Antagonists of the Franchise

In The Fast and the Furious franchise films there are many villains in each of the films, which all had a separate plans and motive from one another. The main villains of the films (in order of the films) are : Johnny Tran and his crew, Carter Verone, Takashi (Drift King), Arturo Braga and his crew, Hernan Reyes and Owen Shaw. These characters and their motives are explained in fuller details in the following paragraphs. 

In the first film, The Fast and the Furious, Johnny Tran, played by Rick Yune.1, is the rival street racer in Los Angles and wants to defeat Dominic Toretto and his crew. In my opinion, Yune played the role very good because Yune has serious and aggressive features that fits the character's personality.

In 2 Fast 2 Furious, the villain is Carter Verone, played by Cole Hauser.2 Verone is a clever and witty character, who is an expert at crimes. Verone is a dealer and a drug lord, who's ultimate goal is to become rich. The character demonstrates cleverness because he creates plans and stays under the radar from cops. In the quote: "put him and his money together" said by Agent Markham, means Verone was unable to be caught by the cops. 

In third film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the villain is Takashi (Drift King), played by Brian Tee.3 Takashi is the winner of all drift races, and is nicknamed Drift King or DK. Drift King is the leader, and is feared by other drift racers. Drift King's leadership and title is threatened by Sean Boswell, when he arrives in Tokyo. 

In the fourth film, Fast & Furious, the villain is Arturo Braga, played by John Ortiz.4 Braga is a drug trafficker that imports drugs from the United States to Mexico illegally. Braga is a villain because he put Toretto and O'Connor in a challenging position. 

In the fifth film, Fast Five, the villian is Hernan Reyes, played by Joaquim de Almeida.5 Reyes is a corrupt business man and drug lord that controls Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, because of his large amount of money. Reyes' motive is retain his power in Rio de Janeiro, which enforces Toretto and his crew to visit Rio de Janeiro. 

In the sixth film, Fast & Furious 6, the criminal is Owen Shaw, played by Luke Evans.6 Shaw is taking down a military convoy and has plans to take over the world. CIA agent, Luke Hobbs teams up with Dominic Torretto to stop Shaw's plan.    

To conclude, each of the characters played a significant role in the franchise and lead the story where it is today. No one likes to root for the villain of the story, but in my opinion, it is the villain that creates the plot line of the story, making them the most important character in the film. 

1)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0232500/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

2)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0322259/?ref_=fn_al_tt_7

3) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463985/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5

4)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013752/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

5)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596343/?ref_=nv_sr_1

6)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1905041/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4

What Makes This Franchise Successful

I personally really enjoy watching racing and action movies, and I believe they are the best types of movies. There are many fans like me who feel the same, which is why this franchise is as successful as it is today.

The first aspect I will discuss is about, how the writers' choices with choosing the main characters in the films were a perfect fit for the story line.  A few of the main characters in the films are Dominic Torretto, Brian O'Conner, Luke Hobbs and Roman Pearce. Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel is stereotypically a "tough guy", because of his size, muscles, and leadership role. However, all of these characteristics make him the ideal Dominic. To continue Brian O'Conner, played by Paul Walker has a sensitive, face which makes viewers believe every line O'Conner says. As well as Walker participates in legal street racing in his spare time, which makes his character more realistic. Luke Hobbs is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and is played by Dwayne Johnson (The Rock). Hobbs is introduced in the fifth movie (Fast Five) to take down Toretto's crew. Johnson has similar physical features as Diesel, which is why they both make an excellent pair. Lastly, Roman Pearce, played by Tyrese Gibson, has a snarky, witty and hilarious attitude, which is perfect for film, because this character enlightens the seriousness of the film through his comments. Gibson reflects the character because in general, Gibson is a funny guy, mainly because of his past R& B singer career.   

Through the numerous characters in the films, my favorite character of the films is Roman Pearce. Pearce is my favorite, because in many ways I feel as if I share many similar qualities and personality with him. As I love eating food, making jokes and being humorous. Pearce is also my favorite character, because I believe Pearce evolved the most over the films. Pearce first appeared as a rebel with no ambition, and now he become a man who is willing to sacrifice himself for any of his crew members.

