The first trailer for the upcoming Cars 3 was one of the most intriguing things we've seen in awhile. Now, we're beginning to get some details about the new characters in the film and how they fit into the film's story. Most interestingly, we now have our first real look at the film's primary antagonist. Meet Jackson Storm.
While this video gives us our first good look at the character of Jackson Storm, Entertainment Weekly has a great deal of information about exactly who the character is. Jackson Storm in Cars 3 is essentially who Lightning McQueen was in the original movie. The young hotshot car that has his future ahead of him and thinks that he owns the racing business. He's leaving old timers in his dust. Of course, now, a full decade after the release of the original Cars, Lightning is now that old timer. According to Cars 3 director Brian Fee:
Jackson was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Everything comes easy to him, and everything about him says he's faster, so much so that we've designed him so that even when he's standing next to McQueen, McQueen looks old. ... He thinks the world is his. He's taking over. He's owed it. In a very broad term, I think of old football players with those little leather skull caps, and you think of football players now with all their armor, hitting so hard. It's not the same game. What they did was not anything like what we do now. And that's Jackson: He thinks the future of racing and the high-tech ways they train and what they can do means they're taking the sport to a new level, and the older guys had their day, and it's done, and they have no place in the future of racing.
To add to the swagger of Jackson Storm, the character will be voiced by Armie Hammer, who apparently got the role due to his turn as the pompous Winklevoss Twins in The Social Network.
Technically, this is our second look at Jackson Storm in Cars 3. We do see him blowing past other cars in the race scene of the teaser trailer, just before we see Lightning McQueen wipe out.
It would seem that the themes of Cars 3 will be dealing with the passage of time and coming to terms with the fact that you just may not be as great at that thing you love as you once were.
Click over to the next page to get some info on another new character, Cruz Ramirez, as well to learn a bit about how we'll see Lightning McQueen in Cars 3.
Cruz Ramirez
Cruz Ramirez is a young car, not unlike Jackson Storm, but while Storm has no time for the older racers. Ramirez, voiced by Cristela Alonzo, has a very different attitude.
Whereas others like Jackson would look at McQueen and dump him, Cruz isn't like that at all. She's the most optimistic person in the world and wants to do anything to help.
Lightning McQueen
Cars 3 will see Lightning McQueen evolve from the young upstart to the experienced veteran. This change in perspective also means coming to terms with things that you cannot control.
McQueen is not the young hotshot anymore, the kid he was back then in Cars 1. He's in the middle of his life, and as an athlete, that's getting up there. You have your whole life ahead of you, yet your career is starting to show its age. He's looking in the mirror and realizing, 'I'm 40 years old,' and dealing with the fact that the thing that you love more than anything else, you might not be able to do forever.
Cars 3 will be in theaters on June 16. In the meantime, look for a trailer early next week. We'll have it on CinemaBlend as soon as it drops.
