Fast & Furious 7: Family. Family. Family. Family. Family. Family. Family.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Fast & Furious 7: Family. Family. Family. Family. Family. Family. Family.

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

1. The Rock
2. Parents
3. My dog
4. Teachers
5. Santa Claus

I would hate if any of them were disappointed in me.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 14:17

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 21:16

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

MarcusSA posted:

I would be kinda shocked if it were Vin to be honest.

Shocked if it's any of the regulars, really. If they're so terrible why come back for a fourth time? (Yes yes, to get paid and all that).

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 20:03

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

The MSJ posted:

Now there are actual rumors out there that this whole 'feud' is really a prelude to next year's Wrestlemania that will take place 2 weeks before Fast 8 is released.

F&F 6: Gina Carano
F&F 7: Ronda Rousey
F&F 8: Wrestlemania?

Yep, checks out.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2016 15:23

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

You thought it'd be "Fast 8" or something so boring. Here's your subtle "8" pun motherfuckers.

Get ready to learn

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 17:26

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

duz posted:

Awe, they broke the sequence of calling them X Mission

Edit:
Wild Speed
Wild Speed X2
Wild Speed X3: Tokyo Drift
Wild Speed Max
Wild Speed Mega Max
Wild Speed: Euro Mission
Wild Speed: Sky Mission

Until today if I had seen this list of titles I would have thought they were videogames that started out on the NES and then made the move to SNES.

"Wild Speed Mega Max" is just so loving great.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2016 01:28

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Fair to say not one person guessed that that would be the plot?

# ¿ Dec 12, 2016 02:26

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Echo Chamber posted:

Fast & Furious: Civil War

I think it's

Fast & Furious: Civil War and Batman vs Superman Ain't Got Nothin' On Me

# ¿ Dec 12, 2016 02:38

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

One of several cool things about those claws in that Dom-wrangling scene is that it's tech the team has incorporated from its enemies, Mega Man style. The first Shaw uses the claw, then Tej gets ahold of it and upgrades it (and then makes a few more).

# ¿ Dec 12, 2016 18:00

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Call me a sentimental fool but it'd be sad to bring Han back without Gisele.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2016 15:36

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

The franchise could do better for women, though. Diversity of the cast is great and all but each of the films has music video shots of women's asses. And the women can only fight other women.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2016 18:55

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Y'know, I said "music video shots of women's asses" but in a music video the women are dancing for the camera, just like the musicians are performing for the camera. In the movies though the women are characters who are at a street race, dancing or walking around, and it's our POV that gets up close and personal with their butts.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2016 20:27

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Vince MechMahon posted:

This problem can be solved by having close ups of dudes asses while wearing g-strings. Basically Michelle Rodriguez should set up her own Race Wars, for the ladies.

The Marvel movies have usually thrown some eye candy to the ladies.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2016 22:35

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

I don't really like it but that Wiz Khalifa song from F&F7 was one of the biggest songs of that year.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2016 19:31

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

The movies from 5 onward really love using the harpoons to attach the cars to each other or other things. All they need to do is enchant those harpoons and the anchor and target can fuse into one.

Okan170 posted:

As someone who has worked on two of these movies, that is absolutely what we ask ourselves sometimes, what could be next?

CARS. IN. SPAAAAAAACE!

# ¿ Feb 6, 2017 19:04

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Mierenneuker posted:

The Rock was invited to Vin Diesel's D&D game and was insulted when Vin just assumed he would be playing a half-orc berserker. The Rock walked away with a tear in his eye, keeping the halfling bard sheet tucked in his pocket. "These are not the right kind of adventurers for the both of us, Gillion the Valiant", he whispered.

"Oh, so Heather gets to be a dark elf rogue but you typecast me? That's how it's gonna be, huh?" *lifts up an armoire over his head and breaks it in half*

# ¿ Mar 30, 2017 15:04

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

I love that the franchise is at the point where an important heist (the EMP) can be mostly skipped over because it's just assumed the team can pull it off.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2017 04:22

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Killing Han is the worst but not the only thing to gloss over. He blew up Dom's house and almost took out Brian and his family in doing so. Unless they say he was under some kind of mind control there's no getting around what he did.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 00:12

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

I was responding to the poster above me who suggested there may be a fakeout involved. But there's not going to be a new plot point that absolves Deckard's actions. You either agree with Dom's decision or not.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 00:45

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

drainpipe posted:

The reaction of everyone somberly acknowledging Brian was weird, too, because Brian is still alive in the F&F universe.

They miss their sweet hangs with him.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2017 19:30

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

hiddenriverninja posted:

After that scene between Letty and Dom in the beginning, you already know the second Elena appears on screen she's going to die to allow Letty to be Brian's mother.

