The The Fast and the Furious has aged well is that it tells a grounded story with a manageable number of characters, all of whom you find yourself getting invested in. However, the bigger the scale of a film gets within the franchise, the less logically sound it becomes.
With the 11th and possibly final film in the franchise in the works, one wonders how many of the open questions they'll have time to answer. One of the biggest Fast and Furious characters have been forgotten by the franchise, leaving one to speculate on explanations for their absences. However, the worst plot holes are continuity errors.
10 Roman And Tej in Space
It Was A Running Joke Among Fans
The later entries in the Fast & Furious franchise make it very clear that neither the laws of physics nor basic logic play major roles in the writing and the stunt design of these movies. So, after The Fate of the Furious, fans, attempting to both parody the exorbitant stunts in the film and jokingly try to predict the next film's shenanigans, started saying that they'll go to space in the next film. It's exactly the kind of outrageous and outlandish stunt that the franchise would try to pull.
Fast X Needs To Address An Unsolved Fast & Furious 9 Mystery
Fast X is busy trying to set up Fast and Furious 11, but there's a major loose end in F9 that the movie needs to resolve before anything else.
The fact that Roman and Tej do go to space in F9 doesn't feel like a cool "told you so" moment, but instead disappoints us. How did they become that predictable? And a car flying to space, taped to a rocket, is a few levels beyond the usual disregard for science that these films show. Moreover, they supposedly collide with a satellite to destroy it, but sustain no damage from the collision. To make things more bizarre, somehow Sean from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and his crew specialize in sending cars to space.
9 Brian Becomes A Pro Street Racer
His Skills Level Up Too Quickly
When Brian O'Conner first tried infiltrating the street racing scene, he was clearly an amateur with a heavy foot. However, The Fast and the Furious ends with a race between Dom and him, in which he holds his own against Toretto. Within the span of a movie, he went from complete rookie to giving the best drag racer a run for his money. Even more confusing is that he went from that to vehicular stuntman in 2 Fast 2 Furious.
A dialogue-less six-minute-long prequel short film titled Turbo Charged Prelude to 2 Fast 2 Furious is supposed to cover the events in Brian's life between the first and the second movies in the franchise, but the montage does a shoddy job and still leaves one wondering how his skills improved so much.
Brian's rapid development as a racer makes no sense, given the small amount of practice he had during The Fast and the Furious. If we were to accept that Dom let him think they come close, that still doesn't explain his incredible drag-racing skills in 2 Fast 2 Furious, which leads up to him jumping a car onto a boat. 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift are the two most underrated Fast and Furious movies, but Brian's expertise in racing in the former is a major plot hole.
8 Sean Changes A Yakuza Boss' Mind
The Mafia Wouldn't Take Advice From A Teenager
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift helped the franchise bounce back after a disappointing second film, and is arguably the best and most underrated movie in the whole franchise. However, one of its most significant scenes makes next to no sense. Sean, who is in a feud with DK, in a desperate attempt to save his life, barges into a private club and approaches his uncle, a Yakuza boss, and successfully walks away.
The Yakuza, one of the many Japanese mafia families, is known for its ruthlessness, especially when it comes to insubordination. Which is why DK, despite throwing around his uncle, is palpably terrified of him. As an American teenager, Sean may not be aware of the Yakuza's power, but why did the gang let him just walk into the club and demand a meeting with the boss? Moreover, DK's uncle is swayed and takes the advice offered by Sean. The film is practically perfect, but this is a glaring plot hole.
7 Dom's Strength Is Unrealistic
He Becomes Superhuman
Yes, Vin Diesel's imposing physical presence is one of the defining characteristics of Dominic Toretto, as his muscles threaten those he comes across. He can beat multiple people to death if need be, and even has a charge in his past of killing someone. However, his strength still has reasonable limitations until the latter half of the franchise, when he starts showing superhuman levels of strength.
Deadlifting a Lykan Hypersport may not require Superman's strength, but is definitely close to impossible for a regular human being.
Deadlifting a Lykan Hypersport may not require Superman's strength, but it's definitely close to impossible for a regular human being, and Dominic, while clearly straining, holds the car up for a ridiculously long time in Furious 7. He also once broke a house's foundation with nothing but sheer strength. From causing a literal earthquake by stomping on the ground to flipping a car with one arm, Dom's moments of superhuman strength in the Fast and Furious franchise just get more bizarre with every successive film.
6 Gisele's Return In Fast X
No One Really Dies In This Franchise
It's a common joke among audiences of the Fast and Furious movies that character deaths are meaningless because no one truly dies. From Letty to Han, the number of dead characters who have somehow returned to the franchise has turned death into a mere inconvenience. However, one such character, mostly because she wasn't memorable enough in the eyes of many to be brought back, was presumed dead for good.
Yet, somehow, Gal Gadot's Gisele returned in Fast X, hinting that she will have a significant role in the final film in the franchise. However, Gisele doesn't have a skillset that makes her indispensable. Her biggest contribution in Fast Five, the film that features her most prominently, sounds like a bad joke when explained, because she gets a man's fingerprints on her bikini bottom. A poorly written character with no memorable lines, her return wasn't just unnecessary, it truly turns death into a joke, making one wonder if Jakob, who died in Fast X, will be back in the sequel.
5 Dom's Son Is A Plot Hole
The Logistics Make No Sense
The homage to Paul Walker by naming Dom's son Brian is not lost on anyone, but it occurs at such a cost of logic, it's a wonder if it's even worth it. Firstly, Elena gives birth to Dom's son after they sleep together in Fast Five, where it was assumed that Letty had died in the previous film. Not only did Letty return in Fast & Furious 6, but Dom also left Elena to be with her again.
