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Jim Van Nest: See, I still don't look at it as a blatant money grab. I can only assume that I'm the only one that feels this way. I just don't see the problem with making a movie to satisfy their youngest and most loyal fans. Seriously, just because we don't get it (and I'll admit, I didn't really care for Cars either), the kids do. And maybe after seven or eight years of working tirelessly to create Oscar worthy films like Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3...maybe they wanted to have some fun. Maybe they wanted to create a more popcorn-y flick just for the kids. And frankly, if people are going to start bailing on Pixar because of the Cars franchise, that's just freakin' ridiculous.

Reagen Sulewski: I think it's worrisome in that they're getting away from their key mission in telling original stories. If they go for Cars 2 now, who's to say they won't continue to get lazier and turn into DreamWorks, or God forbid, Fox Animation? Not to mention that if they keep cranking out these cash grabs, they may lose the people that made Pixar special to begin with, or may not attract that next generation of creators.

Brett Beach: To quickly answer the question, if Monsters U. and Cars 2 were to be followed by more sequels, and if they attempted to sequelize all existing properties, that would smack of desperation. I am not too concerned at the moment, and am focusing on the fact that Kelly Macdonald (le sigh) is doing the voice for the female lead in Brave. I have no doubt she will nail the part and I hope she can be embraced by girls (and boys) as all the Disney princesses.

To do a side note: I read an interview with John Lasseter where one of the questions was about the universe in which the Cars films are set (i.e. one with no humans, but cars anthropomorphized to take the place of humans) and it was the most dis-jointed, meandering kind of answer imaginable. Maybe the Cars universe just isn't as inherently well-thought out as WALL-E, et al and so the result is a product that seems much more blatantly product-like.

David Mumpower: Like anything else, the first step is to look at the numbers. Cars earned roughly $460 million worldwide. Putting that in perspective, Cars' global box office take reflects roughly 7% of the revenue earned with the Cars license. The other 93% comes from merchandising. If you worked at Pixar and saw those numbers, can you honestly say you would not be tempted to make another Cars movie? The revenue generated from this license is enough to pay for the next decade of Pixar titles. That's not even a hyperbolic statement. BOP loved WALL-E and Up, both of which we named as the best films of their years of release. They were paid for (at least partially) using revenue from Cars. The question becomes whether we enjoyed those movies enough to tolerate the existence of Cars. I am surprised to see people saying they do not.

What seems to be in play here is a larger issue. We are in the process of watching Pixar sell out a bit. They have always done this of course since any Toys R Us in the world is a de facto shrine to Woody and Buzz. They simply have not been as pointed about it. Cars 2 was created to build the Cars brand. There is no subtlety to this. The planes and boats in the film will eventually become new stories presumably entitled Planes and/or Boats. The thought process is that in doing so, they can stock the shelves of Toys R Us with...Planes and Boats. The hard part is in reconciling that a company capable of creating a story as daring as a master chef who happens to be a rat can also sell Cars alarm clocks for $29.95 MSRP. This question breaks down into a simple debate: Is shameless commercialism okay? I maintain that the ends justify the means just as I understand how many people reading this are offended that Pixar has placed monetary goals above idealism.

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