WARNING, JOHN WICK SPOILERS AHEAD.
My crush was talking to me earlier about the "stuffing the girlfriend in the fridge" sensation that's taken the time to sweep the nation once more [stay classy D&D] and I've been watching Everything Great about John Wick Chapters 1 and 2 and I just felt really sick when the dude doing the voice over mentioned that John's dog getting killed was a stroke of genius because the whole "dead wife thing has been done to death". Admittedly John Wick Chapter 1 is one of the few movies that's emotional and believable enough to make me actually take a character I've only just met losing their spouse seriously and with genuine gravity [it's Up there with Up in that regard also see what I did there] and the loss of his dog was legitimately heartbreaking but it's just really gross that the dog's death was considered necessary to make us feel something for John. Because we've seen so many wives die to fuel their brooding antihero husbands that we're almost immune to caring about it. Granted, it is true that people are more likely to have lost or to have a beloved pet than to have lost a spouse to disease, so it does make sense that it'd hit more close to home for more people, but still.
Now that I think about it I would really have liked it if they'd made it so instead of his wife dying, she got kidnapped. John Wick was very unashamed in its references to mythology and legends and one of its biggest questions asked is "Can John find redemption after his life of sin? Is there any hope for him?" so to have the woman who's his hope and redemption taken from him BUT with a chance of getting her BACK would I think be an even more emotional and genuinely moving plot. I mean, his wife was named Helen, fighting to get her back would add a whole new layer of myth references for them to play with [maybe he could save her from a mob hideout in Paris :DD]. They could have even done a thing where you never actually got to see her face, like they originally planned to do with Helen in Troy, as opposed to having her show up for two minutes just to fall over and die. So, like in Troy, we would have been able to imagine "What sort of woman could possibly be worth this much bloodshed?" and you know what? Maybe we would have never seen her and maybe that'd be okay? Cause it's like how John said in the first movie, it wasn't the dog that triggered his rampage, it was what the dog MEANT TO HIM. It's not about what Helen looked like, it's about how much he loves her.
Anyway that's just my take on it. I still love John Wick. It's a great series of movies and actually manages to make you not like the violence, which I think is something we need more of in cinema, or even in most media maybe.
EDIT: Also every actor in these movies does an amazing job with their role. And I mean everyone. I was gonna list my favorites but then I realized they're all my favorites. Charon and the Sommelier deserve their own buddy cop murder buddies movie series though.
