getting muscled out by technological advances. That’s what my son is grasping. ‘Jackson is faster’ is the summary. It’s fascinating for me, though, because that reflects real life generational divisions, where people can’t keep up with the pace of tech and society, and feel increasingly marginalised. No matter how much McQueen tries to adapt, he just can’t compete. All of his peers bow out because they’re obsolete. That’s quite a grim message.
There’s also something to be said in the film about the breakdown of community, and the conflict between the old and new. McQueen and his competitors have a friendly, respectful rivalry based around tweaking performance using a bit of rough and ready flair. Storm and his ilk are cold and professional, without that sense of community and respect, who make all their incremental improvements on simulators. It’s like two different visions of society - the rose tinted vision of the past, compared to the cut and thrust of the corporate-fuelled present, where people just don’t connect anymore. Where winning is more important than the joy of the event. Again, it’s a bit bleak.
It’s very similar to the threads of Cars 1, about the loss of history, community and plastic winners.
Yet it’s not all unpleasant. There’s quite a strong message about self-belief, and adapting your life as you get older to accept new challenges. It’s quite bittersweet when McQueen realises that Doc’s life after racing was empty, until he found a role that gave him even more satisfaction.
It’s a brave move by the filmmakers to effectively end McQueen’s career. They could have churned out another Piston Cup yarn with him winning, but they don’t take that easy route. My lad hasn’t quite grasped all that yet. To him, it’s just McQueen and his friends beating the bad guy. It’ll be interesting to watch how he processes it all as he gets older. He understands the crash sequence at the start and it still upsets him a bit. That’s about it, though. The rest is just a fun film with crazy bits like the Thunder Hollow demo derby.
Yeah. I’m massively overthinking a ‘family’ film. Haway man, I’ve watched it about 35 times. I do like it, though. It’s a cracking film with some actual narrative depth once you look beyond the surface. It’s braver than I’d expect from a cartoon, and the narrative is punctuated by several good sequences.
8/10
10/10 from the boy.
I’ve seen this enough times now to know it pretty much off by heart. It’s interesting watching my little lad grow increasingly aware of the meaning behind what’s happening as he gets older. I’ve tried to look at the themes underpinning it on each watch. I’ve had to, since we watch every other week!
At face value, it’s about a racer getting muscled out by technological advances. That’s what my son is grasping. ‘Jackson is faster’ is the summary. It’s fascinating for me, though, because that reflects real life generational divisions, where people can’t keep up with the pace of tech and society, and feel increasingly marginalised. No matter how much McQueen tries to adapt, he just can’t compete. All of his peers bow out because they’re obsolete. That’s quite a grim message.
There’s also something to be said in the film about the breakdown of community, and the conflict between the old and new. McQueen and his competitors have a friendly, respectful rivalry based around tweaking performance using a bit of rough and ready flair. Storm and his ilk are cold and professional, without that sense of community and respect, who make all their incremental improvements on simulators. It’s like two different visions of society - the rose tinted vision of the past, compared to the cut and thrust of the corporate-fuelled present, where people just don’t connect anymore. Where winning is more important than the joy of the event. Again, it’s a bit bleak.
It’s very similar to the threads of Cars 1, about the loss of history, community and plastic winners.
Yet it’s not all unpleasant. There’s quite a strong message about self-belief, and adapting your life as you get older to accept new challenges. It’s quite bittersweet when McQueen realises that Doc’s life after racing was empty, until he found a role that gave him even more satisfaction.
It’s a brave move by the filmmakers to effectively end McQueen’s career. They could have churned out another Piston Cup yarn with him winning, but they don’t take that easy route. My lad hasn’t quite grasped all that yet. To him, it’s just McQueen and his friends beating the bad guy. It’ll be interesting to watch how he processes it all as he gets older. He understands the crash sequence at the start and it still upsets him a bit. That’s about it, though. The rest is just a fun film with crazy bits like the Thunder Hollow demo derby.
Yeah. I’m massively overthinking a ‘family’ film. Haway man, I’ve watched it about 35 times. I do like it, though. It’s a cracking film with some actual narrative depth once you look beyond the surface. It’s braver than I’d expect from a cartoon, and the narrative is punctuated by several good sequences.
8/10
10/10 from the boy.