Fast & Furious: When Was Elena Pregnant With Dom's Child (Is It A Plot Hole?)
The son of Dom and Elena was depicted as a baby in his Fast & Furious debut, but was that accurate based on the proposed timeline of the pregnancy?
Yet, Elena, who was seemingly pregnant for the span of three films, not only kept the child, but kept his existence hidden from Dom, with the intention of introducing them because she wanted him to name the baby. The biggest plot in her pregnancy isn't the timeline or the lack of emotional responses she has. It's the fact that she should have been pregnant when Deckard Shaw blew up the building that Elena and Hobbs were in, causing her to fall a significant height. It's not just a miracle, but also a plot hole that Little Brian was even born.
4 Deckard Shaw's Redemption
Killing Han Should've Been Too Far
It was only a matter of time before Jason Statham showed up in the Fast and Furious franchise, given its growing list of cast and its status as an action franchise. The long-awaited arrival was worth the wait too, as he plays one of the most compelling villains in the series. Practically undefeatable, and with a dangerously sharp focus on his one goal of avenging his brother, Shaw doesn't hold back when hitting the Torettos and Dom's crew.
Not only is Shaw forgiven by Dom and his family, but he is also considered a good guy by law enforcement, as shown in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.
So, the most bizarre Fast and Furious scene with Deckard Shaw, despite all his over-the-top stunts, is his appearance at the family's barbecue in The Fate of the Furious. He was forgiven way too quickly for killing one of the crew's most beloved , Han. What Deckard Shaw does in Furious 7 is nothing short of international terrorism, and yet, he's fully pardoned, and is now one of the good guys. This transition is entirely nonsensical and the franchise would have benefited if he kept playing a villain.
3 Jakob's Real Identity
A Hidden Toretto Brother For So Long Makes No Sense
Much like Jason Statham, John Cena's arrival in the Fast and Furious franchise was both inevitable and long-awaited. His unmistakable comic charm gave us a hilarious and memorable scene in Fast X, but the gaps in logic about his character are hard to overlook. Apparently, Dominic and Mia have had a brother named Jakob all along, who they assumed had died and thus was never mentioned in the span of eight feature films.
Dominic Toretto saying family is a joke, but so is his insistence on the importance of family, apparently. The backstory we're given to explain Jakob's absence is a rush job, with plot holes, like Dom seemingly not knowing their father was in debt, and the three siblings' mother never appearing at all. His treatment of Jakob reeks of neglect, and if Jakob wasn't a Toretto, things would look better for both him and Dom. The way all their issues are resolved in the span of a 15-second-long staredown while driving cars is probably the worst plot hole of all.
2 Tej Being A Master Hacker
Him Being A Computer Genius Came From Out Of Nowhere
When we first meet Tej Parker in 2 Fast 2 Furious, Brian O'Conner introduces him as a man with a lot of electrical know-how. He is only a garage owner who custom modifies cars for street racers and makes money from racing. However, that's not for long. By the time we meet him in Fast Five, Tej is already a capable tech guy to fit the archetype necessary for an action franchise. Soon after, though, he becomes a genius hacker.
The Fast and Furious franchise waste[d[ the opportunity to have a female character play the role of the "guy in the chair".
Somewhere between Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7, Tej Parker becomes an impossibly good hacker, since he can keep up with Ramsey, who is considered one of the most capable hackers in the genre. Not only did the Fast and Furious franchise waste the opportunity to have a female character play the role of the "guy in the chair," but the mental gymnastics in every movie performed to justify having both Tej and Ramsey on the team also make the plot hole worse. Tej should have remained the mechanic/tech guy, while Ramsey should have been the designated hacker.
1 Nobody Recruits Dom's Crew
They're Al wanted Criminals
Over the years, the Fast and Furious franchise has completely changed from being a thriller about car-racing criminals to being about a group of superhumans preventing an apocalypse by making cars fly. The transition is incredibly jarring and makes no sense because no law enforcement agents in their right minds would recruit Dom and his team. Moreover, they shouldn't have the skills necessary for their job, which they all still seem to be experts at.
8 Fast & Furious Characters Who Need Prequel Movies After Fast 11
The Fast and Furious franchise has given us some very fascinating characters, and it would be amazing to get prequels on them for more backstory.
The films involving Dom and his family, until Furious 7, all had personally motivated storylines, where Brian was the only one with any connection to law enforcement. Even his promotion makes no sense, given how many times he has aided and abetted Dom. But, a much bigger question is why Mr. Nobody was allowed to recruit these known criminals for jobs they should be bad at. Furious 7 changes them all into law-abiding agents, and this shift from the previous storylines never quite sinks in, even all the way to Fast X.
- Movie(s)
- Fast X: Part 2
- First Film
- The Fast And The Furious
- Cast
- John Cena
- Video Game(s)
- The Fast and the Furious (2004), The Fast and the Furious (2006), Fast & Furious: SuperCars, Fast & Furious: Showdown, Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious, Fast & Furious Crossroads
- Character(s)
- Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner, Letty Ortiz, Roman Pearce, Monica Fuentes, Sean Boswell, Han Lue, Twinkie, Mia Toretto, Luke Hobbs, Deckard Shaw, Cipher, Brixton Lore, Jakob Toretto
- Comic Release Date
- 213284
