See You Again

Todd plays "See You Again" on the piano.

WIZ KHALIFA ft. CHARLIE PUTH - SEE YOU AGAIN A pop song review

Todd: On November 30th, 2013,...


 * News footage of...

Todd (VO): ...the world saw the tragic death of the famous Hollywood actor, Paul Walker, at the too-young age of 40. Walker was best known as the star of the popular car-racing movie franchise, The Fast and the Furious. Ironically, Walker himself was killed in a horrible car crash, which is kinda funny...

Todd: ...if you're a horrible asshole. A man died.


 * Clip of trailer for...

Todd (VO): A year and a half later, Universal Pictures released what would be his last film project—the seventh and final movie in the Fast and the Furious series. As it was still being filmed at the time of his death, the movie was reconfigured to be a sendoff to its late star. The entire marketing campaign was even designed around it, with Furious 7 being trumpeted as "the last ride."

Todd: They...seriously hammered this point home.

Todd (VO): Minor spoilers here—the movie ends with a ten-minute montage tribute to Walker set to a theme song specifically written to memorialize the man. And while they did try to be appropriately reverent about this real-life tragedy, let's...

Todd: ...face it. Furious 7 is not a movie about loss and sadness; it's a movie where...

Todd (VO): ...Vin Diesel drives a car out of a skyscraper into another skyscraper, and then out of that skyscraper into a third skyscraper. It's a dumb movie about racing cars. So this solemn turn at the end, it's awkward.

Todd: These movies were not built for that level of emotion.


 * Clip of reworked trailer

Todd (VO); 2 Tragic, 2 Respectfully Mournful!

Todd: So, yeah, it's a weird fit, but...then again, the whole franchise is weird.


 * Various clips from the series

Todd (VO): I've seen all of them, and they...they don't go in chronological order; they've radically reinvented the series about four times, then retconned them all to be connected; it's got, like, fifty different characters, they kill off a bunch of them at random, and they bring some of them back, but they have amnesia. It took superhero comics fifty years to reach this level of convolutedness, so a turn of the sappy at the end of the final movie, why the hell not? We got everything else.

Todd: And, to be fair, it's not completely out of nowhere. These movies might be stupid...very stupid...


 * Clips from 2 Fast 2 Furious...

Todd (VO): ...and, in my opinion, took a nosedive in quality around 2 and didn't recover until 6. [...and from Fast Five] But towards the end there, it had developed a heart, even if it didn't have much of a brain. All the characters care a lot about each other, Vin Diesel talks all the time about how they're a family, so a big sendoff to a character whose actor died in real life, it's not completely crazy.

Todd: What is crazy is that it's gotten so big outside of the movie.


 * Video for "See You Again"
 * Michael Puth: It's been a long day without you, my friend
 * And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

Todd (VO): "See You Again", the song chosen to commemorate the life of Paul Walker, has become a humongous hit. This song has been so successful, it was actually able to knock out [brief clip of "Bad Blood" by...] Taylor Swift from the top spot. One does not claim victory over her majesty Taylor Swift without reprisal, so I would definitely watch my back if I were these guys.

Todd: I guess that's so weird to me because I can...

Todd (VO): ...only think of this song as the Paul Walker song. I didn't expect a tribute to Paul Walker to catch on so big 'cause...

Todd: ...well, let's face it, Paul Walker wasn't exactly [pictures of memorials to] Princess Di...or even Dale Earnhardt.

Todd (VO): He wasn't, like, an icon.

Todd: According to most, he wasn't even a very good actor. [apologetic whisper] Sorry.

Todd (VO): I mean, you can find small pockets of superfans who made a lot of [two tributes to Walker, the latter superimposing his head on Anakin Skywalker's body] bizarre memorial fan art, but I'm gonna guess that's...

Todd: ...a small percentage of this song's listeners.

Todd (VO): But you know, I guess everyone likes a good tearjerker, even if you're not a Paul Walker obsessive who watched [poster of] Eight Below a dozen times.

Todd: Classic.

Todd (VO): You can still appreciate this song for what it is. But who best to wring every drop of sadness and catharsis to say goodbye to a fallen friend?

Todd: Who? Who's the best man for the job?


 * Clip of Maroon 5 - "Payphone" featuring...
 * Wiz Khalifa: Man, fuck that shit

Todd: Why?


 * Clip of "Work Hard Play Hard"
 * Wiz: Diamonds all on my ring, nigga

Todd (VO): This, you might recall, is Wiz Khalifa, the scrawny, tattooed rapper from Pittsburgh.

Todd: And yeah, he was a terrible choice.

Todd (VO): I don't like the song mainly because of him. And there are a lot of reasons for that, but here's the main reason, and I realize it's just gonna be conjecture, just a theory, but I think it's a hypothesis that deserves consideration.

Todd: I don't think Wiz Khalifa cared all that much about Paul Walker.

Todd (VO): I mean, prove me wrong. Let me hear it.

Transcript in progress