My opinion on how the series went and this movie in particular.
The Fast and the Furious (2001) - Street racing, heists,badass-ery,love interests,dat early 00s rock/techno music & coolness,nice athmosphere and cinematography - little bit of everything without losing the main focus AND mainly - it established the cult-classic of this genre.Only problem is that it was somewhat cheesy,filled with a lot of goofs and poor effects but it's still a classic.
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) - It contained the same street racing and atmosphere element. But it lacked in aspect of storyline(no dom,letty,mia) no big love interest too.It was more like a generic racing extension of the 1st showing only what happens to Brian. BUT still there was enough in it to be a Fast and Furious movie.And it further established the F&F as the king in the street racing movie genre.To me it was good.It oozed coolness and it had comedy parts as well some great chemistry between Brian and Rom.
Fast Five & Fast 6 - Fast Five and Fast 6 were massive,fun,filled with cars,action and bunch of great actors,almost all key characters from the franchise are present and the original story continues.And these movies delivered cars and action which is good because we had already too many movies targeted only at the street racing element
Now my problematic movies:
Tokyo Drift (2006)- Here is what bugs me. The 1st movie created everything,2nd barely had connection to the original plot and then in 2006(which is already 5 yrs after 2001) u get a movie that almost have nothing to do with the older movies. Let alone the original.I mean yeah it's F&F and it's got cars but this time there isn't even Brian. There isn't even street racing neither heists. It's drifting mainly and it's not as cool as drag or sprint racing.Also the 2nd part of the movie felt kinda idk not so exciting.The love interest feels poor.Tokyo is nice but it seems too sci-fi compared to the simple beachy sunny sporty theme of LA/Miami.This movie might as well be called with a different name if you know what I mean.But hey atleast it's Japan and it's got Drift. This makes it contributing to the franchise in it's special way
Fast & Furious (2009) - Now with everything said above the problem is this. It's been almost a decade since the first movie and we're finally back with a direct sequel to the 1st movie. Everybody looked different and many things are different about 2009 and 2001 so it's just different.it's generally a good movie but it could have been better.Basically to me it feels like a watered down version of Fast five and Fast 6. Tokyo drift and this one especially they felt like filler movies. Tokyo Drift was no better than this but remained more special because of the drift/japan element. This one however it was made like u know just to kickstart the story again and create momentum for the huge later movies.Every movie in the series was special in their own way. This one just felt bland personally to me. It's just not a iconic movie to me. It feels not as racing-packed as the 1st 2 movies and not as action-packed as the later movies.
What I'm trying to say with this long post is that they should not have waited so much with the 2009 movie. 2F2F was a enough spin-off to the original story.Why they made tokyo drift? Better question is if they intended to make Tokyo Drift why they made it before Fast & furious? I mean if the 2009 movie was made in 2005-2006 instead 2009 and if Tokyo Drift was made in 2008-2009 (after the Fast & Furious) that would've been better.
The way I see it it should be like this:
1.The Fast and The Furious
2.2 Fast 2 Furious
3.Fast & Furious
4.Tokyo Drift
5.Fast Five
6.Fast 6
Also I don't get how most people put the 4th movie and Tokyo Drift over 2F2F. Tokyo drift and 2009 F&F are the most not-so-iconic movies of the whole franchise.Anyway I love the whole series they're going to remain part of my life forever and RIP Paul Walker. (bow) I hope that with the 7th installment they will finish the story and turn off the F&F engine once and for all.Thank you for reading everything.