'Matrix' Sequels In Trouble?

jopasm writes "The Matrix sequels may be in trouble. They've had one of the major actors pull out due to scheduling conflicts and Keanu is rumored to have broken his ankle while in training. Scifi.com is carrying the rumour/style. " Yes, Michelle Yeoh ^[?] (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) has pulled out - but the other part to remember is that SAG ^[?] will almost be certainly going on strike, delaying production in any case.

Leave it be..

I won't be too sad if there's no sequel. The matrix is one of the best movies I've ever seen, and the number of movies that hollywood will leave alone to enjoy their limelight are few and far between - look at what happened to Highlander *whince*. I don't believe a sequel was ever made to Bladerunner, either, and it hasn't hurt it's cult following.

Re:The One still fights ?

BTW, if Keanu had become the One in Matrix1, I believe they had to invent something incredible if they still want him to fight in its sequel. Has he or not become a God which could just destroy his opponents in less than 2 seconds ?

He's only "The One" inside the Matrix. He's still very vulnerable in the real world - hence the whole rush at the end of the movie to get him out of the Matrix. Here's what I would do if I were the machine in charge of the Matrix and wanted to elimate Keanu:

• Wait until he enters the Matrix again (or lure him in, maybe by taking the Oracle hostage).
• Pull all of the agents out of the Matrix.
• Switch all of the phone lines within the Matrix to Verizon so that phone service goes down the toilet, thereby blocking all of the exits from the Matrix (they wouldn't be able to use the phone lines to get out at that point).
• Erect an OpenBSD firewall so that hacking another way out of the Matrix will be beyond even Keanu's abilities.
• Now the machines would be free to take their jolly old time hunting down Keanu in the real world. Once they find the ship they simply destroy it and eliminate the threat.

Re:It wasn't a good movie in the first place...

What surprises me is how the geek community has embraced this film, even though most reviewers (as did I) didn't think it was a good film at all. Was it just because of the high-tech content?

I think the essense of it was that it made being a geek doing geek things seem cool. It appealed to the "hack-ethic" of geeks, essentially telling them that Planet Earth is a computer program they can just hack to become superheroes, and they can win against The Man(TM). The fighting and action went towards the excitement too, but I think geeks connect better with Keanu than Bruce Willis or Arnie.

Ghost in the Shell did a better job of selling virtuality over reality, IMHO, but that's another story.

Use CGI

Why not use computers to create actors, George Lucas would?

Have no fear....

in the day and age when first run stories cost upwards of $100mil and the original ranks in at #55 all-time [yahoo.com] with $177mil world wide, have no fear.

they will make this film - without Yeoh, with Keanu, and as quickly as possible (even if SAG strikes.)

what you SHOULD worry about is whether the Wachowski boys were a one hit wonder with the original or will they come through. sequels generally suck....

INHO, of course!

Re:if they can...

why can't they film around one with a broken ankle?

They did; see Jackie Chan in 'Rumble in the Bronx' for a broken ankle, and any of his other movies for various broken bits. Watch the credits; they show him breaking the ankle, getting the cast, putting a thingy over the cast to look like his sock/shoe, and getting on with things.

Re:Leave it be..

Actually, there is a sequel to Bladerunner, but it's an arthouse porn flick directed by a Japanese woman.

I am NOT [uplink.co.jp] making this up. Honest.

Re:Bladerunner sequel - nitpick

Actually, there IS another major motion picture set in the Blade Runner UNIVERSE (though not technically a "sequel"): Soldier , starring Kurt Russel and written by David Webb Peoples, the writer of Blade Runner. See this info at the IMDB (also quoted below): Writer David Peoples has said that Solider is a "side-quel" to Blade Runner (which he also wrote) because it takes place in the same universe and in fact the vehicles used by the Blade Runners, spinners, are also used in Solider. All of this is not, of course, to negate your point, which is that Hollywood has a habit of screwing up perfectly wonderful movies with sequels-that-never-should-have-been.

Are you suggesting that David Peoples wrote Bladerunner? Thats a little strong. He co-wrote the screenplay with Hampton Fancher, which in turn is based on the book 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick.

Similarly, while there are references to Blade Runner in the scenary and the script, there are references to a whole host of other movies as well such as Aliens, Star Trek II and others. I'd hardly class that as a sequel to BladeRunner. I know David Peoples is quoted as calling it a 'side-quel' but I personally find that a bit rich - simply associating your own screenplay with another one you co-wrote based on someone elses novel does not give you automatic kudos.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

Re:It doesn't really matter these days so much.

Because the Matrix isn't about plot or characterisation, its always been about making its audience slack-jawed with amazement at the quality of the effects, and has been very enjoyable for doing so.

I disagree. At the risk of offending assorted slashbots, if you make a film with lots of special effects without worrying about plot or characters, you get rubbish like The Phantom Menace. I went to the Premiere and left feeling I'd just sat through a 2 hours SGI showreel.

The Matrix, OTOH, was an intelligent film (I remember /. posts on how philosophy professors were impressed enough with it to mention it on their courses). It bears repeated watchings, and leaves the audience thinking.

The abscence of the actors is no big deal

Again, I disagree. Keanu isn't a great actor, but he was perfectly suited to the role of Neo. And the film wouldn't have been nearly as good without Morpheus' charisma, etc.

My main problem...

My main problem with the original is the same problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer type clones: why in the world would your brain kill your body if you 'thought' you died in some VR-type world? It makes no sense.

I mean, honestly, think about it. Most of your body which is devoted to survival is autonomic - heart, respiration, all take serious conscious effort to control, and quite a bit of training. It's extremely unlikely that your mind, thinking that you died, would cut off the *autonomic* response of breathing/heartbeat. That's idiotic. How does your brain know that you honestly died? All those bullets could've passed straight through, and not harmed anything.

Consider reality: several people wake up in hospitals thinking that they have died. If your body doesn't die if your brain thinks you died in reality, you wouldn't die from dying in VR!

Of course, the better analogy comes from dreams: if you die in a dream, do you die in reality? No... so why in the world does anyone think VR is any different?

Granted, the Matrix wouldn't exactly have any 'punch' if they didn't really die, but that's another example of Hollywood sacrificing common sense for theatrical effect. It'd be really nice to see someone who's very very smart come up with a good, scientifically sound plot that's still good cinema.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

I went and saw this movie last night and highly recommend it.

The same guy did the fight sequences as in the matrix and i think it would be fair to say the fight sequences in CTHD are way better than the matrix. (and more frequent.)

Its also fun to compare the number of taoist quotes in CTHD to matrix:
"all reality is an illusion" :: "there is no spoon"

So if your salivating over Matrix 2 already, you really MUST go see this film.

so we just have to wait a little longer

Go Go gadget sensationalism! this is why I really hate the media. Everything is blown out of proportion. So what! An actor left before they even started filming. Keanu busted his ankle. Shoot the scenes that Keanu is not in. And if worse comes to worse we just have to wait a bit longer for them to come out. The title should be: Sequels Might be delayed a bit. Not this sensationalism crap that we have to put up with day in and day out. msew