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The Matrix Media Movies

Philosophy, Reality and The Matrix 696

Posted by CmdrTaco from the everybody-likes-trinity dept.
securitas writes "The NYT discusses The Matrix as a reflection of American society, the 'war on terror', political allegory and the impact of The Matrix on contemporary philosophy. NPR provides streaming audio conversations with Matrix thinkers, including Jake Horsley, author of 'Matrix Warrior: Being the One'; Prof. Frances Flannery Dailey on violence in the Matrix; and Prof. Greg Garrett, co-author of 'The Gospels Reloaded' and why he doesn't like the kind of hero that Neo has become. Finally, the CSM follows up its The Gospel According to Neo with an online chat transcript with Josh Burek, the author of the essay." As if that's not enough Matrix Philosophy, Here's more and Still more. And just a warning, clicking on any of those links might spoil the movie for you.
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Philosophy, Reality and The Matrix More

Philosophy, Reality and The Matrix

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  • Ghore = Google Whore (Score:4, Informative)

    by ramzak2k ( 596734 ) * on Sunday May 25, 2003 @12:47PM (#6035412)
    Here is the link :) [nytimes.com]

    I am a mini oracle & here is my prediction for the future: At some point I bet NYtimes will start testing the referrer and block sites other than google. Then we will counter by copy pasting the link.

  • Is Matrix replacing Star Wars? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheGrayArea ( 632781 ) <graymc&cox,net> on Sunday May 25, 2003 @12:49PM (#6035425) Homepage
    I wonder, is the Matrix replacing Star Wars as our great "moderm" myth? There were many of the same religiously themed comparisons of the Star Wars saga during it's heyday, and we appear to be seeing much more with the Matrix. Could it be that the Matrix taps into the current generations sense of "myth" better than Star Wars did for my generation?
    • No, it's a sign of a much better economy than what it used to be in the past. No matter what side you take on politics, you can't argue that right now we are so much better economically overall than in the late 70's/early 80's.

    • Not Surprising Though... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EXTomar ( 78739 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:07PM (#6035546)
      Lucas is actively rejecting the mystical nature of the original Star Wars. The last two movies barely talk about the theology and the philosophy of The Force. Why is the light side of the force better than the dark side? Why are anything the people in the story doing right or wrong? Instead he concentrated on wall to wall action.

      Instead The Matrix appears to actively looks at issues and still includes a lot of action. What is wrong with having humans in the Matrix? Why is having a false reality presented bad no matter how comfortable it is?

      At this point I'll watch and think about The Matrix movies far more than Star Wars.

      • Re:Not Surprising Though... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by letxa2000 ( 215841 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:18PM (#6035919)
        At this point I'll watch and think about The Matrix movies far more than Star Wars.

        At this point the only thing I'll think about the Matrix is: "Why did I spend 30 dollars on tickets and snacks to watch it?"

        [Very minor spoilers below]...

        I know The Matrix has a cult following so I'll probably be modded down, but... I couldn't even remember the first Matrix when we went to see Reloaded last night. After about 20 minutes I more or less remembered the whole setting, etc. First hour or so was pretty boring... seemed like a mix of Planet of the Apes crossed with some drugged out rave (yes, we are free humans and immediately become some degenerate mob dancing like apes underground), Star Wars ("It is our destiny" seemed just ripped out of Return of the Jedi, even the way it was spoken), mixed with Terminator 2 (exploding building that contains important stuff), and some kind of mystical Harry Potter fantasy type of thing (where a character asks a simple question and the other character avoids answering it in a direct fashion but just answers in some psuedo-esoteric, mystical way).

        The action in the last half was kind of cool, but no more so than any other action movie. The plot was almost non-existant and I didn't really leave the movie knowing anything particularly new about the "Matrix" and the position of the human race was not particularly different at the end than the beginning... seemed like a useless Harry Potter movie to me... where you just spend a couple hours watching silly mini-stories of 5 to 10 minutes one after another that don't really have anything to do with the real plot of the story.

        Oh well... there was nothing else to see at the movies so that's what we saw. The hot dog bun was even a little dry. :)

        • Re:Not Surprising Though... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @07:20PM (#6037328) Journal
          On the other hand, the part where The Architect was talking about all of the evil of humanity and the screens behind him kept flashing up pictures of Dubya were kind of cool.

          I'm just waiting to the entire film crew to be charged under the Patriot act...

