| ♥ | This article is dedicated to Paul Walker (September 12, 1973 - November 30, 2013) who died in a car crash in a Porsche Carrera GT onto a tree during the filming of Furious 7 in November 30, 2013 at the age of 40. May he rest in peace. |
The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 action crime, racing film directed by Rob Cohen and starring the late Paul Walker as Brian O'Conner, Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto, Rick Yune as Johnny Tran and Johnny Strong as Leon and many others. It was released on June 22, 2001, grossing over $207 million worldwide from an estimated $38 million budget, the film received mixed to positive reviews. It spawned 8 sequels and merchandise. It also spawned 2 video games (a 2004 arcade game by Raw Thrills (Eugene Jarvis' company that also known for Target: Terror, Target: Terror GOLD, and George Petro's Play Mechanix games like the Big Buck Hunter series and Johnny Nero Action Hero (the last latter was published by ICE)) and a mobile game by I-Play and Juice Games.
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 "I don't have friends. I got family."
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Fast Qualities
- The story involves a bunch of illegal street racers and crimes.
- The cast was well-chosen, and the character development was convincing. And it was interesting on how the characters interacted.
- Brian O'Conner was an undercover Police Officer at first, and was sent out to find out the dark secrets of the west coast street racing industry. Eventually, Brian got along with the street racers and thought that they wasn't so bad after all. He even ended up rescuing Dom and the rest of the gang.
- Dominic Toretto and the rest of his gang wasn't so keen on Brian at first, but later on in the film they warmed up to him. After Brian's Eclipse blew up, Dom restored a Toyota Supra for Brian. The scene where Dom shows Brian his dad's Dodge Charger was considered to be the heart of the film, with his famous line, "I live my life a quarter mile at a time".
- Some catchy hip hop, rap and remixes in the soundtrack.
- Loads of iconic cars were featured in the film that made the movie itself iconic.
- Brian O'Conner in the beginning of the film drove a green Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX (actually an Eclipse RS according to Craig Lieberman) with a Robocar Bodykit. Later on the film, Brian, along with Dom and the gang built the iconic orange Toyota Supra A80. Brian O'Conner even owned a Ford F-150 SVT Lightning at one point.
- Dominic Toretto on the first drag race drives a red Mazda RX-7 with an aggressive Veilside bodykit. Dominic Toretto also had a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T that was owned by his late father.
- The rest of the characters had great cars too. Johnny Tran used a Honda S2000 with a Veilside bodykit, Jesse drove a Volkswagen Jetta, Leon owned a yellow Nissan Skyline GT-R (specifically an R33), Edwin (Ja Rule) and Mia (Michelle Rodriguez) both owned Acura Integras, and the list goes on.
- Some funny and memorable quotes like:
- Many, many racing, drag and action scenes.
- The very first scene of the entire film had 3 black Honda Civics intercepting a semi-truck.
- Every single one of the drag race scenes were what made the film a huge hit.
- The scene where Brian's Mitsubishi Eclipse gets shot to pieces then explodes.
- Later on in the film, Brian and Dom raced the Toyota Supra against a rich man in a black Ferrari F355.
- Brian and Mia had a daring pursuit with a semi-truck to rescue Dom and the gang.
- The last scene is epic! Tuner car and Muscle car facing each other and jumping throughout a train railway and almost no crashes until Dom's Charger crashed his car by a truck.
- It made a huge impact in car culture as we know it. If it wasn't for the film, the car industry would be very different.
Furious Qualities
- The customized cars may come off as cheesy cars with wacky sounding exhaust sounds to some people. The way they're customized hasn't aged well, either.
- The final scene makes no sense, as Brian O'Conner gives Dom Toretto his Toyota Supra. Why do you need a 3rd car??
- Not to mention in the post credit scene, Dom is shown driving a Chevrolet Chevelle SS instead.
- Several car inaccuracies and errors can be found all over the place in the film.
- In the first drag race, Brian's computer on his Eclipse flashes out text that says "Danger to Manifold!" and the floorboard falls off. The manifold system has nothing to do with the floorboard.
- Brian's infamous Spoon engine line.
- Some magical changes can be found as well:
- The semi-trailer, during at the container port, has the normal ground clearance and two axles. However during on the highway, it is shown having the higher ground clearance and only one axle.
- During the part of the police passing through Dom and then recognizing it is him, the Ford Crown Victoria magically changes into Chevrolet Caprice.
- Jesse calls Johnny Tran's Honda S2000 a "Honda 2000", though he could just be nicknaming it.
- During the Race Wars scene, Jesse's Volkswagen Jetta is missing brake calipers.
- Some of the engine sounds for the cars were not accurate to their original engines.
- Brian's Eclipse, while the original Eclipse shared the 4G63 with the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, has an engine sound from a Dodge Neon, though it would make sense because according to Craig Lieberman, it's actually an Eclipse RS, which share the engine with the Neon.
- Dom's Mazda RX-7, instead of having the famous rotary as its engine, has the 1JZ Inline 6 Engine from the Toyota Supra A70.
- When the final drag race starts, Dom's Dodge Charger does a burnout and pulls a wheelie at the same time. It sounds and looks cool, but it is impossible to do in real life.
- The movie had some examples of wooden acting.
- It spawned little to no video games, the 2003 video game for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox based on this film was planned to be developed by Genki (of Shutokou Battle/Tokyo Xtreme Racer fame) but was cancelled, the arcade game by Raw Thrills above was just a reskin of Midway's Cruis'n games, and the third film had a video game released by Bandai Namco and developed by Eutechnyx (which had pretty extensive car customization but bad physics as well).
Trivia
- Paul Walker, one of the film's stars unfortunately died in 2013, ironically in a car crash.
- The film's director, Rob Cohen, had a cameo in the film as a pizza delivery guy, along with Leo's famous line "Street's closed, pizza boy. Find another way home!".
- A good majority of the cars featured in the film were all either sold or recycled for the next movie, 2 Fast 2 Furious. The film's technical adviser, Craig Lieberman, gave a decent amount of information about the cars:
- Johnny Tran's Veilside Honda S2000 was eventually repainted from black to pink for the character Suki in 2 Fast 2 Furious. Both these S2000s have the exact same bodykits. Legend has it that Dom's RX-7 was recycled to be Orange Julius' RX-7 from the 2nd film and Brian's Supra was recycled to be Slap Jack's Supra from the 2nd film.
- Leon's yellow Skyline R33 GT-R was unfortunately found by the U.S government and scrapped because Nissan Skylines were illegal to import in the United States unless they were over 25 years old (the R33 GT-R was introduced in 1995, and wouldn't be eligible for import until 2020).
- Jesse's Volkswagen Jetta was featured in various TV Shows outside the Fast and the Furious. The car even made an appearance in Lizzie McGuire!
- According to Craig Lieberman, there were several versions of the cars used in the film (like the Hero 1 Car, Stunt Car, Buck Car etc) except for Johnny Tran's Honda S2000.
- The plot can basically be considered a rehash of Point Break, but with street-racing instead of surfing.
- In the online mode from Grand Theft Auto V, especially in the 2014 re-releases, many of its updates add cars that either contains liveries from Fast and Furious franchise or cars that are outright based on said franchise such as the Ramp Buggy and the Wastelander which both are based on the Flip Car from Fast and Furious 6 and the Mongo truck from Fast Five respectively.
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