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• Sunday, June 11, 2006 12:06 PM

  Just Get out and Drive

  I notice a fair amount of commentary from people who haven't yet seen Cars - and who, for generally stuffy elitist reasons, have decided not to. Too bad.

  Some think it's Pixar hackwork - poorly animated, crudely done. Nonsense! The luciousness of the backgrounds, the details and detailing of the automotive characters are all superb. The reflections on their sleek paint jobs in the full glow of classic Route 66 neon has to be seen to be believed. Today, after seeing the movie, every car on the road looks different - more alive - than it did before I saw Cars.

  Others whine that there's nothing new about the story. Sorry, guys and gals, but that one just doesn't fly. Most of the great literature is based on old, oft-repeated stories, from Gilgamesh to Troy to Beowulf to Shakespeare to Hitchcock to Bergman. There's a reason the same old chestnuts keep coming back, in one form after another. People crave these stories. Children, in fact, should love this one, even if their oh-so-sophisticated parents may not. And the movie teaches life lessons of curbing your own selfishness, teamwork, helping others, respecting earlier generations, letting your wealth trickle down - oh, and striving to excel.

  This "red state/blue state" prism that many have tried to force the movie through is just bizarre and tiresome. It's irrelevant. The movie doesn't attempt to divide and polarize - it successfully finds common ground.

  I live on Old Route 66, by the way - on a part that got the Interstate (I-40) going right through it (and I-25 as well), but nearby to places that didn't. They got the details right, right down to the spectacular scenery. You elitists in the Midwest may not recognize the realism, having mainly old Roadrunner cartoons to go by, but a big part of the thrill of the movie, for me, was how accurate the mountains and deserts looked (with slight cartoon exaggeration, of course.)

  And then there was the thrill of the road - if you weren't moved by the opening sequence coming into the racing stadium, then frankly, I pity you. Driving on the Interstate, by day and by night, driving on the twists and turns of Old 66, cruising main street, speeding across the fields pursued by Frank the Harvester - it's what's fires America's romance with the automobile. (Well, maybe not the part about Frank.)

  We'll eventually be using more public transit. Many of us will be able to reproduce a fair amount of the thrill of the road via bicycle. But there will always be a desire for fast, reliable personal transportation - and it doesn't need to be petroleum-fueled. You're not going to kill this desire by snarking about SUVs, peak oil, or global warming. In one form or another, people want to be able to drive where they want to go, by their own schedule, on their own journeys of discovery.

  If you break down and go to see Cars, maybe you, too can remember this thrill.

  —Zandru Read Zandru's other letters
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