The Fast and the Furious debuted as a Scruffy car culture movie and it was a hit.

It was followed by two sequels that didn't quite satisfy, so they were grouped.

Since then, it's become the blockbuster machine.

Some love, some hate, some love to hate, and some hate to love.

When you do this much business for this many years it's hard not to have an impact.

I'm Aisha Harris.

And I'm Linda Holmes and today we're talking about the Fast and the Furious franchise's legacy on NPR's pop culture happy hour, so don't go away.

Joining us today is the host of Weekend Edition Sunday, Aisha Roscoe. Welcome back Aisha.

Hello! Also with us is the host of the Vibe Check podcast and the Vulture Podcast into it Sam Sanders.

Hello Sam.

Thanks for having me.

As we are recording this episode,

F9 was just released.

We really wanted to take a breath and talk about this franchise.

It's actually been a pretty bumpy ride for these movies in some ways. They lost

their leading man when Paul Walker died in 2013 and they had to reset several times before this became

the unstoppable franchise it is today. But at the center of this franchise you've got

Vin Diesel playing Dominic, he started out as a petty criminal and now he's sort of a

spy slash crime fighter. Originally his gang was infiltrated by Paul Walker who played an undercover police officer, but gradually, of course,

point break style, they became allies and friends, and they developed this big team of people

who respond to various emergencies

around the world. The first movie was directed by Rob Cohen then they

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