Tessa  0:00  
Sam, you know one of the things I really like about you,

Sam  0:03  
what's that?

Unknown Speaker  0:04  
You read the brochure. I'm proud.

Sam  0:07  
This is the nine days of fast and furious.

Welcome to the nine days of Fast and Furious monkey my backlogs first limited series. I'm your host Sam Morris and with me is Tessa Swehla. Today, we're seeing what the team no family is getting up to in 2013. Fast and Furious six. But first, it's the spirit of the holiday season. I mean holiday season spirit. Tessa,

Unknown Speaker  0:49  
did you just call me a Spectre?

Sam  0:51  
I did.

Tessa  0:52  
I have to be really honest. I was up very late playing cyberpunk 2077 so I don't have anything particularly catchy to say about the holiday spirit today except for my very fancy and very warm green headband with jingle bells on it. little reindeer antlers. I enjoy that you can hear it jingle a little bit if I move my head really fast. No, nothing from you. Sam Morris. Nope. All right. Well, let's let's move past that then and talk about our podcast within a podcast. Sam's holiday cocktail. Doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo. Sam, what cocktail did you make today to embody your holiday spirit?

Sam  1:34  
Well, once again, and if you've been listening, you know I don't have any holiday spirit. So I am sorry to report that this is not a holiday cocktail. Also, because somebody stayed up late last night playing cyberpunk. It is tomorrow morning as we're recording this. So I started off with the appropriately titled Tequila Sunrise.

Tessa  1:57  
And how do you make a appropriately titled Tequila Sunrise?

Sam  2:02  
Well, you make an appropriately titled Tequila Sunrise, the way you make a regular Tequila Sunrise, which is to fill a pint glass with some ice cubes. And then in that, you're going to throw at least three ounces of orange juice, you can put in a little bit more, if you really want to be fancy, you can make some grapefruit juice or some pineapple juice in there. And then you're going to add a little bit of lime juice to give it a little bit more zest about half an ounce out of diarrhea. And then you're going to put in one and a half ounces of tequila or if you put in a little more than three ounces of juice. Go ahead and knock that up to two ounces. And then stir all that up. So you got the ice and those three things in there. And now you're gonna take a half ounce of grenadine. And if you're fancy and not in a hurry, you're gonna be very slowly pour that on top, maybe let it dribble down the sides of the glass, and it's gonna look really cool. If you're in a hurry like I was today. It just all goes down there and it mixes in this this nice, you know, purple color and it still tastes good. But you got options there. Tila sunrise enjoy everybody.

Unknown Speaker  3:10  
All right, this has been the podcast within a podcast, Sam's holiday cocktail.

Sam  3:15  
Alright, so there are lots of things to talk about in Fast and Furious six. But Tessa, why don't you first tell us? What happened?

Tessa  3:24  
Well, Sam, this movie starts with Brian and it racing down a countryside road in Spain to get to the birth of Brian's son, jack, which was teased at the end of the last movie. However, shortly after the birth of jack Hobbs played by the rock shows up and makes Dom an offer that he can't refuse. It turns out that Letty is still alive, also teased at the end of the last film, and has been working with a sh s major Owen Shaw, played by Luke Evans of The Hobbit and Dracula fame. And, and Hobbs needs DOM and Brian and the whole team to take down Owen Shaw, because he's just too good at what he does. So of course, Dom goes and talks to Brian about it. And there's a really interesting conversation that I wanted to highlight because I'm sure we'll talk about it later where Brian points out that even though they're in Spain, which has no extradition treaty, the end it's nice, he has his family there. They're living in a nice house, but it's still not home, you know, it's home, but it's not home. So, Dom negotiates with Hobbes that if they do this with him, if they work with the US government to take down shots, they get Leddy, and also it's full pardons for everybody. So he calls up the team and they all reunite. We got Han we got tasia we got Roman. See if I could remember all the names. We got GSL we got pretty much everybody except for the last bandoleros people because as tasia points out, they're at a casino somewhere. We No, they're not in this movie. So they all get back together. They're all here for Letty because ladies family even though I don't think lady has actually met most of these people, that's not the point. You all do things for family. So they go up against Owen Shaw. There are a lot of macguffins a lot of car pranks. There are a lot of rock pranks, which we're going to talk about here in a little bit and other high jinks. The important point is, is that lady actually doesn't remember Dom at all This is straight out of a telenovela she has amnesia, but she turns anyway and becomes part of the family because she is so impressed by DOM and his family. However, in the climactic sequence of this film, we do get a couple of deaths we get to sell who dies saving Han, in a very, very sad sequence because I was very invested in their relationship. However they do to be Oh, and Shaw, they get Letty back, and they get 1327 back in LA. So we see everybody at the end together in LA having a barbecue and they are home, they have been pardoned. Ladies back with DOM. So at the very end of this in the teaser to this because you know, this group of people can't have nice things. There's always something bad happening, we get to actually see the death of Han in from Tokyo Drift. And in one of the most amazing retcons of all time, we learn that haunts death was not in fact a drifting accident, but it was caused by Jason Statham, who has vowed revenge for some unknown reason against DOM and the gang. Sam, what did you think about this particular retcon? Let's just start there, start at the end and work our way backwards.

