Disney and Pixar confirmed earlier this year that Cars 3 was in development. It will not arrive in theaters for a few years, so Pixar is continuing to release Cars shorts in the meantime. Disney recently unveiled its own online video-on-demand service called Disney Movies Anywhere, and that was the venue chosen to debut the most recent Cars short Radiator Springs 500 1/2. Before heading over to watch the short in full, you can watch a brief clip setting up the story of the short after the break! (UPDATE: You can view several pieces of concept art from the short’s development as well.) [Read more…]
Watch New ‘Cars’ Short ‘Radiator Springs 500 1/2’ Online For Free
Two months ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that Cars 3 was currently in development at Pixar. The Cars feature films are the only place where the main voice cast of the franchise have worked together – while the shorts that have been released have included Larry The Cable Guy as Mater, notably absent were actors like Owen Wilson who is the main voice for Lightning McQueen. That is no longer true, as Pixar has unveiled the first Cars short to reunite the films’ cast, Radiator Springs 500 1/2 – you can watch it online, and for free!
The Pixar Perspective on Groundbreaking Nostalgia
The cornerstone of the Walt Disney Company is nostalgia. Every film they make, every character they create, every world they concoct furthers the notion that looking back at your past, dreaming of a time when everyone said it was truly wondrous to be alive, well before the minor frustrations of the future took over, is the best possible way to approach life. What are Disney’s theme parks if not various ways in which to embrace youth, either your own or the country’s? So many of their movies call to mind a vision of the “good old days,” a manufactured simulacrum that makes us wistful, wishing we’d been around at the turn of the century, say, or that we’d known as we lived our childhoods that we should cherish them appropriately. The irony is that the more technologically groundbreaking Disney films—and especially Pixar films— are, the more nostalgic they become.
