Why was Cars 2 so bad?
09.06.2025 02:45
-Give this F1 racecar some personality beyond the typical “Italian, mama-mia!” stereotype. Don’t make him a random side character. Make him the main antagonist of Cars 2, not some random lemons or whatever.
There’re numerous reasons why this movie sucked, and they’ve been discussed extensively and extremely well in critical analyses on YouTube and in blog posts. Instead of listing the reasons why this movie stinks, I’ll focus on ways that Cars 2 could be drastically improved. I don’t know if Cars 2 would ever have been as critically-acclaimed as Toy Story 3 was the year before Cars 2. I mean, that movie won the Best Animated Feature Oscar and even got nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. That’s unusually positive for an animated movie, even for Pixar. But, Cars 2 probably could’ve scored a perfectly good 74–80% rating (about the same as Cars 1). Believe or not, there were plenty of ways for Cars 2 to get a fresh rating on RT. It has a lot of genuinely good elements in it that would’ve worked better in separate Cars entries instead of being crammed into one bloated, convoluted, and disjointed sequel.
Cars 2 didn’t need to be Toy Story 3 because it’s not a Toy Story movie. I only cared if Cars 2 was a natural continuation of Cars 1 and therefore was at least as good as Cars 1. The fact that it couldn’t get that right was why it failed as a sequel. The fact that it has no connection to Cars 1 is why it has an ugly 39% rating on RT when its predecessor was able to score a 75% rating just 5 years before it. The fact that it’s a bloated, disjointed movie that feels like a crappy Saturday morning cartoon and a 2-hr long toy commercial is why it has not only become the only rotten movie in Pixar’s film catalog, but also the first Pixar movie to not even be nominated for any Oscar.
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-Make the cars bloody cars that happen to talk and sport windshield eyes, not simply people in car “fur suits”.
-Sever the spy plot from Cars 2 entirely.
Instead, turn it into an extended Mater’s Tall Tales spin-off, in which Mater has to work with 2 bumbling spies who keep getting caught by the lemon bad guys and are too stupid to see that he’s a civilian. Have him cooperate with them to uncover some conspiracy, and make it self-aware with how often Mater, despite supposedly being the dumb one, has to constantly get these spies out of danger because they’re so bad at their jobs. Acknowledge how nonsensical this plot truly is as opposed to taking it so seriously. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a random-ass sequel that John Lasseter scribbled on a napkin and sent to Pixar’s animation team while he was snorting coke. Now, it feels like a goofy, Get Smart-inspired spin-off that’s laughably dumb on purpose. Nice!
Lightning is the protagonist of this series. Mater is just the weird comic relief dude. When the comic relief is turned into the protagonist, it never, EVER works. It definitely won’t work if that comic relief is portrayed by Larry the Cable Guy, no matter how funny he was in Cars 1. I thought the folks at Pixar would’ve known this. A comic relief character like Mater in Cars 1 works because he only shows up in relatively small doses and works as an occasional counter to the more serious and intelligent characters such as the protagonist (aka Lightning himself). Making comic relief characters front and center always makes them tired, predictable, and annoying. Make Mater “comic relief side character”. Make this Lightning’s movie. Therefore, the audience can focus on the racing plot, and they can see more of Lightning’s racing career. Most importantly, it will also elevate Cars 3 by making it truly feel like the end of an era and the final stage in Lightning’s illustrious racing career instead of a last-ditch attempt to get the series back on track after it went so far off the rails for the 11 years between Cars 1 & Cars 3.
Make “NASCAR VS F1” the core part of this movie’s marketing. Show us some fun, intense racing action, and don’t make it easy for Lightning to win against this guy. This guy is a smaller, lighter-weight F1 racecar while Lightning is a big, heavy NASCAR stock car. Have this dude run circles around Lightning and humiliate him, almost to the point where the audience is thinking, “I guess Lightning doesn’t have what it takes to win. He should’ve turned down this challenge from this F1 racecar because this is just embarrassing…”. Ensure that this F1 racecar makes Lightning look like a grocery-getter instead of a proper high-performance vehicle. However, show how Lightning learns from his failed races; thinks about the racing techniques he learned from his wise, late mentor Doc; and turns his weaknesses into an advantage of this F1 racecar. Show some exciting character interactions between him and this F1 racecar as their rivalry grows more and more extreme and tie this back to the first movie’s message about empty cups and life beyond winning races. Let’s see some vicious trash-talking between Lightning and this F1 racecar. Let’s see how this rivalry affects his relationship with his girlfriend Sally so we can see her do something interesting in this series for once. Oh, and show a clear winner at the end of the movie.
Is he really rough on his pit crew or is he easygoing with them? What are his strategies for winning races? What kinds of insane, dangerous stunts will this guy engage in during a race to conquer his competition? How cutthroat of an opponent is he? How does he behave around his fans and admirers when his racing crew is interacting with the press? How does he react to losing a race; for example, does he blame himself or everyone else? How does he treat his competitors aside from Lightning? Is he a good sport, or is he a total braggart to them? How does he interact with his closest friends or even his mom in private; is there any sort of insecurity that maybe he hides from the public but shows to them? Most of all, what’s this dude’s backstory? Why is he so determined to win this international race? Why did he enter auto racing in the first place?
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There’s no need to anthropomorphize the cars so much. No eating food or consuming drinks. No gambling. No jokes about pope-mobiles or other religious references. No uses of rim guns, sinks, or metal detectors. Make the bathrooms car washes. In short, the cars just roll around, race, and consume gas, just like in Cars 1. Wow, look at how these guys have reverted back to just being automobiles all of a sudden!
-Make the racing plot and Lightning’s rivalry with this new F1 racecar character the main plot (and sole plot) of the movie.
In fact, that’s the problem with the Cars franchise outside of Cars 1 & Cars 3. Instead of attempts to tell stories that could appeal to someone over age 5 or anything resembling a creative gamble, they instead restrict the Cars franchise to being a series of toy commercials starring Mater. This series changed from a movie about a racecar’s ongoing efforts to maintain his status as an athletic car and his dominance in challenging racing circuits to basically being a way for Larry the Cable Guy to promote his godawful comedy routine to underaged audiences. That’s a waste of a cool concept.
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-This is easily the most important change that would boost the movie.
If they would’ve taken these steps, I’m sure Cars 2 would’ve been at least as well-received as Cars 1. It probably would’ve performed even better at the box office and sold even more merchandise than it did. Plus, Cars 3 would also have been a bigger hit than it was.