        • I didn't really leave the movie knowing anything particularly new about the "Matrix" and the position of the human race was not particularly different at the end than the beginning.

          Give me a break. The ending completely threw out the assumptions of the first movie. The One and the Prophecy were simply a means of control, to reload the Matrix and rebuild Zion for another cycle. Everything is suddenly thrown into question, including the motives of the Oracle.

          Now there are only 24 hours left until Zion i

      • Re:Not Surprising Though... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday May 25, 2003 @05:29PM (#6036797) Homepage
        What is wrong with having humans in the Matrix?

        Nothing, depending on how the matrix is implemented. In the movie, the Matrix simulation is supposed to be a prison with body/minds physically chained to it, and so it's obviously "wrong", but it doesn't have to be.

        Why is having a false reality presented bad no matter how comfortable it is?

        A false reality isn't automatically bad, especially because nobody can know if the reality they're currently living is also false or not. I would CHOOSE to live virtually in another, better, "false" reality, as long as I had at least as much control over my life as I do now (which isn't much).

        I don't know how Matrix Revolutions is supposed to end, but I hope it's not a damn luddite ending where the Matrix is shutdown after the people inside are forced to take the blue pill and wake up to a more "real" reality, where most learn that truth is shit, and ignorance is bliss. A better ending would simply be freeing the Matrix from machine control so people can make the choice of what plane they want to live on. And hell, if the freed 20th-century Matrix isn't good enough, just create a few more parallel simulations you can "slide" to so there's a universe for every mind, and/or recurse a few more levels.

        --

    • Re:Is Matrix replacing Star Wars? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ayf6 ( 112477 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:07PM (#6035548) Homepage
      It can be a great modern myth however after you study a bit of philosophy in the area of knowledge and skeptisism, you will find that on the surface the matrix looks good but there are some very compelling arguements against it. Thus reducing the entire film to nonsense. My only wish is that The Matrix (and its sequals) will get people more interested in Philosophy - on a real level, not just the "ohhh are we really dreaming....!" level. For more look to Nozick's theory of knowledge, G.E. Moore, Contextualist theory, closure principle, and arguements for and against the closure principle.

      The bodiless brain in the vat argument has been around WAY longer then The Matrix... So in that sense The Matrix is just rehashing (though you do seem to have a body in the matrix...) These are just some ramblings of CS major with a double in philosophy... So take with a grain of salt. Thanks

    • Re:Is Matrix replacing Star Wars? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lord Sauron ( 551055 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:41PM (#6035729)
      Actually I came to a conclusion:

      Neo is Trinity's twin brother and their dad is Agent Smith.
  • Give us 10 bux and we'll bore you with a half hour car chase.
    • I don't know if you noticed, but that carchase involved 99.5% GM vehicles, mostly Intrigues, Regals, Suburbans, Montanas and obviously the CTS and Escalade ESV. I can't recall any overseas GM brands though. I only noticed one Taurus and one Civic in the whole thing. It's obvious product placement by GM, and an answer to young kids who go gaga over imports a la Fast and the Furious...although I don't blame GM. North American brands are not seen as cool anymore, let's hope things like this work for them.
    • And one must ask, if the human body produces 12000 BTU's per day (from the Powerade Ad before the movie - I did no other fact checking), is it more or less efficient to feed the human a sack of potatoes, have the energy burned chemically, and retrieve that through body heat, OR, would it be more efficient to just burn the potatoes (once dried) in a steam generating plant?

      I did like the movie, but it is not going to make my alltime great list. As you point out, too much "car chase" crap. If I want that, I

  • Matrix as philosophy? Gimme a break! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ites ( 600337 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:00PM (#6035502) Journal
    This says a lot about our modern society. The original Matrix was a very good movie that played the "things are not what they seem" angle beautifully. The second Matrix film was a series of plastic action sequences designed for or taken from the video game, linked by a bizarre and fragmented plot, and populated with characters who acted like cardboard and sounded like cliches of themselves.

    How either of these two films can become the basis for a pseudo-religious metaphor is beyond me. Surely there is more substance in movies like "28 Days Later", or even "City of God". (Like: life sucks, get used to it.)

    • For anyone doubting the deeper meaning of the film (Score:5, Informative)

      by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:56PM (#6035797)
      Read Corporate Mofo's take [corporatemofo.com] and be corrected.

      Next.

