We conservatives and believers in free markets are accused of being paranoid when we say the Hollywood industry is trying to indoctrinate our children with left wing propaganda. But now movie directors and producers are coming out and admitting what they’re doing. I’m just glad I found this out before I allowed my kids to persuade me to take them to see the movie “Cars 2.”
The Wall Street Journal published an interview with the movie’s director, John Lasseter. He said the big bad villain of the movie will be Big Oil. The “good guys” will be renewable energy companies that provide an expensive product that’s subsidized by taxpayers, but I’m sure that won’t come up in the movie.
We revamped the whole story, the whole bad-guy arc. To me, there always needs to be a logic to our movies. No matter what subject matter it is, they have to be logical for the world we’re creating. I kept thinking about, “OK. A spy movie in the world where cars are alive. What would be a really good kind of über bad guy? Who is an über bad guy?” I kept going to big oil. This is before what happened in the Gulf of Mexico.
Why isn’t alternative fuel more… Why isn’t everybody jumping on that bandwagon? It makes so much sense: Electricity, solar, whatever. There’s ethanol. There’s all this stuff you could be doing. And so I thought, well, that could be really cool in that you could have big oil versus alternative fuel. That’s when we kind of crafted the bad guy’s story.
The greatest bad guys, you understand where they’re coming from. They believe they’re doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s for greed, sometimes it’s for other reasons, but they are what they call the center of good. They always believe they’re doing the right thing.
Update: Nice Deb saw that movie and said it was terrible. Don’t waste your money.
Yeah why would anyone cast an industry that makes record profits at the expense of the world and has consistently used bullying strng arm tactics to control the market while helping to fund middle eastern terrorist and fasctist regimes and who push a product that cause environmental collapse as the bad guys?
I mean it’s not like they have a huge record of safety violations that have caused almost all of the worst man made disasters in history? Oh wait…
You seriously want people to buy that big oil are the victims and renewable energies are the villains? Good luck with that.
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“We conservatives and believers in free markets are accused of being paranoid when we say the Hollywood industry is trying to indoctrinate our children with left wing propaganda”
Haha, actually we’re trying to teach your children survival techniques for themselves and the entire species. While you indoctrinate them with the same free market rhetoric that has caused massive damage to both US and global economies while putting countless Americans and people around the world into a place of hurt and struggle for survival.
We’d prefer your kids to have a future. We’d prefer our species to have a future.
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People get over your selves its a kids movie. Most kids wont even put the theme of the movie together with whats happing in the real world. So people of the world Mickey Mouse, Lighting Mcqeen, Donald Duck are not real
they are cartoons, so if your children do not understand this it is the parents job not hollywoods to teach them.
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My neighbor’s 17 yro daughter saw it and missed the ‘green agenda’ entirely. Being the good conservative, neighbor and friend that I am, I’ll sit down with her and explain some of the nuances of the Hollyweird LIbEral indoctrination techniques used in children’s movies today.
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Sir, You are seriously whacked out. You really do need to get a life.
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Wake up, people. Oil does not trade in a free market. If you think it does, then you have no concept of what makes a free market.
Moreover, we also import 60% of what we consume. You want lower oil prices? You want the economy to improve? Drill and refine here in the US and start now. There’s a survival tactic for you.
Yes, there have been some accidents, but show me evidence of long-term effects? Studies of the most recent acccident in the Gulf of Mexico show no evidence of long-term damage. Oh, what’s that? You hadn’t heard about that? Get out there and do some research instead of letting the one-sided MSM educate you.
You’re all going to be crying your eyes out when prices hit $8-$10 a gallon because the US dollar is worthless and oil starts to be valued in Yen.
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Notice how these ignorant animals are all “free market!”…until real competition shows up?
The same way they are all “free market!” until they need a tax payer handout.
Morons.
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Disney is so hypocritical! One visit to Disney world and you will know that they don’t give a hoot about environment, I say: for run the whole Disney World on “alternative energy” and then get sanctimonious about the whole green thing. To all Obamaniacs: let’s see the White house light with wind mills, Air Force one fly with solar panels, the Marine one lift on biodeasel, the Bbeast run on hydrogen. Then preach to the rest of us.
