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Comment by topherjaynes | Hacker News Reader

The Story outline for cars might seem "terrible," but think about every Pixar movie's outline before you actually saw it? A movie about Toys? A Movie entirely about Rats--whose going to watch that? A Robot who doesn't talk, for how long?

And yet, each and everyone of those movies were astounding, at least in my opinion, but critics and box office receipts prove my point too.

Yes, sequels have a tendency to be purely money ploys, but luckily Pixar's sequels almost exceed the originals (Toy Story 2 and 3). I'd give the future films a chance before you even see a trailer for them.

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For me, aside from some interesting landscape rendering, Cars isn't in the same league as the other Pixar films. It felt like a pure kids movie + merchandising extravaganza.

> and box office receipts prove my point too

This isn't saying much. The cost-structure of CGI and effects-heavy films is such that you have to essentially make something that will appeal to kids and/or teens, otherwise you're hosed financially.

I can think of many great stories that I'd love to see on screen that wouldn't really appeal to kids + teens, and therefore wouldn't be feasible with the current cost-structure.

I liked Cars. I absolutely hated Up! and Wall-e with a passion.

Cars is obviously a reasonably simple storyline, but it's a good movie with good characters. Kids like cars shrug it's a movie about toy cars... what's not to like?

Better than an obese highly irritating boy scout kid hitching a lift on a house with an old guy :/

UP was strange. It was like two different movies that never quite came together. I like slapstick, but man, slapstick and cancer doesn't work. It's like there was a great and weird (good) movie in there but it got cheapened by the clowny Disney mascot kid thing.

I couldn't stand the kid and the bizarre dog voice, but I haven't thought enough about it to see a solution.

Wall-E had some nice moments -- mostly when it was trying to be Star Wars. The Eco-story and human characters were ludicrous.

I want to see what Brad Bird makes next. Incredibles and Ratatouille are by far my favourite Pixar movies.

Ratatouille just doesn't cut it for me, I don't care if it's a rat cooking food or not, the entire story just leaves me thinking "whateva".

Incredibles on other hand is perfect in every way. BTW, given the premise of this movie it's possible to make good sequel for it without resorting to "international spies in the world of racing cars".

Cars is my least favorite Pixar movie. Far too much of the payload was nostalgia for the era of Route 66. An era that my parents could have caught the tail end of. I suppose also my personal philosophy is that the past is important but that trying to lock the past in is not a way to commemorate or honor it, but a way of being imprisoned by it, and the central story just falls flat for me. YMWV, of course.

(My next least favorite is Finding Nemo, because Nemo's dad is my mother-in-law, on film. Only she hasn't had the epiphany about needing to let go of worry at some point. Again, YMWV.)

> before you even see a trailer for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFTfAdauCOo

Thanks. Looks good to me, but I like kids movies.

To say those movies are about "Toys" or "Rats", doesn't say anything about it, any more than saying a movie is about "People", and there are a far larger number of those.

One of the writers for Pixar gave a talk where he confessed that /all/ of the stories for their movies started out terrible and took tons of rework to get right. Originally, Woody was a serious jerk. It took a long time for them to realize they didn't like their own main character and even longer to evolve him into the great guy everyone loves today.

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