I’ll never forget the first time Mom popped “Toy Story” into the VCR.
That opening scene where the toys scramble to find out who the new toy is before their owner Andy returns and discovers their secret incites a childlike wonderment that not only returns with every repeated view of “Toy Story” and its sequels, but also appears with every Pixar film that moves us to tears without fail — except “Cars.”
Easily the festering wound on Pixar’s mostly genius body of work, the first installment of the automobiles-as-beings franchise was lousy enough. What can you expect from a movie based on NASCAR?
But if that wasn’t enough, “Cars 2” forced itself into our lives and was the first true blight committed by the Pixar moviemakers who are used to critical fanfare. It was an obvious money-making move that tried to mirror the success of the “Toy Story” franchise but failed miserably.
It’s been easy to push the “Cars” saga out of the way with beautiful films like “Finding Nemo” and “The Incredibles” more than making up for Larry the Cable Guy voicing a character called “Tow Mater.”
Surely it couldn’t get worse. The failure of “Cars 2” must have been enough to send the horse to the glue factory.
But as with many things in life that seem like they can’t get much worse, Dane Cook has to come and ruin it for everyone.
Disney, sans Pixar, announced “Planes” last week. Literally, “Cars” in the sky. The film wasn’t even supposed to make it to theaters, with a straight-to-DVD release planned for late 2013.
Yet it’s slated to fly into theaters (sorry) Aug. 9, from the geniuses at DisneyToon Studios who unleashed all those terrible sequels to Disney animated classics.
It’s mind-numbing to try and discern Disney’s reasoning for bringing this tragedy to the screen.
“Cars 2” is Disney and Pixar’s second-lowest-grossing film, but sequels are still seen as cash cows in American cinema — as proven by “Superhero Movie” and the genre-farce franchise that ascended straight from the pit of Hell.
Not even Jon Cryer — the guy in “Two and a Half Men” who isn’t Charlie Sheen or Ashton Kutcher — thought it was worth his precious and much-sought commitment, so the reigns were handed off to Dane Cook, and the world exploded.
The absence of Pixar’s stamp should be alarming, but John Lasseter, “Toy Story” mastermind and arguably the father of modern animated films, is signed on as producer.
This column may seem like a lot of hoopla over a dumb sequel that probably won’t have a theater run longer than Eddie Murphy’s 2012 nail-in-the-respect-coffin “A Thousand Words.”
But what twists the proverbial knife in the back of kids and adults who still find magic in Pixar’s classic filmography is the slight chance this may be a sign of the fall of the Pixarian Empire.
Pixar films are works of art that often transcend the tropes and trends of mainstream cinema. I thought I’d never again experience the hollow sadness that washed over me when Andy gave his toys away as he left for college at the end of “Toy Story 3” (see how relevant it is?), but the decline of Pixar may sting just as much.
