John Wick

In general the ultra honourable, respected, powerful "follows the rules but clearly has a fondness for the main character" type never really appeals to me. I won't say it never does because all stories are different, but Winston hasn't stood out to me yet as someone I want to more of.

It's hard to explain because everything that rubs me "eh" about him is precisely what his appeal is, so I can't really articulate my feelings that well.

Yeah, I can't say I follow you. For me you basically listed the reasons I enjoy the character.

To me he also serves a useful world-building purpose of personifying the civilized size of the Assassin world and its rules working as they should. Other characters are rule-reakers (Viggo, Perkins, John himself in Chapter 2), rule-exploiters (Santino), Hanging Judge rule-enforcers (The Adjudicator in Chapter 3), but Winston is just the rules as they should be.

If you're Perkins yes. If you are John then he'll find as much wiggle room in his interpretation of the rules as he can. John should have been killed or at least excommunicated immediately after killing on Continental grounds by the letter of the law.

He does get punished for that bias but he schemed his way back into the High Tables good graces.

I think that's partly it for me, he seems like a pretty flawless character.

Chapter 3 should provide you with some interesting apples to bite (so to speak), then, since it introduces someone directly above Winston (The Adjudicator).

About Winston and John: Thing is, Winston also takes into account context (and thus operates more liberally with the rules rather than just following them to the letter), that's part of "rules working as intended". Perkins went after John out of greed, sadism and pride. John killed Santino after essentially the entire High Table's system looped around him like a snake. While John broke the rules, Winston understands that he was really screwed over by the whole scenario, hence the headstart he gives him (while still more or less enforcing the rules by making him excommunicado).

The rules of this world are better as guidelines rather than scripture, because otherwise you run the risk of being more concerned with the letter of the law than its spirit.

The Adjudicator is what you get when you get someone who is there to enforce the rules, regardless of context. So basically a Hanging Judge Knight Templar.

Just can't wait for the fourth movie. Too bad John isn't gonna get a happy ending, according to Chad Stahelski. Sure he survived the chaos, but where is he gonna go after that?

Same place all of the other unkillable mafia hitmen go.

I hate to be that guy, but I'm really annoyed that Parabellum wasn't the "John Wick vs. The Table" film it was advertised as. That's two movies now where we got cockteased with the endgame but they need to do more setup.

Well, it WAS but didn't reach full mayhem as many expected after Chapter 2. The High Table personally put out the bounty on John, and their harassment of any allies is what drove the major plot twists. True, most of the people he kills are independent assassins looking for a big payout, but once the Adjudicator arrived that became THE story of the movie.

And where's that?

Valhalla.

Good idea. Let's see if the fourth movie brings up Norse mythology.

A tongue-in-cheek idea I had for an ending for John Wick is that the bounty on his head soars to the highest the High Table can afford. However, his reputation as a Memetic Badass has also increased. He's so feared and respected by every other assassin that there literally isn't a single one willing to pursue the contract, allowing him to live his life in peace.

Looper has done a video on "biggest unanswered questions in John Wick 3."

• What happened to Sofia?
• How does the High Table recruit, and why hasn't John become one of them despite arguably being the top hitmen in the world?
• Just how many assassins are there? How does the "assassin economy" function? Are all of these people trading the same pile of money back and forth picking off other assassins?
• Did Winston expect John to live?

The only one here that got me curious though was why John - number 1 superhuman killer - isn't part of the High Table.

Because he wanted to get out of the business entirely. Additionally, none of the other High Table members we've seen have been assassins, or possessed any notable fighting skills to speak of, so it doesn't seem that being an assassin, even a really good one, is the usual route for ascending to the highest ranks.

I'd suggest The Peter Principle (or rather, an aversion to it) as for why. John Wick is so good at his job, sticking him behind a desk would be a waste of his talent. Plus, there's no guarantee he'd be good at...whatever exactly it is The High Table does.

Another thing to keep in mind is that John Wick isn't overly ambitious, what with his primary motivation being to live a normal life. Even when he worked for the High Table, I suspect he was probably pretty humble. Even if John Wick did rule the world, he probably wouldn't really know what to do with it. Probably increase funding for animal shelters, then keep everything else the same.

The High Table is clearly composed of mafia dons, not hitmen. John Wick is a lone wolf (or perhaps a lone bulldog) and has no mafia connections to speak of as a head honcho.

And they couldn't even make him a honorary member or something of the sort because it is explicitly stated The High Table has only 12 seats. No more, no less.

Technically speaking, across all three films, we met only about 3 confirmed members of the High Table (The Director and the Santino Siblings), and two of them were occupying the same seat.

Edited by Gaon on Aug 29th 2019 at 6:43:59 AM

Am I the only one who thought John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum was sort of a step down from the first two? The first and second films had a perfect amount of story, world-building and action sequences to distinguish itself from other typical films. Most importantly, it had a solid character arc: John Wick seeks revenge for his dog, bringing him back to the criminal world and causing him to lose everything he had in his once peaceful solitude.

And while the third one did have some standout small-scale fights (Library, knife and horse fight) and thought-provoking themes (That of consequences), I felt that most of the time, there was too much fighting going on (Casablanca shootout). I mean, I estimate that the third act was 90% fights and 10% dialogue. And for John? He really gained nothing at the end, right? Cut off his finger, couldn't kill Winston to remove his excommunicado and got shot by that man, suffering grievous injuries in the process?

Chapter Three does seem almost entirely planned as a set up for Chapter Four whilst 1&2 told their own stories that lead onto the next in a more natural manner to me. C3 is still fantastic and some of the fights are the best in the series but I agree it's the weakest of the three - though by no means bad at all.

A female-led spin-off of John Wick named "Ballerina" has been greenlit. It's going to be directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld).

A female-spin off of John Wick: great nows.

directed by len wiseman: oh no.

Edited by Gaon on Oct 8th 2019 at 11:01:03 AM

You could convincingly spin Atomic Blonde as a spin-off of John Wick.

I demand a spin-off about Sofia and her dogs, following her attack of Berrada and looking for her daughter.

That's my dream John Wick spinoff