Sam  6:39  
So I've been waiting for you to see this particular scene for a long, long time back before we plan to do this when you refused every time we saw the trailer for Hobbs and Shaw in the theaters when we went to theaters. We've seen that trailer many, many times, probably over a dozen times. And every time you're sitting there having no idea that Hobbs part of Toronto's family is forced to work with the man who murdered Han Yoon had no idea. Now you do. And it means something completely different. I call this and I've never said it out loud. But I get to now, I have called this the greatest retcon of all time. It's not really technically a retcon because it's it's more of an Obi Wan Kenobi, the truth from a certain perspective, we are seeing more of things. Now. Tokyo Drift, the timeline is retconned. But that happened back in fast four. So we already know that they're playing fast and loose with the timeline of Tokyo Drift. What we see here is we see more of what happens and indeed, we'll see more of what happens perhaps, in in the next film as we get a little bit more context about Jason's Nathan's character. But the thing that's really interesting here is this brings up the whole justice for Han situation. You know, now that we know his death wasn't an accident, it happened. For some reason. We don't know what the reason is, at the end of this movie, I assume. We will learn what happens and why in future films. But this sets up a really great pop culture storyline and like I said really works is one of the best ways to retro actively change a story. There are lots of bad ways to do it. This is a good one. It is right up there with ghost Kenobi telling Luke a thing or two on Daigo bot. It's right up there.

Tessa  8:42  
So as you just mentioned, we saw the preview for Hobbs and Shaw in the movie theater like 51,000 times. So I already knew that the rock and Jason Statham were part of this franchise, I knew what their names were. And so I was actually really shocked watching this film to learn that the villain Oh, and Shah was actually Luke Evans, like I was I had no idea that that was a way that they were gonna go, I just assumed when they were like, oh, you're going its own shot. It's like, Oh, that's the shot that Jason Statham plays. Right. So I thought we were gonna get him in this film, but I thought he was going to be Luke Evans, his character. And so I was I was actually very surprised by that. And then as soon as he was like, and then my brother said, I was like, Oh, okay. All right. I get it. I know what's happening here. But yeah, I there was a lot I was not expecting in this film because of that, I guess. And so it's kind of nice to know that even when you do get spoiled on some things, there are ways that this franchise can surprise you.

Sam  9:40  
So you talk a little bit about the Shaw character, and the fact that he was not who you thought he was in this film. The Hub's character, however, is exactly who you think he is. Dwayne The Rock Johnson shows up his last right hand woman is now With Dom so he needs a new right hand person. And that is former MMA fighter, Gina Carano, who you might recognize as the former rebel turn mandato best friend turned martial from the Mandalorian. So Gina Kratos here. Fun times. What do you think, Tessa about the development of Hobbes's character in this movie?

Tessa  10:29  
I mean, I think it's a really natural progression from where we saw him at the end of the last movie, like nothing about this surprised me, I knew that they were going to work together eventually, because you could just see it at the end of five when he was just like, oh, you scamps. I'm gonna give you 24 hours. I'm like, you love them. You're you're going to work with them eventually. And so it's absolutely not surprising to me at all, that he would come to Dom at the beginning of this and say, Okay, I need your help. Like you are you are the person who has to help me take down this man Oh, and Shah who participates in vehicular warfare, nothing about this surprised me. It was really cool actually seeing him not as the villain I guess not not that I saw him as particularly villainous and five but seeing him actually work together. Seeing them enable each other in a lot of ways I think works really well in this film. It just amps everything up.

