Film Analysis

Cars 2 (2011)


OW: Lightning McQueen returns to Radiator Springs to see his girlfriend Sally and his best friend Mater

CtA: Lightning McQueen is asked to come to Japan and Europe for a big race series called the "World Gran Prix"

RotC: McQueen wants to stay in Radiator Springs for a while and spend some time with Sally and Mater.

MtM: Mater calls into a radio tv show and is talking up McQueen which basically makes it so McQueen has to go.

CtT: McQueen flies to Japan to participate in the races.

TA&E: Mater flies with him to the races and his entire pit crew is there as well. A group of "lemon" cars wants to eliminate the new biofuel being used in the races, so they'll do what they can to make people think it's unsafe. Francesco Bernoulli, an Italian formula race car is McQueen's biggest opponent in the races.

AtIC: The Races start and McQueen is about to win the race when Mater says something into the headset making McQueen think he should do something which then causes him to lose the race to Francesco.

TO: McQueen gets mad at Mater and makes Mater leave him.

R: Mater becomes a secret agent and figures a lot out at the same time McQueen is figuring things out and they realize that they need each other.

RB: Mater is about to get killed and McQueen doesn't want to race anymore, but his crew talks him into it. Mater gets out of the situation he's in and see's McQueen in the middle of the race. He uses a lot of his secret agent things to get McQueen to win the race even though it was accidental. He was just trying to get away form McQueen after he realized he had a bomb on him that the "lemons" wanted to use to kill McQueen since he was still using the biofuel.

R: They figure out the bomb is voice activated and they figure out who's voice it is and get him to deactivate it.

RwE: Mater and McQueen go back to Radiator Springs after solving everything and realize they should never leave each other.


The Hero's Journey Model