I just saw
Cars 2 - which really should have been called
Larry the Cable Guy As a Tow Truck has James Bond-ish Globetrotting Adventures, but hey, even I realize that's a little too big to fit on the marquee at the Multi-plex. Besides, the target audience for this merchandizing bonanza is having a hard time recognizing the letters, in that order, and that giant number after those letters in the first place.
I went in expecting the 'worst' Pixar movie - and realized what it was, and why it existed, and that was to sell more bed sheets at Target this summer. I mean, it's been a few years since the last one, and there's a whole new batch of four year olds who might not have a Lightning McQueen bookbag for pre-K this year. I can imagine the Disney executives at a board meeting applying pressure on the Pixar team to ramp up Cars 2 in order to beat out the competitor car-people-robot Transformers 3 heart-and-mind smash fest in the playground. I mean, really, there isn't room for two sets of car-cartoons in the prepubescent male pop culture war, is there?
So, other than the graphic violence of boat people, and spy cars - it was still a fun and exciting story that complemented Doc Hollywood Re-told by Anthromorphic Computer Modeled Vehicles For Sale. Er, sorry, the first Cars.
The one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb though, were a couple references to religion. There's a Pope Car and a Pope Mobile. We even see him... and Larry the Tow Truck even asks, "Is the Pope Mobile Catholic?" Funny stuff. Right?
But what does that imply?
It implies that there was a Christ Car.
Now you have to ask, "What would Christ drive?" The only thing I can think of is a donkey. And he really only rode a donkey twice - once as a child fleeing his homeland to avoid Herod's wrath (Depending on which Gospel's timeline you're reading/believing at the moment) and when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And since there's no motorcycles in Cars land -- and the first non-animal drawn single passenger vehicle would have been Italian designed and wind driven. The first was Guido da Vigevano in 1335. It was a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels. But that's still 1330's...
So, what was the Christ Car? Do we have to assume that we have to wait until the development of the internal combustion engine to name the Christ Car?
I wonder if there's a Passion of the Christ Car - and he's either impaled on a Spindel in Berwyn Illinois or was thrown into a trash compactor? Do Car Catholics worship a spike or a cube? I'm going with the Spindel since it was located on Route 66 and ties in with the previous film.
So now there's another problem - there's a Car God. Is it the Battlestar Galactica 'God' or is it the robots that built the Cars in the first place, or does it go deeper? Maybe they're all Deists, as it would fit the story better -- but they're not. Maybe there are a few of them that believe that the hairless monkeys are actually running everything? Maybe those are the angels and demons?
