Character discussion: Brian
I don't know if it's allowed here, but well, I got into mood to for some character discussion. And for that I chose Brian, because he is my favorite character of the Fast & Furious universe. I don't have anything against Dom, but I personally don't idolize the big, brooding tough guys like Vin Diesel and Hobbs.
I really like Brian, and probably one reason why I personally didn't like Tokyo Drift so much was Paul Walker's absence. And while reading fanfiction, one of my pre-requisites for stories I read is Brian's presence, I just can't bring myself to read the stories without him.
Anyway, what I wanted to discuss here was Brian's personal history, and see how you guys would see it. I just got interested in that when Brian mentioned in Fast Five about his father's absence, also for me Brian has been a very interesting character, as he was a juvie delinquent turned cop turned criminal turned fed turned criminal again. So here I'll mention my imagination of Brian's past. Read at your own risk. We don't know that yet, but maybe we may found out about Brian's past in later movies and maybe those statements might be true.
Well, I personally think Brian was born in Barstow around 1976-1977. While I read Spy's theory about the character's ages, I nearly fainted at the thought of Brian actually being older than Dom and Vince. -.- I mean, Paul Walker himself is six full years younger than Vin Diesel and one year younger than Matt Schulze, so I think that wouldn't be so nice to have Brian being older than those two.
Personally, I seem to have fallen into the clichés of Brian having a hard, troubled childhood. While I remember that before we heard about of Brian's father's absence in Fast 5, fanfic writers would mostly portray Brian as having an abusive alcoholic father and a struggling mother with Brian being the sucker-punch for his drunk dad. But now, after the revelation, things seem to have changed about it.
So I think Brian himself came from a below working class family, raised solely by his mother, as her family did not like Brian and refused to support them due to Brian being a wedlock child, or maybe even their daughter (Brian's mom) being a teenage runaway girl. And she was struggling to make ends meet with several dead-end jobs such as waitressing in a shitty bar, etc. while living in a dump trailer or a shitty cheap hotel room. I also think it had an effect on his life and he really wasn't the best student in school. Maybe he was a good one in elementary school, but in junior high, he started degrading into some kind of ignorant hooligan, and was a A student in some subjects, such as PE, while a F student in Algebra, Science and other similar ones, with a GPA around 1.00-1.50.
However, not only was he failing school, but liked to hang out in the wrong crowd, and so some time later he found himself boosting cars and selling them for chop shops, but one car happened to be a police sting and he went to juvie for two-three years, and during that his mother died. And that got his head straight, that his mother had been the only constant in his life so far, but now she was gone and he had to fix his own life, which led to him getting his priorities straight. While there was Rome, whom he just met in juvie, he was more like a friend and not an older brother. And while Brian didn't become a straight-A student, he shaped up to a D/C student (while still a F student in Algebra) and got his GED in juvie. But he wouldn't have a great future ahead of him. College would probably be out of question, because he could not afford it unless he'd get back to boosting cars, and with his grades he wouldn't even recieve an UCLA scholarship. Or at most, he would have an associate's degree from a community college.
And his mother's death while he was serving time in juvie may have forced Brian to mature quickly and fix his own life. And he went to see a shrink, and this turned his life around and he eventually joined LAPD, becoming Tanner's protege, which caused a strain in his and Rome's relationship as Rome hated cops, but two months after Brian's academy graduation, Rome really declared Brian his enemy, just because of Brian being a cop, a member of the law enforcement, the organization that arrested him.
While I think Brian was still a bit young for becoming a cop as the minimum age is 20½ for joining the academy, but I think Brian was probably around 18½-19½ around that, but in 1990s, when the Internet was just becoming popular, Brian could easily fake his birth year, which eventually allowed him to become a cop. And he probably wasn't a by-the-book cop and would bend the rules a bit too much and not care about the proper procedure, but other than that he was a good cop, just causing massive property damage and ignoring the rules. But until he met Mia, things were good, but then things all went to shit, forcing Brian to run to Miami.
I personally think Brian may have tried to avoid getting involved in street racing in Miami yet, but soon he found himself running low on funds and had to get to racing again. And so passed two years until 2003, when Brian got caught by the Customs. But it wasn't so bad as Brian still got a clean record and finally reconciled with Rome. But as for Monica, I personally don't think her and Brian could have gotten together. First, Monica was a LEO, but Brian was a past LEO and thus he'd be seen as a loose cannonball which wouldn't look good on Monica, Secondly, while Monica would be doing her Customs agent job, Brian would not have any interest in that and would rather be interested in hanging out with Rome, Tej and others. And personally, I think Brian might not have gotten over Mia yet so he wouldn't give Monica a try, especially with the empty spot in Brian's heart and Monica being all so flirty with him.
Then I got surprised about Brian becoming a FBI agent by 4th movie. For me, it seemed a bit far-fetched that the FBI would want a cop turned criminal amongst their ranks, plus that for joining FBI you must have at least a bachelor's degree, which I think Brian most likely wouldn't have (look above). Or, it could work if Bilkins gave Brian a commendation and the Feds sort of accepted Brian, as in 4th movie, Sophie Trinh seems to be Brian's only friend in the FBI LA office and the other agents, also Penning and Stasiak, hate him for what happened five years ago and would rather not be associated with him. Or, if the Feds somehow blackmailed Brian, forcing him to work for them. But at least then came a good chance for Brian to reconcile with Mia again.
*looks back on post* Wow, I'm on a vacation in Austria and really took time to type all that? Well, I'll be off to enjoying Austria now. If you guys want to share your thoughts about Brian's past, then just comment on the post. Easy as pie it is :D
P.S. Mods, I didn't know if it was allowed, but if not, then I'll take it down.
