Recently, I was watching the trailer for the new Fast & Furious (can you believe they have raced to sequel #9?)
That means that nine times they have revved the engine, but the ‘check engine’ light has been on for at least the last three sequels.
The series’ storylines have been a mess.
The series has aged into a soap opera where Newton's Law of Physics no longer apply.
The film is bringing back old characters with whom you’ve watched die, not once…but TWICE on camera! All the while, making old evil characters the good guy and even introducing a long-lost evil brother plot-line that is straight out of a bad 80’s action sequel.
“Why would they do this?” I wondered.
I then began to realize that these movies have gotten more and more convoluted. They feel as if a child is making up the action sequences the older the series gets.
If the Fast & Furious Franchise was a person, it would start as a competent young man. A man with hopes, dreams, and ambition that aged with a few missteps, and has now regressed into an old cash cow with schizophrenia on cocaine.
Some might say, wow, why is Jordan so hard on the F&F series?
To which I would reply ‘Because I know what the series could be’.
Once, when I was in film school in L.A., I was at the gym, and I struck up a conversation with a guy. This guy was really ‘swole’, homie had arm muscles that looked like industrial aluminum cans, and legs that looked like tree trunks, so of course we all called him Tree Trunk Leg Man.
Tree Trunk Leg Man was the kind of dude who’s body said: “I lifted everything in the gym, and all I got was this tight-ass t-shirt!”
I ask TTLM, “How do you have time for all of this lifting every day.
He looked me in the eyes and straight into the depths of my soul and replied, “ I have two clients…Vin Diesel and myself.”
I asked him, “What was Vin Diesel like?”
He told me that “Vin was the type of guy who doesn’t see limits. He wakes up and has a kid-like imagination, always asking ‘what if’. ” He stated that Vin Diesel applies that imagination to everything he does. Working out, acting, decision making, it is just how he processes everything.
For me, everything clicked when I heard that, because it was then that I realized his films are always set in another world.
He sometimes spins away from reality.
With a core that’s fun sometimes, but other times when it misses the mark…
It doesn’t just miss the mark, it lands in the nosebleed seats.
I asked him why did he consider himself as a client?
Tree Trunk Legman said, “If I don’t take myself, and my time for myself seriously. No one will. I’m a f**kin beast, but it was not always that way. I used to try to set time aside. Try to be consistent at the gym. Try to get gains. It was not until I committed to me that I started getting results.”
He lifted a heavy weight off my brain with that statement and that statement alone.
Moments after revealing this nugget of wisdom, he told me to “f**k off” because I was interrupting his lifting session.
I left thinking what if we all made a commitment to ourselves.
And what if the commitment was as strong as the one’s we follow through for other people.
Like our jobs, you make sure to show up on time, hopefully sober, and of sound mind. You do it to the best of your ability…week after week, and year after year.
What part of your life do you need to make a commitment like that for yourself?
Talk to you tomorrow.
Best,
Jordan Baylor
America’s Favorite Writer