Paul Walker Dies in Car Accident

[JLTucker]

What Flagg said is all too true. People who popularize streetracing deserve everything that's coming to them. Streetracing is an extremely dangerous, deadly activity which often leads to deaths of innocent bystanders/bydrivers on the roads. Roads are not playgrounds, and streetracing is the most loathesome activity I have encountered in my life. It accumulates the worst types of people: the yuppie rich kids, the junkies and the borderline crazy adrenaline-rush seekers, and does so in a way that endangers others which don't even want to do anything with it.

Paul Walker and his film franchise is kind of like "Breaking Bad", but with the caveeat that Walter White and Jesse Pinkman would be displayed as real protagonists, bathing in riches and kicking ass in their crime syndicate. Fast and Furious is glorifying criminal and deadly illegal sports, and although people don't deserve to die for stupidity, if it happens in the end, well... they only got what's coming to them.

Admit that you really believe this instead of sugarcoating it.

[JLTucker]

Let's take your argument to its logical conclusion, Stas: if you rented or even saw a movie in the franchise and talked about it to someone else, you created demand for that product. You support street racing . Thus, if you die in a fiery car accident related to speeding, you deserved it. Isn't this fun?

[White Haven]

...The fuck, Tucker. Are you trying to jump-start the US space program by creating a strawman tall enough to allow astronauts to climb to the moon?

[K. A. Pital]

Let's take your argument to its logical conclusion, Stas: if you rented or even saw a movie in the franchise and talked about it to someone else, you created demand for that product. You support street racing . Thus, if you die in a fiery car accident related to speeding, you deserved it. Isn't this fun?

Let's take this to the logical conclusion: I never rented or saw any of these films, since I find the very premise absolutely atrocious. I saw the plot explained on a free TV program in the news and immediately hated it.

Face it: streetracers are criminals. This is a film which sugarcoats and glorifies a deadly type of crime. Whoops. It is the same as making a film where violent criminals are good guys and get tons of cash, cool girls et cetera all while slaughtering victims, taking hostages and demanding ransoms. Would you be thinking that this film is a honest representation of crime? No. Neither is FF a franchise that is fine.

It is not fine in the very same way 24, that torture porn fantasy of every neocon, is not right and not fine; and the people making it don't deseve to be famous at all. In fact, they wouldn't be famous if people didn't have a hardon for crime, violence and torture which is good when the good guys do it.

Your inability to face this simple fact is very real; but don't strawman my argument. Does it make the average American moviegoer a bit worse when they spend their monies to cheer idiot streetracer characters? Or in case of TV viewers, cheering Jack Bauer? Yes, it does. It doesn't however bring them to the same level as the creators of this particular product.

[Broomstick]

Personaly, I view streetracing much the same way I view drunken driving: deliberately making driving into a high-risk activity that puts bystanders at risk. Once upon a time drunk driving was viewed as funny, but that disappeared in the early '70's. Now we have some people who view streetracing as glamorous or whatever. I can only hope that at some point it is view as the criminal activity it is.

[Siege]

I thoroughly enjoy a number of robber-focused heist movies like Ocean's Eleven or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. That doesn't mean I approve of robbery. Indeed if someone were to tell me Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and Guy Ritchie "deserve everything that's coming to them" because they are guilty of encouraging robbery of rich people and/or casino's owned by Andy Garcia I would tell that person I think that's very silly.

I would tell them that because I believe responsible people are capable of distinguishing fiction from reality. If they are not capable of doing that it's because they are irresponsible and/or completely mentally deficient, not because of the fiction they happen to consume. If I were to blame their irresponsible actions on the fiction they consume I don't see how I'd be different from the people who blame school massacres on videogames or the Aurora shooting on Christopher Nolan's Batman movies.

Street racing is very dangerous indeed. But The Fast and the Furious isn't street racing. It's a movie, just like Ocean's Eleven. It's fiction, and blaming people involved in creating a work of fiction for the actions of irresponsible wankers and saying they "got what's coming to them" when they die in terrible accidents is the wrong track to take. It doesn't help solve the actual problem be it actual street races or actual robberies, it blames the wrong people for real crimes, and it is an altogether pretty awful thing to do.

