Cars 3

Six years after competing in the World Grand Prix, Lightning McQueen, now a five-time[6] Piston Cup champion, finds himself overshadowed by Jackson Storm, a rookie who is part of a new generation of race cars who use the latest technology to improve their performance. As Storm's success progresses throughout the season and attracts other rookies, most of the veterans either retire or are dismissed by their sponsors. In the final race of the season at Los Angeles, Lightning starts falling behind Storm after both of them pitted. He tries to keep up, but in doing so suffers a violent crash, leaving him badly injured and ending his worst season on record prematurely, while Storm goes on to win the Piston Cup.

After four months of recovery, Lightning decides that he will continue racing and calls his sponsors, Rusty and Dusty Rust-eze, who reveal they have sold Rust-eze to a businessman named Sterling. Sterling assigns Lightning to train under Cruz Ramirez, where he struggles to adapt to the modern training methods. After Lightning accidentally damages a simulator, Sterling tries to force him to retire. Adamant that he can still race, Lightning instead offers that if he wins the upcoming Florida 500, he can decide if he wants to keep racing, otherwise he would retire immediately. Sterling reluctantly accepts the deal.

Lightning tries to train on nearby Fireball Beach, but ends up spending most of his time teaching Cruz how to drive on the sand. Lightning then attempts to join a race undercover at a famous dirt track called Thunder Hollow, but inadvertently enters a figure-8-style demolition derby with Cruz, which she wins albeit both of them hiding their identities. Lightning's cover is blown when Cruz accidentally swerves to avoid a water truck causing him to tumble over and spilling his water on Lightning, therefore adding to his humiliation.

Frustrated that he'd wasted his time taking care of Cruz, Lightning rages at her and in the process of accidentally breaks her trophy. Cruz reveals that she had wanted to be a racer just like Lightning all her life, but never started a race due to her feeling that she could never be one. She resigns as Lightning's trainer and heads back to the training center. Guilty and with no other options, Lightning calls his friend Mater for advice. He suggests that Lightning track down Doc Hudson's mentor Smokey, in Doc's hometown of Thomasville, Georgia, so Lightning catches up to Cruz and convinces her to rejoin him.

In Thomasville, Lightning meets up with Smokey, who reveals that despite the fact Doc never raced again, he found new happiness in training Lightning. After Lightning accepts the fact that he will never be as fast as Storm, Smokey and Doc's old friends, Louise "Barnstormer" Nash, River Scott, and Junior "Midnight" Moon, help Lightning learn new tricks to overcome his speed disadvantage, using Cruz as his sparring partner. However, during the final practice race, Cruz suddenly overtakes him and he suffers a flashback to his crash, shaking his confidence.

At the race, Lightning starts at the back, but with assistance from Smokey in the pits, manages to gradually push up the ranks. Sterling, who still believes Lightning can't win, orders Cruz back to the training center to prepare a new racer for the following race, despite her wanting to stay and watch the race. Overhearing the exchange and remembering Cruz's dream of racing, Lightning avoids a massive pile-up and has his crew outfit her to take his place in the race, believing she is the key to defeating Storm. While shaky at first, Cruz is able to push up the ranks thanks to Lightning coaching her from the pits, and eventually ends up right behind Storm. Storm, feeling threatened, tries to intimidate Cruz, even to the point of ramming her against the wall in the final lap. Cruz, using one of Doc's old moves, flips over Storm, overtaking him and winning the race. As Cruz celebrates her victory, Sterling offers her a role on his team, but she instead takes a counteroffer from Dinoco's owner Tex Dinoco. Since Lightning and Cruz were both wearing #95, both have won the race, meaning that Lightning gets to decide if he is done racing.

Some time later, Lightning and Cruz return to Radiator Springs, where Lightning reveals that Tex has bought Rust-eze from Sterling. Lightning, now decked in Doc's old racing colors, decides to continue racing, but trains Cruz first for the season.

In a post-credits scene, Mater is seen singing at his junkyard, and receives a call but accidentally knocks his stand over.

