In my
review of the Disney Store exclusive Dusty Crophopper, I mention how scaling is a problem. It's the same problem that exists
any time aircraft and automobiles need to coexist: planes are big. Really big. Take a large production car—say, a 1957 Imperial at 20.4' (6.2m) long and 6.8' (2m) wide—and you could still fit half a dozen of them in the same footprint needed for a single Cessna 172 (27' (8.28 m) long with a 36' (11.00 m) wingspan). Having a VW Beetle go up against an F-15 just isn't a contest without fudging some of the numbers.
Disney had the same problem with
Planes. Early in the movie, we're introduced to some of Dusty's friends, including a forklift and a tanker truck:
Later on, we see him next to some other cars:
If this story was told in our world, Dusty should absolutely dwarf these other characters. In the world of
Planes, however, they all need to be around the same size...both for storyboarding reasons (it's really hard to block out a scene between a mouse and a great dane), and to make Dusty appear more sympathetic (he's not much of an underdog if he could literally squash everyone else in the scene with him).
You get a slightly more realistic scene when Dusty is talking to the Jolly Wrenches aboard the USS Flysenhower:
Ignore the giant forklift, and notice how Dusty is much smaller than the fighter jets. The more realistic sizes makes sense here: Dusty is looking up to these guys, both literally and figuratively. But when he's daydreaming about flying with them, suddenly they're all about the same size:
No, Dusty isn't just really far ahead of them. Look at their shadows on the cloud below them: Dusty's tail is just about even with the noses on the fighter jets.
Unlike
Transformers, where the characters are supposed to exactly match objects in our world, vehicles in
Cars and
Planes are just inspired by our vehicles. Which means that as fans we have a lot of flexibility deciding what's truly "accurate." With that in mind, I'm happy to consider the Disney Store talking
Planes figures to be in-scale with the 1/24
Cars vehicles that we have seen so far:
