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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3833 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 19, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Up until the Covid Years, I'd gone my whole life without seeing a Fast and Furious movie. Then I caught Covid, and while I was lying on the couch helpless and incapacitated, my wife subjected me to the entire series in sequence, all... however many movies there were, ending with the Rock spinoff.

Much of the experience is mercifully vague, a mishmash of family and fiery explosions and contemplations on how many variations on the title are linguistically possible, but I do recall ranting that these people really, really need to understand that some problems are car problems, and some problems are gun problems, and they really, really should stop trying to solve the latter with the former...

For me F&F always was "how could you use the cars in the most ridiculous way", and if you look for anything to make sense there, you took a wrong turn way, way earlier.

To be honest a lot of the earlier fast and the furious movies had a decent cultural significance to it (at least during the time) it helps to remind ourselves that the timelines collided with MTVs pimp my ride and other shows where they did atrocious modifications to the cars.

The bitter taste is left from the question that when the hell did robbing bank vaults and jumping cars across buildings become any part of a cultural significance? I’m not saying that movies have to be relevant to the culture, and in the movie world the natural transition and exponential growth of the action could only be set up by such exaggerated plots. But the appeal of Fast and the Furious was that it could be semi realistic to have car meet up’s or chases (ignoring the potential of causing a mini genocide trying that in Tokyo)

I’d say an interesting thought experiment would’ve been to try to think of a plot alternative which still had cultural significance. One on the top of my head would be the crew stealing car shipments trying to find some special car plotted with some family/crime drama.

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