Agh words! I’ll break them up a little with spoiler boxes. This however is over 2000 words long just as a warning. I started writing and didn’t really stop.
First intro:
Overall, like most sequels, Cars 2 had to function on two levels- as a sequel in general as well as a movie in its own right. Both can be difficult, though Pixar has shown before that it can do this. With the widely praised TS3 from Pixar, and the fact the original Cars wasn’t all that popular it was a hard act to follow. Also, Kung Fu Panda 2 came at around the same time, being lauded as fantastic as well as the superior film. And I’m not going to lie, for meafter watching Cars 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, was indeed the superior film. But was Cars 2 terrible? A bad movie?
Not to me, though there were indeed some problems all the same. I wrote this just after I saw it so I may have forgotten some things in the process so bear with me.
How Cars 2 functions as a sequel:
[spoiler]As a sequel, a movie must do several things all at once, simultaneously. For one, it must fit with the original canon of the original film. It must also, in its own way, seem like a natural or plausible progression of events from the previous film and its universe. It also however, must be a fresh and new story, not being a simple rehash of the morals or story learned or shown to us in the original. There are various ways to do this, even when a sequel in of itself wasn’t planned while the original was formed. Perhaps there’s an untold question at the end of the original that the creators didn’t intend to have and yet is there all the same or maybe a potential complication the characters themselves may face as time passes. After all, with Toy Story the challenge and complication was clear: children grow out of their toys eventually. Perhaps there’s even an unfortunate implication to fix from the original. Or simply an unexplored facet of the very world they’ve created.
It’s rather strange how often Hollywood in general seems to churn out sequels, when in fact they are so difficult to get right. Granted that often doesn’t necessarily hurt their bank balance all the same even when they get it wrong. Though sequels do have the benefit having (usually) much beloved characters ready and waiting which is tempting to any film maker looking for cash. You don’t have to make the audience care for these characters because they in essence already have done so before and thus will. (Unless of course you completely forget your characters actual and intricate personalities which made people love them in the first place).
So how does Cars 2 fare as a sequel? It’s a rather mixed bag. Most would agree that the original Cars never really needed a sequel. I suppose an interesting idea was how the big names would react to Lightning’s small town friends. And really, given the others, Mater was the one most likely to get things wrong or mess things up.
Mater, in some ways, is a stereotype of the American southern small towner. So in a way, making Mater the main character seems to have made sense since he’d be the main source of such a conflict in Lightning’s life on the circuit and in the media. While in tone and setting it’s kind of jarring when you compare it to the original (a small town versus several big name cities across the world with big flashing lights and British spies), in premise it does in his own way kind of make sense to see an inverse version of what Lightening went through- a big timer who had to slow things down. Mater, out of all of Lightning’s friends was the one who would be most likely to embarrass Lightning with any famous friends or acquaintances he’d eventually make. His mannerisms mean he doesn’t fit in regardless of how he looks. Also, Finn was right, upon first meeting Mater you really would think of him as kind of an idiot. And while he isn’t, simply having more knowledge in some areas than others (having a lot of knowledge for instance on the inner workings of certain cars as well as parts), he does very clearly lack a lot of common sense. And it can seem ridiculous to some people to have never heard of wasabi when you’re in Japan itself.
Also the Cars world was never really widely explored, instead keeping to rural America with a simple story. This could be a reason as to why some fans found it jarring in comparison. However given the complaints some people had with the original it could be this was why they decided on being international with spies- to make it more ‘exciting’ as it were and attractive to non-Car fans. This didn’t really work as they planned, though I can see why they may have tried. Also, well, they stuck to such a small area in the first movie they maybe wanted to branch out. After all, most Pixar movies aren’t very international at all- even Monsters Inc is more or less America with monsters instead of humans.
However in terms of the movies ‘moral’- that Mater doesn’t have to change, there is indeed some conflict given the fact the original movie had the opposite happen. While indeed I did feel sorry for Mater in certain ways, in other ways I also sympathised a little too much with Lightning’s position. (More on that later).
In terms of logical discrepancies, I never really noticed anything which didn’t fit with the first movie, though that may because it was indeed my first viewing.[/spoiler]
Cars 2 as a movie in of itself.
[spoiler]Cars 2 and its visuals were, as ever, stunning. Once again, as I remember with trailers I was mesmerised by the ocean waters in the beginning, because I honestly think I’ve never seen water more beautiful than that animated. The animators of the movie deserve a standing ovation for their work, particularly the backgrounds. My jaw almost dropped at the detail they put into London in particular. There were also, of course, a good number of different types of cars shown, with many crowds of cars which must have taken a lot of effort and time. The animators should be proud of their work and I hope they are even if Cars 2 didn’t do as well as Pixar hoped.
Cars 2 in some ways does work as a spy film in its own right. The action sequences are top notch and exciting. Finn and Holly are also fantastic characters to have. And I enjoyed them, especially Finn. While Holly’s eventual confirmation as Mater’s girlfriend at the end was kind of sudden (and I honestly wish they’d just become friends in the end) overall I can’t fault them much. They were interesting and seemed to have backgrounds which fanfic writers have probably had some fun with such as they are. Holly’s use of the shocker simply because a car annoyed her was kind of an eyebrow raiser all the same but I let it pass.
