Explain the Fate of the Furious Hype to Me Like I'm a 4 Year Old (1 Viewer)

[Anthony Martino]

They just cleared $1 Billion globally on this movie. I just feel like the popularity of the entire franchise is a sign of the impending apocalypse

 

[moose]

All the cars in your hot wheels set are in this movie.

 

[fish72s]

I can't explain it.
Money laundering Russian drug money?

Heard they have 2 more already in the works.

"Fast&Furious Vs Aliens Vs Predator"
and
"Fast&Furious Vs Freddie Vs Jason"

 

[upNdown]

I don't think I've seen any of the movies except the first one. But I don't begrudge anybody for seeing a big fun blockbuster. Nothing wrong with stupid movies.

 

[Ellasdaddy]

A segment of my pals are gearheads and avid bikers. Some belong to car clubs and live for tuner culture. When these movies release, they plan entire group, club and family excursions around seeing them opening weekend.

I have comic book based movies, they have these. I don't try to understand it beyond that.

 

[Anthony Martino]

I can't explain it.
Money laundering Russian drug money?

Heard they have 2 more already in the works.

"Fast&Furious Vs Aliens Vs Predator"
and
"Fast&Furious Vs Freddie Vs Jason"

You win the internet today sir

 

[Trihonda]

Never seen one of them, other than bit of the first one, maybe. Isn't that the one where Vin Diesel is this snowboarding secret agent who fights international bad guys?

Kinda all the same thing to me.

I get the gear-head thing. I love bikes and fast cars to some degree, but these movies make it gratuitous to a point of car-pornography (and I'm car-catholic, don't throw it in my face).

The cars make no sense from a practical standpoint. It's so over the top, it's dumb to me... and that's coming from the guy who gets geeked at an Astin Martin with an ejector seat!

I see the previews, and the shooting a car with harpoons from 4 different other cars... ya, whatever. I can stop a car with a lot less fuss (it's not like these things are M1 Abrams).

 

[moose]

I don't think I've seen any of the movies except the first one. But I don't begrudge anybody for seeing a big fun blockbuster. Nothing wrong with stupid movies.

My IQ dropped 30 points during this movie.

 

[moose]

I see the previews, and the shooting a car with harpoons from 4 different other cars... ya, whatever. I can stop a car with a lot less fuss (it's not like these things are M1 Abrams).

Dropped 5 points from this scene.

10 points from driving the car backwards to win a race.

5 points from Statham's fake death.

5 points from submarine chase scene.

5 points just from turning the torpedo. Wow.

 

[Burke]

@moose how did you not lose any from the prison scene?

 

[Mr. Cheese]

My IQ dropped 30 points during this movie.

So you've got a negative IQ now?

 

[moose]

@moose how did you not lose any from the prison scene?

Left to refill my pop.

 

[moose]

So you've got a negative IQ now?

So mods should be taking pot shots at members now. Really?

 

[acepilot388]

I believe this was the first one released after the death of Paul Walker. Probably the biggest factor to it, in my opinion

 

[Mr. Cheese]

So mods should be taking pot shots at members now. Really?

In case you missed it there was a winky smiley face which would typically indicate that a person was joking...

 

[Anthony Martino]

So mods should be taking pot shots at members now. Really?

You can't throw a man a softball and expect him not to hit it....

In case you missed it there was a winky smiley face which would typically indicate that a person was joking...

You really need the tongue-out emoji or you're just asking for trouble

 

[Shaggy]

5 points from Statham's fake death.

Ugh!!! Spoiler alert!!!

j/k... I have zero intentions of seeing this movie.

 

[72o]

I love these movies. Yeah they don't make any sense but I love a movie with sweet cars and smoking hot girls. Don't analyse it, just enjoy it for the pure entertainment it offers.

Now I won't pay to see these mind you, but I watch them all the time when I'm flipping around the tv.

 

[Poker Zombie]

A segment of my pals are gearheads and avid bikers. Some belong to car clubs and live for tuner culture. When these movies release, they plan entire group, club and family excursions around seeing them opening weekend.

This is what puzzles me. Gearheads interested in a movie where automobiles do absolutely impossible tasks. It would be like a bunch of poker chip fans watching a movie about poker where terms like "I see your 100," then the actor puts 6 red chips directly in the pot and continues with "and I raise you 100 more" and puts 6 green chips into the pot.

It wouldn't matter if they used TRKs, at a certain point we'd all be tossing popcorn at the screen, not rushing to see the 8th installment in the franchise.

 

[brains613]

This is what puzzles me. Gearheads interested in a movie where automobiles do absolutely impossible tasks. It would be like a bunch of poker chip fans watching a movie about poker where terms like "I see your 100," then the actor puts 6 red chips directly in the pot and continues with "and I raise you 100 more" and puts 6 green chips into the pot.

It wouldn't matter if they used TRKs, at a certain point we'd all be tossing popcorn at the screen, not rushing to see the 8th installment in the franchise.

Bad analogy, I think. Take Casino Royale, the recent one. The poker in the movie is RIDICULOUSLY over the top. Boat over boat, table stakes out the window, people making bad decisions that end up working out in the end, etc. But we can watch it and laugh and it, while still enjoying the spectacle...

Same thing with these crazy movies.

(Full disclosure - I LOVE these ridiculous movies...)

 

[Ellasdaddy]

There's also a level of deep investment now for people who grew up watching them, where the big series star left for awhile and it fell by the wayside, with offshoot sequels like Turbo Charged and Tokyo Drift. Paul Walker just kept making them, so there was love for him throughout the years. Then the band got back together and they added The Rock to the mix and Paul Walker died and the whole series just went supernova.

Now its like a mix of F&F, The Expendables and the A Team. Its ridiculous but fun and does enough with its history to keep emotional ties with its audience.

 

[Poker Zombie]

Casino Royale was a fun movie. The poker scenes were ok (and preferable to chemin de fer), but there were glowing errors. If CR was about poker in the same way the Fast movies are about cars, I think most poker aficionados would have found the movie to be insufferable.

 

[brains613]

Casino Royale was a fun movie. The poker scenes were ok (and preferable to chemin de fer), but there were glowing errors. If CR was about poker in the same way the Fast movies are about cars, I think most poker aficionados would have found the movie to be insufferable.

That's again your mistake. Those movies aren't about cars. They're about relationships and taking care of the people around you. (And how Dom Torretto is pretty much a fucking T-1000 at this point.)

They were never about cars. The cars are props in the same way the chips are props in CR. You could literally interchange any method of transportation, and the movies would be jumping motorcycles out of planes instead of cars. Or hell, change it a bit, and they could be dirt bikes. (Though I imagine there would be fewer pretty girls around...)


Edited to add - Hope I'm not coming across as harsh by saying you're wrong. I'm just needling you...

 

[12thMan]

Casino Royale was a fun movie. The poker scenes were ok (and preferable to chemin de fer), but there were glowing errors. If CR was about poker in the same way the Fast movies are about cars, I think most poker aficionados would have found the movie to be insufferable.

That's the thing, these movies haven't been "about" cars since the first couple, it's turned into a super hero movie/series.

I generally don't have much interest in fantasy/sci-fi/action/explosion type movies, I just can't turn my brain off enough to enjoy them even though I try. I can't not notice that the revolver just shot 52 rounds, I can't not cringe at the fight scene that goes on for two minutes even though there first punch would have knocked out most people and broke the other guys hand, I can't watch The Revenant with out thinking how he dies of hypothermia if he lays down in the snow while soaking wet and goes to sleep... But because I love cars so much I've ended up seeing about half of these movies just for the eye candy and laughs, even though things happen like cars jumping between buildings and quarter mile races take one minute and sixteen gear changes.

I haven't seen any in the theater since the first one but I'll probably end up watching this one at some point. You know what you are getting when you go into it and to question authenticity as a critique of the movie would be the same as watching starwars and bitching about the fact it's not real, or watching any action movie and wondering how the hero is the only one who can hit anything with a pistol, or how some shitty kungfu movie most guys love has one guy defeating 20 guys who are surrounding him and attaching him one at a time, or... you get the point.

The first one I like for the nostalgia alone (saw it in the theater with two casts on my arms and four other broken bones in my body from a dirt bike crash and I was paying for movies just for the air-conditioning ), and I think I remember being pleasantly surprised at the one that was in Brazil because it was actually pretty decent and not so over the top....The rest? They are just Rambo movies for people who like Rambo movies. I have scene maybe twenty minutes of die hard over the course of my life, I think I've probably tried an hour or two of kungfu just to try and see what I wasn't getting, I've seen zero startreks...But I can usually sit through the fast and furious movies just because as a "gear head" I like what's in it.


Saying the movie is shit is fair, it probably is, but if you are not getting why people would watch it because it's so outlandish it would be the same as not understanding the popularity of starwars because we haven't hashed out the fuel mileage of all the ships... that's not what it's about.


EDIT: posting from cell phone, sorry for the weird autocorrect errors

 

[brains613]

the one that was in Brazil because it was actually pretty decent and not so over the top....

What??? You mean the final scene where they drag a large safe through a city? Where it's supposedly too heavy for one car, so they chain it to two...

Dom, Brian, and that safe must have killed 30 people during that scene. Not all of them crooked cops... Not to mention the millions in damage. Doesn't the safe roll through the front of a building at some point? But they're our heroes, so we don't think about it.

Not so over the top indeed....

 

[12thMan]

lol yeah bud, I didn't say it was believable and plausible just that I remember walking away thinking there was some good parts of the movie. I couldn't tell you for sure though, I saw it once, when it came out, and I think I remember being very ready for the end of the movie by the time the final scene rolled around. That's not so weird for me though, most of the action movies I watch I find the big final explosion/chase/fight scene is one of the weakest parts of the movie because it's always so, well you know, over the top...

Again, these are not "good" movies, but that's not the question, it's why do people watch them...and to answer that you have the exact same answer as if you posed that question for star wars, star trek, friday the 13th, scream, saw, kung fu, -insert any make believe movie here- that people watch.

Even though on one hand it boggles my mind that a movie like this (or any action/scifi stuff) gets such an audience because it's not my thing and seems like such shit, on the other hand it's actually very easy to believe if you look at the world we live in: with the amount of people on the planet and the more connected we have became with the internet something doesn't have to be "good" to sell and make millions, it just needs to be a "thing" and the fast and furious movies are most definitely a thing with some of the biggest stars entertainment has.

Hell, look at how many more people watch absolute shit shows like big bang theory over something as good as the Wire, that should get you in the ball park of understanding how the fast and furious can make money hand over fist.

 

[gopherblue]

Generally speaking, people are idiots.

/thread

 

[12thMan]

 

[Poker Zombie]

I was afraid that my comment about being about cars would come off wrong...

I agree that they are about action, heart-throbs, and making the producers money. What I meant to reference, is that the cars are a key focal point of the story, where poker in CR was limited to a handful of scenes. If the all the heroes in F/F carpooled in a Nissan Leaf, the movie would lose a chunk of it's audience. If Bond played Cannonbeard's Treasure, I don't think they would lose a single viewer.

Though, watching Michelle Rodrigez sitting on Tyrese Gibson's lap during a 15 minute car chase might draw a few extra viewers.

Edited to add - Hope I'm not coming across as harsh by saying you're wrong. I'm just needling you...

You aren't coming across as harsh. Wrong maybe , but not harsh.

I should also point out that I will most likely watch F/F at least in part at some point. Hot chicks in short-shorts... it's required watching at the fire hall.

That is to say, I'll get paid to watch it.

 

[12thMan]

Yeah @Poker Zombie I can see your point when comparing the poker in CR to the cars in FF, I would agree completely when dealing with that specific example in a vacuum. In the bigger picture though I do think the cars have became more of a prop in a superhero movie rather than what they were in the beginning, like wolverines claws or superman flying or lightsabers and other space type stuff in star wars; they are woven into the fabric of the story and it wouldn't be the same with out them but it feels like they are just what the "heros" and "villains" exist with now as opposed to the point of the movie.

I doubt I'm making my point clear, I rarely do because I have the literary skills of a staple remover, but it just seems to me, the very casual observer who hasn't even seen all the movies, that the point of the story has gone from realistic-bull shit to bullshit-bullshit. Just look at the cars in the first movie, one of the reasons it struck a chord was it came about in the midst of the tuner movement and even though the live action of the cars was horrible (lol at every drag race in movies lasting for what would equal five miles worth of actual road covered ) they were cars that people were balls deep in tuning and the tuner scene depicted in the movie was very familiar. That RX-7, the eclipse, da SUUUPRA...easy to relate to and more of a "car" movie in my mind. Now? Yeah, there's still some cool cars in them but now they have missiles, lift kits, and wings...more sci-fi feeling for sure and a reason I could see someone looking at them as less of a center piece of the movie and more akin to the gambling you watch through out CR-admittedly to a much less extent of on screen time.