Cars 3 Commentary fun facts:
-The majority of the film takes place in the last two weeks of February.
-Bonnie Hunt improvised “Stinky”
-Lightning IGNORES what the arrival of next gens imply until Cal retires
-When Chick’s trophy rises from the floor in his show, the mechanism operates incorrectly to show how “nothing ever goes right near Chick”
-Mater’s sneeze gag was improvised by an animator
-In LA when Lightning is the last analog racer left, none of the next-gens pay him any physical mind and almost run into him as they go about their business in the paddock. He has to wait to them to pass.
-The character designers really wanted Jackson Storm to be so low to the ground you could only “slip a credit card beneath him” but animating car characters does not allow this.
-EACH shot of the Los Angeles race is progressively darker to represent the shroud of doom that has fallen over Lighting’s racing career. The sun has set on his days.
-The sound design for Lightning’s wreck was purposely designed to send an eerie shock through your spine.
-The story picks up 4 months later because McQueen was in recovery for that whole time.
-McQueen’s coat of primer can be viewed as two things: “pajamas”, or a cast
-Tire track clouds appear in the sky during “King’s Highway”
-The Rusteze Racing Center is in North Carolina (near Charlotte), Thunder Hollow is in Georgia, and the town of Thomasville is also in North Carolina.
-McQueen’s remark of how he “never thought he couldn’t” race is based exactly off of what John Lasseter replied when asked “how did you know you could make Toy Story?”
-Cristela Alonzo’s mother did actually tell her “dream small or not at all.”
-Owen Wilson DID NOT want to sing. But when he did, he wound up dancing a little (much like McQueen) as he recorded the lines. (apparently it was an “air-lasso” type thing)
-Lightning DOES get faster from Smokey’s training! But… Cruz gets faster too.
-Lightning knows his career is over when Cruz beats him the final time at Thomasville
-At the start of the Florida 500, Lightning has no choice to race, but according to the director, “he would probably rather go home and throw up.”
-Lightning doesn’t want “what happened to Doc to happen to him”, but that is exactly what happens to him, and it’s the best thing for him.
-Lightning is described as “stunning” at least once in the commentary, and is complimented many other times. Thankfully, the word “curvaceous” was not used this time! (It is used in the Cars 3 artbook though. Multiple times.)
-The filmmakers have no concrete explanation for how anyone was able to call Cruz’s Hamilton assistant at the end of the film ://
-They also have no explanation for why the 80′s payphone near Flo’s has a video screen
-Lightning is so focused on helping Cruz in the race that he literally does not notice how he must look on the crew chief stand, wearing a headset.
-Lightning has supposedly only paused his racing career to train Cruz
-There was supposedly more graphic design work in Cars 3 than Cars 1
-Jackson Storm’s engine sound was designed from scratch (like the rest of him) by Skywalker Sound
-The demolition derby racers were based partially off of hockey players
-Miss Fritter’s old school district is where her voice actor (Lea Delaria) went to school as a child.
-There are TWO Coco easter eggs in the film: the first on Gabirel’s treadmill screen, and the second is in the FIRST shot of miss Fritter’s bar, NOT the second shot. So look carefully!
-Randy Newman repeated sections of the Cars 1 score on purpose
-Ray Magliozzi did NOT do his late brother Tom’s lines (as rumored earlier this year), Pixar instead used audio of Tom from their radio show “Car Talk”
-Humpy Wheeler (voice of Tex Dinoco) insisted so much to Pixar that there must be a water truck in the derby scene that he actually drew them a picture of a water truck.
-Retired NASCAR superstar Jeff Gordon (much like McQueen) cannot race on a simulator.
-The Mud in the derby scene took the effects department the entire length of film production time to complete.
-The sky scenes outside Sterling’s office are a couple different matte paintings.
-Lightning was more happy watching Cruz win than he would have been if he had won himself. (And this is the same way Doc felt about Lightning back in the day.)
-Lightning’s relationship with Doc is described by the director as “mentor & mentee” but also as “father and son.” Later, Lighting’s relationship with Cruz is described the same way (but with diff. words lol).
-As Cruz flips though the air, sparks can still be seen raining off her damaged flank, and the producers named it the most beautiful shot in the entire film.
-Jackson Storm is indeed terrified of Cruz Ramirez. He keeps track of her field position the entire race regardless of his crew chief’s warnings.
(There’s not much else in the commentary that we don’t know from earlier articles and interviews tbh but there were some new things.)
