A young, hot-shot guy embarks on a cross-country road trip to California for a huge career opportunity. Along the way, he gets into a car accident, ultimately leaving him stranded in a small town off the highway. He is sentenced to community service in the rinky-dink town while the car is being fixed. At first, the thought of being stuck in the middle of nowhere is the worst thing that could happen to him, but he starts to warm up to the simple life.
This plot summary sounds familiar, right? Most likely you immediately had a movie in mind while reading it. The unique thing about this particular plot is that it applies to more than one movie. Disney and Pixar’s Cars would probably be the first movie that comes to mind for many people, and that’s correct. However, there’s another movie that shares this exact same plot. In 1991, Michael J. Fox starred in the dramedy Doc Hollywood as Dr. Ben Stone, a self-absorbed young man headed to California for to pursue an important job opportunity. All the major plot points and character arcs that Lightning McQueen goes through in Cars, Ben Stone already went through 15 years prior. Even though Ben Stone is a human doctor and Lightning McQueen is a talking race car, their stories follow the exact same patterns.
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Dr. Ben Stone and Lightning McQueen are One and the Same
Warner Bros.
Lightning McQueen and Ben Stone have basically identical personalities at the start of their movies. Ben is a talented surgeon who believes that he is meant to live a life of fame and success. Lightning is a talented racer (and talking car) who believes he is meant to live a life of fame and success. They are both a bit selfish and put their own wants and needs before others. When Lightning winds up stuck in Radiator Springs off, a rundown town off Route 66 that’s not even on the map anymore, and Ben winds up stranded in South Carolina in the tiny town of Grady, both of them are immediately on edge and want nothing to do with any of the people in these middle-of-nowhere country towns. All either of them want is to serve their respective sentences and get out of dodge. Their only priority is to make it to California.
Since both characters are accomplished in their industries and are used to having everything they could ever want handed to them, it is not surprising that they don’t show the people of each town any common decency upon their accidental arrival. Lightning is focused on becoming a famous Piston Cup winner while Ben is determined to become a wealthy Hollywood plastic surgeon. Both of these aspirations seem to be trivial and materialistic, which coincide with their personalities in the beginning of each film.
They Both Have The Same Character Arc With The Townspeople
Pixar Studios
Ben’s community service sentence is to work at the local hospital, which is really just an old house, while Lightning must repair the road that he tore up during his arrival into town. As the days pass, each character’s resentment toward the towns and their residents begin to fade. They each make a friend and start learning valuable life lessons from an older mentor. Once they start interacting with the townspeople, Ben and Lightning’s distaste for them and their distrust for the two of them slowly starts to turn into something else. The people of Grady and the residents of Radiator Springs start to care for Ben and Lightning respectively, and vice versa.
Both characters begin to admire the simplicity of life in a small town where everyone knows each other. They each begin to feel a sense of freedom that their big city lives don’t allow them to feel. They may know a lot of people in their professions, but no one shows either of them the genuine compassion that the people of these unknown towns show them.
They Both Fall for Big-City Women Who Prefer the Slow Life
As Ben and Lightning begin to care for each town and their citizens, they also catch feelings for a girl who is adamant about the preservation of the towns they live in. For Lightning, it is a blue Porsche named Sally who came to Radiator Springs from Los Angeles. For Ben, it’s a lawyer named Lou who used to live in New York but came back home to Grady. Both Sally and Lou tried life in bustling cities, but ultimately decided that they belonged in a place where everyone is kind to each other, leaving them both fiercely protective of the place they each call home.
Ben and Lightning Both Choose The Small Town Life
It isn’t until both of them finally have the opportunity to leave and finally get their lives back on track that they really reevaluate what they want in life, and for the second time, question whether the life they have been chasing is worth it. Ben gets his car fixed and heads back out to L.A. to his lucrative job interview. He doesn’t even seem excited about the prospect anymore, despite landing the job. When he spots his friend Hank from Grady at a trendy restaurant in Beverly Hills, he realizes at that moment that he belongs with Lou in Grady.
Lightning has a similar revelation. He does make it to California for the Piston Cup race, but his thought process changes when his mentor, former Piston Cup winner Doc Hudson, shows up to coach him for the big race. As he is about to win, he notices another older car, The King, spun out on the side of the track. He decides to help him finish the race instead of winning the race, which leads him to realizes that he belongs in Radiator Springs with Sally and the rest of their friends.
From start to finish, Cars and Doc Hollywood follow the same arcs and story beats. Both protagonists wind up stranded in what they consider to be podunk towns. Their disdain for the mundanity of small-town life gradually grows into appreciation for simple life. They both catch feelings for women who help them admire life away from the hustle and bustle of urban living. Ultimately, both Ben and Lightning decide that life in the fast lane doesn’t provide the same comfort as small towns where everyone cares for each other.
