History Headscratchers / TheFastAndTheFurious

* How was the Charger able t
o flip that bus over without getting crushed in the beginning of ''Five?''

** The theory about the bomb is that Deckard messed up the timezone, as shown in 8, he has an extreme distaste for harming children, so he might have thought at least Jack was in Daycare, The Shaws aren't exactly on the "family" list, but Deckard has shown to be willing to bury the hatchet as Dom helped him get Owen out of prison.

* Another one for Tej. When Dom says they're stealing $100 mil, Tej immediately calculates individual shares of $11 mil for each of 8 team members. Anyone who's ever owned his own business should be able to do basic arithmetic: 100/8=12.5 100/9=11. Why was he calculating for a ninth team member he had no way of knowing was going to be involved?
** A simple case of doing the math wrong in his head or maybe he took into account various expenses that might come up during the planning?
*** And a room full of career criminals didn't question his numbers? You don't make that kind of book-keeping leap in logic without a little bit of explanation when you're talking in the millions, unless you want to be accused of skimming off the top. They used the same number throughout the whole movie even after some of it was burned and a new member added to the team and nobody said "Wait, how much do we get now?". Academically, I know that they just wanted to keep the numbers simple so as not to confuse the audience, but did they really have to assume that we can't multiply single-digit numbers by 11? I'm slightly offended.
*** I think you are confusing gear heads for mafia types. Criminals yes, math wizards, maybe not. I am not saying any of them are stupid, I just don't think they were concentrating on the numbers. He could have just as easily said "Over ten million each" and we [the audience] would have got the point, though.
*** There are nine members however. Brian, Dom, Mia, Han, Roman, Tej, Gisele, Tego and Rico (the two guys who break into the police station). So Tej's calculations weren't wrong after all.
*** And as for them not questioning Vince's cut, I always just assumed that Dom was splitting his share with Vince.
* So, in Fast Five, why does no one [[InferredHolocaust call attention to the fact they killed half of Rio with that safe?]]
** Hobbs calls them out on it before he gives them the 24 hours.
*** Half of Rio is a bit of an exaggeration. It weren't that many people who got hit by the safe, and most of them were dirty cops.
*** Also, watching it back, you can see that only the front part of the cars get smashed; the roofs never cave in and they're never fully flattened. This way, it can ''technically'' be interpreted that the driver's survive. The same applies for ''6''.
* At the end of Fast Five, as Dom and Brian are driving across the highway and away from the cops, Brian says they won't make and that they should drop the safe to run. Dom disagrees, cuts Brian's line on the safe, and attempts to sacrifice himself so Brian can get away. Um...Why? Not five minutes later it is revealed that Dom (and Brian) knew that the safe they were carrying was empty. Why sacrifice himself if there was nothing to lose by dropping the safe, especially if (as Brian suggests) the safe was the only thing slowing them down enough to be caught?
** It was more about taking out the drug lord that had just a few scenes ago killed Dom's childhood friend once the money was already secured.
* YMMV on this one but how exactly did Dom beat Hobbs in their fight at Dom's hideout? Dwayne Johnson looks to about 2 times Vin Diesel's size and even though that doesn't ''necessarily'' translate to more power, in-story Hobbs is a ''trained military agent'' when Dom is just a street thug. It doesn't make any sense.
** Perhaps Hobbs was holding back. He did need Dom alive, after all.
** There are some people who are just really good at fighting. It's not training, it's just natural talent. Combine that with Dom's physical power and the fact that he was on one hell of an adrenaline rush at the time and even a trained combatant is going to have difficulty with that fight. To be fair, it really could have gone either way.
*** WRT to this, training comes in many forms. Hobbs may be a trained agent, but Dom may have been in dozens or hundreds of street fights.
** Simple: Dom's the [[GodModeSue protagonist]]
** Endurance over power may explain it too, a tactical fighter may win a fight due to the sheer amount of moves they know, but a street fighter would learn how to tank blows and wear the other guy out, and learning to counter moves rather than outright beating someone senseless also Hobbs was angry at Dom, that would have made him sloppy.
* In ''Fast Five'', why did the gang burn Reyes' money instead of taking it? They could accomplish the exact same end result (getting Reyes spooked enough to move all his money) and end up with an extra ten million or so.
** Not necessarily. If they only took the money, then they're only thieves in Reyes' eyes. By burning the money, they're making a more direct (and personal) challenge, which makes Reyes that much more cautious.
** This is actually really simple. It demonstrates to the enemy that they have a much bigger problem, and poses a huge challenge. A person who wants to steal your money is a rational actor whose motives you understand and whose actions you feel like you can predict. A person who just wants to *burn* your money is *crazy*, and you have little idea what they might be willing to do. If you want to steal my money and escape alive with the money intact, there are a lot of things I can do to stop you. If you want to *destroy* my money, and worse if you don’t care if you survive, there may be almost nothing I can do to prevent it. And once Reyes realizes they can so easily destroy his money, it is a short leap to realizing they can probably also destroy *him*. That’s what Dom was going for.
* In Fast and Furious 6, it's shown that Fenix avoided shooting Letty at the last second, instead making her car explode. But why? It can't because he's squeamish. He had no problem shooting people in the face before.
** Probably ForTheEvulz. He also seemed to be somewhat impressed by her DefiantToTheEnd struggle, so he decided to try blowing her up. He did comment that he could only remember "her face burning", so maybe he was trying to set her on fire?
* Just how long would that runway have to be in the climax of Fast and Furious 6 anyway? I'm thinking we're somewhere in the range of at least 20 miles...
** Based on people's calculations, about 28-29 miles. For reference, the longest paved runway in the world is 3.42 miles long, and the longest partially unpaved runway in the world is 7.5 miles long.
** The absolute lowest calculation I've seen, which takes a guess (a very generous guess at that) that some of the events in the climax happen simultaneously, still comes at an improbable 18.4 miles long.
* If the rumor of the interquels being so that [[spoiler:Han can appear more often]] is true, then why don't they just [[spoiler:have him come back in a sort of BackFromTheDead cop out like they do for most movies?]]
** Because the audience has physically seen [[spoiler: Han's car blow up with him inside on two occasions (his actual death in ''Tokyo Drift'' and the Stinger of ''Fast Six'')]]. They managed to get away with faking Letty's death as it was never fully shown on-screen; only Dom's interpretation of it.
*** Speaking of which, different troper here, I've got a question about the interpolation between [[spoiler: the two versions of the scene showing Han's death. Watching combo posts on Website/YouTube I feel like it was generally done well, and I get that the necklace that Dom gave Letty gave Owen Shaw gave Ian Shaw threw on the ground next to Han was most likely caught in the explosion and that's why it's never seen again. The question is this, though: wouldn't Sean and others have seen Ian walking out of that car the way he did? If so, why doesn't the fact that Han was not only killed, but clearly murdered by a businesslike bald guy, get addressed at all through the rest of ''Tokyo Drift''?]]
*** My guess is that Ian got out of the car, threw the necklace down and started walking away before Sean pulled up. By the time Sean ran over to the car, Ian was on the other side of it, and so he didn't stand out to them.
*** [[spoiler: well your wish has been granted, the F9 trailer ends with Han turning back up, definitely after his supposed "death".]]
* Why are there so few headscratchers on the first four movies? I do not have any questions of my own since I just treat it as a cool action movie series, but why the focus on only 5 and 6? The rest were FULL of potential headscratchers... I love reading them, so this is a serious question. Why no questions about events and scenes in those movies?
