/Answers: The Best Movie Vehicles

Every week in /Answers, we attempt to answer a new pop culture-related question. This week's edition, tying in with the release of Cars 3, asks "What is your favorite vehicle from the movies?" As always, we have submissions from the /Film writing crew and podcast team. This week, we are also joined by Cars 3 director Brian Fee and writers Kiel Murray, Scott Morse, Bob Peterson, and Mike Rich.

If you'd like to share your pick for your favorite movie vehicle, please send your thoughts to slashfilmpitches@gmail.com for a chance to be featured on the site. Find our choices below!

[My favorite movie vehicle is] the speeder bike in Return of the Jedi because I lit up when I was a kid, that whole scene lit me up. There was something about that design. It's kind of like a motorcycle, but it flies. The way you would ride it, they freak you out with the way they sped up the film and take you through the trees. It stuck with me forever. I remember being in college and getting a toy of it. I built a model of it. I had a large version of the model that I built. Just looking at the silhouette of it against the wall would just bring a smile to my face. It was all how I felt initially when I first saw it as a kid, that's always what it was tapping into.

Kiel Murray: What's Michael Arndt's movie? Little Miss Sunshine. For me it's the bus, because we had that bus. We had an orange bus growing up.Scott Morse: I've got two, they're both from George Lucas movies, surprise-surprise. One is Milner's coupe from American Graffiti and the other one would be the Millennium Falcon.Kiel Murray: The Back to the Future car is a good one too.Bob Peterson: I guess Herbie the Love Bug because it brings so many nostalgic thoughts about going to the movies with my family back in the '60s and '70s. Filled with love.Kiel Murray: What was the flying one?All other writers: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!Bob Peterson: I had such a crush on a girl in my neighborhood who looked like that girl.Mike Rich: Yeah, all of those!

Back to the Future has been my favorite movie since childhood and part of the reason that film captured my imagination as a child was, yes, time travel, but also that cool-looking stainless steel gullwing door car that looked like it came from the future. I love almost everything about the design of the car. To me, it's not just a vehicle, but another character in the story.

The photo above is me in the late 90's, standing in front of the now non-existent Back to the Future: The Ride at Universal Studios Orlando. The one on the right is from last year's 2015 celebration, where I was able to attend the "Fish Under the Sea Dance" in the actual filming location from the movie.

For years, I thought the car was created for the movie. So when I found out it was a real car, I told myself I'd buy one someday. I have a reluctant admission for you: I never actually got my drivers license. San Francisco has a wonderful public transportation system and I thought I'd get one when I moved to Los Angeles, but the combination of working from home and ride sharing has made it unnecessary. I've never been much of a car guy – maybe it's because I don't drive. However, I've always wanted a Delorean, even if it would be so impractical in this age (that said, they are now converting them into all electrical vehicles).

The evolution of the Batmobile is one of my favorite things about Batman's long cinematic history. Up until Batman Begins, the Batmobile was always like an emo James Bond Aston Martin on steroids — sleek, gadget-filled, and cool. But then Christopher Nolan and production designer Nathan Crowley kicked it up a notch by turning the Batmobile into a bonafide tank. The Tumbler, as it was called, was clunky and massive. At first I wasn't fond of it — I missed the neo-Gothic days of Tim Burton. But I gradually warmed to this unwieldy monster and the way it was a bald-faced display of the brooding masculinity that was The Dark Knight trilogy.

It was almost endearing, the way the Tumblr basically screamed, "Look how awesome I am! I'm a tank! I can shoot down bridges! I can leap tall buildings! TAKE THAT SUPERMAN." Maybe that's just me, but it was exemplified in the scene in The Dark Knight when the Tumbler self-destructs and becomes a kick-ass motorcycle. It was equal turns ridiculous and awe-inspiring. The scene had the joy of an 8-year-old boy who brilliantly thought up the idea of a tank that turns into a motorcycle and the production value of a billion-dollar blockbuster. It may sound like I'm making fun of Nolan and the Batmobile, but I promise you it's quite the opposite. I think it's one of the overlooked fun aspects of the movie, and a wonderful exercise in a very serious movie not taking itself too seriously.

If it wasn't for last week's question about the best cinematic end of the world, this would have made the third week in a row where something from Star Wars was my answer. I'm sorry, but I can't resist. I'm only human.

