Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious
Noni Ford recounts her journey with one of the wildest series in cinematic history.
I watched the first movie in the Fast and Furious franchise when I was eight. I don’t remember anyone else my age talking about the movie, but in my household, it was heavily rewatched and requested movie on Friday nights. Looking back at it now the scenes that stick out to me most are the street races, but the electronic goods theft and gang competition honestly were parts I did not remember as well. The characters were so vibrant that I think my mind latched onto them more than anything else. My dad, ever a car enthusiast, showed us 2 Fast 2 Furious (did anyone else want to be Devon Aoki after this film or was it just me?) and we continued watching up to the third film with enjoyment at seeing the franchise grow. After Tokyo Drift, though, which remains unpopular in our household, we all thought the franchise was pretty much laid to rest.
Devon Aoki in 2 Fast 2 Furious
It shocks me still how many more films and spin-offs have come from the 2001 film. Also, how after two movies where only one or two crossover characters appeared the franchise has become bigger than ever with Vin Diesel as Dom Toretto being the face of the films despite only having a significant role in the first movie. Since then, the franchise has changed a ton with a shift from highway theft to international crime syndicates, espionage, and much more than just street racing. The stunts have gotten wilder, the villains have ramped up in their quests to find ways to destroy our main cast, and the family itself has grown too.
It’s been quite funny to see the shift in the criminals we saw in the original story to the heroes now who have almost an unreal ability to stay alive despite all of the dangerous acts they attempt. However, I think what has always stayed and is still a central theme of the movies is that chosen family will always be there for you. After all, even as Brian is working undercover to reveal gang activities he becomes further and further engaged in the family Dom and Mia create around them. In some ways him coming back into the fold with the Torettos seems to be because of his need to find a home. By the time the events of the fourth movie unfold, everyone has a criminal past, including the once straight-and-narrow Brian, but their honor codes still exist – they are loyal to each other always. And their word is a promise they intend to pay no matter how long it takes to make things right.
Chosen families weren’t being talked about within the lexicon of the 2000s the way they are today, so these films were definitely ahead of their time in that respect. I wonder if that is one of the reasons the franchise has taken off so much in the modern era, as people have become more accustomed to having chosen families but less likely to see it portrayed on screen. I’d wager that another reason the films have only grown in audience and cultural magnitude is because of their special formula. They have some light drama in them, lots of international travel, death-defying stunts with beautiful cars, and action-adventure plots. In the age where people are always striving to create something that audiences have never seen before, Fast and Furious is okay with giving us a recipe that is tried and true. And it’s nice to go to a film where you know what you are going to get with a beautiful message about forever friends becoming family and persevering despite all odds.
Fast & Furious
I resisted watching the rest of the franchise for a very long time, I think partially because I felt like I had outgrown the action-adventure genre or that it had nothing more to offer me. And yet I always got this feeling like I was missing out on something special. At some point over the course of talking to a friend who preferred books to movies, I mentioned the newest Fast film coming out as we passed a poster for it. Imagine my surprise when she suddenly got animated and started talking about her absolute love for the films, which she proudly proclaimed she saw in theaters each time a new one was released. I tried to investigate more on what she loved about the films; ultimately, she had to shrug and say that the movies were just plain fun. As someone used to people pitching films to them — usually about a unique angle in storytelling or complicated plot — no one had ever told me something was just ‘fun’ in a while. Her reasoning made me more open than I had been before to give the franchise another chance.
After a decade-long hiatus from Fast and Furious, in early 2019 during a particularly bad flu I ended up watching all of the newer films back-to-back. Even in a feverish haze, I remember how much joy the films gave me. At the time I was very far from family and something about the films and the camaraderie of the Toretto crew made me feel at home. Since then, I have been sure to watch and rewatch more of the franchise’s offerings and I am waiting with its legion of fans with excitement and sadness for the last film in the franchise.
I remember so many film franchises ending in the 2010s, Harry Potter being the one that I was particularly attached to for much of my adolescence. As we get closer and closer to the end of the original run of Fast movies with the eleventh film, I wonder increasingly if anything will be able to take its place. After all, Fast and Furious has produced a huge audience of people who want to see an amazing car stunt every few years — who will answer this demand? I know there are already other spinoffs in development for our characters, so this is not the last we’ll see of them on screen, but it’ll be sad to say goodbye to this era. Other films may come and try to replicate the magic, yet I think few will succeed, and that’s okay because some things are meant to stand alone without any remakes or duplicates. Although I’m a late convert to the ways of Dom Toretto espousing the word “family” in a gruff, husky voice and the revving of engines, I’m glad to have found my way back to Fast and Furious before the close of this chapter of our characters’ stories.
If you are a forever fan, a new fan, or just someone who wants to see what all the hype is about, then come and attend the mega marathon of Fast and Furious at the IU Cinema this October!
The cast of The Fast and the Furious
IU Cinema’s weekend-long For the Family Mega Marathon: Fast, Furious, Full-Throttle takes place October 26 and 27 as a precursor to the Blockbuster Futures conference, and will start off day one with the epic 2001 original and conclude on day two with the most recent theatrical Furious release from 2023.