[Scrib]

What Flagg said is all too true. People who popularize streetracing deserve everything that's coming to them. Streetracing is an extremely dangerous, deadly activity which often leads to deaths of innocent bystanders/bydrivers on the roads. Roads are not playgrounds, and streetracing is the most loathesome activity I have encountered in my life. It accumulates the worst types of people: the yuppie rich kids, the junkies and the borderline crazy adrenaline-rush seekers, and does so in a way that endangers others which don't even want to do anything with it.

Paul Walker and his film franchise is kind of like "Breaking Bad", but with the caveeat that Walter White and Jesse Pinkman would be displayed as real protagonists, bathing in riches and kicking ass in their crime syndicate. Fast and Furious is glorifying criminal and deadly illegal sports, and although people don't deserve to die for stupidity, if it happens in the end, well... they only got what's coming to them.

Glad I'm not the only one who felt that the glorification of these noble criminals got to be a bit much by the end of the series. In the beginning? Understandable, they were criminals and were treated as such. Later, with the Rock? Ugh. That said, I don't think it's anything strange, it seems to me that in America,good for protagonist==right.

That said, I don't see this as karma at all.

[JLTucker]

Let's take this to the logical conclusion: I never rented or saw any of these films, since I find the very premise absolutely atrocious. I saw the plot explained on a free TV program in the news and immediately hated it.

Face it: streetracers are criminals. This is a film which sugarcoats and glorifies a deadly type of crime. Whoops. It is the same as making a film where violent criminals are good guys and get tons of cash, cool girls et cetera all while slaughtering victims, taking hostages and demanding ransoms. Would you be thinking that this film is a honest representation of crime? No. Neither is FF a franchise that is fine.

It is not fine in the very same way 24, that torture porn fantasy of every neocon, is not right and not fine; and the people making it don't deseve to be famous at all. In fact, they wouldn't be famous if people didn't have a hardon for crime, violence and torture which is good when the good guys do it.

Your inability to face this simple fact is very real; but don't strawman my argument. Does it make the average American moviegoer a bit worse when they spend their monies to cheer idiot streetracer characters? Or in case of TV viewers, cheering Jack Bauer? Yes, it does. It doesn't however bring them to the same level as the creators of this particular product.

Points taken, and sorry for the strawman. However, I don't see how the actors starring in the films means they openly support the criminal activity. To me, that seems just as illogical as my strawman. Would you mind elaborating on that for me?

People are forgetting that he was the passenger and not the driver. Had he been the driver, I think your argument, if perhaps tweaked quite a bit, would be stronger for the overwhelmingly positive glee you feel for his death. After all, he'd actually be putting people in danger that a movie projected on a 50ft screen does not except for impressionable idiots. And even then the movie isn't responsible. Those who street race are.

[TheFeniX]

Man, I sure am glad Robert DeNiro narrowly avoided death in an actual car bombing and Joe Pesci was brutally beaten and buried alive. How dare they glorify organized crime in a movie? They'll get what's coming to them in the end. Oh wait, I don't think like that because I'm not a shitbag.

I've got no love for street racers because (ironically enough) FaF brought a lot of that shit into Houston and I would constantly get harassed to race in my old truck (even though it was lifted) because I had a ram air hood (to prevent hydrolocking when off-roading) and it just kind of looked fast. Being out after 10pm on a Friday or Saturday night meant I had to drive slow as fuck just so they'd leave me alone.

But the shit in this thread is built up on a massive high horse.

[K. A. Pital]

I thoroughly enjoy a number of robber-focused heist movies like Ocean's Eleven or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. That doesn't mean I approve of robbery. Indeed if someone were to tell me Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and Guy Ritchie "deserve everything that's coming to them" because they are guilty of encouraging robbery of rich people and/or casino's owned by Andy Garcia I would tell that person I think that's very silly.

