Officially, the Fast & Furious franchise includes nine feature films, with the tenth along the way, plus a spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw (2019), which did not please Vin Diesel at all. However, that's only area of the story: true fans know that the Gospel In accordance with Toretto has spread through animated series ?Fast & Furious: Spies at Full Throttle (2017-2021)?, video games, an attraction in all the Universal theme parks and a couple of short films simply for the, very insiders.
The first of them gets the incredible title of The Turbo Charged Prelude for just two 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and is, well, a simple prelude to the next film, devoted to how Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) manages to evade the authorities. from Los Angeles until landing in Miami. The producers' idea was to determine a kind of connective tissue between the first two installments and fill a narrative gap that, in the end, consolidated Brian as the absolute protagonist of the story, since Diesel did not want to return. Only promotional material created for the web ?hence its aesthetic, almost worth a Sisq� online video?, although some UNITED STATES cinemas showed it before 2 Fast 2 Furious to provide the public a more complete experience.
While you won't find anyone defending The Turbo Charged Prelude for 2 2 Fast 2 Furious being an essential little bit of mythology, things have become different when it comes to the next short. Los Bandoleros (2009), written and directed by Vin Diesel himself, introduces Tego Calder�n and Don Omar in to the saga, two musicians turned actors who would be essential pieces in some subsequent installments, especially Fast 5 (2011). Not only that, but it addittionally details what happened to the characters of Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) after the original film, along with recovering Sung Kang's Han, whose friendship with the paterfamilias have been established at the end of Fast & Furious: Tokyo Race (2006). More than an interlude between movies, Los Bandoleros is really a refoundation of the franchise, a new beginning where Diesel allowed himself to adopt a more poetic and relaxed tone, in keeping with the natural settings of the Dominican Republic (where he himself, a reggaeton enthusiast, insisted which should be set). It is not strictly necessary that you view it in the next fast and furious marathon, but it responds to the authorial vision of the main creative engine of it. Which makes it an interesting curiosity.
However, the story does not end there. Only the most dedicated to the reason know this, but there is a secret, semi-official film that, thanks to director Justin Lin's capability to slip under Universal's radar, can be considered portion of the experience. From a certain viewpoint, sure, but take our word for this: the crime dramedy Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) traces the origins of the type Han Lue, also played by Kang (can you envisage any other actor for the reason that role?). He and Lin have confirmed on multiple occasions that it is indeed exactly the same character, so there is absolutely no reason, other than the obvious and boring copyright issue, to exclude her from canon. In Fast X movie , their presence transforms this cinematic universe right into a more expansive and richly nuanced place: it's funny to think that while Dom and Brian were meeting in downtown L.A., the characters in Better Luck Tomorrow were living their own ordeal just a few feet away. kilometers of distance.
The story of how this indie film found its way into F&F is fascinating enough to miss. When screenwriter Chris Morgan heard that Universal was available to ideas for a third film in the series, he showed up at his offices with a pitch about how exactly Dominc Toretto decides to travel to Japan to investigate the murder of an old friend. Since Diesel had not been yet interested in time for what would end up being his family ? he only wanted to make a brief final cameo after the studio gave him the rights to The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) ? Morgan contacted Justin Lin to assume a new protagonist. The director thought it might be a great opportunity to cast an Asian-American actor as the franchise's new hero, but the producers flatly refused, arguing that someone like Lucas Black could have more potential at the box office. Lin reluctantly agreed, asking them to at the very least let him revise the script to make it less "offensive and outdated" (those were his words).