John Wick: Chapter 4 - The Ending Debate

foreign [Music] what's going on everybody so John Wick chapter four has been out for a while now and it's been doing incredible at the box office the reviews are great people love it I've seen it twice I think it's just fantastic I think by now I'm able to kind of tell that it might be better than the first I mean like it is in so many ways technically better it's just really doesn't have the emotional impact that the first film had for me John Wick chapter four is everything I wanted it to be and more and I had no plans on doing a spoiler discussion about this movie because there really is only one aspect of it that I think is worthy of spoiling you probably know that John Wick kills a lot of people in this movie but you may not have known How It Ends and so just in case you don't spoiler warning that's what we're gonna talk about because after I saw the film a second time with my friend a rather interesting discussion emerged after the film ended one that I didn't expect and then I went online and saw that a lot of other people were engaged in a similar discussion and that is is John Wick dead or not the film has a way of leaving it open-ended you see him on those steps he has wounds that aren't exactly in Lethal areas but he also went through quite a bit before that a lot of injuries including three very nasty Falls wanted a nightclub one out of a building and another down a flight of stairs a really long flight of stairs what a stunt by the way oh my God like they really need to have a stunt category at the Oscars because that was mind-blowing he thinks about his wife he says her name he Keels over on the steps and the shot is very wide you don't get a close-up of the light leaving his eyes or his face going still and then we dissolve to a graveyard where Lawrence Fishburn and Ian McShane are looking at John Wick's grave the Bowery King asks the manager where do you think he is Heaven or Hell manager says who knows Bowery King laughs his dog sort of looks over at something the dog looking over at something after those lines is in a wide shot and could mean absolutely nothing this is an animal performance on set and it would be very surprising to me if they had some J.J Abrams Cloverfield level Easter egg where this dog saw John Wick over then the [ __ ] Cemetery I think that's reaching but a lot of people are noticing that and focusing on it and so you have to give that theory some Merit there's also an after credit scene featuring Donnie Yen and the daughter of the man he killed and she's approaching him and she's armed so naturally they're probably going to try to resolve that in some way or maybe they couldn't they could just be saying he might not ever see his daughter again because he's about to be killed and that would fit in with the storyline of our heroes in these John Wick movies so many of them don't find happiness because they aren't really good people they're kind of all murderers and so they get some sense of Freedom or a semblance of Peace but they're not necessarily always going to get exactly what they want so folks who believe that John Wick is alive point out all those things I mentioned the non-lethal wounds the fact that we don't get a close-up of him dying the strange dialogue at the graveyard and the dog looking off somewhere also John Wick chapter 5 has been just gust as a possibility people at Lionsgate obviously would love it to happen because John Wick 4 was very successful so this type of ending does leave the door open for them to say Well when John Wick looked at the manager and said will you please take me home he wasn't asking him to take his dead body home he was just asking if he could get a car ride home after he falls asleep on the steps down there that line of dialogue to me is the most important evidence to suggest that John Wick is dead he's essentially asking the manager to take his body home when he dies because he knows he's about to die otherwise that feels very cheesy also if you have not seen the anime Cowboy Bebop I'm going to spoil the ending of it best anime ever please do watch it but the ending of John Wick chapter 4 was reminiscent of the ending of Cowboy Bebop our hero dying on the steps and it's in a wide shot and there's been debate for years about whether or not spike is dead people have talked about the shooting star at the end of those credits being Spike here's how I feel about this matter as a story I would prefer John Wick to absolutely be dead not only did he find his freedom but he beat the high table at their own game he used their rules against them as Ian McShane said earlier in the movie if you kill one of these guys they'll just replace him you have to kill them but do it right meaning that there is no way he'd ever go up against the high table and kill all of them because they'd all just keep getting replaced but there's a line in the film from Clancy Brown's character Harbinger where he's speaking to Bill Skarsgard and says that if you don't kill this guy he'll become a saint it wasn't just about Jon getting his freedom it was about flipping that high table over as well as giving the manager back his hotel in New York he said everything right and he did it in his own way the only way he could have I think this is a phenomenally satisfying ending for the character in really the only way to end this character's journey I don't want see him right off into the sunset I I really like the idea that he is dead I think that works very very well for me it's probably my least favorite part of John Wick 3 because I kind of went into John Wick 3 thinking okay end of a trilogy something's going to happen the idea that they waited to maybe kill him at the end of the fourth film is a very unique story structure I don't know if I've ever seen a franchise where the hero dies the fourth film it's almost always a Trilogy Capper kind of situation but I'm also not going to sit here and doubt that John Wick 5 will never happen and doubt that they won't bring Keanu back because I know how this works and that's my next point we are trained to not believe that any of our heroes are dead in franchises that make a lot of money because they come back all the time so it's not just the story that makes us want to think he might be alive it's not just the shots it's not just the dialogue it's the fact that we are so used to these people coming back to life over and over and over again in movies but the biggest thing I have to say about all this is that when it comes to whether or not John Wick is really dead or not I can tell you that the only reason this conversation is even happening is because the movie was so phenomenally well received and successful it made so much money and is Contin continuing to make buckets of it it got great reviews and everyone loves the [ __ ] movie because of that Lionsgate is like yeah John Wick could definitely be alive and we really need to make more please because this is like our thing if this movie wasn't good if this movie got bad reviews if it made no money if it opened and was a bomb John Wick would definitely be dead there'd be no debate he'd be dead but that didn't happen so here we are is he alive now all of a sudden we're talking about this and lionsgate's probably really happy that we are that's the way the industry works though I mean every time there's a horror film franchise where the villain is finally killed whether it's Jason or Freddie or Michael you know that guy's probably going to come back at some point and if they end a storyline with characters that are Legacy and that's the end of it like Halloween ends who knows what they're gonna do in 20 or 30 or even less years when it comes to reboots of those things these people keep coming back because we keep paying to see them come back if we stopped paying to see them come back they'd just stay dead so that's how I feel about the ending of John Wick 4. I love it I think it's fantastic but I do strongly prefer the idea that he is dead I think all evidence supports that notion but yes you know there are potentials for for things to be left open if you want to believe that when it comes to the evidence that's presented I don't find any of it compelling I think that it's so vague and the movie literally shows our character standing in front of a grave people have talked about how there's not fresh dirt by the grave but a we don't know how long that Grave's been there and B that could just be a [ __ ] mistake people make mistakes in movies you know and they could still make a fifth film and say that John never died and explain it and then you might come back to this video and say see he really was alive I'm not saying you're wrong if you believe that John Wick is alive I'm saying I prefer the character to have died in this movie and I certainly know that if they really wanted to they've left the door open in a way where they could explain it away but I think that that would tarnish this movie especially the line where he looks at the manager and says will you please take me home I think that is such a beautiful moment him requesting his gravestone marker all of that stuff is so great and if they ruin that I I just feel like that's going to tarnish the whole thing anyway guys I am very curious to know what you think of the ending of John Wick 4. thank you so much for watching look forward to more videos very soon and if you like this you can click right here and get stuckmanized [Music] all right [Music]

Channel: Chris Stuckmann

Views: 358,027

Keywords: John Wick: Chapter 4, Movie Review, Chris Stuckmann, Reviews, Film, Scene, Clip, Trailer, Teaser, Action, Osaka, Paris, France, Club, Stairs, Fall, Overhead, Shot, Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Ian McShane, Chad Stahelski, Ending, Spoilers, Spoiler Review

Id: YbuHTtC53S8

Length: 10min 17sec (617 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 10 2023