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I think I've seen this film before. In fact, I think I've seen three of these films before. The new racing drama has taken the world by storm this month, already becoming the highest-grossing film of the leading man's career. Many have raved about F1's performances, cinematography, and accurate portrayal of Formula One. However, some critics pointed out how the blockbuster plot was riddled with clichés. People are sensing that F1 generally feels familiar, like other movies that came before. Specifically, people are noticing quite a few parallels between F1 and Pixar's beloved trilogy.

From the first time that I heard F1's premise, I thought it sounded like Cars. Granted, my knowledge of the world of motorsports is not exactly vast. My little brother, on the other hand, is a huge racing fan. As we prepared to go to the theater to see F1, he started to tell me what I needed to know to have a passing appreciation of whatever Joseph Kosinski was about to present.

First, he told me that Brad Pitt was not, in fact, playing a NASCAR driver, which immediately puzzled me. Apparently, there are a lot of differences between NASCAR and F1, but it's mostly about the kind of cars involved. At this point, I was dumbfounded. What do you mean it's not NASCAR? As a young woman from Texas who makes it a point to avoid sports at all costs, I truly thought up to this point that all car races were NASCAR. I quickly racked my brain for any rhyme or reason, any way to make order out of what was quickly becoming a world of technicalities I did not understand.

Then, I remembered, there actually was a racing movie I felt qualified to analyze. I could once again make sense of the world through other movies. "Wait, so it's like Cars?" I asked my brother, proud of myself. "No," he shot me down, "That's more like NASCAR."

We pivoted our conversation then to the aspects of the film (which, again, we still had not seen) that I was more comfortable discussing. I had not seen the trailer, but my brother (highly anticipating F1 as a huge F1 fan) knew a lot about what to expect plot-wise. "Okay, so it's just about Brad Pitt being an F1 driver and...driving around then?" I propositioned. He was starting to become exasperated with me, "No, so he's like a retired racer and there's a younger, newer racer (Damson Idris) that he takes under his wing." That was the final straw. "So it IS like Cars?" I screamed. We went to the theater.

Reader, it was like Cars. I was not prepared for how similar F1 would feel to Cars. I also was not prepared for so many other people to be saying the same thing when I got out of the movie. On social media, memes have been popping up everywhere that expose the overlap between the two films. There are not only parallels to the first Cars movie, but to the entire Cars trilogy.

In Cars 2, there is actually a Formula 1 race car character, and we get a glimpse into the international racing world. In Cars 3, Lightning McQueen himself becomes the "veteran" racer and partners up with rookie technician Cruz Ramirez to prove that he can still compete with "younger" racers for the Piston Cup. In fact, . I am so completely serious.

Now, let me be clear, I am not implying that F1 was actually intentionally plagiarizing Cars in any way (though, that would be hilarious). . Cars, also, was not the first to adopt its rather simple but effective narrative structure of a cocky up-and-comer and a jaded old-timer coming together to teach each other new lessons. It works.

However, we are at the point in movie-making where recycling the same stories without any attempt to make them feel fresh, exciting, or nuanced does not cut it anymore. Financially, maybe, as this was objectively a huge hit. Emotionally, however, time will tell if F1 has any staying power at all. Cars clearly did.

If you don't believe me, you can see for yourself. F1 is now playing in theaters, and the Cars trilogy is now streaming on Disney+.