I dunno, a guy who thinks family is that important might not be above polygamy.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 02:10

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Who cares about Cypher joining the team? I want Helen Mirren to get behind the wheel first.

Also: The Atlantic has thoughts on where the franchise should go. I think it's funny that F&F has become like Bond, where the franchise gets long enough that there are ebbs and flows and calls to be less spectacular and go "back to basics".

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/why-the-fast-and-furious-needs-to-go-small-to-survive/523437/

quote:

It�s safe to say the 16-year-old Fast & Furious franchise is an unqualified success. Its eighth entry, The Fate of the Furious, opened to a healthy $98 million at the U.S. box office this weekend and seems poised to be a financial boon like its forebears. The next two sequels are already greenlit and, in general, the Vin Diesel-starring, car-centric series is a crown-jewel property for Universal Studios. But there are some signs of trouble ahead: Fate�s opening was about $50 million down from the previous film, Furious 7, and the reaction from critics was similarly less rapturous. The franchise is doing fine, but there�s at least some reason to worry.

The answer to seemingly every question in the Fast & Furious world, for years, has been: more. Bigger. Is the star of your franchise a bald, muscle-bound celebrity? Why not add another, as Fast Five did by casting Dwayne Johnson? Getting tired of all the car chases? Why not add in a tank, a plane, a military drone, or (Fate of the Furious�s contribution) a submarine? Did you like the villain of the last movie? Have them switch sides and become a hero in the next one, as Jason Statham�s character did this time.

Going by this formula, the ninth Fast & Furious (due in 2019) will see Fate�s bad guy Charlize Theron ally with Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his band of merry folk. It�ll feature an action set-piece in space, or at least somehow involve a rocket ship, and it�ll add yet another bald action star (LL Cool J? Bruce Willis? Patrick Stewart? Samuel L. Jackson? Take your pick). Continually upping the ante, especially starting with Fast Five, is how Fast & Furious evolved from fairly niche territory (concerning the underground culture of street racing) to a globe-trotting series that feels like Ocean�s Eleven crossed with The Avengers. But: What if it bucked the trend? What if Fast 9 were to go smaller?

There�s an argument for the �back-to-basics� approach. In an era of franchise glut, where every summer week brings a new sequel eager to distinguish itself, it can be good to scale down. Logan, the umpteenth X-Men movie and third solo film for Hugh Jackman�s Wolverine, has become his most successful yet, despite a more restrictive R-rating and a storyline that doesn�t involve the imminent end of all life on Earth. Logan arrived under the radar and took critics by surprise�their approval, while not essential to box-office success, certainly helped generate good word-of-mouth.

Part of the success of the Fast & Furious franchise has been the various ways it�s re-invented itself and the strange way its ever-growing universe always manages to maintain its internal logic. But Fate made the kind of short-sighted plotting decisions that went against that. (Spoilers for the film ahead.) Deckard Shaw (Statham) was the bad guy from the previous movie Furious 7, who murdered the core cast member Han (Sung Kang) and blew up a hospital. In Fate, he�s suddenly one of the good guys, accepted into Toretto�s �family� along with his brother Owen (Luke Evans), who was the villain of Fast & Furious 6.

Why? Because Statham�s a huge action star, and he can give the kind of blazingly funny, self-aware performance required for one of these movies, while also doing his own elaborate martial-arts stunts. He�s another shot of adrenaline for a movie that has coasted to billions of dollars by throwing more big names and recognizable faces into the mix every time. Theron played the villainous hacker Cipher in Fate, but at the end she escaped with her life; perhaps she�ll have a similar change of heart as Deckard for Fast 9. But what was once organic now feels entirely forced. Statham isn�t bad in the movie, but he doesn�t fit like the rest of the cobbled-together ensemble (including Johnson, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, and newer addition Nathalie Emmanuel) do.

I�m not asking for an indie film here; I just don�t need another superhero movie.
My suggestion: Take a risk, and get leaner. Throw a curveball to an audience that has willingly accepted every ridiculous plot twist; surely there�s no better sign of brand loyalty than 16 years of sustained success? The two keys to the Fast & Furious franchise are this: cars and family. The best sequence of Fate of the Furious has both�it�s the opening scene in Havana, where Dom and wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) race the local bigshot in a broken-down vintage car, to prove that it�s not the engine under the hood that matters, but the person behind the wheel.

Another car-centric caper, starring just the series� core ensemble, and focused on smaller stunts and more emotional storytelling, is just what Fast 9 needs to surprise everyone�even if it doesn�t feature a submarine, or (as many are humorously pitching) a trip to the moon. Perhaps an Ocean�s Eleven-style jaunt in which the gang has to execute an elaborate heist. Or a race-against-time, high-stakes drama in which one of the group has been kidnapped and needs to be rescued. I�m not asking for an indie film here; I just don�t need another superhero movie. Marvel, DC, and others are churning out costumed heroes every month, but the Fast & Furious gang is basically indistinguishable from them, traveling around the world and using ludicrous technology like the �God�s Eye� (which allows them to hack any computer or phone on the planet).

