When a movie opens up for its first time in theaters, it is a happy event. For ‘Furious 7’, it was more of a memorial for Paul Walker, who died in a fiery crash alongside friend Roger Rodas, who was the driver of the Porsche, at a charity event.

“When I heard, I immediately flew back to California, and went directly from the plane to his mother’s house. I thought they needed my strength, but realized when I got there and broke down before his family, that it was I who needed theirs.” said Vin Diesel via a Facebook post just days after Walker and Rodas passed away. “His mother hugged me and said I am so sorry… I said sorry? You’re the mother who lost a son?… She said yes, but you lost your other half.”

Many flocked to the movies to see how the last installment, with Walker, would send off the actor.  The film grossed $143.6 million in opening weekend alone. That is a testament of how many people cared about Walker. Car clubs, tuning shops, and just general car enthusiast created pre-meets before the movie started so they can all pay tribute to Walker and watch the movie together.

It has been almost 15 years since the first installment of the Fast and Furious movies was released. It focused around a street racing crew that would steal truckloads of equipment to sell off. Walker played an undercover police officer, Brian O’Connor,  that infiltrated the racing scene to see who was doing the crime. Walker befriended Diesel, Dom Toretto,  and his rag tag group of racers and over the next 5 movies (the third movie didn’t have Walker in it) they grew into a family, on set and in real life.

F7 picked up where Fast & Furious 6 left off. The crew just took down Shaw, an international criminal, played by Luke Evans, and now his brother, Jason Statham, is pissed and looking for vengeance. At the end of Tokyo Drift, which is the third movie, but technically the 6th in chronological order, Statham kill Sung Kang, ‘Han’ in a fiery crash.

Fast forward to F7 and the crew is battling Statham the entire movie. F7 is action packed with some off the wall scenes that keep you glued to your seat. Head on collisions, jumping from moving vehicles, and racing at mind blowing speeds are common places throughout the entire movie. Some complained that it has moved from it’s roots with street racing into a special forces charged movie. That is totally fine with many of people.

“I think furious 7 or the whole franchise for that matter has so much meaning to it than just a movie with cars. From its roots it’s where a lot of us enthusiasts originated. With idea and drive to pursues something we love.” said Tony Hamblin, owner of Hamstik Media.

Walker passed away during the production of F7. This presented a major challenge for the directors and cast. They had to make a major decision to keep on with the movie. Walker’s brothers helped with filling in as body doubles, and assisted with CGI (computer-generated imagery), to finish up the movie. It was done to near perfection.

“I thought it was wonderfully made, I liked it alot and thought it had a great tribute to Paul.” said Chelsea Nelson after watching the movie.

The movie was a tough one to watch. Each time Walker would appear on the screen, movie goers couldn’t help but to get choked up a little bit. The ending of the movie paid tribute to Walker with a 5 minute set of movie clips and Diesel remembering Walker in a monolog that would make the meanest, toughest guy out there cry. Social media exploded with the hashtag #ForPaul. Many were talking about how the movie aced the farewell to Walker. It was a commonplace to see people posting about how they teared up or cried at the end.

“Furious 7 lived up to its name giving new angle of what we thought was action.” said Brian Maroney, Vice President of Third World Society, an automotive website for car enthusiast. “The farewell was perfectly executed in saying goodbye to Paul Walker and retiring his character from the franchise.”

As for the franchise, Diesel was on a late night t.v. show saying the next Fast and Furious movie would take place in New York City.