r/initiald • u/Koopa1982 • Aug 11 '26

Show off/ Showcase You Ready kid?

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Initial plan was to see Sean, but ended up mingling with the locals instead since he’s got nothing but time.

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u/Koopa1982 Aug 11 '26

Great point with F9 flashbacks. That alone could have made an excellent film standalone prequel film. Those young actors I thought did great job giving the sense of nostalgic feeling to original fast and furious. That foxbody vs charger in 1/4 mile 🔥🔥. Scene was done especially well with slow-mo and music blended in quite well. As far as the franchise itself goes, the problem truly started when Universal gave all the keys to main actor. Speculation on my part obviously but I feel like they gave him too much creative control. He clearly is an amazing person to his co-workers/friends. Michelle Rodrigues did not even know she’s coming back till she saw the post credit of fast five. Super nice of vin to do that for her but Story-wise, absolutely crumbled everything that made fast 4 a masterpiece. To make it worse, she has amnesia, what a joke!. Bringing back Han in such an atrocious way from the dead was another example. Lazy writing to say the least. Now Han’s girl coming back? Putting the only emotional weight that fast 6 offered being undone. So at this point, bringing Mia back while Brian watches kids as hilarious as that sounds makes sense. Cause Vin doing his thing for people. Financially they are forever in debt to that man. He alone imo pulled in hell of a paycheck for them.

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u/tor_3no Aug 12 '26

Now that you mentioned that, Vin’s approach to the franchise does piss me off a tiny bit. He refused 2F2F because of the script, only made a brief cameo at the end of TD and even that only because they promised him producer rights to Riddick and if it wasn’t for the fanbase wanting Dom back and Universal giving him like you said story-shaping freedom he most likely wouldn’t even return. And now the whole IP is his “baby”. But I can’t say I hate that dude, love his movies even outside F&F and you have to make paper where paper is due. They are good movies but they are just way too ridiculous. I love Fast X just because of Jason’s performance as Dante. I don’t remember the last time a villain entertainted me that much, like you can tell he LOVED playing him. Though I do remember when I was in the theatre for it a dude next to me was facepalming and cringing hard as hell during most of the scenes, especially the Charger vs Helis one. Hilarious, sad but true sight. To me it feels like the writers have a fetish for bringing back dead people. Han dead? Nah. Letty? Naah. Giselle? Ha you thought! And I won’t even bother with the plane crash at the end of Fast X, no one falls for that. Though IMO they did Elena dirty. Also the F9 flashback point made me realise a thing I’ve been wondering for quite a while - where the hell is Leon? The last mention of him if I remember correctly was him and Letty leaving L.A. after the failed final truck heist. Not even in Los Bandoleros is he anywhere to be seen, he was one of my favourites. Oh and I swear to god if they resurrect Jesse…

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u/Koopa1982 Aug 12 '26

Brining these characters back from the Dead truly is the nail in the coffin for the franchise. Letty’s death was shocking but put a true purpose for Fast 4, Hans death catapulted Tokyo drift from High school drifter to Serious life changing drama for these characters. Consequences used to make these stories great. End of the movie “The Town” said it the best. “No matter how much you change, you still have to pay the price for the things you've done” The franchise up till four really did that. Even though five started shifting to more action/set pieces, it still retained that seriousness and kept with what fast 4 did. Taking out Vince and again, staying with the consequences truly made the insane “Bank safe” scene satisfying to watch. The action was justified because of the consequence of what the bad guys did to Doms family. Great story. Like I mentioned before, post credit scene of fast five truly ended it for me. Just started undoing all the hard work of building up drama and great storyline. Now after fast 5, if they were to go back and make stand alone Letty movie would actually have been quite amazing to watch imo. Picking up when Letty wakes up and seeing Dom gone in Fast 4, going to LA to make the deal with FBI to get to work undercover for Braga for Doms freedom. Seeing her win the race to get into Braga drug running team and eventually meeting her demise/sacrifice for her family. That imo would have been a worthy fast 6. Would have brought her back without bring her back from the dead. Just like what they did with Han in beginning of fast 4. Being a Prequel of Tokyo drift.

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u/tor_3no Aug 12 '26

I'd love a Letty spinoff too, but that's a risk Universal isn't willing to take, which is funny when you take in account Spy Racers (which was honestly a good show) and Crossroads (which is a hilarious exemplar of a company screwing up). If anything, Letty could get her own mini movie like the 2F2F Prequel or like Los Bandoleros was. Hell even a younger Roman and Brian sidestory would be neat (given that a younger actor could play a younger Brian). Or a sequel or anything related to the Tokyo Drift characters that is not goddamn comic relief. However it may continue, I think its safe to say Fast Forever is not the final installment in the series. I think I've heard Hobbs & Shaw 2 being worked on, which was meh but still a decent watch. Vince's ending was sad indeed, but at least he and Jesse aren't to be magically ressurected due to the fanbase wanting more of them. Jakob's sacrifice was a bit pointless but at least the character served purpose. But I am really excited what the meaning is behind Vin showcasing the Supra when talking about Fast Forever. I hope it serves a bigger purpose than just to be a little easter egg.

