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You ready for the John Wick Cinematic Universe?
- Thread starter More_Badass
- Start date
AnotherDayAnotherDollar
Banned
Everything is a fucking cinematic universe nowadays. You know there ARE benefits of standalone films and trilogies, but fuck it let's make everything a cinematic universe. Retcon ET to be in the same Universe as BTTF. Alladin and Lion King in the same universe. Bad Boys, MIB, and Ghostbusters all in the same universe. Avatar, Apes, and Aliens as well. And, just for the hell of it, I want a SSCU (Steven Seagal Cinematic Universe) where all his movies with horrible acting are in the same universe.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
*flipped desk*
dancingphlower
Member
I am down. More John Wick is a good thing.
Fast Forward
Member
Still not sure why some people are against cinematic Universes?
For one, it's not like Marvel created the idea. It was a thing well before the MCU. Two, even in the MCU, most the movies still stand as their own experience, so it's not like the idea of a cinematic Universe kills the standalone movie experience. Three, if you are gonna do cinematic Universe on any piece of media, the Assassin's underworld of John Wick seems like a great place to do it.
For one, it's not like Marvel created the idea. It was a thing well before the MCU. Two, even in the MCU, most the movies still stand as their own experience, so it's not like the idea of a cinematic Universe kills the standalone movie experience. Three, if you are gonna do cinematic Universe on any piece of media, the Assassin's underworld of John Wick seems like a great place to do it.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Would be cool except the stories are like thirty years apart.
Fast Forward
Member
Someone should have told Tony Stark instead of working on Ultron the key to victory is killing John Wick's dog.
Nappuccino
Member
Does anyone really care though? I want to see Charlize fight (with) Keanu.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
But Chapter 2 was better than 1???
I don't mind the cinematic universe in the context of John Wick. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on there to the point where it feels otherworldly.
For myself, I just think it's misguided to prematurely announce an extended universe. MCU worked in part because they started with just making a good movie and built from there. I think the same could work here.
DCEU is a mess because they rushed to make a universe rather than building stories, characters and individual movies. Dark Universe is stalling on the first step. The Xmen stuff is about 50:50, but they were obviously just making it up as they went along, at least for the first few movies.
I think John Wick could work, but had they deliberately planted seeds of a wider universe with the intent of spinning them off into their own thing, it likely would have been detrimental to the original movie.
Angelus Errare
Banned
It was a thing before MCU like touch screen phones were a thing before iPhone.
More_Badass
Member
This is the main reason why I'm cool with this. For one, the world is interesting, and I actually want to see more of it, not because they were planning 17 movies in advance but because the cool lore of the first two movies that made them feel unique. The details felt natural, not stuff placed there to scream "hey, look, remember this. This will be important"
The world is wide enough that diving deeper doesn't feel forced. It's a natural extension compared to Universal announcing their Dark Universe and how The Mummy was designed like a puzzle piece to fit awkwardly into a larger whole
Was it even really a thing?
There was stuff like cross-overs (Universal Monsters, Godzilla & Friends, Alien vs Predator) and spin-offs into TV or other mediums, but I don't think there was anything quite like the MCU before it existed, where it was feature films that share a continuity and chronology, and several individual stories weave together to tell one larger story.
I've not seen most of the Toho movies, so possibly they do all fit together to tell one big story, but I don't think they really do.
Edit: Kevin Smith might be the originator of this actually.
digita1alchemy
Member
Eh, just make the 3rd movie and wrap it up before you ruin a good thing.
Chasm Skulker
Banned
The world building in the John Wick films is interesting because it presents these little intricacies but doesn't explain them, just demands that you accept them at face value. I wouldn't want that to be undermined by latching more films onto the "universe"
Randy Lanzarote
Member
Finally got round to watching JW2 last night.
I'm fine with this.
Can't wait to see British John Wick fucking shit up, but apologising after every kill.
I'm fine with this.
Can't wait to see British John Wick fucking shit up, but apologising after every kill.
wesleyshark
Banned
I'm very into this idea
Markitron
Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
I don't give a shit whether something is part of a larger universe or not as long as it's good. Both JW movies have been very good so I am 100% OK with this.
The pencil Vs the infinity gauntlet.
The pencil Vs the infinity gauntlet.
ryutaro's mama
Member
Gimme a Ruby Rose 'Ares' spinoff, plz.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the world building in the sequel either. The simpler premise in the first film worked so much better for me.
The MCU does what it does well though, and no-one is forcing these creatively impotent dumb studio execs and producers to keep forcing a similar format in where it shouldn't belong.
lightskintwin
Banned
That sounds like the Canadian John Wick.
sixteen-bit
Member
When does this link back to the Matrix?
Veritigo_X
Member
I like the world that the John Wick movies have built and would be down to see more of that, but I'm not a fan of shoehorning random movies into it.
MisterFalcon
Member
Nah, the first one was perfect in giving little hints of the larger world with the coins, the hotel and the police not giving a fuck about 12 dead bodies without going into it. But after part 2 it's already starting to fall apart a bit as things are getting too implausible. Is 5% of the population in WickWorld an assassin ? But who is hiring all these assassins and how is the murder rate not 50,000 per 100,000 people ?
Psychoward
Banned
Nah, would have been better if Mr. Deadwood killed him imo. He had already accepted death and had finished what he started.
yeah, exactly. world building and lore can be strong tools to bolster a film's narrative (and are in part why john wick was so great) but that's because it's there to support it. these things don't need to be explained and doing so kinda stops them from being lore altogether.
it's also why i'm not a fan of them exploring wick's 'impossible task' as not knowing exactly what went down is what makes his presence all the more mysterious and powerful. he's literally a myth.
nah, the studios trying to cash in on the expanded universe trend without thinking it through are the ones 'ruining' cinema, if you truly believe it is being 'ruined'.