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I have never seen the first three films in the Fast/Furious franchise. I went to a screening of the fourth, Fast and Furious, in order to conduct a research experiment that I’ve been wanting to try for awhile: how do late-in-the game sequels parcel out information about the worlds their predecessors have created, and do they even try to convert new fans, or simply satisfy old ones? Keeping in mind that I entered into this enterprise with science as a primary motivator over criticism, here is a summary of my findings:

1.  In the first scene, Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel are together in a car, driving alongside an oil truck on a twisty mountain road. Apparently in cahoots with two other pairs in two other cars (both of whom, audience reaction would suggest, are familiar from previous films in the franchise), Vin and Michelle are planning to use their driving skills to steal gas. When the time is right, Michelle kisses Vin (thus telling us that they are a couple — and, since IMDB indicates they haven’t been in a Fast & Furious film together since the franchise’s opening salvo in 2001, they’ve presumably been together without incident for the eight years in between), then climbs out the window of the moving car, announcing the film’s rallying cry and raison d’etre as she moves: “Let’s make some money!” Wink wink, LOL y’all, although in a world where Tina Fey addresses the sponsors of the TV show she produces whilst in front of the camera as its star, for a quadquel to pointedly anticipate and address criticism that it’s a stale leftover reheated for cash before the opening action setpiece even kicks into high gear, feels weirdly  stale and reheated in itself.