Owen Wilson served as the grand marshal for the 2017 Daytona 500.[7]

• Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen,[8] a legendary Piston Cup veteran and Sally Carrera's boyfriend.
• Cristela Alonzo as Cruz Ramirez,[8][9] Lightning McQueen's trainer.
• Chris Cooper as Smokey,[10] Doc Hudson's former mechanic and crew chief who helps out Lightning and Cruz.
• Nathan Fillion as Sterling,[11] a rich business car and the new Rust-eze team owner.
• Larry the Cable Guy as Mater, a jolly tow truck and Lightning McQueen's best friend.
• Armie Hammer as Jackson Storm,[8][9] McQueen's new racing rival.
• Tom and Ray Magliozzi as Rusty and Dusty Rust-eze, respectively,[12] the owners of Rust-eze. Following Tom's death in 2014, unused archive recordings from the first film were used for Rusty's lines.
• Tony Shalhoub as Luigi, a Fiat 500.
• Guido Quaroni as Guido, a forklift who is Luigi's partner.
• Bonnie Hunt as Sally Carrera, a Porsche 996, and Lightning McQueen's girlfriend.
• Lea DeLaria as Miss Fritter,[11] an intimidating monster school bus at the Thunder Hollow demolition derby.
• Kerry Washington as Natalie Certain,[11] a statistical analyst.
• Bob Costas as Bob Cutlass, a race commentator.
• Margo Martindale as Louise "Barnstormer" Nash,[10] a white 1950 Nash Ambassador and a retired Piston Cup racer from the 1950s who was one of the three legends to live in Thomasville with Smokey.
• Isiah Whitlock Jr. as River Scott,[10] a grey and black 1938 Dirt Track Racer and retired Piston Cup racer who is one of Smokey's friends.
• Bob Peterson as Chick Hicks, a former rival of Lightning who now hosts his own talk show called "Chick's Picks" on Racing Sports Network. He was originally voiced by Michael Keaton in the first film.
  • Bob Peterson also voices Dr. Damage, a white and orange modified ambulance who partakes in the Crazy 8 demolition derby.
• John Ratzenberger as Mack,[12] a 1985 Mack Super-Liner.
• Lewis Hamilton as Hamilton,[12] Cruz' personal voice command assistant.
• Lloyd Sherr as Fillmore, a Volkswagen Type 2 microbus.
• Junior Johnson as Junior "Midnight" Moon,[10] a black 1940 Ford Standard Coupe and a retired Piston Cup racer who is one of Smokey's friends.
• Cheech Marin as Ramone, a 1959 Chevrolet Impala coupé Lowrider that owns the "Ramone's House of Body Art" store.
• Katherine Helmond as Lizzie, a 1923 Ford Model T Coupe who is the elderly owner of a roadside souvenir and accessory shop (Radiator Springs Curios). This was the last installment of the Cars franchise where Katherine Helmond voiced Lizzie before her death in 2019.[13]
• Paul Dooley as Sarge, a 1941 Willys Jeep.
• Jenifer Lewis as Flo, the owner of "Flo's V-8 Café" and Ramone's wife.
• Madeleine McGraw as Maddy McGear, a young car who is Lightning McQueen's biggest fan.
• Michael Wallis as Sheriff, a 1949 Mercury Eight Police Cruiser police car.
• Jerome Ranft as Red, a 1960s closed-cab Whitney Seagrave fire engine. He was originally voiced by Joe Ranft in the first film.
• Angel Oquendo as Bobby Swift, a Piston Cup racer and one of Lightning's best friends.
• Diedrich Bader as Brick Yardley, a Piston Cup racer and one of Lightning's best friends.
• Andra Day as Sweet Tea, a forklift and Louise Nash's former pitty who is now a singer at the Cotter Pin bar.