  • Junk Food for the Mind (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stalyn ( 662 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:05PM (#6035531) Homepage Journal
    The Matrix and its philosophical connotations I like to compare to candy or junk food. It tastes good and its fun to eat but its not really filling and too much of it makes you sick.

    Real philosophy is boring, arduous, difficult to read and difficult to understand. The Matrix cuts down philosophy in small tasty bites easy to digest and easy to understand. Yet you shouldn't take the Matrix seriously. You have to understand its just a movie and really its there to entertain you. Its not there to show you that reality is an illusion therefore you should quit your job and try to jump off buildings.

    There is nothing wrong with suspending yourself from reality and enjoying some good tasty philosophical junk food. But it's dangerous to never come back from that suspension.

    • Re:Junk Food for the Mind (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hobbesmaster ( 592205 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:17PM (#6035602)
      Shakespeare wrote to entertain his audiences. The famous greek philosophers and playwrights wrote to entertain their audiences. Beethoven, JS Bach, Mozart, etc wrote their music to entertain his audience.

      Why can't a modern movie designed to entertain this modern audience not be at the same level? Will secondary school English classes 200 years from now be analyzing 'The Matrix' as current students analyze 'Romeo and Juliet'? Its something to think about...
      • There is a current thread of anti-intellectualism these days that has caused many people to reject anything meaningful. "It's just a movie, repeat after me!"

        There is also the problem of trendy counterculturalism, and a lot of people just refuse to like any of the Matrix movies because of how popular they are among geeks AND non-geeks alike--yet they'll freely latch onto Star Wars, almost strictly geek territory these days.

      • Re:Junk Food for the Mind (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @03:46PM (#6036316) Homepage Journal
        I'm in the unusual position of being both a hacker and a Shakesperean actor. So I'm going to indulge myself on the subject of Shakespeare for a moment.

        Shakespeare was clearly popular entertainment of the day, and not everything that dropped from his pen was Great Art. I don't mean the low, ribald comedies; I mean Pericles and Cymbeline and others.

        Even his greatest works usually need to be trimmed of some fat. Shakespeare's audience understood the language natively, so his actors could speak faster than I should. His Romeo and Juliet fit into two hours; it takes me longer than that to perform a cut-down version.

        And yet, I think you really need to perform Shakespeare to see why people think he's so great. It's difficult to describe, but the words just feel good on your tongue. You'd think it would be hard to memorize an hour's worth of text in a slightly foreign, sometimes over-florid language. But it usually isn't. It sticks in your mind like a good Monty Python line. You just can't get it out of your head.

        I grew up despising Shakespeare because all I'd done was read it, under duress. That's the worst possible way to deal with it. It's meant to be performed. You should see it performed, not by Olivier or somebody else performing for your parents or grandparents.

        And not by your high school, either, since the student plays are rarely educated enough to mean more than reading it. You need to find experts who love the plays and who will show you why they love them so much. The right community theater, or the right professional troupe, who really understands why these plays are good and aren't just repeating conventional wisdom ("Hamlet's a great play and you're going to sit down and watch me do it, dammit.")

        Even better, go out and perform them yourself. It's easier than you think.

        Thank you for your time if you've bothered reading this, and not modding me too far down if you don't care.

    • Re:Junk Food for the Mind (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:00PM (#6035825)
      "Real philosophy is boring, arduous, difficult to read and difficult to understand"

      I really get angry when I hear things like this. People that seem to think for philsophy to be "real" it has to be impossable to read. No it doesn't. The reason so much philsophy is so dense is two fold:

      1) You get a lot of philsophers that are, to put it plainly, pompus and think a dificult writing style makes them look more intelligent.

      2) However more importantly is that most of the philsophy you get in intro courses is really, really old. People just used to speak and write differently than they do now. Like Locke, for example, isn't all that hard to read once you can program your mind to accept his style of writing. It is just real different from what you are used to.

      Now that doesn't mean that all philsophy has to be or is that way. Read some good, modren philsophy. My favourite example is John Searle. Even though I disagree with most of what the man writes, he is very famous and very, veyr clear spoken. His arguments are easy to grasp and what he says is important. His Chnese room argument I think is idiotic BUT it has been a very important counter argument to strong AI and sparked a whole lot fo talk.

      Also, just because something isn't a straight out philsophical paper, doesn't mean that it isn't valid for provoking thought and raising idealogical questions. Just don't let yourself get trapped into thinking that soething has to be difficult to be good philsophy.

