Story-wise, Pixar movies have always been a step up compared to Disney cartoons. They’re kid-safe without being too “kidified”, and textured and layered enough for adults to enjoy them.  Kids for example will enjoy a whole universe of talking cars, but only the adults will appreciate the character of Luigi’s fanatical obsession with Ferraris.

There’s a lot of hidden detail in the production of the movie.  Michael Schumacher, the Ferrari F1 champion makes a “roll-on” appearance as Luigi’s Ferrari hero.  “The King”, the number one race car in the Piston Cup, was voiced by the racing legend “King Richard”, Richard Petty.  The rest of the cast was peppered with personalities from the racing world, and it’s a testament to the appreciation and enjoyment the manufacturers of the movie have for their work.

When my friend and I went to see the film, we sat in the center seats of the front row, as close to the screen as we could get without sitting on the floor.  Granted, most people find it dizzying (I remember my cousin freaking out when I insisted we watch Independence Day while sitting in the front row) but we find that it can be a most interesting experience--not to mention the extended leg room sitting in front affords.

We were “ohh”-ing and “ahh”-ing along with the rest of the audience, but we let out terms of awe and wonder at different times as well.  Having worked in 3D for commercials, and being a teacher of 3D at the College of Saint Benilde and the Philippine Center for Digital Imaging, I could see some things most other people wouldn’t normally pick up.  My friend, having had to listen to me talk about 3D for years, could follow along and appreciate those times as well.

The technical challenges that the folks at Pixar had to overcome were daunting, as always.  And it’s sad that most people don’t see that.  Granted the movie is subtle in its presentation in that with so many eye-catching things woven seamlessly in the story, one can easily take them for granted.  But every once in a while it throws out a gorgeous vista at you and at those times I couldn’t help but stop breathing for a second or so.

One thing I like the most about Pixar’s movies is that they always seem to push the envelope of 3D.  Every movie, whether consciously or unconsciously, tackles something that has been traditionally thought of as difficult.  Toy Story could be seen as their first attempts at a full production.  By the time they were doing A Bug’s Life, they had gathered enough confidence and know-how to do organic characters such as insects, which are very different from plastic toys.

Toy Story 2 was a refinement of their animation process, and in Monster’s Incorporated, they tackled realistic fur and hair.  In Finding Nemo, they dealt with liquids, which are notoriously difficult in 3D to get behaving realistically.

The Incredibles had just about everything in it.  It was a kind of tour de force for Pixar, with everything from hair to liquids to ice to dense vegetation, and a fully human cast.

Cars took a different route.  Route 66 to be precise, but aside from that, they went the other way from organics to bringing to life to inorganic objects.  John Lasseter said that he wanted to stay true to the materials.  In other words, if a car was made of a hard, heavy metal, it should look and feel like it was made from a hard and heavy metal. 

This is an artistic as well as a technical challenge for the animators because this means that your bag of animation tricks is considerably smaller now.  Some tricks have to go and some have to be added.  Squash and Stretch, a very useful and often used principle of animation has to be lessened to keep the metallic feel of the cars.

Their biggest technical hurdle this time around was “raytracing.”  Raytracing is a technical term which means that the computer program being used traces the path and direction of a ray of light from its source, to the surfaces that it hits, and finally to the camera.   The results are very realistic and accurate reflections and refraction. 

The problem with this is that it can be very expensive, computationally.  There is however a way of faking reflections using something called reflection maps.  Pixar has used this before, such as reflections on the helmet of Buzz Lightyear, but the results are not as realistic, especially when the reflective objects are always in motion, which cars are.  Majority of the frames took seven hours to render.

All in all, Cars is a great film, one I wouldn’t mind watching on the big screen again.  A tad predictable, it still delivers a great story with layers and layers of humor, as well as a deep respect and understanding of the various sub-cultures different cars have brought out in people over the years.  And with the reflections, lights, massive landscapes and epic race scenes, it gets a technical nod of awe as well.