Additionally, several drivers and other racing-related personalities from NASCAR have cameos, including Chase Elliott as Chase Racelott, Ryan Blaney as Ryan "Inside" Laney, Bubba Wallace as Bubba Wheelhouse, Shannon Spake as Shannon Spokes, Daniel Suárez as Danny Swervez, Ray Evernham as Ray Reverham, and Mike Joy as Mike Joyride. Richard Petty returns in the role of Strip "The King" Weathers, while his son Kyle Petty voices Cal Weathers. Humpy Wheeler, Jeff Gordon, and Darrell Waltrip all return from their previous Cars appearances as Tex Dinoco, Jeff Gorvette,[5] and Darrell Cartrip, respectively.[5][14]

Doc Hudson appears in flashbacks with unused audio recordings of the late Paul Newman from the first film.[15]

Development on Cars 3 began in late 2011 after the release of Cars 2[16] and by March 2014, pre-production on the film was underway.[17] In October 2014, Pixar's former chief creative officer John Lasseter revealed at the Tokyo International Film Festival that the film would feature a tribute to Hayao Miyazaki's film The Castle of Cagliostro, in a form of an old Citroën 2CV.[18]

Prior to the film's release, John Lasseter, director of the previous Cars films, stated that the film had a "very emotional story", similar in tone to the first film.[19] Co-writer Kiel Murray, who also co-wrote the original Cars, said of the return to the series roots, "With these franchises you always want to know who it's about. The first movie was about McQueen, and the second movie was a sort of off-ramp to the Mater story. We wanted to get back to the McQueen story. When we looked at what would be next for him, we wondered what that would be like both as an athlete, and also for what he was dealing with in the rest of his life."[20]

According to director Brian Fee, the production team did a lot of research, and, while they "looked at athletes in other sports", the team mainly focused on NASCAR racers. Fee said that they "even talked to a sports psychoanalyst who explained that many of these drivers can't imagine themselves doing anything else", an idea that resonated with the team. Mike Rich said that rookies taking over the sport is a "kind of endless story in sports", and compared McQueen to Wayne Gretzky and Misty May-Treanor as well as many others. Fee said that "being a parent became [his] main resource to find and understand the emotion" in the film's storyline. Scott Morse, the film's story supervisor, said that he wanted to highlight the film's emotional core and the character's relationships, wanting the film to feel like a sports film while also focusing on McQueen realizing "what their relationship meant to Doc".[1]

On January 5, 2017, it was announced that Armie Hammer and Cristela Alonzo would voice Jackson Storm and Cruz Ramirez, respectively. Two months later, Nathan Fillion, Kerry Washington and Lea DeLaria joined the cast.[9]

The production utilized a new rendering mode, Rix Integration Subsystem (RIS), which made scenes like the demolition derby race possible. The system was previously used on Pixar's Finding Dory.[21] In previous movies the animators had to first do the animation before the rendering, but RIS allowed animation and rendering to take place simultaneously in a process called "hardware shading", making it much easier for the animators to see what a completed scene would look like when finished.[22]

Fee said that the film's animation is "art directed realism" and stated that it causes the film's characters and sets to "feel more real and alive than ever before", while Bill Cone, the film's production designer, said that "The term [they] use is believability, which is the basis for everything [Pixar does]". Global technology supervisor Sudeep Rangaswamy said that his team used an automatic process for the film's shots, which, in his words "allows a lot of flexibility" and that "It made shots that were previously impossible to render possible". Director of photography-camera Jeremy Lasky and editor Jason Hudak researched NASCAR footage for the film's race scenes.[1]

Fee said that both the score and the soundtrack "really help support the story we are telling". Both the soundtrack and the score were released on June 16, 2017.[23]

Regarding a possible Cars 4, Cars 3 producers Kevin Reher and Andrea Warren stated speaking to Cinema Blend that "If there's a good story to tell, I mean, our heads kinda break after having gotten this one done, like "Oh my god," what could you do the further adventures of? But like any sequel, from Toy Story 4 to Incredibles 2, as long as there's a good story to tell it's worth investing, we do love these characters, we love them as much as the public does."[60] Regarding which character would be the main protagonist in the film, Reher and Warren stated that "if Cruz is a breakout character, kind of like Mater was, she would be involved in a 4".[61] Owen Wilson stated at a Cars 3 press event that possible stories have been discussed for a Cars 4, though he would personally like for a fourth Cars film to delve into aspects of the thriller genre, akin to Cars 2.[62] In an interview with Screen Rant, Lea DeLaria expressed interest in reprising her role as Miss Fritter while promoting the release of the short film, Miss Fritter's Racing Skoool with the Cars 3 DVD and Blu-ray release.[63]

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• Official website
• Cars 3 at IMDb
• Cars 3 at AllMovie