Greetings and welcome to another episode of What Planet Earth Are You From?. I'm your host Uatu the Watcher. In my line of work, I get to observe a number of different versions of the planet you humans call home, but there are a few realities that escape even my attention. Case in point: imagine an Earth where sentient automobiles roam the highways of their own accord, their human owners and occupiers long since dead or otherwise spirited away. This is the world glimpsed in the frightening, post-apocalyptic documentaries Cars and Cars 2, produced by the renowned studio, Pixar. Here to discuss these chilling glimpses of a realm where cars are kings, please welcome an expert in the thoughts and dreams of self-aware vehicles, direct from his home in the Knight Industries luxury garage, KITT.

Thanks Uatu. Good to be here again.

Always a pleasure to have you on the program. Last time, we discussed what's best described as the "maximum overdrive" reality, where cars suddenly turned on their human masters. As I understand it, the Cars movies take that premise one step further -- on this Earth, there are no humans at all.

Yes, that's true. For reasons that are never directly stated, no living men, women or children are ever spotted in either of these films. And yet, they clearly must have existed once upon a time. After all, who built the roads the cars travel on? Or constructed the homes they live in? Beyond that, who made the cars themselves? I'm one of the most intelligent beings on my particular planet Earth, but even I couldn't build a replica of myself. My lack of opposable thumbs -- or, really, any fingers at all -- prohibits that.

Before we get into this a little bit more, it would probably help our listeners if you briefly described the movies themselves.

Of course. The first Cars follows a big-city racecar named Lightning McQueen, who inadvertently stalls out in the small town of Radiator Springs, located in what appears to be the Southwest quadrant of the United States of America. There, he meets an eccentric collection of autos, including the rustic tow-truck Mater, the no-nonsense Army Jeep Sarge and the sleek Porsche Sally, who eventually becomes his girlfriend. Essentially, the film simply observes how McQueen learns to slow down and appreciate his life a little bit more.

I see. Not unlike the story told in the fictional Earth Prime features Doc Hollywood starring Michael J. Fox or Sweet Home Alabama starring Reese Witherspoon.

Exactly correct. Made a few years later, Cars 2 is a very different movie, one that follows McQueen and Mater as they travel abroad to attend a prestigious racing competition. While Lightning faces off against a new rival, obnoxious formula racer Francesco Bernoulli, Mater improbably gets caught up in a global conspiracy plot involving a new form of clean, organic fuel. He works alongside a pair of British secret service autos against a shadowy syndicate of criminal cars. To be honest, I'm not sure how the documentary crew was able to shoot so much of this material without being detected. Then again, based on the crisp, beautifully rendered images, Pixar obviously has superior filmmaking technology that must include the latest in hidden cameras.

Forgive me for my unfamiliarity with these movies -- I've been busy monitoring a reality where Spider-Man is slowly bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. How would you describe their overall quality?

Both are of distinctly minor quality, though the first Cars does have a gentle sweetness that makes it a pleasant viewing experience. Cars 2, on the other hand, is -- if I may borrow the old phrase -- running on empty. The sequel zooms along quickly enough, but its attempts at humor are often stale and forced and there's a distinct lack of emotion to the proceedings. Making Mater the focus of the film is a mistake on the filmmakers' part as whatever charm his country bumpkin routine has very quickly wears off. Overall, it's the first real disappointment from Pixar, a company responsible for some truly insightful and moving alternate reality documentaries, including three films set in a world where toys come to life and a dystopian future in which the last living thing on Earth is a tiny, trash-crunching robot. Frankly, if it weren't for the many questions it raises about this bizarre world, Cars 2 wouldn't be worthy of much discussion at all.

Yes, getting back to the world itself, does Cars 2 offer any additional insights into what happened to humanity?

We never catch a glimpse of a mass graveyard or factory labor camp if that's what you mean. However, the sequel's expanded setting does mean we see more evidence of mankind's presence. For instance, during a sequence set in Paris there's a quick glimpse at Notre Dame Cathedral. Unless there are vehicles inside praying to some great mechanic in the sky, that structure was likely built by human hands and left behind following their disappearance. Speaking from personal experience, we cars tend to be more skeptical of spiritual matters. The presence of other such distinctly human pastimes as reality television, sushi-making and communicating via telephone hints at a possible motivation for the cars' uprising: they got rid of their owners so that they could live exactly like them. After all, why reduce the world to rubble when you can live in comfortable surroundings with luxurious amenities built by the sweat and toil of your flesh-and-blood inferiors? That's something that Skynet never understood.

An intriguing notion. What other oddities pop up in the film?

Well, the casual mention that dinosaurs once roamed the planet is a big surprise. I was also shocked by the fact that, not only is this world inhabited by sentient boats and planes, but they also appear to be subservient to the cars. They transport the autos across oceans and through the skies apparently at no cost. One would think that, given the choice, they'd rather not devote their lives to hauling around other, smaller modes of transportation. Why the planes and boats don't assert themselves more is one of the movie's great mysteries, along with the general presence of restrooms in this reality. Since when do cars need to go to the toilet?

I would be curious to know more about how exactly new cars are created. And do they age?

Age and death is certainly a part of this universe. One of the main characters from the first Cars, Radiator Springs' respected elder Doc Hudson, has passed away by the start of Cars 2 although no specific cause of death is cited. And in another scene, one of the secret agent autos is subjected to prolonged torture at the hands of the villains that ends with him being blown to pieces. It's an intense moment that younger viewers might not be prepared for. In terms of how they are, for lack of a better word, "born," we're shown that McQueen's nemesis Francesco has a mother that supposedly raised him from when he was just a little speedster. Strangely, none of the other cars ever talk about having a mom or dad. My working theory is that, once they reach a certain age, cars are sent to the scrap heap where they are melted down and remade into newer models. Thus, they are never really born and never really die -- they are just recycled every few decades. But again, I have no answer for who would be in charge of any such recycling program. Perhaps the inevitable Cars 3 will shed more light one the -- pardon the pun -- mechanics of this world.

And with that, we're out of time. My thanks again to KITT for his invaluable insights into this parallel Earth. Next week on the show: the Amalgam Universe. Ultimate alternate reality or ultimatest alternate reality? Wolverine, Batman and Dark Claw will all be in the studio for what should be a spirited roundtable discussion. See you then.