You know, throughout 9 filming, Vin Diesel has been posting about family and fatherhood. There may be some plot hints there, and one of them could be pointing toward Dominic and Mia Toretto's father. Will Fast 9 visit the scene of Papa Toretto's death, which Dom witnessed and left him traumatized?
Fast & Furious 9 has been filming since the early Pleistocene, or maybe it just feels that way. Vin Diesel has been sharing set videos every step of the way, and he and Michelle Rodriguez recently posted one from Week 20 in Los Angeles. He said they were "back home" finishing the last sequences of the movie. In the video, he toured a race track, and wondered if fans knew where they were.
You diehards will know where we are. You day ones will know where we are.
Do you know where they were? I'm not exactly an L.A. expert, but ... the Irwindale Speedway? Fans are now speculating that Fast & Furious 9 might take us back to the scene of the crash that killed Dominic and Mia Toretto's dad. If you'll remember, Dom saw the crash. He told Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) about it in the first movie, The Fast and the Furious, which came out in 2001.
Here's what Dom told Brian in the movie, after pointing to a picture on the wall of the garage:
That's my dad. He was coming up in the pro-stock circuit. Last race of the season. A guy named Kenny Linder came up from inside on the final turn, clipped his bumper, put him in the wall at a hundred and twenty. I watched my father burn to death. I can still remember him screaming. The people who were there said my father died before the tanks blew. They said it was me that was screaming.
Shortly after the crash, Dom ran into Kenny Linder and beat the dude with a wrench. Dom didn't mean to beat him as much as he did, but he lost control until he couldn't even lift his own arm anymore. After that, Dom was banned from the tracks for life.
If Vin Diesel's new Instagram post has anything to do with that storyline, has Dom been allowed to return to the tracks? Or will we see what happened to Dom's dad in flashbacks?
It sounds like only Dom saw his father's death in that crash, but Dom also talked about Papa Toretto helping Mia with her homework, and they had family BBQs, etc. Dom said he helped his dad build the 1970 Dodge Charger R/T.
This speculation could be way off, and Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez could've visited the tracks for a totally different reason. But Diesel has posted about fatherhood in connection to Fast 9. That seems partly due to sharing photos of young Brian Toretto, Dom's son with Elena. It may also be due to some kind of return for the character of Brian O'Conner, who is still alive and married to Mia Toretto as of Fast 9, and they have two children together.
Paul Walker died in 2013 but Brian lives on. Paul Walker's brothers helped finish Paul's scenes for Furious 7, and the character of Brian skipped Fast 8, aka The Fate of the Furious. Mia Toretto star Jordana Brewster also skipped the 8th movie, but Brewster is confirmed to be back for Fast 9, and she has some great old school action coming. When Paul's brother Cody Walker recently appeared on set, it got the rumor mill churning that Brian might reappear in Fast 9 through a mix of Cody and CGI, or just camera trickery.
Earlier this week, FandomWire said a source with inside knowledge of the Fast & Furious 9 production revealed that they were casting a Paul Walker double to bring back Brian in a very limited capacity. Not sure why they'd need to do that with Paul's brothers still around -- and happy to bring Brian back again -- but that's what the site said. Take it for what you will.
So now we're waiting to see if Fast & Furious 9 revisits the death of Dom's father, gives #JusticeForHan, and brings back Brian. Oh, and it may or may not feature Dwayne Johnson, who appears to be finished his feud with Vin Diesel. But The Rock may just have been teasing a potential return for Fast 10, which is a thing that is happening. Fast 9 is currently scheduled for release on May 22, 2020.