** Probably because they're so old and don't have the dedicated tropers raising headscratchers about them.
** I'll give one: Why, at the end of first film, does Kevin Tran and his cousin [[spoiler: commit the drive-by murder of Jesse]] over a car? the police were probably already watching them, apart from them both being pretty crazy people.
** And another for ''Tokyo Drift'', at the end of ''Fast Five'', they get a a share of 10 mill at least, why was Han skimming money from the yakuza of all people? He wouldn't have needed it, unless the events of 6 drove him to be a DeathSeeker.
*** Why did real world organized crime have steal from very profitable casinos they owned/controlled? Some people are criminals by trade.
* In ''Tokyo Drift'', how is it that Sean is a gearhead completely oblivious to the idea of drifting? Is he the type that only practices his love of cars in the garage and on the street, but never picks up a magazine about cars? Not being able to drift is one thing, but confusion as to what the word means at all is quite another.
** Since he was a fan of home-built, grassroots American muscle at the start of the movie, it's kind of understandable that the idea of drifting would be alien to him, as drift cars are typically always imports; back when the movie was released, using a muscle car which had been set up for drift was very, very uncommon. Even so, most car enthusiasts, barring those who hate any and everything outside of their preferred car choices (which can't be true for Sean, as he only makes a small quip about the imports being 'cute little toys' in comparison), do at the very least acknowledge certain types of motorsport popular with certain cars. It seems his confusion was to have a way to show off drifting in a good way for people who ''didn't'' know what drifting was, as well as making Sean's poor performance more credible.
* In Furious 6, why doesn't Shaw just stop the tank and pick the crew off one by one? Can't be because he needs to be caught so he can get the doomsday weapon, 'cause he could probably get it himself with the tank.
** Because a tank isn't a precision weapon, so the crew has speed and mobility on their side to avoid the shots until they get out of range. Plus if he stops the tank it gives NATO more time to get ahead of him with anti-armour weapons. Since the tank itself is just to protect the chip within it his original plan would have been to make a detour after hijacking the convoy and vanishing. When he had to resort to using the tank he's still in a tank and pretty much has right of way and the tank has been modified to go twice as fast as a regular one, although wether or not he could have made it to whatever his destination was before NATO got air support out is another question entirely.
* Why does Han (and the crew) immediately assume Giselle dies when she falls off? Couldn't they have considered the fact that she would have been grievously wounded yet relatively alive?
** Because she fell from a car going at close to it's max speed. Even if she survived the impact (which would be no easy feet considering the amount of momentum involved) she would be dead before anyone could get to her. People have died from being punched and their head hitting the concrete, falling off a car going at over 100 miles an hour would crack your skull wide up the second your head hit the ground.
** And yet Hobbs can fall 20 stories onto the roof of an SUV and only end up in the hospital. Dom and his crew are virtually invincible until the plot demands otherwise.
* In part 6, when Riley fights Letty at the subway station,[[spoiler: why does Riley legitimately try to beat the crap out of then arrest Letty if they're both working for Shaw? None of the rest of Dom's team was there, so she could have easily let Letty get away, then tell the rest of the team that Letty was able to escape. That way, her status as TheMole still wouldn't be revealed, and you also wouldn't potentially have part of Shaw's team in Hobbs' custody]].
** [[spoiler: She was putting on a show in front of a lot of witnesses, earning a few injuries in the process. Had she just let Letty leave there's always the chance that someone in the subway might tweet about it, or Dom's team could have gotten access to the subway cameras and found out that way. Plus Letty might find it strange that her pursuer was rather half-hearted about it, always the risk of her figuring it out.]]
* How is the Rio police force able to afford all those Chargers in ''Fast Five''? Reyes' money, maybe?
** Chargers aren't really expensive cars, otherwise they wouldn't be commonly used by police in North America.
** Whilst they aren't expensive to American police forces, in reality they use locally built Volkswagens instead to get around high import taxes for new cars. The reason they have Chargers in ''Fast Five'' is basically down to [[ProductPlacement product placement]], [[RuleOfCool looking good on screen]], and being a realistic enough vehicle to suit the plot.
* The whole finale in 6 makes no sense whatsoever.
** They know Shaw needs this macguffin chip and they know which one he's looking to steal. So they try to drive it out? There was an enormous runway at the exact same base, why didn't they just ''fly'' the damn thing out? Shaw would have been completely screwed. It could have been justified if the team was using the convoy to bait Shaw into a trap, or [[spoiler: if the "drive it" plan was suggested by TheMole]], but it was apparently neither.
*** Shaw's resourceful and always been one step ahead. Flying it out might have always been the default plan, but they tried to used the plan after that. Alternatively they needed it gone '''now'''; you cannot prep a plane and get it airborne in a hurry without cutting a lot of corners designed to stop horrible accidents from occurring, helicopters are slower and can be shot down by someone with either the right equipment or enough skill (both of which Shaw has an abundance of), and boats run into similar problems. There really is no other choice but to either keep the chip there and hope whatever plan he has cooked up fails or try and drive it out of there before he knows what's happening.
** What was the point of the tank, InUniverse? It wasn't manned, it wasn't even deployed, it was in a trailer. Since the chip is apparently small enough to be carried by hand, all adding the tank did was slow down the convoy ''because they needed to tow a tank.''
*** As a last ditch effort they could take the chip into the tank and lock the hatch. A bigger question would be why this wasn't the plan to begin with; sure Shaw could eventually cut the hatch open, but someone would be in the tank to drive around and stall until backup arrived.
** How exactly was Shaw planning to escape? That plane he was taking off was a C-5 Galaxy, which is fast but not ''that'' fast. The NATO commander was more than willing to sacrifice Mia to stop Shaw from escaping (and Shaw knew this), so what would stop him from blowing the plane out of the sky the second it was away from a populated area?
*** Presumably the plan was to keep flying over populated areas and bail in mid-flight. With the chip in a case all you'd need would be some parachutes or a long enough stretch of road to land again and bail out in one of the many cars kept in the loading bay, presumably to another safehouse to swap cars and lose the heat.
* Let's step back a second and reconsider the original movie. Dom owns a grocery store. He makes an assload of money in the illegal street races. He fixes cars and presumably has a stake in the film's auto parts shop. Why does he need to [[spoiler:hijack trailers full of electronics?]] Seems rather pointless, and rather out of character for him.
** I thought Brian explained it pretty well when he said to Dom, [[spoiler: "I know there's no way in hell you're paying for all the stuff that's under the hood of those cars by doing tune-ups and selling groceries." We can only assume that smuggling or whatever they're doing with the stolen electronics is far more lucrative than his "day job" and that the bulk of his funds come from it.]]
** Small businesses like the store and garage are often cash strapped, with owners being the last people to get paid.
* How was the Charger able to flip that bus over without getting crushed in the beginning of ''Five?'' And I don't mean special effects-wise, I mean physics-wise.

