BRZ to be featured in Fast and the Furious 6

[chanomatik]

haha It is a Dirty Dancing quote! I just thought I'd mix it up. That quote would fit, though, wouldn't it? Somewhere. hahaha

I always wondered about the credentials of the tuners that were consulted for modifying these cars. I remember watching a behind-the-scenes for Tokyo Drift where they tried to make the mods actual, working mods. Whereas the first two F&F they didn't seem to care at all, as long as the cars ran for a few seconds of camera time and looked good.

Justin Lin seems to appreciate SOME level of quality in his work.

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Originally Posted by chanomatik

haha It is a Dirty Dancing quote! I just thought I'd mix it up. That quote would fit, though, wouldn't it? Somewhere. hahaha

What is this, the VW New Beetle forums?

Originally Posted by chanomatik

I always wondered about the credentials of the tuners that were consulted for modifying these cars. I remember watching a behind-the-scenes for Tokyo Drift where they tried to make the mods actual, working mods. Whereas the first two F&F they didn't seem to care at all, as long as the cars ran for a few seconds of camera time and looked good.

Justin Lin seems to appreciate SOME level of quality in his work.

I think Justin Lin has used the same car guys for all of his movies, as I recognize the same guy in all of the behind-the-scenes DVD specials.

In Tokyo Drift, you pretty much had to go with high-powered cars to drift. It's not like straightline movie action, which doesn't always rely on the cars having tons of power to look good on film. But with the fourth and fifth movies not having that same element, they may or may not have still used modded cars.

The first two movies, on the other hand, had a lot of weaksauce cars (compared to what was being portrayed), often times not even the "good" versions of the factory car (i.e. non-turbo models when a turbo variant was available). But just be glad that Universal was persuaded by the technical consultants to not accept Dodge's sponsorship of the second movie, which would have resulted in the hero cars being Dodge SRT-4s (and not the Evo VII) -- I heard this straight from Craig Lieberman when I met him in 2008 at a GT-R meet.

[Gixxersixxerman]

Craig lost respect from me when he turned the blackbird into that joke of a gtr in the second movie.. Luckly it was changed back, but still he ruined that car

[Marcoscrdo]

Woman drivers...

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Originally Posted by Gixxersixxerman

Craig lost respect from me when he turned the blackbird into that joke of a gtr in the second movie.. Luckly it was changed back, but still he ruined that car

I don't think that was necessarily his doing. Remember that he owned the original Blackbird R34 GT-R (which was featured in Sport Compact Car -- I distinctly remember it having a mini-turbo as the oil cap), though he later painted it blue with some orange accents on it, if I remember correctly. Then they based the GT-R in the second movie off of his, with the same body kit and stuff, but they went with a different painjob, likely to coincide with the colored exhaust flames that were different from the other cars. (I believe he also owned the orange Supra that was copied.)

He told me a lot of other stuff (some of which was later confirmed on some online videos of people going over the original script for the first movie), and it seems like there were some people in the visual effects department who seemed to insist on going with certain visuals. For example, he told me about how the original script's race scene had the NOS tubes popping off of the bottle and spraying nitrous on the windshield and hampering outward vision, but the visual effects person said that they wanted to see "sparks" somehow, and the idea got canned for the weird instance of the floor panel somehow coming loose because of NOS.

That's not to say that Craig had zero involvement in things that ended up being kind of cheesy though.

[Jaylyons1]

Originally Posted by Marcoscrdo

Woman drivers...

[kchkwan]

sooo... basically were gonna see 16 yr olds with mommy n daddy buying them BRZ's to wreck on the street after the movie is released?

[chanomatik]

Originally Posted by kchkwan

sooo... basically were gonna see 16 yr olds with mommy n daddy buying them BRZ's to wreck on the street after the movie is released?

Don't be silly. They'll get the FR-S and re-badge it to be a BRZ.

[Dorb]

Wow, had no idea there are 5 of these movies! I think after the 2nd one I lost interest. Did they get any better or just have a fan following - cash cow think going on?(like the Resident Evil movies)

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by kchkwan

sooo... basically were gonna see 16 yr olds with mommy n daddy buying them BRZ's to wreck on the street after the movie is released?

Was that not happening already?

[switchlanez]

Originally Posted by Dorb

Wow, had no idea there are 5 of these movies! I think after the 2nd one I lost interest. Did they get any better or just have a fan following - cash cow think going on?(like the Resident Evil movies)

The 2nd one was pretty bad... like a made-for-TV movie. But parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 were directed (and some produced) by someone different - Justin Lin. He effectively transformed the franchise (production and story-wise) for the better. That's why we see so many sequels carrying the franchise on for this long.

[chanomatik]

I still watch Tokyo Drift. It's a guilty pleasure. I still say it works to have it after 4, 5 & 6 since the kids in TD are just driving "old" model cars to begin with. I would love it if they ended with Dom in Tokyo to complete it.

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Originally Posted by Dorb

Wow, had no idea there are 5 of these movies! I think after the 2nd one I lost interest. Did they get any better or just have a fan following - cash cow think going on?(like the Resident Evil movies)

Yeah, the second one was by far the worst (though people who aren't really into cars or drifting culture will put it ahead of Tokyo Drift, likely because of it being about a more specific scene while also lacking the star power present in the other movies). But as chanomatik mentioned, Jeremy Lin (who has directed all of the movies from the third one onward) has really changed the franchise to the point where the movies make sense. Whether it's true to the culture or not, he's slowly started distancing the franchise from street racing, which helps broaden their fanbase while avoiding potential PR nightmares of allegations of promoting illegal street racing. But the success is there... the third movie didn't do so hot in theaters (but again it lacked the starpower, was about a sub-culture within the import scene that not too many people were into and also followed a really bad sequel that probably lost some fans), but it was good enough for Universal to re-hire Jeremy Lin for another film, which out-performed all of its predecessors at the box office, and the fifth film one-upped it again.

Oddly, despite the success of the later movies (with the fifth one typically considered as the "best" in the series), there's something about the first movie that was never captured again, as cheesy as it was. It just had a certain feel about it that makes me want to watch it over and over again. (The Fast and the Furious and The Dark Knight Rises are the only movies I have seen more than once at theaters.) Maybe it was the visuals, maybe it was the score by BT, I don't know. But also like chanomatik said, I tend to gravitate toward Tokyo Drift as well. It was the last movie that was actually about street racing, but it was done well while having good cars (most of which were decent and not goofy-looking, even in hindsight almost seven years later, which I can't necessarily say about the cars in the first two movies), good car scenes (as drifting is always cool to watch, and it was done with precision and not just fishtailing around like in most movies with car chases) and a bit more realism than in the other movies. Props to Jeremy Lin for his research in accurately portraying the drift scene (minus everyone using their E-brake to go sideways) and the Yakuza aspect.

[switchlanez]

Originally Posted by DeeezNuuuts83

But as chanomatik mentioned, Jeremy Lin (who has directed all of the movies from the third one onward) has really changed the franchise to the point where the movies make sense.

Yap, chanomatik (not I) totally mentioned dat breakout Asian Linsane bballer.