Does Fast & Furious 9 go into space?
Fast and Furious. in space! Advertisement  Its been a long-standing joke amongst fans of the Fast saga that the franchise would inevitably end up going intergalactic  starting out 20 years as a grounded tale of illegal street racing and undercover cops, the film series has gradually loosened its grip on reality and evolved into more of a sci-fi spy caper that takes in magnet planes, killer satellites and long-lost super-spy siblings, so a trip to the stars felt like the only logical(?) conclusion. Still, it was supposed to be a joke  no-one actually thought theyd follow through. In latest outing Fast & Furious 9 though  out now in cinemas  they finally, really did it. Tasked with disrupting a signal that will reset all digital devices on Earth and so cause global mayhem, Tej (Chris Ludacris Bridges) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) learn that the satellite at the heart of Project Aries cannot be disabled remotely and that they must travel into outer space in order to shut it down manually. That would be wild enough, but of course, this being Fast & Furious, they dont just hitch a ride on a space shuttle  no, the terrified twosome used a rocket car provided by Sean Boswell (Lucas Black), Twinkie (Bow Wow) and Earl Hu (Jason Tobin) to enter orbit. (Somehow, the fact that Sean has transitioned from The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drifts high school drop-out to a rocket scientist and aircraft pilot is the least ludicrous thing about this whole affair.) Speaking to Vulture, F9s executive producer Josh Henson revealed that the trip into space was initially pitched as a joke only for the films director Justin Lin to actually take a liking to the idea. Kind of as a joke, we put together a pitch that looks like, Okay, Dom and the gang go to the moon, and they race cars; theyre racing cool rovers on the moon and Dom wrecks his rover. And the bad guys about to get away, but hes just at the Apollo 11 site. And he finds the original moon rover, and hes racing.  We kind of did it as a joke, and we pitched it to Justin, and we had a good laugh. But then Justins like, Well, maybe theres something there. '  Universal  Lin took the joke concept seriously, apparently even contacting NASA scientist to ensure that the science behind Tej and Romans Pontiac Fiero taking a trip into space was solid(-ish). Im picking their brains about how to do it, he explained. That Fiero, if you look at it, has been reinforced. It has been built out. And actually, theyve been testing it. Earl, Twinkie, and Sean are not making this up. They work at a propulsion lab. They are rocket scientists!  So there you have it  yes, Fast & Furious goes into space now and, yes, it does make a sort of sense. Sort of. As much sense as Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his rag-tag family of street racers transforming into intelligence operatives with peak kung-fu skills and weapons training anyway. Our moneys on time travel. Get Dom behind the wheel of a DeLorean, you cowards. Sign up to get alerts for movie news, reviews and recommendations Thanks, you are now signed up to our films newsletter! We look forward to sending you our email updates. Sign in to/ register for a RadioTimes.com account to manage your email preferences Sign in Register To manage your email preferences, click here. Sign me up! Immediate Media Company Limited (publishers of radiotimes.com) would love to send you our films newsletters. We may also send occasional updates from our editorial team. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we hold your personal data, please see our privacy policy. Read more: How the Fast & Furious series became Hollywoods most important franchise  Fast & Furious 9 is out now in cinemas  find out how to rewatch all the Fast & Furious movies in order and what happens in the Fast & Furious 9 post-credits scene, and read our Fast & Furious 9 review. Advertisement  Visit our Movies hub for the latest news and features, or find something to watch tonight with our TV Guide.