Robbery of rich people may be considered a victimless crime, Siege, and you know it very well. This is why heist movies usually try to draw a distinction between their "noble thieves" and generic street muggers that kill their own neighbors with clubs at night for a cellphone which they later sell to get high or drunk. Streetracing is not victimless. It is much closer to being a deadly phenomenon on par with drunk driving than the noble fantasies displayed in the film.

But The Fast and the Furious isn't street racing. It's a movie, just like Ocean's Eleven. It's fiction, and blaming people involved in creating a work of fiction for the actions of irresponsible wankers and saying they "got what's coming to them" when they die in terrible accidents is the wrong track to take. It doesn't help solve the actual problem be it actual street races or actual robberies, it blames the wrong people for real crimes, and it is an altogether pretty awful thing to do.

It doesn't, but you can at least compare the different portrayals of the same event. "Breaking Bad" is a 1000 times more worthwhile addition to the crime film genre than any of the "noble thief/criminal" flicks (except some of the more realistic ones, e.g. the story of Ilyich Ramires Sanchez to pick an example).

[JLTucker]

Man, I sure am glad Robert DeNiro narrowly avoided death in an actual car bombing and Joe Pesci was brutally beaten and buried alive. How dare they glorify organized crime in a movie? They'll get what's coming to them in the end. Oh wait, I don't think like that because I'm not a shitbag

I was thinking the same thing in regards to Goodfellas, and that movie, contrary to popular belief, extensively glorifies the mafia. After all, the main character gets off and continues a life of crime only to continue to be free until his death. If De Niro caught a bullet from a beef betwen two mobsters, he'd deserve it because he's guilty by association with Scorsese's work.

Are there any numbers out there linking an alleged rise in street racing to the Fast and Furious series?

[JLTucker]

It doesn't, but you can at least compare the different portrayals of the same event. "Breaking Bad" is a 1000 times more worthwhile addition to the crime film genre than any of the "noble thief/criminal" flicks (except some of the more realistic ones, e.g. the story of Ilyich Ramires Sanchez to pick an example).

Even Assayas' Carlos glorifies his lifestyle and near the end makes it look like a party. I don't think it's possible to have a crime movie that doesn't at some point glorify the events and make it attractive. The closest I can think of is Soderbergh's Che because that was just a straight up biopic more concerned about the events and getting into Guevara's head.

[Napoleon the Clown]

So I've gotta wonder, do heist movies coincide with an increase in attempted heists? Because F&F sure as shit coincided with more street racing. If the number of attempted heists doesn't go up similarly to street racing it's fucking stupid to compare the two.

Personally, I don't take any joy in Paul Walker's death. Even if he had been driving it would be, at most, something that falls under the own damn fault clause.


As to street racing rates: here has some numbers regarding that. San Diego alone saw almost 130 additional prosecutions between 2000 and 2001. So...

[Terralthra]

Given that the first The Fast and the Furious came out in mid-2001, you're claiming that it led to an immediate, four-fold jump in street racing? That's what's required to make it so that 6 months of prosecutions are double that of a previous entire years' prosecutions. Also, since prosecutions and convictions typically lag behind occurrence, you're also asserting that the actual street racing went up by even more than that amount, instantly.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Because it wasn't marketed at all, and marketing doesn't get people excited anyway. Right?

[TheFeniX]

If anything, F&F lead to an increase in the poser crowd and increasing exposure to authorities. There was always a racing cliche of idiots hanging around Westheimer, but it wasn't until they were overrun with kids sporting a $100 Flowmaster muffler and $50 K&N airfilter system who then thought this made their 40hp Civic a drag racer that it became a problem. Even after HPD was running full damage control mode, I don't recall any statistics upping the actual mortality rate on popular drag-strips. They were just arresting more people, usually when they were just sitting in a parking lot. I believe this is around the time "excessive acceleration" became a thing cops started writing tickets for.

Not that "actual" racers don't do incredibly dangerous shit, but many of them won't street race specifically due to them having so much money and time into their car. Either that, or they have too much money and too little brains. They also don't like prison cells and getting pulled over when you have a 400-shot of NOS and a 5 point-racing harness is hard to explain. Oh yea, and then they impound the car you spent all that time and money on and you're lucky if you get it back in one piece or at all.