Sam  11:22  
So of course, the the danger here is that we could start doing the same movie over and over again, right? And then make some conscious choices to not do that. So there are some things about the structure, the DNA of this movie that changes a little bit. And Tessa I know that one of the ones that you brought up when we were watching it had to do with Brian.

Tessa  11:47  
Brian is really decentred In this film, he does have a bit of a storyline we do see him go to prison to confront Braga who is also in this film. It turns out Braga was working for Owen Shaw in from number four was we we get to see him go to prison to figure out what happened to Letty and he does take a lot of responsibility for what happened to ledi. But beyond that, he doesn't really have much of a plot. Brian has sort of had his full character arc at this point. And you know, knowing that Paul Walker isn't with us for very much longer, I kind of wonder what they were going to do with him in this particular franchise because he definitely takes a backseat here. Pun intended to DOM and Dom's relationship with Letty like this is much more a movie about Dom than it is about Brian.

Sam  12:32  
His relationship with Dom also takes a backseat to Dom's relationship with Hobbes right to go back to what you said about you know, the the villain working for a bigger villain, which is definitely a double oh seven thing you know, as much as the structure changes in this movie, it leans farther into the bond territory. So one of the things that that Bond movies are known for are the over the top stunts and the shenanigans that he gets up to in that way. Of course, you heard us a few episodes ago talking about the Roger Moore entering the Roger Moore era of bond, which is where the frankly the stupidest stunts of the bond franchise happened. But here we got some pretty cool stuff. We have plenty of car pranks, but we also have rock pranks and diesel pranks. We got lots of pranks in this movie. Tessa, what were some of your favorite pranks?

Tessa  13:27  
So like you said, we get to see most of the pranks so far have been car based. there been a few like, you know, body based breaks as it were this we get to see a lot more of both Vin Diesel and the rock doing things outside of cars. So the one of them is Hobbs throwing himself off of a bridge onto a car during a car chase that was pretty cool. Like sort of using himself as like a wrecking ball in some ways. The Vin Diesel Michelle Rodriguez stunt where she's thrown off of the tank and Vin Diesel goes off of the the bridge and throws him out of out of the window and catches her is one of the coolest things that have happened in this franchise. Like it is so cool. And wit later when she's like how did you know there was going to be a car to break our fall and he's like I didn't. And you just know that like there's so much like it's a stunt, but it's a love stunt. Like he loves her so much like he was gonna fall to his death for her if there wasn't a car to catch them. And I don't know, like this franchise, like you said combines like those sort of emotional deeds with bad snus so well, like they're just so well blended, especially in the character of DOM. And there's some really great fight scenes with Gina Carano. Like you said, she I think does a really good job in this just because she's she's so bad. But she also is just so physically intimidating at the same time like this is this is some good stuff and of course we get the car pranks like you said, they go up against a tank. They go against a plane. That's the whole climactic sequence At the end, the olan Shah and his gang who are also supposed to be these great car drivers. And so we finally see them going up against someone with a similar skill set as them. They have these like, they look like the Batmobile to me. What What did you call them? The Batmobile? Yeah, so they're these like little tumbler cars that like, are all armor plated and can just like crush other cars and like, I don't know, like, I just thought this was like five but kicked up a notch in terms of stunt work. I don't know. I just liked this film a lot. I'm sorry, I could just keep talking about just all these different stunts. Anyway, those are some of my favorite. Those are probably my two favorite one rock prank to diesel prank. But what did you think about the car pranks