* The first film. Was it really necessary for Brian to blow his cover when he called 911? It didn't seem to be of any benefit for getting a quicker emergency response.
** He had already blown his cover when he told Mia earlier that he was a cop, and needed her help to save Dom. It would have made no sense for him to not call in the quickest backup possible, when she would have told everyone that he was a cop anyways.
* In Furious 7 is the God's Eye actually more trouble then it was worth for Dom and his team? They went on two highly dangerous missions to pick up Ramsay and her equipment, then the one time they use it, they get sucked into a trap. Given the ease with which Deckard constantly found them, wouldn't they have been better off just setting a trap for him?
* When Mr Nobody is injured why does he entrust Ramsay with Dom and his team. Given she is effectively the only one who could disarm the God's Eye shouldn't she have been rushed off to the nearest military base for safe keeping?
** It's pretty obvious that Mr. Nobody took a liking to Torreto and wanted him to succeed. I mean, the guy outright says that Deckard wasn't of interest to him, and yet he goes personally to help Dom get him. Clearly, he was aware that without Ramsay they weren't going to make it.
* Was it responsible for Dom and his team to head back to LA. By setting up the trap there, they were probably responsible for the deaths of several people.
** They've shown little to no concern for collateral damage in the past. They started out hijacking trucks in the most dangerous way possible and at a minimum could easily have gotten the drivers of those trucks killed. Of course ''Film/FastFive'' brought this to a whole other level.
* What was Dom's problem with Reyes' men at the beginning of ''Film/FastFive''? They were hired to steal a bunch of impounded cars off a train. Reyes was really only interested in one of them, so the rest of the theft was to cover for that. Why would Dom care and subsequently risk angering their employer for something that really had nothing to do with him? Was he just that pissed because he was left out when Brian "made a call".
** The lead henchman basically threatened Mia because she took the car he was interested in and they didn't want to risk anything happening to it.
*** It was more than just them getting threatened. Brian already realized something was off when he realized the cars had been impounded by the DEA, and Dom sensed something was up. He let Mia go in the car they wanted because it would be the next one off. Remember that the truck with the winch and ramp to pull and lower the cars was being driven by Reyes' men. They seemed particularly interested in that one car and once they got a hold of it, there was nothing stopping them from driving off and stranding Dom, Mia, and Brian, or worse, killing them so they wouldn't talk. Dom made Mia take the car so they wouldn't have it, and then when they got so worked up over the one car disappearing, Dom and Brian realized this job was for an ulterior motive that was bigger than either of them thought, and that the guys were likely to turn on them.
* In Fast 8, the {{EMP}} shuts down the entire base. So whilst you can forgive the minor thing of the barrios somehow magically being lowered (basic mechanics would have them lock in place once raised), how the heck was the submarine hacked? The entire point of the EMP is that it shuts down all electronics completely, hacking in from the outside shouldn't do a damn thing.
** Movies sometimes show [=EMPs=] to be temporary, even though that's not how they work IRL. Or maybe the sub was shielded from the EMP or the EMP didn't have the range to disable the sub.
* In Fast 8, how are there so many self driving cars in New York City? Even if you take into account that they aren't all self driving, but those cars that can park themselves (which on a side note, shouldn't be capable of getting over 10 mph), that is still way too many to be in one place. There is a period where about six all fall out of the same parking lot.
** Because that way the movie has a cool action sequence.
* Right so one of the major themes of the franchise is that family is everything and as shown the crew is super close being able to tell when something is wrong or off about someone in the crew pretty quickly, why is it in fast 8 nobodys first thought at all about [[spoiler: Dom going rogue]] is that [[spoiler:cipher is holding something over him?]] tbh if my best friend did something like this, it would be instantly my first point of conclusion until proven otherwise. its a total 180 in the case that nobody in the crew expected so that should have been the first port of call in their minds.

