There was something ironic about Cars 2 featuring lemons (in auto-speak new cars that have some major defect from the off) as villains; it pretty much sums up the series, which even before the first film was raising eyebrows. Cars was a lightweight Pixar outing geared more narrowly for children, leaving less in its wake for parents to enjoy. It didn't deserve to be savaged, boasting a nicely relatable message, but even the film's staunchest defender couldn't argue it wasn't driven, at least partially, by merchandising. To hear director John Lasseter talk about it this is a deeply personal series and perhaps to him it is, but at some level in the production there's clearly toys in the headlights. Cars 2, the first flat-out awful film from the studio, was a uncharacteristically convoluted mess that bumped an irritating comic relief to top billing. Suddenly everyone was a little wary about the Luxo lamp. Since then the series has been drawn out thanks to a series of shorts called, sigh, Cars Toons and spin-off Planes, which was produced without any involvement from Pixar. Rather than leaving Disney to play with the cash-cow, Pixar are coming back to the franchise with Cars 3. Still in pre-production, expect Lasseter's unconditional love of his characters to once again blind him to the film's faults.
