In a recent press conference at the Soho Hotel, John Lasseter, Sir Michael Caine, Jason Issacs and Cars 2 producer Denise Ream faced a room of sceptics to promote the under-anticipated animated feature, Cars 2. Lasseter was keen to stay on-topic, and coyly evaded a direct question about Toy Story 4.
Recently, Tom Hanks dropped the ball on the suspected Pixar project, but during the conference, Lasseter neither confirmed or denied the rumours Hanks tiny mouth had spread. Instead, he comically changed the subject, “So anyway, we’re really excited about Cars 2 is a great film we’re very proud of it and I hope it does well over here.” Leaving the inevitable question dead in the water. But in THN’s experience, where there’s smoke, there’s Woody, Buzz and Slinky dog.
As with most promotional events, Lasseter and his actors were somewhat over-zealous with their love for the movie. Since the film’s release on Friday, responses from critics have been poor, or perhaps worse, indifferent. But outside the usual sound-bite rhetoric of the conference, Lasseter stayed true to form, speaking at length, and with sincerity, about his inspiration for this picture. What many forget is that Lasseter’s last directorial project was 5 years ago, and that was the original Cars. And despite the audience’s overall aversion to Cars 2’s leading vehicle, Tow Mater, Lasseter heart lies with this character, and indeed, the Cars story. On his original inspiration for the film, Lasseter said,
“Well, when I finished doing Cars 1, and we were travelling the world I really had cars as characters on my mind, when answering questions. So as I travelled, each place I went to, I started looking out the window and trying to imagine what a car version of this city would be like. I just kept wondering what they (cars) would be like as characters, especially in London. I’ve always loved London, I came here in the summer of 1979 after I graduated from Cal Arts, and I just never forgot being in the city and seeing all the Taxis and double Decker buses and all the automobiles, but everything was Diesel engines. It just had this particular feeling to it, the sound of the cars, it never got out of my head…So we talked about having the Cars 2 the world Gran Prix in Tokyo and then Italy but we always talked about having the climax of the film in London so we could really show off the beautiful architecture, you know the car version of that. We had a lot of fun CARifying London. There are so many automotive details in the architecture, it will take you a few times to recognise all the beautiful detail, but part of it is just the fun of reimagining it, like Big Ben became Big Bentley. Someone else had a look at columns and how with a tweak it looks like a grill of an old Rolls Royce. So it was a love letter to each city.”
When asked about the passing of Paul Newman, who played Doc Hudson in the first Cars movie, we gained more of a window as to why this story appears to mean so much to him,
“But Paul Newman was a different story, Paul Newman was Doc Hudson, he was a very close friend of mine and I became very inspired by him in our recording sessions on Cars 2. Our recording sessions on Cars were almost like conversations, we would just sit in a recording studio and make sure we kept recording everything we said because we would just sit and talk about racing. He was really passionate about racing and a really good driver, real natural race car driver. You couldn’t get him to talk about acting, but racing he would talk for hours. After each session with him, it kept informing me every time I had a session, and I would tweak the scenes with the Doc Hudson character, he was Doc Hudson and Doc Hudson was him and so when we started contemplating in the new movie, lets just find a tasteful way that we can pay homage to the character and to Paul Newman.”
From the sad, humble face of Tin Toy in 1988 to the Oscar nominated juggernaut that was Toy Story 3, Pixar have always been praised for their honesty. And if we truly trust Lasseter’s values, it appears Cars 2 has more to do with his reverence for racing than a hunger for Toys R Us revenue.
Regardless of personal opinion, it appears that Pixar’s Cars are bullet, critic and fool proof. The animated sequel saw a flawless bill of 12 number 1 launches for the company, with Cars 2 opening at $67 million. John Lasseter may have created his own Jar Jar Binks, but he’s still modern bard of computer animation.
