General Information:

Media Type: Home Video
Type: Bluuray - Open Edition
Release Date: 2017-11-07

Geek's Thoughts: Cars 3 rolls onto Home Video on November 7th in various formats/sets and is currently available on Digital HD/Movies Anywhere. If you missed the film in theaters this time around Lightning McQueen is faced with the reality of getting older and his racing days are numbered as a new generation of racers are taking over. He deals with the internal struggle over what his identity is and the next phase of his life. This film includes most of the cast from the original film and introduces several new characters. Cruz Ramirez is one of the new cars featured. She is a trainer who has been held back from being a racer and goes on the training adventure with Lightning.

 

I watched the Blu-ray as well as looked through the MoviesAnywhere version. There are a fair number of bonus features in this initial home video offering. For a full listing jump to the press release at the end of this post. Some highlights & first impressions:

The original theatrical short “Lou” as well as a new mini-movie Miss Fritter’s Racing Skool are included on this release. An interesting note here.. on the MoviesAnywhere system there are three Mater shorts but neither of these. Lou continues the Pixar tradition of great shorts and it was released with the film in theaters. Miss Fritter is a fun piece created for the home video release.

The bonus material includes a suite of 5-10 minute featurettes looking at various aspects of the film. These include one on Cruz, The Story of “Cars 3”, and some of the historical research that went into the film. I also enjoy these looks into what it took create the film and the paths that were explored to reach the final film. Interesting to note there are no real technical ones in this offering. The focus is on character and story.

Cars to Die(cast) For – This featurette takes a look at the die cast toys that number over 1,000 and showcases some of the collections of the Pixar team. I thought this was a fun look at these collectibles/toys.

Deleted Scenes: There are a handful of deleted scenes. These featured storyboard type images and dialog recordings. I was pleased to see full introductions/overviews of the scenes. It really gives them some extra context.

If you are a fan of the puns in the world of Cars be sure to check out the featurette “World’s Fastest Billboard”

There are also three fly-throughs of sets/locations used in the film. I thought being able to see how the set looked was great but I would have liked to have had a commentary option or some interactivity to control the camera.

If you are a fan of the Cars films and are looking to spend more time in their world this release will make a good addition to your library. There are a fair number of bonus features. The features span a good range of topics and are enjoyable. If missed the film in theaters and enjoyed the original Cars film you may find Cars 3 more enjoyable than Cars 2 as it hits some of the same type of notes as the first so consider it.