the evolution of gratitude » cars (2006) & cars 3 (2017)
“This ain’t a one-man deal, kid. You need to wise up and get your self a good crew chief and a good team. And you ain’t gonna win unless you got good folks behind you.”
This Lightning McQueen is parked outside the Cars Mechanical Institute at the Petersen Automotive Museum. AND BOY, LET ME TELL YOU. ABOUT HOW THIS BIG RED BOI IS LOVINGLY SET UP.
You enter this room by descending a spiral staircase.
Slowly, as you curl around the spiral, Lightning McQueen comes into view.
He’s front and center in the middle of an expansive hall. THE ROYAL TREATMENT.
Not even gonna lie, it made me feel very proud of him. :’) Also, this sign is the most adorable thing to ever adorable:
Listen, the absolute best piece of dialogue in the entire Cars series was in the Goodbye scene.
when Lightning goes over to say goodbye to Sally, and they both know what’s coming and they’re fighting back tears, and he can’t bring himself to say it. And Sally says “Thank you. Thanks for everything.” and she’s referring to how he re-lit the town, how he instilled hope into the Radiator Springs family for the first time in decades, how he brought some Heyday back to a long-forgotten Route 66 town. But he thinks she’s referring to the road he had to re-pave, and says “It was just a road.” When she responds “No. It was much more than that.”
THAT LINE. THAT’S THE LINE RIGHT THERE. Why?
Because the “much more” she’s talking about is everything he did for the town, yes, BUT in that moment Lightning’s entire character arc comes together. He realizes she’s not just talking about the stretch of pavement he fixed, but the road that it’s a part of. “It was just a road.” is what he used to think of Route 66. And during his time in RS, Sally showed him just what Route 66 means, the rich history and the beauty in it all. And that one line sums up their entire interaction.
ifesbob 