  • a quote from the chat (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:05PM (#6035534)
    Josh Burek: There's no question that comparing Neo to Christ is, at a minimum, a stretch. Which is precisely why the perception that the two are somehow equivalent is so fascinating. Christians who've seen the film seem to have very mixed feelings about the movie's message. There's a lot of allusions to "truth," but very little emphasis on morals and ethics. One film expert I talked to suggested that the very fact that Christians are so eagerly embracing "The Matrix" as a modern parable of Christ's story suggests deep insecurity.

    Coming from someone (Josh Burek) who has serious theological training and years of analysis of christian theology, it is far more accurate than most of the articles, interviews, books and posts about the movies. Unlike christianity, eastern religions believe in cycles and doesn't take a bipolar perspective. christian religions believe the world and life is linear, which leads to the idea that things are either good or bad, right or wrong. Eastern religions take the perspective the line between everything is slippery. Opposing forces are always pushing back and forth to maintain a balance. Violence is a necessary part of the cycle; therefore there's no problem that Neo loves to fight and shoot guns. In bhuddism, truth is not a constant state, like heaven. Truth or enlightenment is seeing the greater picture. The greater picture doesn't necessarily mean not fighting.

  • ...one who enjoyed the first matrix...I HAVE to say that Matrix Reloaded spoiled itself. There is about 25 minutes of good footage in the movie. Half the dialouges should have been cut, another quarter should have been shortened. The town hall "orgy" session yeally didn't fit AT ALL. Yes, the party at the end, should have been in Zion, but there is still a lot left to do.
    They broke the rule, as a friend put it, of accomplishing something in the middle movie of a series. They didn't get anywhere at all until
  • Ugh. Can't people just admit they like it because it has lots of guns, and people in skin-tight leather? They're making it out like the DVD is popular for purposes of meditation.

    Jean Baudrillard, interviewed (some time ago) by the NY Times. He claimed any relation to "Simulacra and Simulation" and "The Matrix" was "born mostly of misunderstanding." Similarly, Matrix 2 is about as dumbed down an argument on free-will as you'll get...

    If you want an intelligent discussion of philosophy, read a book you l
    • If you want an intelligent discussion of philosophy, read a book you lazy fucks.

      That statement at the end proved to me that you are simply a trendy counterculturalist who can't stand the fact that some action movies may also have some meaningful references behind them that people enjoy. Because they're popular in our culture, you can't let yourself into these films because you'd feel like a vulnerable conformist, so you must play the part of the snobby philosophist who feels threatened that people are ta
      • A number of people I know can't believe that I can love Motzart, have enough musical traning to analize it, and yet still love things like Marylin Manson.

        Some people just can't accept that anything popular is any good. Sometimes it goes even further and they can't accept that anything new is any good. I've heard peopel claim that no good or significant music has been made since the 1800s.

        There has just been a huge amount of whining from these kind of people with the release of the new Matrix because it is

  • Hidden Message? (Score:3, Funny)

    by DaneelGiskard ( 222145 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:14PM (#6035591) Homepage
    Mussolini, Hitler and ..... Bush?

    Click here [freerepublic.com], to know what I'm talking about.

    It's kinda interesting to think about this, coincidence? Most probably. Or not?

  • You may also be interested in Roger Ebert review of Matrix Reloaded [suntimes.com] where he mentions, in his words, "pseudo-philosophy".

  • Matrix (Score:2, Insightful)

    by simgod ( 563459 )
    They make you think you live in a virtual system to divert you from real-world slavery and exploitation, caused not by machines, but by your not-elected government. But The Matrix exists. It exits in the minds of people who do not accept the market-driven "who cares about ethics, peoples rights and international law" war-driven philosophy, supporting modern enslavement of milions in third world countries. And you wonder why those Arabs are so angry. Well, they just aren't taking the blue pill in contrast o

    • Re:Matrix (Score:2, Insightful)

      by east coast ( 590680 )
      "And you wonder why those Arabs are so angry."

      Obviously you know little of what's going on with "those Arabs" to think that they're upset because the western world is built on a pursuit for power and cash... They're upset because they fear any non-Muslim influence in their society. To be caught with any religious materials outside of the works of Mohammad in these totalitarian states is a serious offense, some even resulting in death. Learn a bit about Muslim states before you go making sweeping remarks ab

      • Re:Matrix (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alext ( 29323 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:52PM (#6036070)
        Thank you for this important contribution. Many of us would have previously been unaware that all Arab states were totalitarian, or indeed that Arab states and Muslim states were synonymous. And regarding the universal intolerance of other religions, one dreads to think what might have happened if it had become known that Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister was actually a Christian!

