Mater and the Ghostlight-Takel and the Ghostlight (2006)

Directed by: John Lasseter, Dan Scanlon | 7 minutes | animation, short film | Original voice cast: Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Wallis, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Cheech Marin, Paul Dooley

It is hoped that Pixar will stop parasitizing their own full-length films for their short films. It invariably results in less successful work and feels like a mandatory song, or a last-ditch effort to put itself in the spotlight at award ceremonies. On a technical level, it is almost always okay, namely, since the standard of the main film, which is usually impressive, is maintained. The short films are excellent showcases for the animation quality of Pixar, and also nice warm-ups for the relevant feature film that was released that year. ‘Mater and the Ghostlight’, a film “belonging” to the feature film ‘Cars’, must also be seen in this light, because it does not have much added value as an autonomous, short animation film.

Mater, the silly tow truck from ‘Cars’ stars in ‘Mater and the Ghostlight’. At just under seven minutes, it’s the longest of the Pixar short films made to date, but that length doesn’t seem quite justified given the film’s sparse content. The same joke could be told just as effectively in half the time. The length of the film seems to be an excuse to bring every character from ‘Cars’ again, including of course Clive Owen and Paul Newman as Lightning McQueen and Doc Hudson respectively. The joke is that Mater does his best to scare everyone in his town, and that he eventually gets a taste of his own medicine from the entire group.

Now the animation is fine as usual and it is dryly comical to see Mater eager to prank his friends – especially funny when he shakes his head and tongue in vain to stop a car. startle – but none of it is sharp enough to hold the viewer’s attention properly or linger after watching the movie. For a moment, the group’s “vengeance action” is funny, because of Mater’s implicit silliness evident in his actions, but it’s all too little. The short film spin-off of ‘Monsters Inc.’, ‘Mike’s New Car’ was short and sweet and had some nice humor, but in the case of ‘Jack-Jack Attack’ and ‘Mater and the Ghostlight’ it is all a bit unnecessary and not particularly funny; especially when the films are viewed outside the context of the original feature film.