The series may be hurtling toward the finish
line, but Fast X still sets aside some time to nod towards its roots. From mixing up the formula to some very familiar
quotes, here are some of the best callbacks in Fast X. “Fast X” spends a lot of time calling
back to the events of “Fast Five.” Chief among them is Dante Reyes is the son
of Hernan Reyes. Appropriately, the movie opens with a redux
of the “Fast Five” climax, in which Dom and Brian steal the Reyes’ safe. This time, though, Dante is there. If you haven’t seen the fifth film in a
while, you might not notice just how close “Fast X” slots him into the action. The car he drives during the bridge battle
— the one with the minigun that pops out of the top — is pulled straight from the
original scene. This creates a fun time loop moment for anyone
who goes back to “Fast Five” in the future. The later parts of “Fast X” also make
reference to Dante’s retconned “Fast Five” cameo. He has a base of operations in the abandoned
police station where Dom and Brian stole the safe, and he ambushes Dom on the very same
bridge, thus reversing his previous defeat there. Typically, “Fast and Furious” movies end
with a family barbecue scene. “Fast X” changes things up by starting
with one instead. This is an early clue that things aren’t
going to go well in the third act. Because the movie ends on a huge cliffhanger,
with the lives of multiple major characters hanging in the balance, there’s no room
for a feel-good finale. The opening cookout is still full of fun little
details, though. The whole gang can be seen sipping on Coronas,
which have been the unofficial official beer of “Fast and Furious” since the beginning. "You can have any brew you want. As long as it's a corona." And Roman once again tries to sneak some food
before the blessing has been said, just as he has many times before. There’s also a cute moment between Little
Brian and Letty. When Dom walks into the barbecue with his
son after their driving lesson, Brian gives Letty a hug and calls her “Mom.” Letty may not actually be Brian’s blood
mother, but she’s raised him as her own since he was incredibly young. It’s nice to see how their relationship
has blossomed, and the little glimpse of tenderness from Letty is a perfect character moment. During the cookout scene at the beginning
of “Fast X” Dom and Han share a moment of reflection on their thieving origins. As Han says, “We’ve come a long way from
flipping fuel trucks in the D.R.” This is a direct reference to the beginning
of “Fast & Furious,” the fourth film in the franchise, in which Dom, Han, Letty, Leo
and Santos pulled various small-time heists in the Dominican Republic to make ends meet. Their stint there culminated in a fuel truck
robbery gone horribly wrong -- the first big action set piece of “Fast & Furious.” As they reminisce, Han offers a toast, saying,
“Los Bandoleros for life.” “Los Bandoleros” is the name of the short
film prequel to “Fast & Furious,” which details how the D.R. crew was first assembled. The Dominican Republic stories are technically
Han’s earliest entry in the “Fast and Furious” timeline, not counting Justin Lin’s
film “Better Luck Tomorrow,” which serves as an unofficial prequel of sorts. And of course, Vin Diesel himself actually
directed “Los Bandoleros,” making the reference extra special for Dom as well. Right after his “Los Bandoleros” reminiscing
with Han, Dom takes a moment to glance around his garage and take note of the many family
photos he’s tacked up on the walls. The camera lingers on several of him and Brian
together, and as it does, the piano refrain of “See You Again” blends in with the
original score. The Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth anthem was
written to commemorate the late Paul Walker, and it became a massive hit in its own right
after debuting at the emotional end of “Furious 7.” The “Fast” franchise has always handled
Walker’s legacy with tact and respect, choosing to leave him out of the story rather than
recast the role or bring him back with CGI. Even in a movie like “Fast X,” where Brian’s
absence doesn’t really affect the story, it’s nice to see Diesel and the crew still
take a moment to pay homage to his life and career. After the opening barbecue, Dom gets vulnerable
about his fears. He admits being scared of losing Brian or
Letty, and she tells him that won’t happen “again.” This is a two-for-one reference, calling back
to both Letty’s (almost) death in “Fast & Furious” and the time Brian was kidnapped
by Cipher in “The Fate of the Furious.” In Letty’s case, she lost her memory and
was out of the picture for two whole movies, only getting brought back into the fold by
a persistent Dom in “Fast & Furious 6.” Brian was likely too young during his captivity
to remember much of it in detail, but we see later in “Fast X” how the trauma of the
experience still affects him. Later on in the movie, we get another nod
to Letty’s brief time working for Owen Shaw. When Tess visits her in prison, she points
