How Many Times Does Vin Diesel Say 'Family' in All Fast & Furious Movies?
With how popular the “family” meme is, the number of times Dom Toretto has actually said this word throughout the franchise is surprisingly underwhelming.
What do we know about the Fast & Furious franchise?
Cool cars, tough guys, spectacular explosions, no gravity, no deaths, great soundtracks, a bunch of off-screen feuds, and a strong feeling of family. Even if you’re not familiar with the F&F movies, you know these things by default — especially since the latter is quite a popular meme on the Internet.
Actually, we can’t remember a single Fast & Furious meme that wouldn’t joke about Dom’s family right off the bat. The word itself is so closely associated with Vin Diesel ’s franchise that it might as well be copyrighted by F&F — but have you ever wondered, how many times Dom Toretto really says this word in the movies?
Because truth be told, it’s a surprisingly low number for how common the meme is.
Quite unexpectedly, the word “family” never came out of Dominic Toretto’s mouth for the first four movies! While only two of these installments properly featured Vin Diesel’s character (with him being absent in the second and only having a short cameo in the third), this is still unbelievable. “Family” was only mentioned twice by other characters and in a different context until the fifth movie.
The gag only begins in Fast Five: as the final ensemble for the consequent movies gets together, Dom calls them his family not once, but three times. The trend continues into F&F 6 where Vin Diesel references his family twice, and reaches its peak with the seventh installment where we say goodbye to Paul Walker — and hear Dom address his family four times. This includes the iconic quote, "I don’t have friends, I got family."
In Fate of the Furious, the “family counter” drops to just three mentions to then completely disappear in F9 and only resurface this year in Fast X. In the latest Fast & Furious movie, Vin Diesel says “family” only once, but that was more than enough to reignite the meme. Good things don’t die off that easily, do they?
So in total, Dominic Toretto has only said the word “family” 13 times throughout the entire Fast & Furious franchise, and we’re pretty sure we should blame the seventh movie for the meme. At the same time, should we, really? With Paul Walker’s death, it was important for Vin Diesel to pay tribute to his friend — or, rather, his family.