“Gotta have Paul Walker.” Those are words I never thought I’d hear, but sure enough they have been uttered. They come from Vin Diesel, who talked to MTV Movies Blog about the idea of returning to the Fast and the Furious franchise.

We got a hint of Diesel’s return to the world of fast cars and hot women in the final moments of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the first movie in the franchise not to include anyone from Diesel’s original picture. What was originally just a quick cameo appearance turns out to be the reason Diesel is willing to return to the franchise.

”I think doing the cameo in ‘Tokyo Drift’ confirmed a lot of things for me,” Diesel admitted. ”It confirmed that if you create a role that the world kind of identifies with, or the world adopts, sometimes you have that responsibility to revisit that role.”

I don’t know that I’d go as far as to say Diesel has a responsibility to revisit the role, but I will admit that the rumored cameo was a large part of why I wanted to see Tokyo Drift. Just the rumor of the brief appearance sounded cool.

Diesel isn’t the only one returning for the fourth Fast and Furious picture. Diesel’s wingman, played by Paul Walker will also be returning, although technically he’s the veteran of the franchise now. Walker starred in the first sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious, while Diesel went off to start other franchises, like the spy thriller xXX. Still, Diesel seems to think having the original team back together is important. I guess we’ll see when the fourth film in the franchise hits theaters next year, in 2009.