The Glorious Anti-Logic of the ‘Fast & Furious’ Naming Scheme
Despite all the explosions, dumb-yet-wry humor and cars that define the globe-hopping superhero action film franchise that is Fast and Furious, one element is by far the most creative and hilarious: the naming scheme.
Plenty of franchises insist on ridiculous naming schemes. Some simply incorporate a phrase into every title, whether it’s “Die Hard” or “Planet of the Apes.” James Bond films often feature an Ian Fleming-esque aphorism that is either gritty (“Live and Let Die”), pretentiously abstract (“Quantum of Solace”) or both (“Tomorrow Never Dies”). Star Wars takes a traditional tack, intentionally picking “The Force Awakens” to mirror the sense of change and renewal that “A New Hope” introduced and “A Phantom Menace” inverted. Fast and Furious is the sole franchise to plant both feet on the hood of its Mustang and charge away from any semblance of logic.
F&F is a lengthy franchise, as proven by the non-ironic statement from Vin Diesel that they would end the saga with “one last trilogy.” But despite totaling eight films — a number higher than most film series not in the genre of horror or set at Hogwarts — not one film has followed the same naming scheme.
The Fast and the Furious began the series. The title was a mouthful for a film about street racing, but wasn’t anything abnormal. Then the sequel, in the most inexplicably, joyously insane move in the entire saga, was titled 2 Fast 2 Furious.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift opted for a subtitle, a trend that every film since ignored. The fourth film dropped a few articles from the original title to arrive at Fast & Furious. The next one, Fast Five, continued dropping words. Somehow the next two films, Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7, managed to find new combinations of words and numerals to identify themselves with. At this point, these film titles define the franchise on a meta level: they are as frenetic and jumbled as the plots of the films they headline.
What if other franchises took this cue? 2 Thelma 2 Louise, for instance: The transition into a bunch of car stunts would be utterly seamless given the original’s ending. In fact, the “2 _____ 2 ______” title construction has become its own meme. As one AV Club commenter put it: “This series continues to be the gold standard for crashingly stupid, completely ingenious titles that we then endlessly reference in our sequel title threads. I’d say about 25% of all joke sequel titles ever suggested around the AVC have been based on 2 Fast 2 Furious.”
I’ll confess that I never expected the eighth film in the franchise to once again avoid any semblance of a logical naming scheme. I assumed that the moment was past, and that the series would soon hit the same bland dullness that awaits most late-stage franchises. IMDB certainly attempted to force conformity with a tentative title of “Furious 8” earlier in the year, and even the cast members have been calling it “Fast 8,” both tame titles that have been done before.
But fear not.
The official title for the eighth film has been revealed: The Fate of the Furious.
I am genuinely shocked at how clever yet dumb this title is. It keeps the same cadence as the original film’s title. It smuggles the sound “eight” into one word. And it adds a new wrinkle: Since “fate” is the first new title word since “Tokyo Drift,” we have re-opened the possibility that additional words might be added to future titles. Personally, I’m hoping the tenth film opts for “Fast X Furious,” to capitalize on that Roman numeral humor.
In the Fast and Furious universe, there is no constant except that a physics-free action sequence must happen every ten minutes. Understood perfectly, the films are transcendent, a paean to summer Blockbusters. Effect must no longer follow cause. Manly grunts blend with a ceaseless knowledge of the importance of family while vehicles endlessly drive into, onto, and off of other, larger vehicles.
Taken together, the film’s titles perfectly sum up the franchise’s mission statement: Logic is meaningless. There is but to be fast and/or furious.
It’s beautiful.
April 2019 Update: I’m proud to inform you that the next movie’s title continues the franchise’s unbroken title trend with Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Yes, the franchise is “presenting” things now, just like Masterpiece Theater.
If anything, this title makes even less sense than the others: Since Hobbs & Shaw qualifies as a spin-off, the next film in the main franchise will qualify as the ninth one even though that makes Tokyo Drift part of the main continuity and not a spin-off. Never change, Fast and Furious.
February 2020 Update: Unbelievable. They’ve done it again. Yet another title in this incredibly long-running series is utterly unlike any previous title. Number nine, which, again, is the tenth installment, will simply be called F9.
Why? How? The mind boggles. At this point, whoever names these things is toying with us.
I’ll be honest, this one isn’t my favorite name: It sounds too much like a store-brand V8 knockoff. Still, it’s a totally new title format, and that’s all that matters.
I’m going to take this moment to reiterate my claim that the tenth one needs to be called Fast X Furious. Look, they can make it FX if they want — there’s no way they’ll skip the roman numeral — but Fast X Furious just has that unbeatably glorious ring to it. And as a bonus, when you say that title out loud, it sounds like you’re saying “Fast ’n’ Furious.”
April 2022 update: Aaaaand the next one is officially “Fast X.” Fast X Furious would have been better, but whatever. The important thing is whether this title is yet another entirely original format, and the answer is yes.
This is the first roman numeral to appear in a Fast and Furious movie title, making it a unique entry. Granted, the title here isn’t as ambitious as the past few movies — it’s practically the same format as Fast Five — but this franchise’s ludicrous run of nonsense names has lived to fight another day. No word yet on if the posters will use the tagline “Fast 10 your seat belts,” but come on… they totally will.