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Thomas Hobbes, is that you? Please tell me, oh enlightened one, who is to be responsible for making these rules by which we greedy children should live? What human can rise above their backwards consumer-driven ways to guide us down the path of righteousness, and lead us not into the temptation of a free market that offers such evils as choice and progress?
And might I remind you that the free market is driven not by greed, but by self interest. It is self interest that motivates us all, including you, to a find job, work hard, and provide the best possible lives for our families; in doing so we better the lives of others. It is through a teacher’s own self interest that they educate students to the best of their abilities, therefore securing their job and in turn providing kids with the tools necessary to secure their future. It is through the self interest of entrepreneurs and inventors that we have devices such as the computer – a creation to which you do not seem to be opposed.
So fear not comrade, for if it is in the best interest of humankind to pursue renewable resources, we children will look beyond our greed and lust for consumption, and will pursue the green path to Utopia.
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Without that 250 yro document and what it took to create it, you wouldn’t be using a machine created from petro products to spew your anti-American drivel. And don’t worry about MY rights, I’ll protect them as I see fit.
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Why is it left wing propaganda to be green? You would think that people that truly value the free market would jump all over the new green technologies and be the first to develop them and profit from them rather than hold on tight to the old way of doing things. Unless that is what it means to be conservative.
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You mean, like maybe Conservatives would want to conserve?
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“Big Oil” is the largest group researching renewable energy – because they know they can gain vast amounts of market share if they are the first to bring an economical solution to the market. The government does not need to be involved, and “Big Oil” is not a villain.
But we all know you liberals think corporations are inherently corrupt, a threat to our freedom, and a drain on our way of life. Because you read that in the New York Times. On your iPads. At Starbucks.
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If there were a profit to be made in ‘green’ technolgies (without government subsidies), then the free market would have embraced it.
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[...] conservatives are already enraged. The Lonely Conservative blog wrote, "We conservatives and believers in free markets are accused of being paranoid when we [...]
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being green is left wing propaganda? no wonder you’re lonely
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And what’s wrong with clean air and water, anyway? This great left-wing conspiracy is going to leave us all with cleaner lungs and avoid water-borne illnesses. They must be stopped NOW!!
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To conservatives who complain about the plot of the movie, you party doth protest too much, methinks.
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Remember Greg… your seemingly beloved “big oil” are he ones responsible (at least partially… POTUS can join also) for your paying over four dollars a gallon for gas.
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Big Oil provides an expensive product that’s being subsidized by taxpayers, but I’m sure that won’t come up in your blog.
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Is the name of this blog Lonely Conservative, or Foolish/Whiny Conservative? Why are you in favor of “Big Oil”? Pursuing alternative renewable energy sources is sensible, achievable and would be great for the economy and create myriad new jobs. You know, the EPA was founded during Nixon’s presidency and it is one of the truly good and enduring legacies of that administration. Now it’s in jeopardy of being eliminated. Please explain why wanting a better environment is political? You say you have kids. Do you want their future to be as unlivable as possible? Do you like the fact that we continue to do business with the Saudis, making them rich?
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There is no such thing as “a free market” anymore. The mega corporations won’t allow it. When you finally figure that out you can preach about liberals. Manipulated markets have blocked innovation for decades. Try wrapping your blinders around that!
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You better add the USAF to the list of those pushing left wing propaganda as they fund contracts for biofuel development.
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123142374
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I encourage the author to separate “environmentalism,” which is a liberal cause, from alt-fuels, which truly deserves to be a bipartisan effort focused on expanding domestic industry and reducing oil-based strategic vulnerability. Many eco types (I am one, who also analyzes alt fuels for a living) have big problems with alt fuels such as coal-to-liquid diesel, natural gas, corn ethanol, etc.
Also, you suggest alt fuels will be subsidized. Probably so – tax credits, etc. for wind, solar and biofuels already exist. But petroleum is massively subsidized as well. Why not lift all these subsidies? We subsidize because cheap and secure energy is a national priority. We’ll subsidize whichever energy source we choose, so why not clean domestically-produced energy?
I’ll leave you with this: electricity, even with technology in its infancy, gets much better “mileage” per unit energy than any combustible fuel. Economic conservatives should argue for a radical conversion to a fundamentally more efficient system. Sadly, they tend to listen to their interest groups more than to their own wise political outlook on this issue.