If immediate reaction is a thing, would people be glad Spielberg was eaten by a shark? At what point is a director, actor, whatever immune from the impact his fictional portrayals makes on morons with too little imagination?

[Scrib]

Man, I sure am glad Robert DeNiro narrowly avoided death in an actual car bombing and Joe Pesci was brutally beaten and buried alive. How dare they glorify organized crime in a movie? They'll get what's coming to them in the end. Oh wait, I don't think like that because I'm not a shitbag

I was thinking the same thing in regards to Goodfellas, and that movie, contrary to popular belief, extensively glorifies the mafia. After all, the main character gets off and continues a life of crime only to continue to be free until his death. If De Niro caught a bullet from a beef betwen two mobsters, he'd deserve it because he's guilty by association with Scorsese's work.

Are there any numbers out there linking an alleged rise in street racing to the Fast and Furious series?

Meh, getting off is not the same as the entire work glorifying something. The main character can get off while the rest of the film can show the brutality and damage that the mafia caused. I don't like this idea that a character has to die for the morality tale to work. David Chase is right on this, I tend to notice that we've seemed to collectively decided that it's okay to watch sociopaths for a few years but they must end up dead at the end. Saw this with Tony Soprano,Dexter and Walt. Dexter is the only one that arguably failed at showing the evil of the protagonist and not because he didn't die. Focus on extremely unsympathetic villains and not on the fallout of the protagonist's actions, undermining the moral people on the show by making them complicit in the protagonists actions, providing rationalizations and events that make their actions "necessary", this is what glorifies.

Fast and Furious has this in spades. The noble thief vs. the "actual" evil baddy. Family-oriented good guys vs. cold amoral asshole. A moral man (though you can argue that The Rock benefits from the glorification as well) who becomes complicit in their evil for horrible reasons which helps affirm that they're good.

IT just dripped from the last two movies.

Even Assayas' Carlos glorifies his lifestyle and near the end makes it look like a party. I don't think it's possible to have a crime movie that doesn't at some point glorify the events and make it attractive. The closest I can think of is Soderbergh's Che because that was just a straight up biopic more concerned about the events and getting into Guevara's head.

Of course, some part of it should look like a party if there was some pleasure. Crime is freeing no? However you should never lose track of the consequences. BB didn't let that happen. I don't think that say...Mad Men does. So sometimes people may be going "cool!He's fucking the maid!" but they also know the effect it has when his daughter walks in on him. There are some that this completely slips by,and some that will ignore it forever but there is no help for them and if you were going to make you point and try to show them, BB would be a better ally than Fast Five/six etc.

[Broomstick]

Man, I sure am glad Robert DeNiro narrowly avoided death in an actual car bombing and Joe Pesci was brutally beaten and buried alive. How dare they glorify organized crime in a movie? They'll get what's coming to them in the end. Oh wait, I don't think like that because I'm not a shitbag

I was thinking the same thing in regards to Goodfellas, and that movie, contrary to popular belief, extensively glorifies the mafia. After all, the main character gets off and continues a life of crime only to continue to be free until his death. If De Niro caught a bullet from a beef betwen two mobsters, he'd deserve it because he's guilty by association with Scorsese's work.

The thing is, DeNiro didn't spend his time outside of Goodfellas engaging in mob activities. Michael C. Hall doesn't spend his spare time killing people even if he portrayed a serial killer for many years Walker apparently was a fast car enthusiast. I'm not clear if that included street racing or not, but the difference here is that he didn't confine his love of speed to the big screen. I don't know enough about his non-acting racing to know if it was a bad thing or not.

The biggest shame here is that Walker was also apparently a humanitarian, having raised funds to assist both Chilean and Haitian earthquake victims, and most recently for help in typhoon relief in the Philippines.

[Siege]

"Breaking Bad" is a 1000 times more worthwhile addition to the crime film genre than any of the "noble thief/criminal" flicks (except some of the more realistic ones, e.g. the story of Ilyich Ramires Sanchez to pick an example).