And since my last post, which was Fast & Furious 7 discussion, caused a bit of controversy, I'm trying to be respectful, but maybe I might have missed something which could be volatile. In that case, sorry.
I really like Brian, and probably one reason why I personally didn't like Tokyo Drift so much was Paul Walker's absence. And while reading fanfiction, one of my pre-requisites for stories I read is Brian's presence, I just can't bring myself to read the stories without him.
Anyway, what I wanted to discuss here was Brian's personal history, and see how you guys would see it. I just got interested in that when Brian mentioned in Fast Five about his father's absence, also for me Brian has been a very interesting character, as he was a juvie delinquent turned cop turned criminal turned fed turned criminal again. So here I'll mention my imagination of Brian's past. Read at your own risk. We don't know that yet, but maybe we may found out about Brian's past in later movies and maybe those statements might be true.
Well, I personally think Brian was born in Barstow around 1976-1977. While I read Spy's theory about the character's ages, I nearly fainted at the thought of Brian actually being older than Dom and Vince. -.- I mean, Paul Walker himself is six full years younger than Vin Diesel and one year younger than Matt Schulze, so I think that wouldn't be so nice to have Brian being older than those two.
Personally, I seem to have fallen into the clichés of Brian having a hard, troubled childhood. While I remember that before we heard about of Brian's father's absence in Fast 5, fanfic writers would mostly portray Brian as having an abusive alcoholic father and a struggling mother with Brian being the sucker-punch for his drunk dad. But now, after the revelation, things seem to have changed about it.
So I think Brian himself came from a below working class family, raised solely by his mother, as her family did not like Brian and refused to support them due to Brian being a wedlock child, or maybe even their daughter (Brian's mom) being a teenage runaway girl. And she was struggling to make ends meet with several dead-end jobs such as waitressing in a shitty bar, etc. while living in a dump trailer or a shitty cheap hotel room. I also think it had an effect on his life and he really wasn't the best student in school. Maybe he was a good one in elementary school, but in junior high, he started degrading into some kind of ignorant hooligan, and was a A student in some subjects, such as PE, while a F student in Algebra, Science and other similar ones, with a GPA around 1.00-1.50.
However, not only was he failing school, but liked to hang out in the wrong crowd, and so some time later he found himself boosting cars and selling them for chop shops, but one car happened to be a police sting and he went to juvie for two-three years, and during that his mother died. And that got his head straight, that his mother had been the only constant in his life so far, but now she was gone and he had to fix his own life, which led to him getting his priorities straight. While there was Rome, whom he just met in juvie, he was more like a friend and not an older brother. And while Brian didn't become a straight-A student, he shaped up to a D/C student (while still a F student in Algebra) and got his GED in juvie. But he wouldn't have a great future ahead of him. College would probably be out of question, because he could not afford it unless he'd get back to boosting cars, and with his grades he wouldn't even recieve an UCLA scholarship. Or at most, he would have an associate's degree from a community college.
And his mother's death while he was serving time in juvie may have forced Brian to mature quickly and fix his own life. And he went to see a shrink, and this turned his life around and he eventually joined LAPD, becoming Tanner's protege, which caused a strain in his and Rome's relationship as Rome hated cops, but two months after Brian's academy graduation, Rome really declared Brian his enemy, just because of Brian being a cop, a member of the law enforcement, the organization that arrested him.
While I think Brian was still a bit young for becoming a cop as the minimum age is 20½ for joining the academy, but I think Brian was probably around 18½-19½ around that, but in 1990s, when the Internet was just becoming popular, Brian could easily fake his birth year, which eventually allowed him to become a cop. And he probably wasn't a by-the-book cop and would bend the rules a bit too much and not care about the proper procedure, but other than that he was a good cop, just causing massive property damage and ignoring the rules. But until he met Mia, things were good, but then things all went to shit, forcing Brian to run to Miami.
I personally think Brian may have tried to avoid getting involved in street racing in Miami yet, but soon he found himself running low on funds and had to get to racing again. And so passed two years until 2003, when Brian got caught by the Customs. But it wasn't so bad as Brian still got a clean record and finally reconciled with Rome. But as for Monica, I personally don't think her and Brian could have gotten together. First, Monica was a LEO, but Brian was a past LEO and thus he'd be seen as a loose cannonball which wouldn't look good on Monica, Secondly, while Monica would be doing her Customs agent job, Brian would not have any interest in that and would rather be interested in hanging out with Rome, Tej and others. And personally, I think Brian might not have gotten over Mia yet so he wouldn't give Monica a try, especially with the empty spot in Brian's heart and Monica being all so flirty with him.
Then I got surprised about Brian becoming a FBI agent by 4th movie. For me, it seemed a bit far-fetched that the FBI would want a cop turned criminal amongst their ranks, plus that for joining FBI you must have at least a bachelor's degree, which I think Brian most likely wouldn't have (look above). Or, it could work if Bilkins gave Brian a commendation and the Feds sort of accepted Brian, as in 4th movie, Sophie Trinh seems to be Brian's only friend in the FBI LA office and the other agents, also Penning and Stasiak, hate him for what happened five years ago and would rather not be associated with him. Or, if the Feds somehow blackmailed Brian, forcing him to work for them. But at least then came a good chance for Brian to reconcile with Mia again.
*looks back on post* Wow, I'm on a vacation in Austria and really took time to type all that? Well, I'll be off to enjoying Austria now. If you guys want to share your thoughts about Brian's past, then just comment on the post. Easy as pie it is :D
P.S. Mods, I didn't know if it was allowed, but if not, then I'll take it down.
And since my last post, which was Fast & Furious 7 discussion, caused a bit of controversy, I'm trying to be respectful, but maybe I might have missed something which could be volatile. In that case, sorry.