What’s Aged the Worst?
Jordana Brewster's driving; Jesse flaking at Race Wars (disputed); Dom's account of beating Kenny Linder; the green-screen train-track jump and the NOS camera zoom; Brian's haircut
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:35:08Read transcript
- Jordana Brewster's driving is pretty rough and never realistic to one host, who never bought it.
- Without stepping on the research segment: neither Jordana Brewster nor Michelle Rodriguez had a driver's license before the movie and both needed intensive driver training.
- Why Jesse flakes at Race Wars is one host's pick: he races his dad's car against Johnny Tran, loses, and drives away; the defense is that he just lost the car that was his whole world and his plan to share a car with his dad after prison, and that Johnny Tran, head of what the hosts call the Asian car mafia, is not someone to cross, though by then he had only been seen pouring oil in a man's mouth, shooting up Dom's car and holding a gun; the rebuttal is to stop making excuses for Jesse.
- Dom's speech about seeing Linder a week later, hitting him with a wrench until he could not lift his arm, leaving him an elementary-school janitor who takes the bus, and being banned from the tracks for life, strikes one host as a lot to put on Dom's plate; the other argues it has to be pushed that far so we see him struggling with how bad he can be, since he is not violent again until the narc accusation from Johnny; his two years in prison prompt a prequel idea.
- The special effects on the jump over the train tracks had to be cut around a green screen and are noticeable in 2019, as is the first race's shot where the camera zooms through the windshield and out the back of the car when they hit the NOS; 2000 was before CGI really got good.
- By Fast 7 in 2015 the cars go through two skyscrapers in Dubai and it looks a hundred percent real; the CGI that completed Paul Walker's scenes after his death midway through filming, using his brother as a body double, is noticeable in the beach scene or when he pulls up in the car if you pause, yet counts as an incredible job; one host had no idea it had been done until reading about it.
- The hosts compare where they saw Fast 7, one at Grandland (as transcribed) with Rafe and Mark Lasanti, the other with a spouse, and whether they cried at the ending, agreed to be one of the most emotional; Fast 7 is promised as a future episode. The final aged-worst pick is the special effects, with Brian's haircut as a runner-up thought.