To put it lightly, Diesel’s final condition raises a lot of questions, since Brian O’Connor’s actor, Paul Walker, tragically died in 2013, midway through production on Furious 7. Almost immediately, filming was halted, and the script was rewritten, allowing the team to send off Brian’s character instead of killing him off. Walker’s brothers, Caleb and Cody, were hired as stand-ins to film the rest of Brian’s scenes, and the heartfelt final scene saw Brian retiring from the crew to be with his family.
It’s no secret that, since Furious 7, the franchise quality has been spottier, partially because Brian’s relatable qualities were a crucial counterpoint to his macho costars. Without anyone to fill the now-vacant role of the everyman, the films lost much of the heart that once made them so beloved, and there was little to ground the story as the spectacle grew increasingly outlandish.
| Fast and Furious Film | Rotten Tomatoes Score |
| Furious 7 | 82% |
| The Fate of the Furious | 67% |
| Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw | 67% |
| F9 The Fast Saga | 59% |
| Fast X | 56% |
From high stakes heists and hair raising chases to sci-fi sagas and sword swinging showdowns, these are Vin Diesel’s greatest action movies.
Indeed, many fans have long wished for Fast and Furious to get back to its street racing roots, so it’s no surprise that Vin Diesel wants to return to the elements that made the original a smash hit, especially if he wants to bring the finale full circle. Yet surely there’s a way to do this without explicitly bringing back Brian? Outside the ethical implications (which we’ll get to shortly), his character’s send-off in Furious 7 was beautiful, and reversing that runs the risk of undermining that plotline entirely.
It’s also a big part of why it felt wrong for the films to keep bringing Brian up even after the send-off. The tributes to Walker started sweet enough, notably when Dom named his son “Brian” in The Fate of the Furious. However, by the time F9 included Brian arriving for dinner in the final scene, without ever appearing on-screen, it began to feel obnoxious. They were no doubt well-intentioned, considering how crucial Brian was to the family, but at a certain point, all they did was remind us how much the series was missing his presence.