With Cars 3 racing into theaters this weekend, fans are being treated to yet another installment of the popular Disney/Pixar franchise. But with three Cars films, two Planes spinoff films, and a whole slew of animated shorts, its safe to say that keeping track of the timeline can get a little confusing.
And now, one of the franchise’s stars has thrown a wrench (pun intended) into the Cars universe even more – by suggesting that one of its most prominent outputs might not have actually happened.
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Dan Whitney – a.k.a. Larry the Cable Guy – has been a part of the franchise since the first Cars movie in 2006, playing fan-favorite character Mater.
With Mater starring in many of the franchise’s short films, as well as essentially having the leading role in Cars 2, it’s safe to assume that the lovable tow truck is one of the more significant contributors to the larger Cars canon. But according to Whitney, that might not be the case.
“The first one [was] a great movie! It was a great movie. It’s still my favorite movie. I like it even better than [Cars 2].” Whitney explained to CBR. “I know Mater was the main guy in 2, but I’ve got to tell you, I like the first one. 2 was kind of like more of a Mater tale. It had really nothing to do with the movies. It was more of a Mater dream — which I got, and which I don’t think anybody else understood that, except us at Pixar.”
Whitney is essentially arguing that the events of Cars 2 never really happened in the Cars canon, but essentially existed outside of it as one of Mater’s fantastical stories.
Pixar already set somewhat of a precedent for this with Mater’s Tall Tales, a series of questionably-canonical short films in which Mater retells stories of his unbelievable adventures. And given the rather outlandish plot of Cars 2 – a globe-trotting adventure in which Mater essentially becomes a super-spy – there are certainly some similarities.
It’s unclear if this storytelling choice was actually intended by Pixar, or just a personal theory that Whitney developed while working on the film. Either way, it certainly adds a whole other element to Cars 2 – and to the Cars universe as a whole.
