About two weeks ago, Pixar shocked the internet with a teaser trailer for the new movie "Cars 3" that will be released in June of 2017. If you haven't seen it yet, watch below:
There is a trend in Pixar movies that has been uncovered. The third movie to a series often has a darker twist. In "Toy Story 3," Andy's toys nearly died in a garbage dump. Clearly, the "Cars" franchise has followed this grim turn according to this teaser trailer. The first two movies were very lighthearted and the third is already becoming a big tonal shift.
The teaser trailer shows the legendary Lightning McQueen spinning out of control and landing himself in a smoking pile of wreckage. Then, the screen fades to black and displays: "From this moment, everything will change." The teaser has been played during Disney's new movie, "Moana."
Many people have made theories as to what this trailer could mean. On the day it was released, the teaser was one of the top trending tags on Twitter. People are claiming it is incredibly emotional and traumatizing to watch. Parents are refusing to show their children this trailer in fear of the questions some are asking...Is Lightning McQueen going to die?
Seeing that this is a Pixar movie, it would be quite a leap to kill off the leading role. Instead of death, people are suggesting that this movie is a throwback to the first "Cars" movie. In "Cars," Lightning McQueen meets a retired racecar named Doc Hudson. An accident forced him to retire from a racing career. He teaches the egotistical McQueen a lesson about life, that you do not race to win and sometimes you have to "turn right to go left." This leads him to purposefully lose the Piston Cup race in order to help Strip "The King" Weathers, otherwise known as the blue "Dinoco" racecar. However, Doc Hudson was not featured in Cars 2 and it is implied that he has passed away.
It is possible that Lightning McQueen will go through this traumatic crash and take on the role of Doc or Dinoco. Maybe he will lead another young, fledgling and pompous racecar in his rise to fame.
John Lasseter, the creator of Pixar animation movies, has spoken about this to Entertainment Weekly when he was asked about the plot line of the movie. He says, “Lightning McQueen, he’s awesome. We’ve got some great new characters, some great racing in it. It’s a very emotional story. It’s a little bit more akin to "Cars 1," where you get into a deep emotion with him. It’s really a special story. It’s very emotional and his relationship with Doc Hudson, and his memory of Doc Hudson.”
Some people have taken different routes in guessing what could happen. A teaser poster has been released and shows Lightning McQueen under a blue tarp material. This suggests that McQueen is going to be repaired and continue racing. The poster is shown above.
It certainly isn't a bad idea. And surely makes more sense than some theories. For example, Jason Torchinsky made a couple odd theories about this teaser. He suggests that "Maybe he comes back as a zombie and terrorizes everyone. Maybe he returns as a ghost only Sally the Porsche-lawyer can see, and helps her make pottery. Maybe he survives, quits racing, and becomes a substitute teacher who teaches troubled inner-highway cars that Car Shakespeare (a massive, lumbering steam-wagon) was really wrote rap!" People have also made a crazy assumption that Mater and Sally (characters from the previous "Cars" movies) get together and rig McQueen to fatally crash so that they can take his life insurance money. Um...what?
We do not know for sure what is in store for "Cars 3," but there are many ideas. We will find out for sure once more trailers begin to appear and when the movie is released on June 9, 2017. But for now, we are stuck analyzing everything we can on the dark, disturbing teaser in our hands.