I respect your opinion that Breaking Bad is superior entertainment to The Fast and the Furious. Thoughts are free, and you're free to revile whatever movies you want.

But I'm not saying The Fast and the Furious is a piece of fine art you ought to appreciate, I'm saying in the end it's still entertainment. I'm saying it doesn't hold that people like Paul Walker "got what's coming to them" for making a piece of entertainment, because that means you're essentially saying Paul Walker deserved to burn to death in that car because he made a movie about a subject you don't approve of.

That's the same sort of logic used by people who persecute 3d FPS games, or violent movies, or rock music, because they believe those things cause kids to shoot up schools.

They don't. No-one's ever been able to prove that they do. I don't think Paul Walker deserved to burn to death because I don't think entertainment holds such sway over consumers it can cause them to do illegal things those people wouldn't otherwise have done. Basketball Diaries doesn't cause school massacres, The Dark Knight didn't cause the Aurora shooting, and The Fast and the Furious doesn't cause people to take up street racing as a hobby.

Street racers are responsible for the accidents and deaths they cause just like spree shooters are responsible for their victims. They don't get to blame others for their crimes; neither should we. And when you make the argument that "people who popularize streetracing deserve everything that's coming to them" you're at the very least in the vicinity of bad company in the form of the people who blame whatever entertainment they dislike for the heinous things some people do.

Entertainment is still just entertainment. It's fiction. If some people cannot distinguish fiction from reality there's something wrong with those people, not with the fiction. So don't blame the fiction, and by extension don't blame the people making the fiction. Don't watch it if you don't like it, but don't blame it either.

So I've gotta wonder, do heist movies coincide with an increase in attempted heists? Because F&F sure as shit coincided with more street racing.

I strongly suspect it's the other way around: street racing was on the rise and Hollywood decided to make a movie about it. Roger Ebert wrote that "events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media", and I suspect it's the same here. Anything else ascribes to Hollywood far more power than I find credible.

[Scrib]

Man, I sure am glad Robert DeNiro narrowly avoided death in an actual car bombing and Joe Pesci was brutally beaten and buried alive. How dare they glorify organized crime in a movie? They'll get what's coming to them in the end. Oh wait, I don't think like that because I'm not a shitbag

I was thinking the same thing in regards to Goodfellas, and that movie, contrary to popular belief, extensively glorifies the mafia. After all, the main character gets off and continues a life of crime only to continue to be free until his death. If De Niro caught a bullet from a beef betwen two mobsters, he'd deserve it because he's guilty by association with Scorsese's work.

The thing is, DeNiro didn't spend his time outside of Goodfellas engaging in mob activities. Michael C. Hall doesn't spend his spare time killing people even if he portrayed a serial killer for many years Walker apparently was a fast car enthusiast. I'm not clear if that included street racing or not, but the difference here is that he didn't confine his love of speed to the big screen. I don't know enough about his non-acting racing to know if it was a bad thing or not.

The biggest shame here is that Walker was also apparently a humanitarian, having raised funds to assist both Chilean and Haitian earthquake victims, and most recently for help in typhoon relief in the Philippines.

I'm sorry but you have to be? If we're going to go with "karma!!" then you're going to have to show that he was supporting this lifestyle outside of his films if you want to exclude DeNiro and Hall. Because there's a difference between liking fast cars responsibly and being a street racer. I wouldn't hold a fast car enthusiast responsible for the actions of criminals.

[Terralthra]

Because it wasn't marketed at all, and marketing doesn't get people excited anyway. Right?

"Wow, a trailer for a movie about fast cars! I'm going to drop several thousand dollars on my Civic and go find some illegal racing community, because they totally aren't insular and suspicious of people suddenly showing up with tricked-out cars!"

And you consider this more likely than street racing rising on its own, and Hollywood trying to cash in on what is already popular? Really?

[TheFeniX]

Meh, getting off is not the same as the entire work glorifying something. The main character can get off while the rest of the film can show the brutality and damage that the mafia caused.

The whole point of Casino was that thing were better off when the Mafia was in charge. Listen to DeNiro's rant at the end. And he goes right back to making money as a Handicapper and living the high life, just not as high.

