17 Crazy Facts You Just Have To Accept To Enjoy The Fast & Furious Franchise

When The Fast and the Furious first hit cinemas back in 2001, who could have imagined that it would spawn an immensely successful movie franchise that, by 2014, has its seventh film in the can and ready to be released in a few short months? The series has gone through its ups and downs, its cast departures and returns, its lesser and better films, and of course, the tragedy of Paul Walker's sudden death last year, but the current wave of critical and commercial success that the last two movies have rode in on suggests that the Fast and Furious franchise is a long way off from complete. An eighth film is already in the works, and short of unexpected box office failure, they'd be no reason not to expect a ninth as well. As entertainingly insane as the franchise has become, it's also full of questionable moments, from the ludicrous casual sexism to an overabundance of CGI, a few laughably bad movie titles, a surprisingly confusing timeline, some enormously dated elements that will give your cringe reflex a decent workout, and so on. To enjoy the Fast and Furious franchise, it's important to just accept the various issues, missed opportunities and realisations fans have had to swallow down over the years. Here are 17 crazy facts you just have to accept to enjoy the Fast and Furious franchise...