The Fast & Furious series has been stereotyped as being relatively formulaic and repeating the same tropes and techniques from one movie to the other. F9 turned out to be a subversion of sorts, with the story of Dominic Toretto’s clash with his brother Jakob including many original aspects.
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The franchise has used details like the focus on family and racing sequences in every movie, but there have also been plenty of others that were left out for the ninth installment. Taking a deeper look into these and the reasons why they were excluded will give fans a greater appreciation for the Vin Diesel-led movie.
A Betrayal Within Dom’s Crew
![Vince warns Dom about Brian in The Fast & The FUrious]()
While there were definite played-out tropes in F9, it didn’t incorporate the detail of the standard betrayal among the protagonist ranks. This was seen in instances like Dom’s own betrayal in the eighth movie to go with Vince’s betrayal in Fast Five and Riley Hicks’ in the sixth installment.
F9 decided against invoking this aspect since the backdrop was of Dom feeling that Jakob had betrayed him and his father by wrecking the latter’s car as a child. However, it turned out that Jakob had been working on their father’s orders the whole time, meaning he was never a traitor.
Dom’s Confrontation With The Main Villain
With every movie, Dom has always had a scene where he faces off with the antagonist and makes the claim that he will beat him. However, despite being billed as the villain, Jakob was a sympathetic figure in F9 and the true villains were Otto and Cipher.
Dom ended up never having any scene shared with Cipher, while he didn’t acknowledge Otto’s presence when they were in the same scene. This made it the first Fast & Furious movie to do away with the detail of Dom having that big face-off with the villain to set the stage for their conflict.
Dom’s Crew Being Recruited By Outside Forces
A vital aspect of each movie in the series is that Dom’s crew gets involved due to others forcing them to. The sixth movie had Hobbs task them to find Owen Shaw, the seventh had Mr. Nobody do this, while the eighth had Cipher force Dom into betraying his team.
F9 changed this up by having Roman, Tej, and Ramsey approach Dom with the news of Mr. Nobody’s disappearance. It was also after he realized Jakob was involved that Dom entered the conflict. In this instance, there were no outside forces recruiting the protagonists, with Dom joining of his own volition.
The Heroes Engaging In Illegal Activities
This has been used intermittently by the series starting from the sixth movie, but the majority of them add the detail of the heroes doing criminal activities. The eighth film had Dom wreak major damage in order to do Cipher’s dirty work under blackmail.
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It wasn’t like this in the ninth movie, though, as the heroes were in the mission squarely for the greater good. Whatever collateral damage happened as a result of their pursuit of Jakob, with Dom and his crew actively attempting to avoid the losses of lives. In addition, they didn’t partake in things like robbery or heists as was the case in most of the previous movies.
Title Screen Appearing At The Beginning Of The Movie
This may seem like a minor detail on paper, but a trademark of the Fast & Furious series is for each entry to have an explosive intro that then cuts to the title screen to hype up the rest of the movie. F9 left this out entirely in favor of placing the title at the very end.
It had the effect of making the cold open – featuring young Dom and Jakob – much more intimate as it lacked the carefree thrill of previous films’ cold opens. In its place, the lack of a title screen transitioned the flashback into the present day as a way of keeping viewers in line with Dom as both a young man and an adult.
A Face-Off With A Number Of One-Liners
It’s become a habit of the series for a face-off to comprise nothing but a number of insults from two characters. Hobbs and Shaw did it best in the eighth film with their brand of wisecracks, while the likes of Roman have also engaged in such moments earlier.
There were some one-liners, but these were made in cheesy but friendly scenes in F9 between Roman and Tej, for the most part. Characters didn’t mingle with enemies or rivals this time around, with the main face-off between Dom and Jakob being personal and antagonistic.
A Twist In The Climax
Another important detail from the movies is for something unforeseen to take place before the ending. This happened in instances like the reveal of Shaw’s survival in the eighth movie, along with other examples like Roman and Brian showed to have stolen money for themselves in the second installment.
The ninth movie left this detail out by playing the story straight, with it being entirely too obvious that Otto would betray Jakob. The setup for it was through Cipher’s manipulation of Otto, and the fact that Jakob was always hinted to be on the path to reconciliation with Dom.
Confirmation Of Villains’ Plans
Although F9 kept the detail of a MacGuffin steering the plot with the Aries device, it didn’t follow through with making the villains’ motivations known. Fast & Furious generally makes this clear, like Deckard Shaw’s bid for revenge and Cipher’s plans for world domination.
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F9 never revealed what Jakob and Otto’s plans with Aries were supposed to be. Instead, the only hint given was Otto’s claim that they were “the good guys.” It was left to the interpretation of viewers as to what the pair had planned with a device that could disable any technology.
A Standalone Storyline
Although every movie is connected, an interesting detail is that they have a firm beginning and conclusion and can be seen on a standalone basis. However, F9 brought in major revelations and sequel hooks that meant Fast 10 is necessary viewing for the full story.
This was due to plotlines hanging such as Cipher’s survival, Jakob’s time on the run, Mr. Nobody’s ambiguous situation, and Han’s confrontation with Deckard Shaw. The series usually has stories that tie everything up at the end with the family dinner, but the barbecue scene this time around was far from the conclusion.
Dom Being One Step Ahead Of Everything
Easily the biggest detail left out of F9 was the idea that Dom is always one step ahead of everyone, as this was deliberately left out of his character development. Where he previously figured ways to beat Cipher and save his son or apprehend Owen Shaw’s crew, Dom wasn’t the all-knowing hero in this movie. Instead, he was astounded to find out that his father had instructed Jakob to tamper with his car in hopes of gaining insurance money.
Dom realized he had blocked out his family’s money issues as a teenager, meaning he had wrongfully exiled his own brother for the death of their father. F9 subverted the usual detail of Dom being aware of everything by making him out to be a protagonist with his own flaws in judgment.
NEXT: 5 Things Dominic Toretto Was Right About & 5 Times He Was Wrong In Fast & Furious