out a scar on Letty’s arm that she got the night she first met Dom, thereby proving that
he sent her. This is the exact same scar and story that
Dom uses to convince Letty of their history in “Fast & Furious 6.” In any “Fast and Furious” movie there
are going to be some standout cars. Sometimes the vehicles driven by the crew
are simply chosen because they look neat, but sometimes they have a deeper meaning. To start, Cipher enters the film behind the
wheel of a Delorean Alpha 5 -- a yet-to-be-released limited edition homage to the Delorean Motor
Company’s heyday with the iconic DMC-12. The back-to-the-futuristic look of the car
is fitting for Cipher’s techno-terrorist aesthetic, and since the car isn’t out yet,
it’s safe to assume that she stole one. During the big action sequence in Rome, Han
drives a boxy Alpha Romeo with an orange and black color scheme. It’s the exact same coloring that his Mazda
RX-7 has in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.” And of course, Jakob gets to drive his old
blue 5.0 “Fox Body” Mustang, which was first seen during the flashback scenes in
“F9: The Fast Saga.” Jakob references his drag race with Dom while
talking to Little Brian, and he also mentions how cool it was to have a 5.0 back in the
day. Clearly, Brian isn’t all that impressed
by Mustangs, as his project car shown earlier in the movie is actually a Chevy SS. Given that his dad loves Dodge and his uncle
loves Ford, it feels right that the kid goes with a third major American car manufacturer. The first big action set piece in “Fast
X” takes place in Rome, during a mission led by, appropriately, Roman. He, Han, Tej, and Ramsey are tricked by Dante
into stealing a bomb, believing that the operation has been commissioned by the Agency. Through it all, Roman constantly asserts his
own abilities as a leader and takes offense every time the others doubt his chops. While not necessarily an intentional reference,
this little arc for Roman is interesting given his history in the saga. He first appeared in “2 Fast 2 Furious”
as the replacement for Vin Diesel, who opted to film “The Chronicles of Riddick” instead. In another timeline, that could have led to
Tyrese Gibson being one of the two leading co-stars for the series and Roman quite literally
being the leader of the crew. But instead, the character became comic relief
under Dom’s shadow. For fans of the “2 Fast” era, it’s fun
to see Roman getting a bit of development on the leadership end. Gibson is still more than capable of stealing
scenes on his own, and he gets some solid material in “Fast X.” There is a more specific “2 Fast” reference
later when Roman reveals that he keeps cash strapped to himself under his clothes. He pulls the exact same move at the end of
the second film. The Rome sequence of “Fast X” is action-packed,
but it also includes a number of smaller references to the earlier “Fast and Furious” films. As part of the caper, Ramsey winds up behind
the wheel of a big truck carrying a piece of dangerous tech -- in this case, a giant
bomb. This seems like a clear nod to the Edinburgh
sequence in “F9: The Fast Saga,” in which she was forced to drive a truck carrying a
super-magnet. Letty also chooses to gear up on a motorcycle
instead of in a regular car, which is another nod to “F9.” During the minefield sequence of that film,
she’s shown to be a master both behind the wheel and behind the handlebars. And as is only right when putting Han inside
an orange and black sports car, he does a bit of drifting for the camera, harkening
back to his time in Tokyo. More than any other piece of the “Fast and
Furious” story, “Fast X” seems fixated on the vault heist from the end of “Fast
Five.” It opens by reliving the chase through Dante’s
eyes, it returns to the very same police station and bridge later on, and it pays homage to
the scene on several other occasions. The bomb chase in Rome is an obvious nod to
the safe robbery. Dante himself acknowledges this, claiming
to have set it up as an homage to his family’s downfall. What he doesn’t mention is that Dom drives
a Dodge Charger Hellcat during the Rome sequence — a variation of the exact same cars that
he and Brian use to pull the vault in “Fast Five.” In the wake of the bomb’s explosion, Tess
also alludes to the vault heist after Dom chastises her for carrying God’s Eye on
her person. She says, “People pull vaults out of walls,
so I think it’s safer with me.” As if that weren’t enough, “Fast X”
drops one more vault chase reference during its own fiery climax. As he chases down Dante and Little Brian,
Dom is attacked by two helicopters that fire grappling hooks into his car and try to lift
him off the road. His car gets out just enough horsepower to
yank both choppers down in flames, and he uses them both as makeshift melee weapons
just like he once did with the vault. If there’s one thing “Fast and Furious”
movies love to do, it’s quote the original. And a little ways into the second act of “Fast