Ray Liotta also goes into a rant at the end of Goodfellas about how terrible it is being just another working class stiff. We're all just chumps and now he's stuck in the same rut and it would be gravy if things could go back to when he was dealing coke and cheating on his wife.

Pesci only gets it in both movies because he went off the deep end. Murder for hire and all the other violence was A-ok until he killed the wrong guy or slept around with another man's wife. Murder and adultery were great otherwise.

They fucked up a good thing by not keeping with the Mafia "code" (or whatever). Had they all just done their job and listened to the bosses, they'd all still be Gods among men.

The thing is, DeNiro didn't spend his time outside of Goodfellas engaging in mob activities. Michael C. Hall doesn't spend his spare time killing people even if he portrayed a serial killer for many years Walker apparently was a fast car enthusiast. I'm not clear if that included street racing or not, but the difference here is that he didn't confine his love of speed to the big screen. I don't know enough about his non-acting racing to know if it was a bad thing or not.

Racing != illegal street racing. Neither does liking fast cars. I don't recall him ever condoning that kind of activity. Walker made some comment about street racing when he was younger, but never anything concrete. Everything beyond that has been legal amateur and semi-professional racing.

Even if it was proven he was an illegal street racer 20 years ago, I think at some point people could let shit go considering the circumstances of his life and death.

[Gaidin]

Even if it was proven he was an illegal street racer 20 years ago, I think at some point people could let shit go considering the circumstances of his life and death.

At that point if it's decided that it matters, he's posthumously running for political office on this forum and it's stuck on his record. I'm just saying.

[K. A. Pital]

And when you make the argument that "people who popularize streetracing deserve everything that's coming to them" you're at the very least in the vicinity of bad company in the form of the people who blame whatever entertainment they dislike for the heinous things some people do

Maybe you are right. Then again, I'm not saying he deserved it - I said people don't deserve to die for being stupid. Although, of course, if they are speeding on luxury cars, they certainly are up for a Darwin award. I don't even think the actor who played Jack Bauer deserves to be tortured, although popularizing it in such a fashion is perhaps even more dangerous than glamorizing streetracing or street crime. I am sure that people here know I'm not the one to censor art here. I may hate a franchise passionately, but certainly I wouldn't say it should have never seen the light.

I guess I went overboard with glee since most of the time the victims who die in car accidents don't even get their names on a front page of a newspaper, and it kind of feels wrong.

[Scrib]

The whole point of Casino was that thing were better off when the Mafia was in charge. Listen to DeNiro's rant at the end. And he goes right back to making money as a Handicapper and living the high life, just not as high.

Ray Liotta also goes into a rant at the end of Goodfellas about how terrible it is being just another working class stiff. We're all just chumps and now he's stuck in the same rut and it would be gravy if things could go back to when he was dealing coke and cheating on his wife.

Pesci only gets it in both movies because he went off the deep end. Murder for hire and all the other violence was A-ok until he killed the wrong guy or slept around with another man's wife. Murder and adultery were great otherwise.

They fucked up a good thing by not keeping with the Mafia "code" (or whatever). Had they all just done their job and listened to the bosses, they'd all still be Gods among men.

I haven't watched Goodfellas and Casino in a while so I'll take your word on some of the specifcs here. But if any defense could be offered, it's that these characters must feel this way, that's how their minds work. That doesn't mean that the work must show them in a flattering light, especially not like F&F.

Was the brutality and evil shown? Were the consequences of their actions? I mean, there's a scene in the Sopranos where a mafioso (si?) complains that "it's over for the little guy" because the corporations took over and they can't extort businesses anymore, but I don't think that any (sane) viewer took it seriously. It was what it appeared to be: self-serving bullshit because we knew how terrible they were.

IF Goodfellas and Casino did the same, then the characters can say whatever the fuck they like about how awesome their lives were, WE'LL know that they're bad. As I recall they were psychotic bastards there too, Pesci shot a kid then killed him and everyone put up with his insanity until he crossed one line, not sure that this reflects well on them.

Escape or success doesn't always equal glorification.