        Heaven forbid that we should descend to the level of making sweeping remarks about cultures we know little about! And is it too much to ask that Slashdot not limit the plaudits we can confer on such incisive comments to merely 'insightful'? Surely a new category of 'revelatory' is justified, nay, demanded, for postings such as these?
  • At the risk of posting yet another redundant post about this - I would like to say that it makes my stomach turn loops that there are people getting paid to write useless religious/metaphysical analysis of movies like the Matrix. Give me a break, its just a movie. And how does this rate as "stuff that matters" ? I guess I should just logoff Slashdot and go do something constructive instead of getting upset about it - sorry for the rant and waste of bandwidth....
    .
  • i think its odd that with all of the religious tie ins, and the animatrix, that people don't compare the matrix more to japanese animation with live actors. think about ghost in a shell, where does the machine stop and the spirit begin?

  • Artificial Intelligence, Husserl and other writing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HardcoreGamer ( 672845 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:29PM (#6035666)

    The Matrix Web site has a number of papers written by philosophers, theologians, scientists and others. Of those I've read so far, the one I find most interesting is The Brave New World of the Matrix [warnerbros.com] which draws upon Husserlian phenomenology to discuss the philopsophy of AI. It sounds boring but it's not. If you like that you might want to go on to read some Martin Heidegger.

    Unbelieveable to me is that a commercial enterprise (Warner Brothers) is making thinking and philosophy cool again through one of its franchises. I never thought I'd hear about Husserl and Heidegger after I graduated, least of all on a Hollywood-produced movie by the likes of Joel Silver.

  • philosophy my foot! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Temsi ( 452609 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:33PM (#6035682) Journal
    Folks, this isn't about philosophy, it's about cashing in on the popularity of The Matrix.

    The headline could just as well have been:

    "Cashing in on The Matrix: How to sell your irrelevant book to an otherwise uninterested public."

  • One thing that is interesting about the matrix... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Peterus7 ( 607982 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:38PM (#6035712) Homepage Journal
    *spoiler alert*

    All the people who were born in zion do not adhere to any type of steriotype at all. The programs, both exile and proper, are perfect steriotypes (Little asian man, Kung fu master, coarse old black lady, pompous rich white man, etc.)

    Just an interesting point on how much imagination the machines have.

    • All the people who were born in zion do not adhere to any type of steriotype at all. The programs, both exile and proper, are perfect steriotypes (Little asian man, Kung fu master, coarse old black lady, pompous rich white man, etc.)

      Oh come on now... The Oracle didn't have to sacrifice a chicken or wave a voodoo doll covered in goat blood in the air to predict the future. The Twins didn't constantly yell "BOO!" at people. And the Keymaker... that should have looked like that pimply-faced, red-headed teenage

  • When a bit of story telling gets popular, marginally interesting people tend to glom onto it in an effort to promote their own thoughts using the story as a vessel.

    Can we just assume for a minute that George Lucas is correct about the power of myth? There are really a finite number of themes and stories to be told, because really as humans we don't have much beyond the small cache of stories we find compelling to see in a movie theater, and the cache of movies that hollywood churns out is even a smaller su

  • Lotsa Kungfu + Robots + Keanu Reeves + Innovative Camera Work = Deep philosophical treatise on the the nature of reality. Riiight. What's next, singularities in the space-time continuum as elucidated in James Cameron's iconoclast monograph, Terminator 2: Judgement Day?
  • [ntu.ac.uk]
    150 year old and probably older observation being rehashed again as brand spanking new cutting edge insight. The concept of a "false consciousness" has been a mainstay of marxist thought since it's inception and seems to be rehashed frequently as some sort of new discovery.

    The argument is made that capitalist ideology establishes itself as false conciousness over the working class; purporting to be the natural order of things in order to justify the relationship between classes. So ideology dominates a

  • The fact that The One comes from the machine world is a brilliant way to write around the fact that Keanu Reeves can't act.

    Can't Keanu be more credible showing that Neo loves Trinity? or its just that he must show that is mostly a machine by now?