The Millennium Falcon is my absolute favorite vehicle in the history of cinema. What makes the ship most appealing is that there's nothing particularly special about it. The Millennium Falcon is an old Corellian freighter that has been modified by Han Solo. Nearly everyone who encounters it thinks it's just a hunk of junk, but it always comes through when you need it the most.

For me, I've always equated the Millennium Falcon to the first car we all had in high school. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts. For most of us, their high school car was far from a new, quality automobile, but it was the vehicle that got us around and created a lot of memories. And when it comes to both my own high school car and the Millennium Falcon, I have the most fond memories.

The Millennium Falcon has always been my favorite, so much that a friend just bought me the original toy version from the Empire Strikes Back line in 1980. When the teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit the big screen, it was the sound of the Falcon's engine flying through the sky that brought back all the nostalgic feelings I had from when I first fell in love with the saga.

James Bond always wears the coolest clothes and drives the coolest cars. Actually, he always wears and drives what's cool in the very specific window of a movie's release. This is part of the series' time capsule appeal – pick a year from past five decades and the closest 007 movie will help you understand what was in style at the time.

Some of the old Bond fashions and vehicles have aged remarkably well. Sean Connery's Aston Martin in Goldfinger is so timeless that it was brought out of retirement for Skyfall. Others seem a little silly now, but that is part of their appeal. Enter the Lotus Espirit from The Spy Who Loved Me, a car that comes equipped with all of the standard gadgets (including a rocket launcher), but also the ability to turn into a submarine.

This vehicle was a product of 1977 and it looks it. Unlike that Aston Martin, anyone driving this car in 2017 would get chuckles instead of envious stares. And yet, the Lotus Espirit is treated like the coolest thing ever during the course of The Spy Who Loved Me and Roger Moore, always the cheekiest Bond, seems to be having a blast just sitting in the driver's seat. It may not be the coolest car in the world right now, but it's a flashback to a different era, a reminder of just how much tastes can change over the years. As a piece of pop culture ephemera, it's fascinating. I'd even argue that Lotus Espirit is so uncool that it somehow bend back around and becomes cool all over again.

So damn elegant.

One of the things that I am enamored with when it comes to the light cycles in TRON and TRON: Legacy is just how clean the lines are on those things. In the first installment, the bikes were more utilitarian than functional; they served the purpose of gaming and for making a quick getaway. In the second installment, they upped the sexiness of those machines by making them a hybrid of the original, adding in elements of old-school motorcycles. This is a vehicle that sold me on the film's aesthetic in the last few moments of the first trailer. The Frankenstein'd cycles that appear in TRON: Legacy, in all of their eye-popping, vibrant colors, not only made a statement, but helped to add weight to a film that was mostly CGI Those light cycles are objects to be coveted – you can imagine how gnarly those things would be if they only existed in real life. . I completely get how impractical these would be in real-life, as anyone who has played the OG TRON video game in the '80s inside their local arcade can attest. The light cycle round was an absolute killer.

There are so many great cinematic vehicles to choose from for this list, but I have to go with the one that captured my childhood imagination and has not loosened its grip ever since: the jet pack from Joe Johnston's 1991 comic book movie The Rocketeer. Watching Billy Campbell's hotshot 1930s pilot Cliff Secord strap that thing to his back, soar through the skies, and fight Nazis left a huge impact on me. In the years since, I've marveled at the simplicity of comic book creator Dave Stevens' sleek design of the rocket-powered engine. In the movie, the jet pack is like a wild animal that needs to be broken in; it's practically a living creature with a mind of its own that Cliff and his mechanic buddy Peavy (Alan Arkin) slowly bend to their will as Cliff learns to harness it to save the day.

Much later, I moved to Hollywood and had the opportunity to see a special 20th anniversary screening of the movie at the El Capitan Theater (the same place it premiered back in '91), and got to see the actual prop used in the film. So freakin' cool.

What do you think of our picks? What is your favorite vehicle from the movies? Talk about it in the comments below or email your personal answer (a paragraph or more) to slashfilmpitches@gmail.com with the subject title "Favorite Movie Vehicle." Our favorite responses will be featured on the site in a future post!