Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Mater's Tall Tales" is a collection of so far (as of 2016) 11 short film about Mater (and Lightning McQueen), so this watch will only be rewarding to fans of the "Cars" franchise. All films taken together run for slightly over 45 minutes, so the average runtime is around 4 minutes, actually between 2 and 7 minutes, with the longest being also the most famous "Tokyo Mater", in my opinion possibly the weakest entry though. Oh yeah and I really wonder if Lightning McQueen has amnesia as apparently all of Mater's tales are true and Lightning has forgotten completely about everything??? Anyway, I cannot say I was well-entertained by these short films, with 1 or 2 exceptions perhaps. Not too surprising though as I believe "Cars" is among Pixar's weakest. So I guess you should only check this out if you consider (for whatever reason) "Cars" among Pixar's finest. Not recommended.

thomsedavi These short films are essentially a bridge between the first 'Cars' film and the second. In fact you could say that each short film is a concise analogy of the relationship between the two Cars films - they start out in slow-paced Radiator Springs and then branch out into far-fetched adventures. I would highly recommend watching these before watching Cars 2, they make the shift in tone much less jarring. Also the idea that Mater is always telling 'tall tales' becomes relevant in the second film.I would not say that these are better than the two feature-length films, but they do suit their function more appropriately. The first film had good characterization, but for a children's cartoon there was not much action. The second film had a lot of action, but with less interest in the characters.These are only intended as fun little sketches, and as such they work superbly. I had more laughs per minute than the feature films, with the highlight being a hilarious reference to 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'

Robert Pixar is known for creating really good stories and putting them in animation. I noticed that in many polls on the Internet, Cars is one of the lowest voted options out of all of the movies. So it's no surprise that most won't find this series of shorts to be funny or at least Pixar worthy.However, I must admit that they did a good job since they are shorts, cartoon shows, which kids will be watching. It doesn't need a fancy back story or anything. So the Pixar worthy-ness isn't essential.I rate this 8/10 because of the humor with the shorts. The shorts are all genre's, so a rock band, going to the moon, being a hero, bull fighting, spy movies, even monster truck driving and wrestling! I laughed a lot during the UFO episode. Also, in the bonus features, one of the ideas was a stunt double, and the pun at the end with Mater saying why he doesn't do it anymore with "they do it in CGI these days" was classic! 8/10

Russ Howe (PersonalTrainerRussHowe) My 4 year old loved this DVD. Perhaps even more than the Cars movie itself. It's far more fast-paced and slapstick than the full movie, that's for sure, and the main character switches from Lightning McQueen (not played by Owen Wilson here) to his Cars sidekick Mater.The lovable truck tells all kind of far fetched stories which had my son laughing along all the way, each one adding the twist when McQueen said he didn't believe the story he would get dragged into the fantasy by Mater who would play mind-games with McQueen and make him think he was there when it happened. That could have got repetitive, but my son loved it every time, especially when he knew it was coming towards the end of these shorts.Great DVD, and gives good hope that the upcoming Cars II will be a lot more fun than the first one. Not that it was a bad film, but at times it was incredibly slow for a children's movie. This is a wonderful purchase.