The Fast And The Furious: From “Bro” To “Woah” In Seven Films
Out of all the franchises that began in the early 2000s no one would have guessed that The Fast and the Furious would still be making films and be one of the biggest franchises in current Hollywood. The answer to the question “How did this series last so long?” can be seen in the previews of the newest film, Furious 7.
Compare the first film to the newer entries and it’s like we’ve entered an entirely different franchise. The actors are the same, the studio is the same, even a majority of the topics and dialogue are the same (i.e. family, cars, loyalty, cars, honor, cars, import cars, and cars) but what makes it different is that they have become bigger, sillier, and in a way better than before.
The original The Fast and the Furious was released back in the summer of 2001. It was a junky B-movie starring the late Paul Walker as undercover L.A.P.D. cop Brian O’Conner who found his investigation into the world of illegal street racing and highway piracy endangered by his love for Jordana Brewster’s Mia Toretto who happens to be the sister of Vin Diesel’s highway pirate leader Dominic Toretto. It had some decent car scenes and wasn’t completely brain-dead but it was overall pretty forgettable and should have probably vanished into obscurity.
Surprisingly, it didn’t and it wasn’t because of the cars. Dominic Toretto ended up being the idealized projected self-image that teens and their younger siblings wanted to be. They ended up making the movie a smash hit and it quickly spawned a franchise though initially without Diesel in the sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious and without Walker in the third film, Tokyo Drift.
Diesel and Walker left the franchise for the superstardom that awaited them. It never came. Flop after flop awaited them and both were pretty much on death’s door career wise.
So the two, along with the other original cast members who were supposed to be way bigger stars by then, returned to the franchise in 2009 with Fast & Furious. It was a huge hit and one of the few successes that at the time cash-strapped Universal Studios had. However it just wasn’t the cast coming back that changed the franchise.
Director Justin Lin came into the franchise with Tokyo Drift and returned for the next three films and with him came an action-heavy tone focused less on the characters and more on… let’s face it, this universe is a bit silly in the fact that anyone who is reasonably good at driving an import car suddenly turns into an unstoppable, steel boned ninja capable of outrunning, outfighting, and outshooting an entire army. What crazy stunts can we possibly do with these cars and characters next?
The Fast and the Furious is one of the few franchises to actually evolve over the times. It realized it’s target demographic and decided to cater to them and only them. It got better over time with every entry past Fast & Furious being superior to the last. Fast Five brought in other fan favorite characters from previous films such as Tyrese Gibson’s Roman and Ludacris’ Tej to making a semi-Avengers for Fast fans.
This idea was also implemented in part 6. Part 5 also introduced CIA Agent Luke Hobbs played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, another guy that was supposed to be the next big action star and just wasn’t. In part 5, he and Diesel fought each other and everyone who was 6 in 2002 and remembers having conversations on whom would win in a fight suddenly jumped up and screamed for joy as their childhood dreams came true.
In the newest movie, Jason Statham is the villain, and now the 10-year-olds from 2006 can answer the long asked question what would happen if Vin Diesel fought the Transporter. Oh, and Kurt Russel is in there too. Yeah, they got Snake Plissken in these movies now.
Despite Walker’s tragic death in 2013, Universal is looking for a way to extend the series past 7 and it seems that Diesel and the others are all for it. The series has evolved from guilty pleasure to bad-ass action movies in front of our eyes. Sure the stunts they pull off with the cars are ridiculous and could never happen in real life, but that’s what’s so fun about them.
Furious Seven premiered April 3. By the time you read this I will have already seen the newest move twice. Thrice. As many times as possible until Avengers 2 gets here.