* So Deckard Shaw had a serious hate-on for Dom and the rest of his family in ''Furious 7'' for what they did to his brother, and it's pretty clear from his single-handedly destroying an entire hospital just to pay him a visit how much he loves said brother. The guy Kylo Ren's Han Seoul-Oh (I'm not sorry...) and pretty much wages war on Dom to the point where he has no problem taking out Dom's sister, brother-in-law and [[WouldHurtAChild young nephew]] with a bomb just to get to him. Yet by the end of ''The Fate of the Furious'', Deckard and his brother are not only forgiven for their actions against Dom and his family...but are now considered ''a part'' of that family?
** The theory about the bomb is that Deckard messed up the timezone, as shown in 8, he has an extreme distaste for harming children, so he might have thought at least Jack was in Daycare, The Shaws aren't exactly on the "family" list, but Deckard has shown to be willing to bury the hatchet as Dom helped him get Owen out of prison.
* The Gods' Eye in ''Furious 7'', why did Ramsey never think to put a failsafe on it? A hacker of her level should have been able to come up with some way to prevent its abuse, I mean she made the MacGuffin that can trace and find anyone who has been near a digital recording device within hours, in any modern situation story that is a StoryBreakerPower, was it too much to ask to at least put a password on it?
* In ''Film/FastFive'', Dom gives one of his speeches about family, but he'd literally just met Roman and Tej a few minutes ago. Even if Roman qualified as a sort of "in-law" as Brian's childhood friend, there's no indication he was that close to Tej.
** 2F2F pretty clearly establishes that Brian is close to Tej, to the point that Tej will bunk up a stranger (Roman) at Brians request without hesitation, so both Roman and Tej are good in Doms' book due to Brian trusting them.
* In the first movie, why did Tran have an absolute assload of ''legitimately bought'' DVD players stored in his garage? Did he give them away as party favours, or are his anger issues that bad he smashes them up and has buy in bulk?
* In ''F9'', Jakob Toretto is revealed. While Dom and Mia are supposedly hinted to be of Italian, Puerto Rican or any Latin heritage, the name "Jakob" feels more German or Scandinavian.
* Why hasn't Tej said, "This is ludicrous," in the films? There are many opportunities to say it as well. There's always something crazy happening. He can say it at any time, hell even make it his catch phrase. This franchise has already become wacky as it is. It seems like a missed opportunity to not have him say it.