Sam  15:46  
thinking about this movie, which we just watched? I really don't remember the car pranks. I remember the tank. I remember the plane. I remember. We were joking about it. And they mentioned the name of these kinds of cars in the movies. But that's not important. I want to call them because Tessa was like, What is this the Batmobile? And I was like, no, they're bad guys. It's the Batmobile. So we've been calling the batmobiles. You know which one I'm talking about. If you've seen the movie, you know the thing about this and depending Yeah, we get one treat racing scene in this movie. It's an obligatory thing. We see it happen. Apparently, Justin Lin was kind of over these. This movie really is about all the other kinds of vehicles that we can do pranks on in on top of underneath to the left up to the right of underneath, inside outside. It's a whole lesson in prepositions. Another thing that I wanted to bring up because you brought it up, Tessa going back to the structure, this movie is really fun to watch. And it really changes a lot of things that happen in this series. You mentioned another genre of pop culture that this movie decides to like, move all the way into

Tessa  17:00  
this movie. I mean, it This includes the last movie, or frankly, all of the movies we've seen so far. But it especially is apparent in this movie that this is the telenovela, we get someone with amnesia who comes back from the dead like that is a straight out of a telenovela soap opera move, and I really appreciate it. And I don't know if she gets her memory back. She doesn't in this movie. But I really appreciated the idea that this is someone that Letty is a character is she's sort of a blank slate, but she's not because she still has those fundamental personality traits that make her who she is. She gets very mad at Owen Shaw, when he suggests that any member of a team is replaceable, that you just switch out parts when you need to, because she still values family. And I think that's what appeals to her most. I mean, it appeals to everyone when they meet DOM, right. That's why he is able to switch so many people from law enforcement to his side. He cultivates this idea that everyone in the group is important that everyone is irreplaceable. And she's really drawn to that. And I appreciated the fact that they were willing to make some changes to her character, but still keep her that core personality. What did you think about the whole lady reintroduction?

Sam  18:15  
So the great thing about Letty when she when she turns back, and and of course, by the end of this movie, we find out that No, she doesn't remember anything. And it doesn't matter which which actually reminded me of the end of the series Chuck, which was always desperately unfulfilling for me, because I want to know how that's gonna work. But the idea is, is like whether she remembers or not, this could still be a thing. And that's the same energy that we get out of this. What's important is that the core of her character is still there that she's always going to side with loyalty and family, a theme that this movie just goes hard into. But of course, before we start talking about that, Lady turns from the bad guys back to the family. But Gina Carano is character Hicks also turns because cursher sudden, but inevitable betrayal, she is a bad guy, and she goes over to Sha Oh, God. So we have a girl fight. And by the way, this is of course the film of good girl fights, right? The girl fights are better than the other fights in this movie, and I am using girl fight on purpose because these two girl fights create the Michelle Rodriguez girl fight trilogy that began with her first ever role in a movie called girl fight. The fact that it took six movies to get there tells you about some of the mistakes of the beginning of this series about not making Michelle Rodriguez a more core character than diesel. Other folks have expressed regret. And that's good. It's good to know when you're wrong but they really go all in on Michelle Rodriguez getting to do that. The fights and the stunts. The fight between her and Genie Chronos character on the plane is really great. I don't know is it better than the one from earlier in the movie Tessa?

Tessa  20:11  
The one in the tunnel is just like iconic i think i mean the the scene where Michelle Rodriguez gets up on her feet and swings the handcuffs around us as a as some knuckles is just I don't know, I really appreciated that fight. I liked how it wasn't clear which one of them was going to end up on top. The tumble down the stairs at the end. I was like, Oh my gosh, they both have concussions now. But I thought that was really good. And I really appreciate the way that they have started to recenter female characters in this as people who are part of the action who are have a lot of agency because we get Letty, we get Gina Carano. Like you said, we get galka dot again, as you said, we even Owen Shaw has a has a female sidekick who drives the Batmobile and winks at Brian after breaking one of his cars. So we get a little bit more of that. And I really appreciate that in this particular film.

