...of the original two films. Each release things get bigger and bigger and more organizations are involved with out of this world bad guys. Keeping things small and on a personal level can often do wonders for the thrill of the ride.
shareThings reached a natural conclusion with 6. 7 was pushing it. 5 was the peak of personal level mixed with big action, they had that ratio exactly right.
shareThere's no way to keep making street racing movies these days. Just look at Need for Speed. A pretty good but very underwhelming movie. I kept on hoping the movie gets into spectacularly ridiculous vehicular action but it never did.
The bar had been raised so high it would be really difficult to pull off exciting racing scene without resorting into Fast & Furious-esque extreme car stunts.
Not necessarily, ever seen Initial D? They managed to do some excellent racing scenes without having to resort to stuff blowing up or cars flying through the air. Great show if you're in to cars.
shareI love Initial D. But it was a movie made in 2005, based on even older comic book. It was before FF turned everything up to 11. Even Tokyo Drift was released in 2006. I think Tokyo Drift itself was (partially) inspired by Initial D.
My argument was it's really hard to make exciting vehicular action scenes today after all those FF-style extreme car stunts. Getting back to normal street racing is what the Need for Speed movie did. And it didn't work out well.
Initial D was actually a TV series after the comic, that started in 98. If you've only seen the movies, you're definitely missing out. I suppose it comes down to flavour, whether you like the characters doing straight up action or having them do bad ass street racing.
The appeal worked for Initial D because it was a story that told the growth of not only the main characters, but also seeing the car evolve over time.
NFS had great cars, good actors and a horrid story. If they had a half decent story that wasn't cliche, it could have been a great movie for car and racing fans.
The problem has always been how to tell a decent story that have the cars part of that, rather than having them just as cannon fodder like the later FF films. The original and FF2 did that really well.
I didn't know about Initial D tv series. I read some of the manga though, but put off by the mangaka style of drawing human faces. I just can't enjoyed it much. The movie on the other hand.. Jay Chou, Shawn Yue, etc. It's not a Japanese movie, and the CGI was quite primitive, but whatever, the budget was low. It's fine.
NFS story was on par with FF story. They both laughable and not important at all.
But from your writings, I kinda get more insight about these movies.
I think there are normal movies, which means they have a story to tell and then work out the scenes afterwards. In short, the evolution of theatre. I believe these are most of the movies we have.
And there are also movies that are not "real movies," but a 2-hours spectacle. It's like the more complex version of fireworks show. Fireworks don't have a story. But a good fireworks show still have rudimentary acts / theatrics (i.e., opening, main and closure). It also need to consider themes, pacing and aesthetics, etc.. You can't just burn all the fireworks at once and call it a day. It would be a boring show.
FF movies (especially the newer ones) are like this. And they execute it quite masterfully. People were entertained, they laughed all the way to the bank.
NFS failed because it does not have a story to tell, but also don't have the spectacles.
A good racing movies can still be made. For example, Rush. I love the story and I think it's a great movie. Maybe because I grew up idolizing Niki Lauda (from Michael Valliant comics) when I was a kid.
Yet, it bombed at the box office. I guess not many people actually want to hear racing stories. They want to see car actions. The only way FF series to progress is by making it bigger, wilder, and even more ridiculous.
I respectfully disagree.
My favorite thing about this franchise is how it gets bigger with each sequel.
Isn't that point of making a sequel?
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The continuity of the series has actually become one of the best thing about it with the last few sequels referencing earlier sequels.
shareI disrespectfully agree with you
shareThere's something missing with the new films, and it isn't just Paul Walker.
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