X,” Little Brian does just that. After he beats his aunt Mia in a round of
“Hot Wheels Unleashed,” she jokingly chastises him. Brian responds with his own version of this
famous quote: “It don't matter if you win by an inch or
a mile. Winning’s winning.” It isn’t even the first time Brian references
that particular scene from the first movie. After his “driving lesson” with Dom at
the beginning of the film, the little guy is frustrated that he can’t quite get things
right. “You almost had it,” his dad says, but
Brian responds “I didn’t have it.” This is yet another part of that famous scene
between Brian O’Conner and Dom. After losing their first street race against
each other, Brian tells Dom, "Dude, I almost had you.” “Almost had me? You never had me. You never had your car.” Even when the Vatican is being bombed and
armies of cyber-commandos are at the door, “Fast and Furious” still makes time for
some good ol’ street racing. "Let's race." In “Fast X,” Dom travels back to Rio to
confront Dante Reyes, and they end up meeting at a racing event very similar to the one
seen in “Fast Five.” In fact, one of the local characters in that
film, Diogo, returns and backs Dom up when Dante appears, mirroring the face-off between
Hobbs and Dom in “Fast Five.” We get another little callback during the
race itself. Diogo gets a bit too antsy and pops his nos
early, making him a target in Dante’s twisted game. The “too soon” nitrous moment is a classic
of the franchise, going all the way back to Dom and Brian’s first drag. This time, though, the mistake is extra deadly. A cop and a street racer As it turns out, Isabel is actually the sister
of Elena Neves, the late mother of Little Brian who was killed by Cipher in “The Fate
of the Furious.” Dom saves her from Dante’s bomb and takes
her back to Elena’s old apartment, where Isabel now lives. She confesses to him how much guilt she used
to feel over Elena dying instead of her, since her sister was always the “good” one and
Isabel saw herself as “bad.” In response, Dom explains how much common
ground there can be between “a cop and a street racer” when they go down “the same
road” long enough. Clearly, this is a reference to his relationship
with Brian, which began when the latter was investigating him for DVD player robberies
while undercover. Over time, Brian abandoned his law enforcement
career to become a full-time crook and brother to Dom. One of the best storylines in “Fast X”
is the uncle-nephew road trip that Jakob goes on with Little Brian. It’s a fun, lighthearted distraction from
the heavy action of the film, and it yields one particularly poignant moment between the
two characters. "Holy shi-"
"Cannon cars." No, not that one. While on the trip, Brian admits that he doesn’t
like planes, prompting his uncle to share how he was once terrified of cars after the
accident that killed his father. Of course, the reason Little B is so frightened
of planes is he was imprisoned on one as a baby. In a movie where Cipher becomes a begrudging
ally, this little moment reminds us of just how vile she truly is. She forever changed the course of Brian’s
life by taking his mother’s in “The Fate of the Furious,” and though she and Letty
have set a temporary truce, she’ll have to answer for her crimes eventually. The climax chase sequence of “Fast X”
has a few notable nods to the series past. For instance, when Dom enters the fray, he
air-drops out of the back of a cargo plan. Although the “Fast X” drop is much lower,
it might remind viewers of the multi-car air-drop in “Furious 7,” which actually involved
parachutes. At this point, Dominic Toretto is a true veteran
of driving muscle cars out of airplanes. Later, during the standoff atop the dam, Dom
is forced to drive straight down the face of the structure in order to save Brian, who’s
riding in the passenger seat. He barely outruns the explosion caused by
Dante, thanks in large part to him hitting the nitrous at the exact right moment. This triggers a CGI nos-infusion shot that
harkens back to the series’ roots. “Fast X” ends with two big twists. First, Giselle appears in the nuclear submarine
from “The Fate of The Furious” to rescue Letty and Cipher from Antarctica. After that, there’s a mid-credits scene
in which Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs makes his triumphant return to the “Fast” saga. Both reveals are shocking, but for different
reasons. Hobbs’ appearance is surprising because
of behind-the-scenes issues, while Giselle’s is surprising because, well, she died. Even so, her return is foreshadowed by a couple
different moments throughout the film. During the opening cookout, Tej and Roman
help Han make a dating profile, but his heart clearly isn’t in it. Later, while speaking with Tess, Aimes mentions
that the Toretto crew was involved in the heist of a nuclear submarine. Letting the audience know that the vessel
was never recovered paves the way for it to pop back up at the end of the movie.