    Also could be a good climax for the end of the movie: at the end of the first Neo showed it can control the Matrix, at the second, he can control even the real world, but the last one, oh, would be great if Keanu finally shows that he can act.

    • Hold on here! Remember Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? KR was absolutely excellent in that flick. He just should have stuck with the spaced out surfer dude scripts - he's great at those!

  • What? (Score:2)

    by cjpez ( 148000 )
    "...the impact of The Matrix on contemporary philosophy?"

    Okay, yeah, so the philosophical stuff that goes on in the Matrix is fun and all, but what's in there that isn't a retread of Christianity, Buddhism, and solipsism? This isn't new stuff. If it's your first exposure to some of it, it could be interesting, but impacting comtemporary philosophy? Please.

  • Worthy of discussion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cmason32 ( 636063 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @01:49PM (#6035764)
    It's interesting to me that people hold the Matrix up to such high standards. Regardless of whether you find the philosophy within the Matrix intriguing or dull, one has to recognize that it has indeed caused a lot of discussion - something very few action movies can do.

    There is no doubt that the movie was influenced heavily by religious and philosohpical ideologies. And whether offerred as merely a plot device or something more, it has led to numerous papers, forum discussions, and newspaper articles - all free advertising for the movie.

    So it's either the brilliant mix of theology and philosophy into a cutting-edge action movie or a great marketing ploy.

    Or both.
  • I know several of the philosophers who contributed papers to this site [warnerbros.com].

    One thing worth mentioning is that they were paid. Professional philosophers, many with excellent reputations, have been hired to be a part of the PR aparatus of the movie industry. That's not to say that what they wrote was stupid (and if you read the papers, most mention--delicately--that the movie had some serious coherency problems). But their work is supposed to be the seed of a certain new source of buzz behind the movie.

    The i

  • Did any of you read the NYT article? (Score:4, Informative)

    by John3 ( 85454 ) <john3NO@SPAMcornells.com> on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:08PM (#6035867) Homepage Journal
    Tha article is marginally about Matrix Reloaded. Frank Rich's main focus is on media control of American culture and information. He compares the hype of the film to the media coverage of the war. The consolidation of control of our information sources, and the lack of competition between media moguls is his primary concern. The current situation is bad enough, but in a few weeks the FCC will probably remove even more restrictions allowing even greater consolidation.

    The most interesting thing about the article (IMHO) was Barry Diller's comment that most execs don't care about the films their studios make. They are distanced from the creative side of the film and only care about the profits and marketing possibilities. I hadn't considered that much, but it's interesting to note how far we've come from the days when David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock battled daily over "Rebecca".

    The Matrix Reloaded took in $135 million in four days, and 230 million people voted for the finals of American Idol. That is the state of American culture today....draw your own conclusions.
  • Am I the only one who though Matrix Reloaded was long on car chases and short on story? Don't get me wrong, it blows the doors off junk like Steel Magnolias or such crap - but I would have preferred to see less action (not none, just not 60 mins worth) and more exploration.

  • Neo as UBL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:15PM (#6035907) Homepage Journal
    Of course you can take the world in The Matrix and apply it to the real world. Of course it would then be that the heroes (Neo et al) are more akin to Al-Qaeda than anything else. A quick synopsis:

    A group find that the world is under repression from a foreign/alien force that has 99% of the world under its sway. Taking religious prophecy as mandate they stage a guerilla war against the agents of oppression. They also specifically state that although they are fighting for all of humanity, killing civilians is perfectly acceptable in the name of their goal (as agents can take them over, so better to kill them all anyway). Oh and the rebels have almost no plan for what would happen if they won (and the 9 billion batteries are freed).

    I guess I spoke to quickly. I think Morpheus is more of an archtype for Osama Bin Laden: the hands-off spiritual center of the organization. I guess Neo would then be more like Mohammad Atta or Amyan Al-Zawahiri (who's the CEO of the Al-Qaeda org). Then you can finish it off with Trinity as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed... Cypher as Jose Padilla... Agent Smith as Dick Cheney... fun for all!
  • If kung fu, blank acting and lame sex constitute a religious leader, then lets have...

