While I am not accredited, I am qualified to be certified so I am certifiable, I am in no way qualified to answer the implications of the WORLD of CARS so I will only charge you $24.99 an answer …

CARS takes place where there are no apparent signs of humanoids but clearly it is planet Earth … what are the odds of another land mass in the universe looking exactly like this?

There are there scenarios.

Are the kids asleep? 🙂

Okay, scenario #1 – there is another Earth rotating on the other side of the Sun that is much like this planet Earth but different in many ways (where Spock is evil, the last three Starwars movies were coherent & entertaining and CARS are people) … plausible but I think we would’ve spotted the other planet by now.

Scenario #2 – Scary scenario … Cyberdyne Systems has taken over the planet with giant spark plugs zapping us to smoldering piles …

(Sven the governator – coincidence, I think NOT!) Instead of creating robots that move slower than humans, every robot (when Doc was inspecting Sheriff, we saw no soft tissue so no evidence CARS are cyborgs) is some sort of transportation robot … and of course, as all robots do, they eventually pick up human traits and without a background culture, they pieced together the last history they could find …

In other words – “Damn you all to hell, Guido and Luigi!”

(the kids are asleep, right? 😉 ).

But I actually think it’s scenario #3 … the less scary but just as spooky version 🙂 … as we grew to spend so much time in our cars, we became CARS … look at the lump that is Barney Storming’ … is that not a lump of our evolved form? Why bother with legs and arms when we can drive everywhere?

That’s why we still read newspapers and watch TV (as CARS do).

Or the strongest evidence – while there are a lot of car puns places & people (Lugnut City, Radiator Springs, Kevin Racingtire), there are equally the same number of “old school” words, names things that are not from a CAR based culture and pre-date it … Sheriff, California, Emeryville, Sally, etc, etc …

That explains certain things like why are there mattresses … I think it’s pretty simple – what do kids do when they see a mattress, they jump up and down on it … sleep on it? Yea, okay, that runs a distant 7th … so what do CARS kids do? Jump on mattresses … as logical as kids who run in circles at top speed until they collapse 🙂

Why are there taxis? Paid companionship. They’ll drive along and talk to you – maybe help guide you to your destination … clearly as with Van & Mini, CARS “people” still get lost …

No real carbon based life forms – yet, a dinosaur logo for Dinoco Gas? Well, we have a lot of things with outer space alien logos – are they real or not? Unicorns? So, why not – whether it’s based on our culture or just made up alien logo … it’s as real as trademark lawyers.

But there are palm trees and cactus … and birds? Of course, they could be mechanical birds or like dinosaur became birds, birds are spooky and can survive anything 😯

And people think CARS is some kids movie – it’s really an eerie glimpse into the future when we become man-machine … and even then, the parable is that while we can wear any facade, deep now, we are still an island (albeit a metal one) and that while we move much too fast through a race circuit-like culture – it is a culture that ultimately isolates and attempts to alienate us in a desert world that is named for a circulatory system that attempts to keep us cool while it itself is scalding hot …

I can’t wait for the CARS Criterion version.

Okay, there’s a theory #4 that this is just a movie and we’re thinking too much … but that’s exactly what a robot overlord would want us to think …