I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but...

Owen Wilson is doing the voice for the main character of PIXAR's newest feature film, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Cars</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. I've always loved PIXAR animation because it's the borderline between realistic and cartoonish, and its overall look is neat and precise (boy, do I have a thing for neatness or what?).

To have Owen's voice as an underdog character seems kind of strange, though, since he's usually cast as eccentric womanizers or confused, lost souls. I guess his part as Ned Plimpton changed a lot of what he's able to do nowadays.

I really think the strangest thing is that Owen's voice is going to be used for a <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>car</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. PIXAR does a lot of animation for things that are inanimate (as far as human-like animation goes) : toys, fish, robots, and now, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>cars</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. Oh well.

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>-Purple</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <p>----------------------------------------------------------------
"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people." -Orson Welles
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Hmmmm. A car. A Pixar car.

I dunno if it got posted before in the Owen media thread, but I appreciate your posting, Purp, because I was unaware of it. Long sentence.

I think it's more his voice recognition factor more than anything else that would get him this part. His Dignan was every bit as great as hid Ned, I think; and for me, it took me a good while to get used to him playing the type of bulk roles he's been doing and probably had more to do with his getting this part. Yeah, they're usually fun movies, but it's hard to go from "Oooh, ac-TOR!" to "Owen? Is that you?" <p><!--EZCODE HR START--><hr /><!--EZCODE HR END--> <!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:navy;font-family:times new roman;font-size:x-small;">"And that's the whole idea of the film: it's a fake documentary; it's about fake secrecy. It's really important to me that it's all transparent, all totally coy. It's about what happens when you keep secrets, because they're transparent anyhow. Things will come out one way or another, and just because they come out doesn't mean they are true." - Jennifer Montgomery</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--></p>

Owen talked about this years ago -- that he was excited abotu the project etc - and then poof, the project seemed to disappear. I guess it is finally happening!

ON Edit -- I tried to link to the article but I could not get to the site, http://www.wilson-brothers.com. Does anyone know what is happening with that?

Anyhoo I did find an undated article, same text as I remember, from a couple of years ago:

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Owen Wilson reveals animated movie detail</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->
There’s finally been a confirmation as to an important detail about Pixar’s final Disney film, Cars. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I could never find out if the talking cars could drive themselves or if they had human drivers. Finally, voice actor Owen Wilson, confirmed there are no humans. “It’s a world of cars. That’s the hook.”

Wilson’s specific character is “a race car that is kind of cocky and is going to learn his lesson.” Expect the character to sound familiar. “It’s a voice kind of similar to my own,” Wilson said.

The film, aimed for a holiday 2005 release, is in the middle of production and Wilson has not even seen final animation yet. “Just stuff that they showed me when I went in, but it won’t be the final stuff. They take forever to do, so it's been a couple years now and I think it’ll be a least two more. <p><!--EZCODE HR START--><hr /><!--EZCODE HR END--> "There’s never any time to have too much self-doubt" - Wes Anderson </p>Edited by: chelseagirl at: 7/4/05 8:42 am

I remember seeing a few trailers for it, and thinking, "Wow, I can't believe Disney's allowing this to be cooked up." And then, yeah, it just disappeared so I figured it was one of those terrible animated features that hit VHS right off the bat. But then...

Voila! It is revived! Or, no, just delayed for more time than I'd expect.

Psh.

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>-Purple</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <p>----------------------------------------------------------------
"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people." -Orson Welles
----------------------------------------------------------------</p>

Hey, Purple, good to meet another Pixar fan!

There was a thread about this, which I bumped, but we can make this the new one.

Here's a bit about the <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.animated-news.com/archives/00002800.html" target="top">release date;</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> here's a link to the <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.pixar.com/theater/trailers/cars/index.html" target="top">trailer.</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p><!--EZCODE HR START--><hr /><!--EZCODE HR END-->Mandingo. I grock your mouth music. -- The Tick</p>

I will probably be taking my kids AGAIN next weekend. "They" are bringing Cars to our antiquated theater next weekend. Three of my kids have seen it twice; one has seen it three times, but Momma has only gotten one turn! Am I jealous - YES!!