* In ''F9'', Jakob Toretto is revealed. While Dom and Mia are supposedly hinted to be of Italian, Puerto Rican or any Latin heritage, the name "Jakob" feels more German or Scandinavian.

* The Gods' Eye in ''Furious 7'', why did Ramsey never think to put a failsafe on it? A hacker of her level should have been able to come up with some way to prevent its abuse, I mean she made the MacGuffin that can trace and find anyone who has been near a digital recording device within hours, in any modern situation story that is a StoryBreakerPower,was it too much to ask to at least put a password on it?

* The Gods' Eye in ''Furious 7'', why did Ramsey never think to put a failsafe on it? A hacker of her level should of been able to come up with some way to prevent its abuse, I mean she made the MacGuffin that can trace and find anyone who has been near a digital recording device within hours, in any modern situation story that is a StoryBreakerPower,was it too much to ask to at least put a password on it?

** And another for ''Tokyo Drift'', at the end of ''Fast Five'', they get a a share of 10 mill at least, why was Han skimming money from the yakuza of all people? he wouldn't of needed it, unless the events of 6 drove him to be a DeathSeeker.

** Endurance over power may explain it too, a tactical fighter may win a fight due to the sheer amount of moves they know, but a street fighter would learn how to tank blows and wear the other guy out, and learning to counter moves rather than outright beating someone senseless also Hobbs was angry at Dom, that would of made him sloppy.

* Right so one of the major themes of the franchise is that family is everything and as shown the crew is super close being able to tell when something is wrong or off about someone in the crew pretty quickly, why is it in fast 8 nobodys first thought at all about [[spoiler: Dom going rogue]] is that [[spoiler:cipher is holding something over him?]] tbh if my best friend did something like this, it would be instantly my first point of conclusion until proven otherwise. its a total 180 in the case that nobody in the crew expected so that should of been the first port of call in their minds.

* In the first movie, why did Tran have an absolute assload of ''legitimately bought'' DVD players stored in his garage? Did he give them away as party favours, or are his anger issues that bad he smashes them up and has buy in bulk?

** Come to think of it, where is [[spoiler: Tej's new garage at the end of ''Five'']]? He's still a fugitive at this point, so presumably [[spoiler: it isn't back in the U.S.]]...

** 2F2F pretty clearly establishes that Brian is close to Tej, to the point that Tej will bunk up a stranger (Roman) at Brians request without hesitation, so both Roman and Tej are good in Doms' book due to Brian trusting them.