13 years ago,Fast & Furious 6took Dominic Toretto’s family and turned them into The Avengers, changing the franchise completely. When watching theFast & Furiousmovies in order,Fast & Furious 6is the sixth in release order, but only the fifth chronologically. The reason for this is the placement ofThe Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drifton the timeline, with the ending of this film actively setting upFast & Furious 6’s true sequel,Furious 7,which is widely regarded as one of thebestFast & Furiousmovies.
ConcerningFast & Furious 6’s ending, however, the film concludes with Dominic Toretto having his family completely together for one of the final times. Theupcoming story ofFast 11gives Dom a very different-looking family, both in terms of personnel but also in how the group operates within the franchise. Interestingly, it wasFast & Furious 6that altered how Dom’s family forever, taking them from what was once a relatively small-time street crew into a fully-fledged, car-based version of a superhero team like The Avengers.
Fast & Furious 6 Turned Toretto’s Family Into A Superhero Team
Gone Were The Days Of Heists & Swindles
SinceFast & Furious 6, no one can argue against Dom and his family being like a superhero team. Both in terms of theunbelievable stunts in theFast & Furiousfranchiseand how Dom’s family performs them to their overall values and motivations, the Toretto family is much different now than it was in the first five installments of the series.Fast & Furious 6can be seen as the turning point of this, with the film taking a series about cars and having Toretto’s crew hired by a government agency to pull off a specific job.
When Did Fast & Furious Stop Being About Cars? Breaking Down The Fast Saga’s Major Changes Across 11 Movies
The Fast and Furious franchise was once about cars and street racing, but somewhere along the way it became a blockbuster action series.
In the film, Dominic is approached by The Rock’s Luke Hobbs and tasked with bringing down Owen Shaw. Shaw’s elite team of former SAS agents uses vehicles in their attempts to gain an EMP device known as the Nightshade, leading Hobbs to enlist Dom’s team to stop them. Although there are personal stakes involved for Dom via the reveal that his ex-girlfriend, Letty, is alive and working for Shaw, this setup is a lot like a superhero movie; Dom and his team are the specialists, tasked with tracking down an evil team of car-based villains.
Fast & Furious’ Characters Have Since Been Portrayed As An Elite Team
Their List Of Attributes & Skills Has Grown Considerably
Since this story inFast & Furious 6, Dom and the other characters who are mainstays in the franchise have been depicted as an elite team.Furious 7saw them work with an elite covert ops team led by Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody to find the key to a powerful spy-based weapon known as the God’s Eye.The Fate of the Furiousthen had Dom’s team committing regular jobs with Luke Hobbs for the American government before taking down an international cyberterrorist known as Cipher.
F9, Fast X, and the upcoming story ofFast 11continued this trend, proving above all that Dom’s family is no longer a simple family of street criminals but an elite team of operatives. A character like Ludacris' Tej, for example, went from a race host and mechanic to a world-renowned hacker and computer specialist, while Dom Toretto himself has been characterized as having exceptional durability and strength akin to other superhero movies. All of this stems from one point in theFast & Furioustimeline:Fast & Furious 6.
The Fast & Furious Family Worked Better When They Were Just Regular People
This massive change was one that also altered the franchise itself. DespiteFast Fiveoften being dubbed the true turning point of the franchise due to the focus on intense, over-the-top action, the characters were at least regular people in this movie.Fast & Furious 6changed that, turning the family into the elite operatives shown in the franchise as it is today. Admittedly,the series worked better when Dom and his loved ones were simply regular people trying to get by, especially inFast Five.
The films began to lose that balance of grounded reality and insane stunts…
Fast Five’s stunts and action sequences were exaggerated, yes, butthe crux of the story was Dom and his family pulling off a heist to retire now that Mia, Dom’s sister, was pregnant. These motivations were much more grounded in reality, as were the more personal stakes of the movies beforeFast Fivethat focused on the Toretto family. After this, starting withFast & Furious 6, the films began to lose that balance of grounded reality and insane stunts, primarily driven by the characters themselves becoming superheroes that would be no strangers inThe Avengers.
Fast & Furious 6
Cast
Fast & Furious 6 is a 2013 action film where Hobbs enlists Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner’s crack team to dismantle a mercenary organization across Europe. As they confront the group, Dominic faces personal challenges when encountering his thought-to-be deceased girlfriend, Letty, complicating their mission.