Sam  21:04  
At one point in the movie Roman realizes that Owen Shaw's crew is like the Bizarro version of all of them and and talks about you know, makes the comparisons and then gets over to the the the wheel woman that you just mentioned, and was like but but Brian, and you know makes fun of them for that reason, because that's clearly the Brian analog in that squad. So yeah, they go all in on making sure that women aren't just side characters in this movie, and it benefits but with every celebration of good things, there is always a storm cloud over the top. And we have to say goodbye. Because we can have too many women characters agency, we have to say goodbye to wonder woman, she goes out in a blaze of glory. I'll point out there's no body. So, but she goes out in a blaze of glory. How'd that make you feel? I mean, I

Tessa  22:00  
think if we've learned anything from this particular film, it's that if there's no body, they probably aren't dead and have amnesia. So there is a chance we could see Galaga dot again I am I'm holding firm to that. It was actually sad. I mean, Jesus was a character is not necessarily the most developed or interesting character in this franchise. But I really loved her relationship with Han. I love the development of it in past five. I really like how they had this long this like running thread through this film about you know, settling down and what does that look like for two people who really live their lives by adrenaline rushes and you know, have this much money, you know, she mentions maybe going to Tokyo and settling down with him. She saves her life a couple of times. So you just know that they're building for him her to save his life. And so you know, just this scene where she lets go because she has to shoot the guy who's creeping up behind him. And you know, gets whisked away into the darkness. And it's sad it it actually struck a nail with me in a way that I didn't think that any of these minor characters really could string strike that now.

Sam  23:06  
There's some serious dramatic irony present here because you know, Han is just about to die to. It still has that emotional impact this this movie still tricks you into thinking these two could have had a happy ending even though you know they won't. So but also I'll point out there's no body for Han either. There was a casket who knows what we buried in there.

Tessa  23:31  
We just need a body man. If there's no body, it didn't happen. I know the rules of action movies, and telenovelas. Okay, the other thing real quick, before we get to our fast facts, they hit family so hard in this movie, I do want to point out the juxtaposition because it really stood out to me between Owen Shaw, as I said earlier, he has this attitude of not family. It's like the anti family, like all of his crew are replaceable. He blows up a member of his crew at the beginning of the movie. And then when one of them dies, he's just like, oh, he made a mistake, and he paid for it, whatever, we'll get someone else. And not only do I think that really turns it off, but it's really this big juxtaposition between Dom who is a criminal but where he's they're supposed to be the good guys, because they love each other because they they have each other's backs, versus this guy who's just in it for, you know, money, or power or whatever. And so to us, we're supposed to take that and say like, okay, like, there is a right way to live and a wrong way to live. And Dom clearly has the right way to live because he treats his people like family.

Sam  24:33  
All right, so before we get a little more into family, and how hard this movie goes into family, let's go ahead and talk Some fast facts. Hobbes is either the laziest, or the smartest version of Nick Fury, because he didn't have to go around assembling a team Dom assembled the team and he just assembled Dom's team. Good job, Hobbs. However, you As I compared him to Nick Fury characters in the movie decided to refer to him as a the Hulk. Be Captain America and see Samoan Thor. So that's pretty fun. The biggest fast fact about this movie is that, you know, it's very blindly tight, Fast and Furious six, whatever you could do better. And in fact, they plan to this was actually supposed to be two movies, the first half the fast, that ends with the big tank scene, followed by the furious a completely separate movie that ends with the plane. Pretty neat, huh? But I think it worked out, okay, the way that it did, as Tessa said earlier, you know, these movies are supposed to represent different things in this, this, this whole setup here, you know, putting the Fast and the Furious into two different movies. They're trying to do exactly that. So that's pretty interesting. Now, the fast culminates with a tank, that's a real tank, they said, hey, let's do a CGI tank. And Justin Lin said, but what if we can use an actual tank?

Tessa  26:09  
Justin Lin champion of practical effects?

Sam  26:13  
That's right. And then we have the furious that ends with the plane sequence. Tessa, if you said it once, you said it half a dozen times. What did you keep saying during that sequence?

Tessa  26:26  
How long is this runway, that sequence takes like 20 minutes, there is no runway in the world that is that long. And you're

Sam  26:33  
not the only one who wondered that. So the BBC did a did a whole study about this when the when the movie came out, you can find it on the internet, it's great. Let's start off let's go in reverse here. The longest runway in the world at that time was about three and a half miles long in China. Of course, we're not in China in this film. So but just keep that in mind. This sequence is 13 minutes. Does it take place real time over 13 minutes? Presumably No, we go back and forth between people seeing things that might be happening at the same time. Okay, the article that I'm telling you about here kind of takes that into account. But here's a couple of things that we know, the rock reports that they were driving at speeds around 115 miles per hour. experts who know things about that size cargo plane says you really need to be going at least 120 miles per hour, for a plane of that size to be able to take off. So if you put all these facts together, the conclusion that the BBC with their experts reached is that although the longest runway in the world at that time is 3.5 miles long to do what happens in this film that runway would have to be almost eight tene and a half miles long. So that's how long it would have to be Tessa,

Tessa  27:54  
I still don't buy it. Like literally there were several times where I was like, this is a really cool scene. But you have to wonder how long does it take a plane to take off?

