MM1: Why attack the hot rod?

[TheWarriorMax]

Toecutter may well have thought the couple were going off to tell the Bronze what was going on, too

Yeah, reasonable, I never thought of that.

[MWFV8]

Why? I've never understood the dramatic shift from horsing around in the town to going on a violent spree. I realize we need to establish that this gang is a bunch of bloodthirsty thugs, but what flipped the switch here?

It's because the story is contrived to do just that. Show the gang are bloodthirsty thugs who are so borderline feral they have prey drive. Doesn't get much scarier than a gang of people no longer acting like humans.

I've generally believed this also. I really don't think it would take much else to push the gang over the edge and have them chase down the kids. The car was in pretty nice shape and they probably wanted to destroy it just for the sake of doing it. As they said in The Dark Knight...."Some men just want to watch the world burn". They may have even been compelled to destroy it out of fear that the kids would alert the Bronze...Bubba may have hinted at this later at the Halls of Justice when he said the car damage may have been "the result of an anxiety".

Both are great lines. We only have to look to many of the riots in history to see people acting as irrational mobs.

[DetritusMaximus]

I don't think Toecutter initiated the attack because the Lar tagged him, he was already on alert and running to see what the fuss was about. I suspect he intended to redirect their actions to limit damage and avoid a huge fight with the entire town. Gangs tend not to bite off more than they can chew and prefer overwhelming odds.

As for Bubba's comment, I always took that to be a mocking reference to the fairly new theories in psychoanalysis of the motivations for violence, that 'it was a result of anxiety'. The old idea is that some people are just evil or make a sane, rational choice to be violent. The new is that the conditions in which we are raised or the bad things that happen to us get internalized and when we get overwhelmed by them we lash out (soldiers are no the only ones with a form of PTSD). One outlet is vandalism. No point to it except to wreck something. For some people the only way they seem to have an effect on the world is by destroying something because they have no constructive avenues open to them, yet are filled with frustration and anger. These are things that happen in little ways in our everyday lives as well as in riots, no one seems immune.

[aussie muscle]

Why? I've never understood the dramatic shift from horsing around in the town to going on a violent spree. I realize we need to establish that this gang is a bunch of bloodthirsty thugs, but what flipped the switch here??

i'd wondered for some time, but as the Impala is leaving, it nearly runs over Toecutter

[MWFV8]

Bubba's comment is a blatant thematic reference to how society feels under perceived oppression. This is one of the great things about the first movie, it tackles far deeper issues than the action suggests.

[ThobRom]

I'm assuming to be a member of a biker gang is to embrace the wild and irrational and just fun for the fluck of it.
You dont need a reason.