Can Anyone Explain the Disney Pixar ‘Cars’ Universe?

Having watched the Cars 3 movie for the umpteenth time really got me thinking about the Disney Pixar Cars franchise. It got me wondering about the whole concept of the Cars (and Planes) universe and boy does it raise a lot of questions!

I’m quite fond of the whole Cars franchise but why do they keep making sequels because I have to admit it’s not even their best work, especially Cars 2 aka The Mater Movie! I’m sure it’s pretty much down to the reason that the merchandising for this series is an endless cash cow for Disney.

I’m sure Disney Pixar executives don’t lie awake at night sleeping on their beds of full of money pondering about how the Cars universe works, but the whole thing is baffling and doesn’t make sense on so many levels.

Obviously the biggest and main question is – how did their universe come to be in the first place?

It would be horrifying to think that they’d overtook our world like something out of Stephen King’s ‘Maximum Overdrive’ or the ‘Terminator’ saga. Then completely eradicated our existence from history and accredited everything to themselves. That all so friendly smile of Lightning McQueen all seems a bit sinister now!

Maybe humans died off along time ago and this is many, many centuries into the future. They might have our bones on display in museums or something, but it still doesn’t explain how vehicles are alive unless we go back to that Terminator theory and we humans finally cracked AI and stuck it into our cars before we met our untimely end!

One of the Pixar team tried to explain to us (fob us off) that the Cars universe came about due to the evolution of the smart car and they didn’t need humans anymore. This is complete BS because smart cars are relatively new technology and we know that the cars were alive way earlier from footage of Doc Hudson crashing in the 1950s and also in the Cars shorts when Mater travels back in time and meets Stanley the founder of Radiator Springs!

What’s the difference between a male car and a female car?

Longer exhaust pipe? The colour pink? Seductive lips? Eyelashes on the headlights? We’re not even sure how Cars are born or how they procreate so whats the purpose of even having sexes? If they do have babies do they pop out the boot or back door like something out of the movie Batteries Not Included?

Do they have baby cars or were they made in a factory?

Who the hell makes them and how did the first one get made if there was no human intervention?

How far back does their existence go?

Cars have been around for maybe 130 years so somewhere around 1880s their existence must’ve started, but we have to realise that steam powered machines such as trains were here first. Were they alive too?

Are their engines running all the time?

This would be a major problem for the environment and might explain why humans are all dead as the air must be toxic AF!

Were the train people here before any cars?

Steam trains predate the combustion engine so they must have been here first. Were they pissed off that the cars come along and just took over?

Why would the characters need any doors?

Can anyone explain that one huh? Why mirrors, why windows and do they have seats too?

Which brings us onto – The Miss Fritter character in Cars 3 doesn’t make sense!

In a world of no humans it makes no sense at all that there are school buses. Did she carry kid cars to school. No! Maybe that thing about vehicles taking over is true and she’s an old relic from the past!

Come to think of it neither do any of the commuter planes and trains characters either!

Mater lives at the junkyard which means he lives among car body parts!

Now that does seem pretty dark and macabre like something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and not forgetting that Mater is a bit of a hillbilly too!

Are garages and hospitals the same thing?

In a car universe surely a hospital and a garage would be the same thing and maybe car mods would be like having cosmetic surgery I suppose.

If that’s the case Mater would be like some kind of Paramedic rather than just a simple tow truck.

Do they recycle dead cars?

Do they melt down the old cars to make new cars or what? I wonder what happened to Ol’ Doc Hudson? Maybe he is in pieces at Maters Junk Yard who knows!

Are there any other animal vehicles?

We know there are tractors as cows, combine harvesters as bulls and beetle cars as bugs, but are there any dog or cat cars?

How do they build stuff or even need it?

Now you could say that maybe the humans that existed before built everything but that can’t be the case when you think about it. In Cars and the shorts we learn that there was nothing in Radiator Springs before Stanley got there and discovered the natural spring. The town was built once he had settled there all those decades ago, so they must have built stuff themselves. Who and how did they construct the buildings and install things like lighting and wiring etc?

Finally… How do they pay for things?

We always see characters gulping down on oil, but who is paying for this and how?

We may never know the answers to any of these questions!