Four years ago, I got the incredible opportunity to visit Pixar in Emeryville, Calif. for the first time, to do interviews for Monsters University, and the thing that most stood out to me when I was there was just how much inspiration you feel, just being surrounded by all of the artistic creativity going on within its walls. Saying that I was excited to return, this time to get an early look at nearly 45 minutes of Cars 3, is a massive understatement.

In the latest installment of the Cars franchise, everyone’s favorite race car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is back, but he’s not a rookie anymore. Blindsided by the new blazing-fast racer Jackson Storm (voiced by Armie Hammer), the legendary McQueen finds himself questioning his place in the sport that he loves and turning to race trainer Cruz Ramirez (voiced by Cristela Alonzo) to help him get back in the game. As part of the experience, Collider got to spend the day at the Sonoma Raceway, participating in presentations about how the story, production design, animation and effects all came together to create what we’ll get to see in theaters on June 16th, and we’ve compiled a list of 18 things that we learned about that process.

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    Image via Disney-Pixar
    Cars 3 is the third act in the overall Cars franchise. Cars 1 is when Lightning McQueen is young, brash and cocky, and he’s got everything in the world going right for him. He’s talented and he has speed, and that works to his advantage. Cars 3 is the opportunity to show him later in his career, which reminded the filmmakers of athletes who are late in their career having to decide whether to retire or adapt and deal with adversity.
  • Cars 3 is a return to Lightning McQueen’s story, and to continue telling his story, the filmmakers wanted to go back to the tone of Cars 1. “Despite the fact that they’re talking cars,” said director Brian Fee, “Cars 1 is one of the more realistic movies we’ve ever done at Pixar, as far as the world. It’s the real world, and they’re real people with problems. There was always a weight to the air, so that was important for us to try to capture again.”
  • For Lightning McQueen, this is a more personal story, of where he is in his life and his career, who he’s always been and who he needs to be. It’s his own personal journey of who he is.
  • Cars 3 is less about the town, so they leave Radiator Springs to go on this journey. You can see the influence the town has had on him, but it travels to the South because that’s the root of racing in America.
  • There was a crew of about 250 to 260 people, at the height of the film’s production, and everything – the sets, characters, layout, animation, visual effects, lighting and rendering – starts with and comes from the story.
  • There are a dozen base models for the cars, but then from those models, they do a multitude of shading and color variants for hundreds of different versions. There are over 1,500 different variants of the cars in Cars 3.
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    Image via Disney-Pixar
    It’s important to the effects team to create a sense of realism with the cars, and they rely on physical simulation software to achieve that. The speed of the car, how fast the wheels are rotating and whether or not they have traction determines when to kick up tire smoke, when to leave skid marks, and what the air flow around the car would be, at any given moment.
  • The production design team makes clay sculpts of the characters, and then takes pictures of them and brings them into Photoshop. Then, it’s digitally painted and shaded, so that they can send it off for articulation and rigging. Every line on every car says something about the character.
  • One of the things that John Lasseter loved the most, when it came to the design of the cars, was the design of Jackson Storm. Lasseter invented Lightning McQueen and loves the way the car looks, but he wanted to make sure that, when Jackson Storm pulled up alongside McQueen, it made McQueen look old and dated. Storm is a weapon on wheels, with super aggressive lines and a very stealth-like, dangerous look.
  • Jackson Storm, voiced by Armie Hammer, was born fast and life has given him everything, so he’s cocky. He’s never had to work hard for anything. He thinks that the world owes him and that nobody else belongs. He lacks the appreciation for what came before him and for sharing him with other people. He’s entitled.
  • The filmmakers wanted to elevate how they shot the racing sequences. When they’re down in a race, they wanted to get more grit in there, so you could really experience what a race is like, with how fast and loud it is, and how banged up the cars get.
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    Image via Disney-Pixar
    The initial teaser trailer gave the impression that Lightning McQueen might die, and they wanted to do that to let audiences know that Cars 3 is not the Cars movie that they’re expecting. Also, they used that sequence because the animation of those shots was done, and that was the trailer that they were able to put together with what was done. Producer Kevin Reher shared a funny story about a young fan that got really upset by the trailer: “An 8-year-old wrote us and said, ‘Are you really killing Lighting McQueen, and if you are, I want to buy the toy that kills him, so that I can kill him.’ His mother also wrote and said, ‘I just got him calmed down after Trump, and now you’re killing Lightning McQueen.’”
  • In their research for the film, they went to the North Carolina area and looked at ghost tracks that had been deserted, with stands that were falling apart and tracks that were overgrown. Said Fee, “It was like standing in the Roman Coliseum and just imagining the stuff that used to happen. It’s the automotive version of that. Hearing the wind whip through the broken-down fence, it was really haunting, in a good way . . . We wanted to bottle some of that spirit and make sure it’s in the movie.”
  • Cruz Ramirez is a new character to the world of Cars, but is definitely a stand-out. A lot of her backstory came from Cristela Alonzo, who voices her and who told the filmmakers her story, trying to be a stand-up comic and leaving Texas for New York. Said Co-Producer Andrea Warren, “Cruz is inspiring and charming, and she’s put herself in an industry where she’s a fish out of water, but she’s charging ahead anyway. She’s bold. I love what we learn about her in this film, and I love the relationship that she has with McQueen, how they influence each other, and how they face their fears and help each other face their fears. It’s a really cool relationship that emerges and she’s a great character. Depending on how people react, it would be fun to see more of Cruz.”
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    Image via Disney-Pixar
    Before becoming what she is in the film, Cruz went through many iterations. She was a clerk, an assistant, a super fan, and a techie. Eventually, they thought it worked best with Cruz as a trainer who wanted to be a racer, but never became one. She’s never even been out racing in the real world, only on a simulator.
  • Tony Shalhoub, who voices Luigi, is one of the only actors who Disney has ever asked to put an accent on. They don’t typically ask their actors to do that because it can ruin the performance.
  • The voice actors inspire little things in their characters. Miss Fritter is voiced by Lea DeLaria, who often wears thick black glasses in the real world, so they thickened her windshield trim, in honor of those glasses. They’ll also try to match eye color of the actor to their character, or use a chip in a tooth or a gap between teeth.
  • Even though the film will screen in 3D, they don’t design shots specifically with that in mind. They want to take advantage of the depth that the 3D gives you, but it must support the story. If you lose the story, you lose the audience.

Cars 3 opens in theaters on June 16th.

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Image via Disney-Pixar
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