Action is as well another element contributing to the success of the franchise. Not only is action displayed throughout the racing scenes, but also the argument scenes. The action of the films makes what Fast and the Furious is, and it what makes viewers sit at the edge of  their seats. Also, the action elements is what makes the film unpredictable, and is a reason why I like watching these films. Additionally, along with the action, some really great songs are added, which makes the scenes even more intense and memorable.    

To conclude, the characters and the action scenes have a major affect on the success of the franchise, which captivates the audience to become a Fast and Furious fan for life.  

Apparel & Merchandise

The Fast and the Furious franchise is a very popular franchise. This is proven over and over again. One way that they have proved this is by the apparel and merchandise available.

In 2002, when the first movie (The Fast and the Furious) came out on VHS a lot of other merchandise also came out with the release. For example, model kits of the main cars were made, like the 1970 Charger, and the Toyota Supra. There were also die cast cars that came out of mostly of all the cars in the movie. Another type of merchandise they had was replicas of some of the memorabilia in the movies warn by the characters. An example of this is they made a replica of Dominic Toretto's known cross necklace, in which I own one myself. In my opinion, they chose the cross to replicate, because that cross is important to the story line, and also because Toretto wears it throughout every movie. They also have a lot of apparel that has "The Fast and the Furious" written on it, in addition to a picture of a nice car of the film.

Another method that generated a lot of money is through the video game world. In 2006, they have created a game called "The fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift", it was published for the main gaming consoles at that time, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable. Followed in 2011, Gameloft made an application that was called "Fast Five the movie" and it was compatible with Android and Apple market.1 In 2013, Kabam made another application called "Fast and Furious 6 the game" and was compatible with Android and Apple market.2 As well, in 2013, Activision created another game based off of the sixth movie and this game is called "Fast & Furious: Showdown", but it was developed on many platforms, such as  the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, and the personal computer (PC). In their time all of these games made a big success because it is based on the franchise.

Lastly, all of the movies came out on VHS and has been re released on DVD. Also, each time a new movie comes out, it is released on so many different packs. For instance, there are some packs that are combo packs that include both the Blueray disc and the DVD disc. As well, there are some packs that include all the films in the franchise on separate discs, and some packs that come with limited edition items and special features. With my purchase of the Blueray and DVD combo pack of Fast Five, it included a "Fast Five" 4GB USB stick, which I frequently use. In addition, I own a few Fast and the Furious model cars, t-shirts, and movie posters.

Briefly, these are all different types of tactics that the makers of these films use to make more money and to make it more popular. Even though, these tactics are used for advertising and marketing schemes, I agree with these methods, because as a fan, it is always great receiving merchandise to display.

1)https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/fast-five-movie-official-game/id422299509?mt=8#
2)https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/fast-furious-6-the-game/id619375712
3)http://www.bestbuy.ca/Search/SearchResults.aspx?path=ca77b9b4beca91fe414314b86bb581f8en20&query=Fast+%26+Furious+Showdown

 

The Evolution of the Franchise

This post will discuss the franchise as a whole. 

As previously wrote in previous posts, there are six Fast and Furious films and a seventh will be released this summer. 
Fun Fact: The first film in the franchise, The Fast and the Furious (2001) was based on an article from the magazine Racer X, and was written by the writer of the film, Kenneth Li. The article was about a man that street races in New-York city.

To explain more on my first post, The Fast and Furious Story behind the franchise, I said that the first film was located in Los Angeles, and as the movies went along, it got to much larger countries around the world. In the first film, the story line was around one main street racing crew, known as the Dominic Toretto crew, and as the number crew in Los Angeles. As well as other street racers were looking up to Toretto and wanted to be just like him. As the films went on, each movie got a larger and more interesting story line. In the fourth Fast and Furious movie, the writers started to write much larger scripts with larger action scenes. As well as the films got outside of the United States for the first time. With the three films that follow, they were filmed in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), London and Tokyo. Therefore, as the films keep growing, in my opinion, the film's budget got bigger, and provides greater freedom.

Also, throughout the releases of the films, the fan base gets bigger. According to Fast & Furious fan page on Facebook, since the beginning of the series in 2001 until now, the fan base has evolved to 40 million fans. 

The Fast and Furious film developed a lot through the years. Even with the three years gap between Tokyo Drift and Fast & Furious, the series still developed in terms of fans and in terms of graphics and writing.