Sam  28:03  
Did that take you out of the movie, like you clearly noticed that something was wrong here, this has no basis in reality. As I've said before, action movies that do things that are just not real, but you don't care, because either you care about the characters, or you're just being wowed by what's happening, or in this case, both. You tend to give people a lot of slack in terms of this, how you feel

Tessa  28:28  
I've talked about before how they make you not care. This is not the real world. This is clearly a fantasy world in which cars can stand up to tanks, and people can jump up over chasms and catch other people and you know all of these things that like just can't physically happen in real life. But this world convinces you these movies convince you that this world could be real that what you're seeing could potentially exist in some universe because as Megan pointed out last night, there's this blend between earnestness and just, you know, ridiculousness and these films. And it works really well. This did sort of take me out of the moment a couple of times, just because it just kept glowing like I just kept expecting it to be over at some point, because either the plane would take off or they would destroy the plane, which is of course what happened. But for the most part, no, like there was only really a couple moments where it's like, how is this still happening?

Sam  29:21  
Let's see what everybody around the world thought see if they had a beef with this movie and just decided not to go see it. The budget was $160 million. So we're moving up and up and up opening weekend. $97.3 million domestic so apparently people were not bothered by this runway shenanigans. The total box office for this movie is $788 million is just stupid. How much money this movie made. Of course, it won the weekend. coming in second. Hangover Part Three coming in third, a preview of things to come. Justin Lin's career Star Trek Into Darkness fourth epic and five while there is no x men movie this year, there is an Iron Man three pretty lively we can there at the box office, much as we've talked about how maybe the corona moments the references to Corona beer in this in this series is overblown. There are a couple in this movie. There is one where Tom shares a Corona with Hobbes fairly early. And then there is the obligatory family picnic at the end of the film. Where are there are coronas present? Now we're up to a total of six Corona moments in the franchise. The family number However, there are a whopping 11 mentions of family and we're talking about times and family as mentioned. Not references to family, not brotherhood. Not that I'm saying the word family comes out of the mouth 11 times in this movie, Mia tells Brian to go with them. Because that's what family does. Hobbs, working on the whole the whole join up and do things he invokes the word family twice in a conversation and Brian hits it himself one time. We're also told that you don't turn your back on family DOM and Sha in a conversation mention it three times when Elena leaves the squad. She says it two times. I don't even think we mentioned that Elena is back in this movie. But she is. And then finally the very end of the movie. Roman gets tricked into saying grace because he's always so hungry. He mentioned his family in the prayer. Which brings us to a grand total of 19 mentions of family in the franchise. so far. I'm sure there'll be more. I'm sure there's gonna be a boatload in the next movie for reasons. All right, guys, it's time to scatter. Join us tomorrow for the next installment of the nine days of fast and furious. Furious seven will show wreck Dom Toronto's family. Over the next three days we have more guests and lots more holiday spirit lined up. You better watch out You better not cry, you better not pout because Jason Statham and the rock are taking over for Santa this Christmas Eve. Watch along with this tweet at us. Email us let us know all your Fast and Furious thoughts. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at monkey backlog and email us at monkey off my backlog@gmail.com You can find me on Twitter at Sam underscore Morris nine. And on letterbox did Archie Leach nine you can find Tessa on Twitter and letterboxed at suela Tessa s WEH la also check out our regular weekly episodes of Monkey on my backlog as well as our newest series monkey nights. Our special holiday theme song is Scott Holmes his version of jingle bells and can be found on Scott Holmes music.com. Find the podcast on Spotify, Amazon podcast iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. The only thing that matters is the people in this room.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai