Amph John Wick: Chapters 1-4, The Continental & Ballerina

john wack

 

It's in the EU: the 6-issue miniseries John Wick: Equestrian Carnage from Dark Horse Comics.

 

People I didn't know are in this and excited to see:

- Mark Dacascos
- Asia Kate Dillon
- Jason Mantzoukas
- Anjelica Houston

Was that a picture of Ruby Rose's character in the picture when Houston's character was talking, or was that John and his wife?

 

Yeah, but also Iron Chef America and Hawaii Five-0.

 

Early reviews in

Apparently it sucks.

Just kidding.

They say it's amazing.

Not kidding.

 

John Wick is that rare organic franchise that isn't based on some existing property or riding the coattails of a hot trend. It started kind of small and has grown into a Summer tentpole movie.

And its heartening to see how Keanu continues to evolve and thrive in his fourth decade in Hollywood even as so many of his contemporaries have fallen by the wayside.

 

I wouldn't call John Wick an evolution. It's more of a restatement/reestablishment. Keanu Redux.

I like that the John Wick movies strive to do one thing well: provide great action choreography housed in an elegant-looking feature-length package. Its ambitions aren't necessarily small, just tightly focused.

 

I'll be watching Parabellum tomorrow. I really didn't have a high anticipation for third installment since the premise of Chapter 2 felt forced, whereby John Wick had a token of debt to repay. Certainly wasn't the same motivation of getting revenge on those that killed his puppy and stole his vintage mustang of the original film. However, the overwhelming positive buzz for Parabellum has increased my level of anticipation for the film.

I wonder if the NRA is having watch parties for this film.

 

Don't you mean Keanu Reloaded ?

 

Never saw the movie Keanu, but the kitty looks like my youngest, Marbles.

 

Me either. I need to rent that and other things including Also Also Wick (John Wick 3).

 

Keanu was fun. I recommend a viewing.

 

Real life mobsters need to watch the John Wick movies to know not to mess with Wick's puppies.

 

It was great. Fun as hell. And best of all:

Spoiler

There will be a 4th

 

I read this translation concerning John Wick's tattoos.

FORTIS FORTUNA ADIUVAT should never be translated as “Fortune Favours the Bold”; nor is this the motto of the US Marine Corps. (who use, ‘fortES fortuna Juvat’); Notably, it is not Christian. In fact, it’s a proverb about a pagan goddess. One must note that revenge itself is thoroughly un-Christian, to say nothing of homicidal killing sprees. (1)

You can skip my notes, straight to my translation, but you shouldn’t.

With this spelling, in particular, the Latin is of the oldest kind. It is much older than the modern Latin the US Marine Corps uses, and older even than medieval or Church Latin. It is a proverb that was considered ancient even in the pre-Christian times of Caesar. (2) I guess 2,500 years old. It is obviously pagan in spirit, as were the people that spoke it in the polytheism of global prehistory. Moreover, it is this very pagan-ness that is critical to understanding the Latin in the context of this Anti-Hero’s scratched out and contradictory tattoos.

fortis = “(The) Strong (ones)”. A plural noun — it refers to a specific class of people, not to an abstract like ‘Strength’, nor the intention or attitude of ‘boldness’ or ‘bravery’ — for which there are robur, audacia or fortitudo respectively.*

Fortuna = is a Roman Goddess, the personification of Luck and/or Fate. A spiritual force that could be just as much bad as good. Note that Her name is placed at the centre of the tattoo and — if you look closely — slightly capitalised in the tattoo’s calligraphy in the same way that we Capitalise proper nouns in English. It is not mere ‘good fortune’, in the sense of good luck, nor of ‘a fortune’ in the sense of money. This is the goddess of fate and luck.

adiuvat = AD ‘to/toward’ + IUVAT ‘help/aid/save’ — particularly of a goddess, ‘comes to save’/’comes to the aid of’ is the best choice here. Not ‘favours’ which takes poetic license to give an F-F alliteration in English.

Knowing these things you can render it into modern English, and English word order, to catch the sentiment better like this:

fortes Fortuna aduivat:
“It is only the strong ones that Fortuna (The Goddess) comes to save.”

N.B. This is the polar opposite of ‘the meek will inherit the earth.’

in re Praying Hands tattoo: Note, that this literally pagan, absolutely unchristian proverb is placed above — i.e. superior (3) — to the praying hands on his back, and written with the particular late-republican latin spelling of precisely those Romans that hung Christ on his cross. How to interpret this contradiction? It is not straightforwardly Christian. One could suggest that the praying hands are supplicating the pagan god of luck.

in re Shoulder Cross tattoo: It is struck through with a scar. A bullet? A knife scar? Self-inflicted? Perhaps done by an old mafia boss so that a previously Catholic or Protestant cross then resembled the Russian Orthodox ones favoured by his last employer. If so, was it a kind of professional badge? Perhaps an accident of fate? (See the image in Nupur Shers’s post below, and make up your own mind.)

Finally, these tattoos appear on the back of John Wick. A really dark character, dressed in black, with a deep gritty voice, in a violent revenge film, and a decidedly unchristian one at that.

It is obvious to me that these tattoos are not about the superiority of US Navy training, nor of a Christianity that is any more than literally superficial. Quite the opposite, these marks are a testament to the superficial, utterly broken, and all but discarded faith of a man who only believes in Luck— and even then, only because of his own strength (and weapons.)

(1) Need we comment on his previous life as a paid assassin for multiple organised crime syndicates. Not the ordinary trajectory for a Christian saint.

(2) It first appears in written history c.160 BCE, in a play by Terence, this recording is noted by Cicero as a vetus prōverbium (Old proverb) C.f. ‘Usage notes’ in fortis Fortuna adiuvat from Wikitionary.
* Interestingly, the Romans these manly virtues had a specific word virtus, which comes from their word for a man vir. We get our word virtue.

(3) In heraldry, placing images above means ‘more important’ or ‘stronger’. Here, we also have the very word for ‘the strong’ placed in this precise position, redoubling this meaning; Note also that the praying hands are beseeching this pagan, unchristian phrase… begging it to change? Or, praying to that pagan god capitalised directly above the hands.

P.S. It is fitting that the final sequence has John choose a Pit Bull for his dog. Not a golden retriever. Not a pug. Not a french poodle. IMHO The only thing that would be more fitting is if he chose a Roman war dog (now extinct) that this Latin proverb has outlived.