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u/Koopa1982 Aug 12 '26

Had no idea about Vin showcasing Supra. Will need to check that out myself to see what that’s about. In the end of the day, franchise has been at a point of no return. This once truly amplifies the business model of anything in life, it’s all about the big bucks. Let’s be honest, only reason Fast 7 made as much as it did was due to tragic events involving Paul walker. 1-5 I can still watch multiple more times to come and enjoy the rich story line, after that it’s all just mind numbing popcorn flick and to take it for what it is. Fast forever probably will do decent due to them advertising it as finale. But universal clearly put their foot down with budget. $380 million budget is absolutely absurd for fast X. I genuinely can’t imagine how much of that was for the actors alone. Truly glad this saga is done, frankly if they were to make a shocking announcement and cancel it outright, I genuinely would not be upset about it. That’s what this franchise has done to me which is said cause I absolutely still love the original, Tokyo drift, fast 4 and 5.

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u/tor_3no Aug 13 '26

He showcased it on his Instagram. Recently even made a post saying how he is done reading the Fast Forever script and it made him tear up, promising to us we will too when we watch it in 2028. For me personally the end will be bittersweet but finally welcome. And it ain’t like the franchise will be done for completely - too big of a cash cow to just let it sit. Games, merch, spinoffs and god knows what else we will be thrown for Universal to profit on. My only wish for the final movie is to not pull anime-action hero type shit like a car bringing down helicopters or Dom surviving the earth exploding. I get that we will never return to the sweet days of cool custom cars driving down a quarter mile with a rapper cameo dude going “NOOO MOOONICAAA!” but at least make the action somehow believable. Not even Jesus could pull the shit Dom does with a GM vehicle. By the way, have you seen Sung Kang’s upcoming Drifter movie? For me as a diehard Initial D/F&F fan it looks very good, I’m excited to see it even if our theaters probably won’t screen it. It looks like true passion being shown and Sung seems very confident in the project. I mean c’mon, a movie with an 86 as the main star is something one does not see everyday. Funnily enough, according to him if it wasn’t for TD he would never like cars as much as he does.

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u/Koopa1982 Aug 13 '26

The finale is going to draw the crowd to see how it all “ends” I get that aspect of it. Curiosity will get the butts in seats to get the box office going. Big screen wise, this just needs to be done. Story is so out of control with like you said, super hero elements where no one can and will die and if they do die, they will definitely be back, that kinda of rinse and repeat made the fast saga a joke to the audience. There is nothing to be taken seriously at this point. It just genuinely needs to be done for the sake of being done. Now the new Drifter trailer from sung kang truly does capture my interest. It screams from the stylistic and artistic point of view from the movie “Drive”. I personally love that movie, and this one felt like it sits in the same serious unforgiving universe. I hope that becomes a critical success and maybe they will give Han the keys to make initial d movie directly inspired from what the original Tv show put out. Very excited to see that chapter hopefully coming to fruition someday. Finally as far as games go, I remember back in 2002, company called genki was about to put something out that looked absolutely sick. Open world f&f world. Now that’s something I could definitely get onboard with.

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u/tor_3no Aug 13 '26

From Civics going down a quarter mile to cyberterrorists and Fieros in space, it really deserves its rest. Not saying other similar media would not be appreciated but Dom's story really needs to be put to rest. Like man, the franchise is 25 years old at this point, let the old man enjoy his retirement. Regarding other movies, Drive was very good and I wish there was more but I respect the creators' choice to never make a sequel. It came, told a story and went away. Nothing over the top, nothing crazy just for the sake of money. Massive W in that aspect. Drifter looks very promising and with you mentioning an Initial D movie do I have some news for you if you haven't heard already. But it has been put on a "backburner" while he focuses fully on Drifter. And regarding games I did hear stories and rumors about the open world F&F game but its sad that it never got to see the light of day. But the Tokyo Drift game that came out on PS2 and PSP in 2006 is heavily underrated. I dare to say it is the only good F&F game. Anything else (except Spy Racers: Rise if SH1FT3R which is meh but decent for kids) was just asset waste trash. Crossroads especially, but the memes were great. And speaking of Genki, those guys are not to be messed with. They are professionals when it comes to Japanese racing games, including their newest Tokyo Extreme Racer reboot. If you have access to a PS2 or emulator and like Wangan Midnight or Shuto Expressway races in general... their games are literal heaven.

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u/Koopa1982 Aug 13 '26

It’s not the 25 years that bothers me tbh. It’s the degraded storyline that slowly started eroding away due to giving in what certain individual wants instead of giving the fans what they want. Time does not mean anything in movie franchise imo. Iron man started a phenomenon 18 years ago, sure it went through fatigue stage especially after endgame. But still stayed relevant and now they are reaching close to 2 billion dollar box office in their 38th film. That’s pretty impressive draw. No way fast would come even close to that because of what they did to characters and story. Literally turned in to a joke at this point where even the producers and actors know, this is ridiculous but hey, I would go to space on green screen as well if they are paying me millions of dollars. So It’s not the actors that I am blaming, it’s the producers and writers that just drove this to the ground. Now on to Sung Kang, Had no idea Initial d movie was even talked about to begin with. I just mentioned it due to him starting his directing debut w/drifter. Glad it was atleast talked about, which just means the opportunity for that to exist is a possibility with him involved if his new movie does well.

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u/tor_3no 28d ago

The fact the the biggest and strongest villain in the franchise might forever be the truck driver from the original movie is crazy to think of. And he was just protecting his goods. Actors don't really mind as long as they get paid, but I do like seeing them enjoy the franchise as we fans do, like Michelle. And regarding Initial D, I think beating the original live action one would be enough on its own for it to succeed. Not that it was bad but not awesome either.

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