Damn you Hollywood

If you perk at the sound of an igniting engine like some individuals I could mention, you're probably familiar with the Fast and the Furious series by now. Not the best series, by far...hell, not a good series by any stretch of the imagination outside of certain circles. Luckily, however, it was a series that had been put to bed before it could reach the infamous "trilogy" status that had doomed so many before. Though the concept and so-called "plot" would always be bad, it was acceptably bad.

That is, until Justin Lin thought it would be a good idea to raise the formerly-dead series with its newest installment: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

This has to stop. Seriously. This street racing thing is becoming a cancer, beginning in the foul, disease-rotted minds of the vampires controlling Hollywood and manifesting its worst symptoms in innocent, impressionable kids who, within the space of 90 minutes, are irrevocably convinced that small Asian cars can be "pimped" or "tricked out" to be massive, unquestionably-cool speed demons.

You know these kids. They're the kids who laugh like jackals as they wast an inch of rubber from their already too-low tires. They're the kids who spend thousands on a great sound system so that they can play music with all the grace and melody of tribal drums, at high enough decibals to permanently scar their auditory nerves. They're the kids who buy neon lights that illuminate the road under their ugly little cars as they race down this or that main drag, winning not even the respect of their peers with whatever skill they might have.

No one has ever informed them that their Civic will never be as fast as Vin Diesel's, and that they could easily save their "mod" money and invest in a car with far more power right off the line, without customizing a thing.

No one has informed these poor little children that the very culture that made their cars made them to conserve fuel, sacrificing speed in the process.

No one has taken the time to point out to these kids that, within twenty years, they are still going to be working a dead-end job, lusting after high school girls, and cruising Main with kids half their age.

As I said, this has to be stopped. I like a good chase scene as much as the next guy, but I prefer mine in a nice little package of plot. Let the children go, Justin Lin. Let them grow up to be real people.