The biggest reason to take my advice is the lower box-office total for Fate of the Furious. Furious 7 opened to $147 million in the U.S. and went on to gross $353 domestically and $1.52 billon worldwide. A confluence of factors, including the death of actor Paul Walker (who was memorialized in that film) and the longer wait time for its release, contributed to that take, but still, Fate�s $99 million opening is a notable step down. The reason that Universal Studios will probably ignore me, however, is the worldwide opening gross: A colossal $532 million in its first three days across the planet, bigger than any film before it.

Now, that discrepancy is partly because Furious 7 opened in China a week later than it did everywhere else. But the Fast & Furious brand is only growing stronger worldwide, even as U.S. audiences throttle back a little bit. As the studio thinking goes, worldwide audiences like big action sequences and big stars, not stripped-down movies that re-focus on core characters. It�s a reductive approach�Logan is doing just fine around the globe�but it�s the one that studios are increasingly going for. Perhaps Fast 9 will see Dominic Toretto drive to another galaxy. But you can�t top yourself forever.

Of course, when studio execs are looking at what to do with the franchise, keep in mind this is what they see as the franchise's record so far:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-fast-and-furious/

Lobok fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Apr 19, 2017

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 15:06

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Is there even a formula? The sequels didn't measure up until the fifth film so I'd love to hear a producer explain how they were going to copy the F&F formula, but only the good parts.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 00:38

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

This is not a "formula" anyone can recreate except with time travel and/or a transcendent AI

Exactly. Anything else about the success of the franchise is just about making good action movies in general or marketing appeal like "hm, people like good-natured outlaws, and humour, and cool cars, and sex appeal, and women characters who get to do stuff? What a breakthrough!"

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 01:15

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Snowman_McK posted:

I like the implication of 'Cuban Nos' being that Cuba has a different periodic table.

If there can be different kinds of sodium chloride I guess there can be different kinds of nitrous oxide.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 12:28

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Depends on how popular we're talking but Lord of the Rings will continue to sell books long after people have completely forgotten about F&F. Never mind all the other tie-ins or adaptations or merch it will continue to produce.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2017 03:49

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

Both Jurassic Park and Fast and Furious are Universal properties, they are the most likely to fight each other. Also the Universal Monsters (Dracula/Wolfman/Mummy/Frankenstein/Creature from the Black Lagoon)

If not actual dinos there could definitely be a JP-branded Truckasaurus Wrex that chomps up cars. Maybe add a little of the theme in there since the music licensing comes easy.

WhyteRyce posted:

I think The Mummy would have been much better if it was Dom's Crew discovering it

The bank safe at the end of Five, but a huge sarcophagus instead.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2017 02:34

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

If your only reference for a white woman having a little bit of dreads is Rachel Dolezal then I suppose you could say that Theron looks like her in the film. But that's a bit of a stretch.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 03:41

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

I dunno if she needed Dom to do it for her but because he had thwarted her plans before she liked the idea of forcing him to do it, especially since with that rascally Mr. Nobody around, the Fast & Furious might have been called in to try and stop her.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2017 21:53

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Darko posted:

Yeah Hobbes is basically Commando Arnold.

Or Rundown Rock.

He ain't called Samoan Hulk for nothing.

Edit: The way it looks like it loops is great. Endless guard towers to smash.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2017 15:24

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Is there a stunt she regretted doing? Like one that she survived (obviously) but was probably too dangerous to have attempted?

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 17:10

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

I'm just a passionate film critic*

*of movies in which I act

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 15:07

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Zedd posted:

What I got from that : The Vin/Rock beef is still a thing and will delay the next one.

Beef au Vin

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 20:55

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

GonSmithe posted:

I don't think accepting a spinoff film when he's the best character of that franchise now makes him a bad person. He understands that he's one of the main draws of the movies, and is capitalizing on it. Just because the others don't want to break up "the family" doesn't mean he needs to deal with that.

Either it is The Rock's franchise now and they should just deal or it isn't and the series will get along just fine without him. The series already had four movies without him and he was sidelined for most of 7.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2017 21:30

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 21:16

Lobok: Jul 13, 2006; Say Watt?

Caesarian Sectarian posted:

Part of me was really hoping he was going to reveal that Paul Walker is alive.

Paul is dead.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2017 17:03

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Fast & Furious 7: Family. Family. Family. Family. Family. Family. Family.