For some Pixar fans, the Cars series represents a fork in the road; the moment when Pixar ended its “run of greatness” and “lost its way” after a decade-long string of critical and commercial hits. Writers hold up this franchise as evidence of a corruption in the beloved animation studio’s “soul”; many believe it’s responsible for Pixar’s “first bad movie.”
Children’s entertainment is full of anthropomorphized objects and animals. To kids, talking automobiles are no more or less strange than babies who are bosses or teenage turtles who get mutated into ninja warriors. But to the parents and adults who watch the Cars movies with these children, their internal logic and rules are a source of endless fascination.