Cars 3

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The third film of the Cars franchise, Cars 3 is Pixar's eighteenth film.

Set some time after Cars 2, Lightning McQueen finds himself dealing with a new generation of racecars entering the Piston Cup circuit, particularly fastest among them, Jackson Storm. Left behind by these faster models, Lightning crosses path with a young racing trainer, Cruz Ramirez, to get back into the racing game.

Tropes used in Cars 3 include:

• Advertised Extra: Jackson Storm.
• Always Someone Better: Jackson Storm to Lightning McQueen. Cruz Ramirez also proves to be this to McQueen and later to Storm.
• An Aesop:
  • The world will always move forward. One day, you will be old.
  • You decide when you're done.
• Awesomeness By Analysis: How the next-gens work. Training on simulators, they calculate the optimum racing line and hold to it.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Jackson Storm and Sterling but they never interact and have totally independent goals from one another.
• Break Them by Talking: Storm's main tactic.
• The Bus Came Back: After being absent since Race-O-Rama, Chick Hicks returns, keeping up his Karma Houdini streak.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Cruz to McQueen following the demolition derby.
• Chaste Toons: Among Lighting's generation of racers is Cal Weather, nephew to Strip Weathers from the first film.
• Dark Is Evil: Compared to the other next-gens, Storm has a predominantly black paintjob and grey eyes.
• Demoted to Extra: Compared to Cars 2, Mater is barely in the film.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: In the final laps of the Florida 500, Storm slows down to trash talk Cruz. After McQueen points out that this indicates how badly Cruz scares him, Cruz has the fire to catch up to and beat Storm.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Everyone putting down Cruz as a racer has more than a few shades of how racing is heavily male-dominated.
• Faux Affably Evil: Both Sterling and Cruz.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Before his crash, McQueen does a burnout to exit the pits before Storm. Hinting that his rush to get back on the track has weakened his back tires.
  • Rust-Eze paint jobs get damaged a lot during the film, hinting that soon, Rust-Eze won't be an active sponsor.
  • As McQueen lampshades following the demolition derby, a lot of what he's been doing is training Cruz rather than him training her.
• History Repeats: Discussed by Lighting. After he had an epic crash like Doc, McQueen worries that he'll be forgotten like his mentor was. Thankfully he managed to avoid this.
• Loophole Abuse: How McQueen wins his bet with Sterling. The rules state that only the number is the winner. Since Cruz also sported the 95 and won the race, McQueen is awarded the win for starting it.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The early trailers hinted that the next-gens were part of some conspiracy to take over the Piston Cup with LeMans-style racers. But it's just the march of technology, there will always be a faster car to replace the old models.
• Reality Ensues:
  • McQueen pushes himself too hard at the Los Angeles race. And going at speeds that he wasn't mean to, he loses control and crashes. This is revealed to be what caused Doc to crash and later causes a next-gen pile up at the Florida 500.
  • Cruz struggles to race on dirt initially. As the first film said, dirt and asphalt are very different and you need to adjust your driving style to match. Lightning says as much.
  • McQueen starts dead-last at the Florida 500. That's what happens when you skip qualifying laps.
• Revisiting the Roots: Unlike the globe-trotting, spy thriller Cars 2, this film is much more tonally in-line with the first film. It even brought back Randy Newman to compose the music.
• Self-Deprecation: When in Thomasville, it's noted how much time McQueen spends on dirt tracks rather than running official laps, which might be a jab at how the Cars video games largely stick to off-road races rather than Piston Cup tracks.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: With the more emotionally serious plot, Mater has a much reduced role. Mack, generally a more chipper character, also sits out the climax.
• Technology Marches On: The main point of the film. There's always new tech coming down the pipes. Even the pace car from the first film has been replaced.
• Truth in Television:
  • Many veteran race car drivers have reported trouble using a simulator for the first time, just as McQueen does.
  • Smokey notes that McQueen isn't very good at drafting, given how long he spends at the front of the pack. Race cars are set up differently based on where they're expected to be. A car designed to quickly get to the front will not have a frame that lends itself to drafting.
  • This is also the case when Cruz struggles on dirt.
• Unskilled but Strong: This is hinted to be the case for the next-gens. They're very fast but don't have a lot of racing experience, allowing a few veteran racers to keep up with them.
• Vague Age: As always for Cars. McQueen is implied to be in the equivalent of his 40s while Cruz is in her 20s but no exact number is ever said. And cars from the 1950s are still running smoothly.
• Villainous Breakdown: When faced with someone who's fast enough to keep up with him, Storm completely loses it, ramming Cruz into the wall in an attempt to win.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Smokey notes that McQueen hasn't lost his skill by pointing out that, after engaging in a demolition derby, there isn't a scratch on him.