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Just a question. Why is environmentalism a liberal cause? Surely anyone no matter how they view things politically can care about the environment.
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Why is such a sensible, straight down the line comment hidden? There’s nothing but straight talk in that comment, but its hidden??
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Environmentalism is not a liberal cause. GOVERNMENT SPONSORED AND REGULATED environmentalism is.
People don’t like to remember this, but oil replaced things that were far worse for the environment. Automobiles powered by gasoline are far cleaner than horse-drawn carriages and riding horses – unless you prefer streets covered in literal horse crap. And the dead animals left on the side of the road because they were injured caused a lot of diseases.
The environment now is cleaner, and the resources more sustainable, than at any time in the past. But that is all ignored because the “green” movement isn’t about helping the environment (the free market does that constantly) but about increasing government control and regulation – and in some instances is completely anti-capitalist.
To quote Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, on why he QUIT THE ORGANIZATION: “I left in the mid-’80s when the policy started to drift away from science and logic into these kind of zero-tolerance positions that I believe are based more on sensation and fund-raising around scare tactics.”
But we should ban Chlorine worldwide. And ban DDT, causing millions in Africa to suffer from malaria, because it might hurt some birds. Let’s ban Dihydrogen Monoxide as well – I hear that ingesting it in large amounts can cause harm to humans, and possibly even death.
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Electricity is not a fuel (neither is hydrogen). For someone who proclaims to study alternative fuel sources, I would have expected you to know that. The laws of thermodynamics stand in the way of it being a truly economically acceptable power source for transportation anyway.
Electricity gets WORSE “mileage” because it is not a fuel. It is energy taken from coal, for the most part, and it loses energy due to transfer loss and the laws of thermodynamics at every step along its transmission, storage, and conversion.
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Big oil isn’t evil? Big oil is a free market? You need to read more about the OPEC cartel. Spend less time “believing” and more time reading.
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Thanks “The Lonely Conservative” … now I know that I’ll be taking the kids to see Cars 2. What other movies are you enraged about?
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Subsidizing BIG OIL, BIG Agriculture, and Wal-mart kills the free market. The free market doesn’t exist. Conservatives and Republicans do not seriously believe in the free market or small government. They only say they do when something goes against their political ideologies such as clean energy technology. A free market is supposed to mean competition, but competition keeps declining as companies keep merging and are allowed to do what they want at the expense of the consumer for profit. DO WHAT YOU SAY CONSERVATIVES.
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You are NOT A BELIEVER IN FREE MARKETS. You simply are not. If you were you would pay for the pollution, the health problems, the environmental damage, the wars, etc at the pump. Do you pay for all that at the pump?. NO. You pay for all that with the tax payers money. So you are not a believer in FREE markets. You are a communist that likes tax payer subsidies.
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And that is a damn good comment!
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“We conservatives and believers in free markets are accused of being paranoid when we say the Hollywood industry is trying to indoctrinate our children with left wing propaganda”
–It’s left wing propaganda? You sure it’s not just a film in which a COMPETING product is finally allowed some face time?
If you’re so in favor of free markets then why are you so insistent on petroleum maintaining a monopoly on the transportation fuel market.
Preventing competing technologies is unamerican, and you’re not REALLY in favor of free markets, you’re just parroting Republican talking points, that’s all.
Guess what? Your kids will most likely own an electric car, and they’re gonna laugh at the fact that you got your panties all in a wad over this film too. Guess what else, they’re gonna see it someday anyway.
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Absolutely! I think this lonely conservative is confusing free markets with government sponsored corporate hegemony
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Please get a life and get some focus. Here are a few relevant topics: economy, jobs, wars, deficit, education, healthcare …. quit wasting our time getting worked up about a kids movie.
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You obviously don’t read this blog.
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Nah I don’t it’s mostly crap anyway
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Dear Lonely conservative, your ignorance amuse me.
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Fran, your grammar amuses me!
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You may not be paranoid but Hollywood just made another movie that supports your point of view and that would be “Atlas Shrugged”. You simply accept only the information that supports your radical right wing fascist views.
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To be a true conservative means to save, to conserve, which means you will graft new strains in, prune dead ideas, and make adjustments as needed in order to save that which is truly important. Far too many people believe they are true conservatives simply because they belong to the Republican Party and are opposed to abortion, anything that interferes with business (including those pesky environmental and FDA regulations), and gay rights.
Try fixing your gaze on what is really important – hint: it *isn’t* a corporate balance sheet – how about those kids you won’t take to this movie? Make time to spend with them. Walk them around in creation, and try to imagine how ExxonMobil, or BP, or Shell, or Amerada Hess, or *any* oil company could improve on what you see around you. It isn’t hard to imagine how they can screw things up for generations.
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I´m sure, you got a great audience. This is news in Spain! Good for you. I suppose you think the war movies of Hollywood starring for the army of the USA in the 50´s, 60′s, 70′s and 80′s were good values for your childs and they were not propaganda. You are wrong to see only one side of the coin.
You are wrong or you are doing propaganda too.
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When conservatives wake up – that will be when America has come to a grinding halt after the all oil is gone, most of our country’s wealth has been transferred to Exxon and BP and murderous Middle East sheiks, and we have no plan “B” due to their advocacy of “drill drill drill” – they’ll finally, at long last, realize they’ve been had by the oil companies’ myth of the “free market.”
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How very interesting that seemingly dozens of liberals hop over to a conservative site in order to toss their barbs. Why not find a liberal website? Not enough of you? Oh… well, we’ll find that out in the next election.
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Apparently conservatives don’t like being barbed same as liberals. I though conservatives where tough self reliant people who could handle anything. Oh by the way… after the next election i am sure conservatives will try to blame it one something when they lose.
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What a stupid comment. We’re only supposed to read and react to things we agree with? This country – and its governing documents – were born out of debate – REASONED debate. That’s what’s missing from our society today. The people – and they’re elected officials – only want to hear from those who agree with them. The fact is that if this “Lonely Conservative” blogger hadn’t made such ridiculous remarks, he wouldn’t be getting all this heat. The comments on this page represent informed,concerned, THINKING Americans. Sorry if you don’t like what you’re reading. You are free to go to a “liberal” blog site and air your feelings.
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No I’m not threatened, but I’m not about to spend my hard earned money on that drivel. I wrote a few paragraphs and you people are freaking out. Get a life!
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My my my…. good job, LC.
1. Hollywood pushes its “progressive” agenda all the time, including in childrens movies where the fluffy little bunnies always lean left and “evil” is always some form of conservatism or capitalism. Even Disney. I personally do not believe that is the purpose of an animated feature. Its purpose ought to be entertaining me and my kids….not trying to train them to a particular political point of view. And it IS important. It’s insidious and verrrrrry familiar (but in Liberal Land, you’re not allowed to make historical comparisons to actually evil people, so I can’t mention Hitler or Stalin here)
2. “Liberals” have a very hard time being liberal enough to allow a difference of opinion without resorting to nasty personal attacks (see previous above).
3. You’re obviously doing something right if Liberals constantly feel the need to read your blog, and then attack you (and us) for having a different world-view and taking apart the parroted arguments. Ta-wsssssssssh! They wouldn’t have a home computer to use to bash you with if not for free market capitalism…. funny, hey?
4. Every true Progressive that I know lives a completely hypocritical life; they love to espouse that point of view, but oddly enough they live like conservatives. And enjoy it.
5. Keep up the good work, I like to see them foam at the mouth.
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“They wouldn’t have a home computer to use to bash you with if not for free market capitalism….”
You’re not very familiar with how computers get made, clearly. I worked for Intel for a decade. The idea that there’s much free market capitalism in computer manufacturing is pretty laughable.
Actually for that matter the idea that a truly free market exists anywhere in any market is laughable. They’re unicorns. A nice idea (in theory) that can’t exist in reality.
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[...] right-wing blogosphere is predictably outraged. A blogger at the Lonely Conservative says: “We conservatives and believers in free markets are accused of being paranoid when we [...]
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You guys do realize that the characters are anthropomorphic talking cars, right? Oil is their food. If it helps, think
Big Oil=Con Agra. Or Big Oil=Monsato, if you prefer.
It’s not that fact that Big Oil is making lots of money that’s the problem. The problem is that they’re price gouging, which is wrong, and oil companies are being taxed as individuals instead of businesses. Why is it so terrible when bankers get bailed out and they spend it on bonuses, but oil companies get concessions and tax breaks to spend on giving CEOs raises? McDonalds is multi-national conglomerate making boatloads of money, yet they still have a dollar menu. Even though taxes were raised on cigarettes, tobacco companies haven’t jacked up their prices.
Oh, those poor widdle CEOs! Now that they have to pay taxes like everyone else, they can’t afford a new jacuzzi in their third Lear jet!
If not taxing businesses makes the economy better, why is Ireland still a shithole? Why isn’t Bermuda or the Cayman Islands an economic superpower?
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[...] “A los conservadores y creyentes en el libre mercado nos acusan de ser paranoicos cuando decimos que la industria de Hollywood está intentando adoctrinar a nuestros niños con propaganda izquierdista. Pero ahora los directores y productores de películas han salido y admitido lo que están haciendo. Me alegro de haberlo descubierto antes de que mis hijos me convenciesen de que los llevase a ver ‘Cars 2′”, denunciaba el blog The Lonely Conservative. [...]
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“A spy movie in the world where cars are alive. What would be a really good kind of über bad guy?”
Hello, this is a guy writing a STORY. As a story-line, his logic is impeccable. Big Oil WOULD be a “good kind of bad guy” in this context. Have you no imagination at all?
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Hey, how did ‘Atlas Shrugged’ do in the free marketplace? Oh, that’s right, it bombed horribly at the box office. No, not because of some evil liberal plot to keep it down, it bombed because it sucked ass because wingnuts absolutely suck at being creative. There’s your free market in action.
Wingnuts and creativity just don’t mix. No wingnut ever created anything revolutionary.
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As usual Big Oil’s full of crap. They shouldn’t give a shit given all the petroleum derivatives it took to make and market the film, not to speak of the full of petroleum derived substance merch the film was actually made by disney/pixar to sell. John Lasseter is a pretty talented film-maker and marketer but like many/most Hollywood types should mostly keep his mouth shut.
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Most people have a gripe with big oil. Why wouldn’t they? Record profits in these years when most everyone else is hurting. A fundamentally polluting product. Who’d actually argue these points?
Hollywood guys aren’t big thinkers. If anything, they’re morons — burning so much electricity to run the computers and creating all that landfill with the product tie-ins. I’m sure Lasseter wasn’t getting out the soapbox, but just finding a villain that makes sense in a story about cars. It’s so obvious that it’s a cliche.
Anyone worried about indoctrination should be speaking out against Wall-E. It shows a world that humans turned into a junk pile, so barren nothing will grow. Humans get fat, blind to anything but their creature comforts. In that one, the villain is not big oil, but human nature.
It’s just hard for me to belive that anyone would argue that our way of living is short-sighted, mass-producing things that will just be thrown away. I for one don’t want to restrict business, but I would like to see some intelligence and long-range thinking put into the process.
If a stupid movie about robots or cars helps that, why the hell not.
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Just got back from seeing the movie. Yeah, the Big Bad Oil message is pretty heavy-handed. They try to soften it by having one of the minor characters support “big oil” (with those words) at the end, but by then the message has sunk in.
Pixar has changed from making movies with heart to movies with political messages. Even if this wasn’t an anti-oil movie, it would still be a lesser effort from Pixar.
The first Cars was a song to the open road, and an ode to the small towns that got left behind when the freeways came through. It was about slowing down and just looking around at what mattered — people, relationships, the slower pace of life.
They do try to shoehorn a message about friendship into this movie, but it’s relatively weak and obvious, and the whole thing feels like a Pixar wannabee rather than an actual Pixar film.
Yes, Wall-E had an environmentalist message, too, but it also spoke up for self-reliance. Cars 2 has a message about Evil Big Oil.
It’s just fine to argue on behalf of alternative fuels; you can even do it without suggesting that Oil is EVIL. But Pixar apparently can’t, and that’s a shame.
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Both of the Cars movies are heavy-handed. Movies are best as entertainment, not when they try to push an idea. It’s like the old producer Samuel Goldwyn said: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”
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Where did you two sane people come from?
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heh.
it is amazing how many people use the anonymity of the internet to say things that would get their asses kicked in direct conversation.
it also surprising how many of them just regurgitate the talking points they hear on tv. as if those are the only angles on the subject. it does demonstrate the power to indoctrinate.
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So much for polite conversation!
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By the way, did you notice that the antagonist is specifically American Big Oil? No Saudis were slandered in the making of this film.
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I didn’t see the movie, but I’m not surprised. I’m sure the oil from the Venezuelans, Russians and Libyans are okay, too.
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Boy this conservative is lonely, even on his own blog! Most of these comments are what one might expect to find on MSNBC.com, or moveon.org.
Let’s start with the risibility of a film populated by anthropomorphised autos having as its “villain” the one industry without which we would not have cars. None of these so-called “alternative energy sources” come even close to being able to replace petroleum.
Ethanol? The production of ethanol consumes more petroleum than ethanol replaces–not to mention farmland and water, contributing mightily to inflation in food prices. Moreover, it’s a crappy fuel which would destroy Mater’s engine in short order, and is so polluting that even Al Gore has given up on it.
Electricity has to come from somewhere. We can’t have nuclear because of one movie starring Jane Fonda. Obama promised to bankrupt anyone building a new coal-fired plant. Wind and solar? Puh-lease. We could cover the entire country with windmills and solar arrays and it wouldn’t come close to meeting our current energy needs, much less power our cars.
Oh, but those eevil oil companies make big profits! Of course they make huge profits–they are immense corporations. Where does one think the money for exploration and research–including research into alternative energy sources–comes from? But their profit margins are no where near as high as, say, software or soda pop. I’ll start resenting oil company profits when they start making as much money off a gallon of gas as the government does.
As to subsidies? The “tax breaks” oil companies get also apply to Starbucks, but efforts are being made to take them away from oil companies only. It is the “alternative” sources of energy that receive lavish subsidies, withhout which they could not compete in the marketplace.
Next time you gas up, paying less per gallon than you do for Starbucks or bottled water, give a word of thanks to the thousands of people who made that possible. The investors, who are taxed twice on their income, and are as likely to lose the money they put at risk as to profit from it. The PhDs in geology, geophysics, petroleum engineering, and related fields who had to study really difficult subjects for decades before they could even qualify for their jobs. The roughnecks, toolpushers, and roustabouts putting life and limb at risk doing some of the hardest physical work on the planet to get oil out of the ground so you can drive to the demonstration agains “Big Oil.”
And when you flame me for writing this post see if you can come up with something more original than “racist, fascist homophobe” and the like.
Peace.
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Another sane person! Welcome!
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Back atcha!
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Oops. I forgot, I’m supposed to be enraged or something.
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One of the things I appreciated about the first “Cars” film was that there really wasn’t a “bad guy.” The conflict here was man (or car) vs. himself. It’s McQueen’s journey of self-discovery. The best of Pixar’s movies are like that, with the main conflicts being internal and spurring character growth. (“Finding Nemo,” “Up”) And sure, there is a villain in “The Incredibles,” but it’s really about family. There’s a villain in “Monsters, Inc.”, but it’s really about parenthood.
So to hear Lasseter talk about how they needed an “uber bad guy” and naturally settled on Big Oil sounds rather hollow. They haven’t really needed them before.
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[...] Cars 2, it’s just a harmless little kids movie.” Well, it’s destroying America with it’s anti-oil message, indoctrinating our children to become Prius-buying, David Simon-worshipping tree huggers so the [...]
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How many of the commenters here have actually seen the movie? Specific characters are the villains, not the oil industry. Regardless of how anyone feels about this issue in the real world, in the movie, this would be like saying the pesticide companies are the villain in Snow White because the movie features a poisoned apple.
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[...] I wish I’d seen The Lonely Conservative’s warning. [...]
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You people need have not idea what you’re talking about with these arguments and clearly nobody here actually SAW this movie, because if you had, you’d realize that Big Oil was not the villain but the hero. The car pushing the green technology in the movie turned out to be the bad guy! In fact, they even used the word “safe” in the end in emphasizing that Lightning McQueen was safe from his engine blowing up because Sarge secretly switched his green gas with Big Oil gas. I was quite P.O’ed at the end of this movie because their was an underlying message. The message was “Drill baby, Drill” and this movie was clearly Republican Party biased. Something I don’t want to see any ANY movie let alone a “children’s” movie.
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