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Fans of the Fast and Furious franchise have taken issue with one major turning point in The Fate of the Furious trailer.
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Fate of the Furious trailer, which has major plot twists, huge stunts and pretty cool vehicles.]
In the trailer, it’s revealed that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has turned his back on his family and teamed up with a new adversary, Cipher (Charlize Theron). This twist is shocking for two reasons: The character has been fighting for himself on behalf of his friends for the entire franchise and family is the most important thing.
Before The Fate of the Furious trailer was released, Diesel and his team also released a three-minute featurette specifically about the importance of family to the movie. Based on the footage in the new trailer, however, it seems like Diesel’s Toretto is about to throw that all away. There’s even this specifically jarring moment that left people heartbroken.
Immediately, the community on Reddit and fans on Twitter were concerned about what this meant for the future of family in the series. One Reddit commenter added that Han, a core member of Toretto’s group and a favorite character that died in The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, didn’t die “for you to pull this shit.”
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Other members echoed that sentiment, adding that the level of foreshadowing used by Diesel and his team to bring the characters to this point was genius. Some pointed out that the entire movie would be nothing but Diesel saying the word family in a variety of different dramatic tones to express his sadness over the situation.
A major plot point that was brought into contention because of the family connection — and how it tied Toretto to his wife, Letty — is how their relationship would play out. The role that Toretto is taking on can essentially be seen as Letty in Fast and Furious, the fourth movie in the franchise, or Fast and Furious 6.
On Twitter, people called out Toretto for the way he manipulated his family and Letty in the trailer.
Why in the world would Dom do his family like that pic.twitter.com/DQ5RKfx04X
— Ho Hoe ❄ (@Zzaynatic) December 12, 2016
All I'm saying is Dom didn't turn on his family and Optimus didn't betray the autobots when Obama was president.
— Brian (@Brian_Mega_Tran) December 12, 2016
Am I the only one who hated the fast & furious trailer? The whole franchaise is built on family then you wanna say dom betrays the family?
— KristinaMarie✨ (@kristinax0x_) December 12, 2016
All I could think the entire #F8 trailer was, what happened to family? Then Letty asks Dom about it at the end and ... this is his answer pic.twitter.com/HUjWA7sTXL
— Kirsten (@KirstenAcuna) December 12, 2016
The number one theory currently circulating online is that Toretto is being blackmailed by Theron’s Cipher and that’s why he appears to be turning his back. In fact, there’s not one person that believes Toretto has actually gone to the dark side. To their point, this is an arc fans have seen before, again, with Letty and each time she returned back to her family.
The Fate of the Furious hits theaters April 14, 2017.