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Everyone seems to remember watching Tokyo Drift, but don’t actually remember what happened in it, or what happened to Lucas Black’s career after he tried taking over for Diesel (maybe there WILL be a Sling Blade 2?). Whatever transpired behind the scenes, someone in a suit decided then that the whole format of the series had to change. Removed almost-entirely was the car culture and racing that was the original trilogy’s bread-and-butter; the original cast was brought back and references to “family” and “sticking together” were amped to 11; and every action scene seemed like it had to outdo the one before it. So birthed the “new generation” of F+F movies with the fourth one in 2009, BRILLIANTLY titled Fast & Furious, and the series stayed relatively consistent for a while. With the fifth (Fast Five) and sixth (Fast & Furious 6) movies in 2011 and 2013 respectively they stuck to Lin’s formula; brought back popular characters from the first three movies and shoehorned them together; and strung them all along in a shared-universe plot. 6 also introduced our titular team to Dwayne Johnson’s hard-as-nails cop Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s bad-guy-turned-good Deckard Shaw.

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