When it comes to Fast and Furious, audiences reckon they have everything all figured out. It’s fast cars, faster storylines, and a complete disregard for any logic of natural physics. Right? Well, if you think you know everything you need to know about Fast and Furious, and have the best action movie franchise all pinned down, you may be wrong.
It’s no secret that over the years, the Fast and Furious series has gone from one insane progression to the other, aging out of logic and into insanity like a wild toddler. Even the Fast and Furious characters seem to get increasingly invincible, leaping a mile from one car to the other. And don’t even get us started on the villains…
But one fan theory may have an explanation for all the craziness that the franchise has seen over time. And, when you think about it, this concept has legs. Or wheels. Whatever works.
The theory comes from Dan Tabor, who suggests that the entire latter half of the franchise’s style comes some a single movie’s ending. More specifically, he makes reference to the Fast and Furious (2009) ending. In the thriller movie‘s final moments, Dominic Toretto hands himself into police custody.
The last scene sees Dom being escorted to prison, and a convoy of his friend’s cars start to drive after him. It’s implied that they will spring him out, and he’ll be free once again.
But what if this never happened? After all, the F&F narrative swiftly skips ahead when in the next movie, Fast Five (2011), we witness Brian and Mia attack the prison bus, but we never see Dom actually get busted out. The movie then skips forward, and we assume that everything went according to plan.
This is where the theory takes off. What if Dom never got broken out? What if he’s sitting in a prison cell now, and the events of Fast Five and onward all stem from his confinement-induced insanity? To make matters even darker, what if his pals (AKA: family) died in their efforts to spring him loose? If all the events of the later movies are in Dom’s head, an amalgamation of his guilt and lost grip on reality, then doesn’t their absurdist nature make sense?
If you compare the drama movies from the early 2000s to the insane quasi-comedy movies from the following decade, then it would make you question whether there is an actual justification for the astounding shift in style. Perhaps this theory has promise and, if so, the whole Fast and Furious franchise becomes a lot more depressing.
So, what do we think? Well, it’s an intriguing idea for sure. But honestly, we think it all boils down to the fact that the Fast and Furious franchise just discovered what audiences enjoyed the most about it. We doubt it’s all a front for a much more emotionally complex and surrealist twist.
And, honestly, we kind of like it that way. While the original, grittier movies were great in their own right, you just can’t beat the later installments which essentially act as Universal Studio rides put to screen.
To see if you can discover your own theories, why not watch the Fast and Furious movies in order? You can also get to know the Fast and Furious cast, and see when the Fast and Furious 11 release date is due to drop. (We’ve also got tabs on all the other new movies coming soon, too.)
And for some deep dives on some of the best movies about cars, check out our features on how the MCU must learn this big lesson from the Fast and Furious movies, and how Tommy Lee Jones in Fast and Furious would’ve changed cinema.