Overall I was rather surprised there was so much death. I mean I did hear of it, but it made certainly for a much darker tone than expected, especially since they’re well, talking cars. Something with such a silly world isn’t something you’d usually consider dark but then I watch My Little Pony and some of the best fanfictions there are dark so I’m not one to talk. However as most of the deaths committed by the protagonists were in battle rather than after it’s hard to fault them for it. Especially since, Finn saw right away, with the cube that they would kill him if they found him.
Which leads us to the antagonists and villains.
They were a mixed bag in some ways. Professor Z’s stereotypical appearance did not help matters at all and is perhaps that one thing I’d make the animators themselves change completely. It was an incredibly off putting design. It is unnecessary to make addictions to a ‘bad’ character to make him uglier or so stereotypical.
The “Lemons” are in some ways interesting- they’ve been belittled certainly, and it seems if their parts certainly ARE being stopped it’s as if they’ve been sentenced to a slow death. So unfortunately Mater’s speech at the end doesn’t exactly cover all their issues to begin with. Being a rusty tow truck who is seen as stupid isn’t the same as being seen as a joke who deserves to die off. In some ways the whole movie for this reason, has some unfortunate implications. Is there a form of Lemon activism in the Cars world at all? What about the nice Lemon in the beginning and end? What will happen when the parts en d? Why am I thinking too much about a world with talking cars? Perhaps we’ll never really know.
The conspiracy theory involved with alternative fuel did actually surprise me, as did the big reveal, though the plan didn’t exactly make sense. We never got the sense other people were using alternative fuels or that it was a big threat to fossil fuels at the time (such as other companies promoting alternative fuel for example)- unless we take the idea of that huge corn field as proof in the first movie that it was becoming a big deal in the cars world (though that’s rather vague). Also if I get my conservation hat on, certain alternative fuels aren’t even all that green to begin with in real life depending on what you’re talking about. Granted in retrospect, since we never found out what exactly the (fake) idea of the alternative fuel or what it was claimed to be made of if I remember correctly.
In the end as mentioned before, Mater’s moral does have certain problems, especially considering Lightning had to change in the first movie. Sometimes we do have to change, it can be for the better too. Different cultures have different practices after all, and bulldozing in and being ignorant of them isn’t really the smart thing to do. Sometimes you’re the one who has to be a bit more sensitive. Help fight injustices certainly, but in the end, the world doesn’t revolve around you or what you consider ‘normal’. Mater wasn’t deliberately being rude and in some ways was rather like an over enthusiastic child- fascinated but lacked self control and awareness before Finn called him an idiot (without realising he had, thinking it an act). However he was in some ways insulted people especially if the cultural norms of Cars Japan is the same as our own. That’s not really a good thing.
All the same despite some hiccups I was genuinely surprised that there were really only a few moments I found Mater all that annoying (particularly when he was messing around with disguises or certain hiccups with the culture). I also as mentioned did agree with Lightning in some ways when he got angry at him when he yelled random thinks into his microphone- Mater failed his job and Lightning. And in the beginning he honestly thought it was just because of a date, and didn’t know it was actually that important for him to leave the pit. This was therefore pretty selfish of him to do (as well as silly to forget to switch it off). Though he was sorry, he’d more or less proven that it would take some time before he could be trusted to be a crew member again (if ever). It’s a sad thing- but some friends you shouldn’t live or work with after all.
However I actually found Mater endearing in this movie and I felt incredibly sorry for him when he realised how people saw him. I think however Finn and Holly helped immensely in me eventually coming to like him. Without them for him to bounce off of I might have actually hated him.
Overall? It’s not without its problems or flaws. And I can see why it threw some people off- both some of those who loved/liked the original and those who didn’t. In a way you can even ask why they even decided to use a Cars universe with spies when they could have easily just used humans and new characters, while only changing certain aspects of the story and called it a day.
In the end it desrves more than its score on Rotten tomatoes as a movie and I can see why other people enjoy it, and overall I can say I enjoyed it too.[/spoiler]
General other thoughts which don’t fit anywhere else:
[spoiler]Mater with a gun is officially my new nightmare fuel. I wouldn’t really trust him to have one even if he means well.
Ka Chow-> Ka-Boom is still a horrible, terrible joke just as when I saw it in trailers.
Mater when he said Holly was pretty? Little creepy honestly if you don’t know someone and you do that. So don’t guys.
I at first thought I’d start up a death toll to see how violent the movie really was- as soon as Finn did the scene where he blew the cars up I gave up, so that didn’t last long.
Fossil fuels aren’t formed from dinosaurs, they’re from plants and animals millions of years older than the good old T-Rex… WAIT THEY’RE SAYING THE CARS WORLD HAD DINOSAURS?! Were they car like dinosaurs, or does this add to the crack-dark theory that the Cars world is just our world after the humans go extinct because the machines take over deciding to mimic our world, mannerisms and cultures after doing so. Yeah I got nothing to add to that.
The Queen and Pope cars made me giggle when I saw them, in a good way that is.[/spoiler]