    The Gospel According to Shinji [toastyfrog.com]
    The Gospel According to Solid Snake [toastyfrog.com]
    The Gospel According to Makoto Kusanagi [toastyfrog.com]
    The Gospel According to Tetsuo [toastyfrog.com]
    The Gospel According to Fei Fong Wong [toastyfrog.com]
  • Its funny, with all the discussion of religion/etc surrounding the matrix, I've been realizing I'm sort of a "neo-Gnostic" ... I've felt this way all along, and although many of the gnostic "tenets" aren't in line with what I feel to be true, its the closest approximation of my internal ideas.

  • Those who think Matrix is totally deep... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danielrm26 ( 567852 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @02:38PM (#6036019) Homepage
    ...will be disappointed.

    Rather than a high-level and deep Science Fiction story, this series is going to be proven in the end to be a collection of cool concepts all rolled into a great package. That should *not*, however, be confused with deep Science Fiction.

    Let me tell you what would be cool. We find out at the end that the entire movie was nothing but a simulation run by humans (or computers perhaps) designed to find/create/improve AI. That would be cool. But what this ending would do is alienate the large majority of viewers, and frankly, I think it's too high-level for the brothers to do. It would fill all the holes and make it rock (to me and other geeks), but it would make the whole thing suck for those who aren't into Sci-Fi heavily.

    What they *are* going to do is go along the line of Smith being the Devil (makes a choice, falls from above, tries to take over), and Neo being the Christ and God figures to varying degrees, and they will battle it out. They are *not* in a second Matrix. Neo stopped the sentinels because he is part machine now - he simply gave them commands somehow. He is going to become one with the machine I think, and he is going to be working to unite man and machine again, while Smith tries to tear it all down.

    So, what we are left with (if it goes the way I have described) is a series of major plot holes - problems that serious Science Fiction people cannot ignore:

    -The human/battery/enerty thing (humans can live for years with a mostly dead brain in real life and support a body just fine - why the elaborate Matrix just to keep the mind going when it is unecessary?) Answer: You can't have the movie otherwise.

    -Their take on future prediction (what are they asking us to believe - that there are supernatural powers as well? Is this Fantasy or Sci-Fi?)

    -Notice that only the proper amount of force is ever applied in a situation. In the freeway scene, were they trying to kill anyone? How can an agent be stationary relative to Trinity and empty a clip and not hit her once? Why not make everyone in the vicinity into agents and ram the shit out of them? Why not take over an F-14 and rock them with some Hellfire missiles? Answer: Either the whole conflict was fake on purpose, or the whole thing was fake on accident. Either way though, there wasn't really any effort to kill anyone on the freeway otherwise they would have been dead. So the question is just whether that is a planned part of the movie or a stellar fuckup. I think b. You can't generally have good action without these perfect balances of good-guys vs. bad-guys, but in Science Fiction, *SCIENCE* should dictate some things. If a computer was trying to kill them folks on the freeway, and they had the resources that they have demonstrated all through the first and second movies (or *should* have given the situation), they would dead mofos. There wouldn't be these little applications of force here and there when it is convenient - it would be an overwhelming and deadly ammount of "fuck you up" applied with extreme predjudice. That is what a comptuer would do. (ever played SC on the high level AI? Computers know how to add and combine force to kill stuff - the fact that they don't do so in the Matrix requires some explanation)

    -Another thing, the speech by the Architech - they have GOT to be kidding. The entire conversation could have taken place in around a fourth of the time. Why use all the big words and draw it out? Answer: To make it seem very deep - hiding from the average viewer the fact that the whole story is full of contradictions. The duped walk away saying, "That was deep." The geeks walk away saying, "What a load of shit."

    So, all that being said, the Matrix is still awesome no matter how it turns out. Ideally I'd be completely wrong and the brothers would suprise me and bust out with something totally cool that makes sense. Unfortunately, that isn't likely, but either way, I'll be in Atlanta at an IMAX theater at the first showing.

    In short, make no mistake, the Matrix is an AWESOME movie series - just don't make it into something it isn't.

    • Future prediction (Score:3, Informative)

      by roystgnr ( 4015 )
      The multitude of screens displaying Neo in the Architect's room could be taken as an explanation of future prediction in the movie: the computers can model human reactions well enough to do a Monte Carlo simulation and (based on the number of the simulated people who react in each way) estimate probabilities of certain events happening. Some of those events turn out to be so likely that they can even be called "prophecies".

      This only explains the Oracle's future prediction and not Neo's, but "How can Neo p

    • Re:Those who think Matrix is totally deep... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @08:56PM (#6037812) Homepage Journal

      (Spoilers, duh)

      In the freeway scene, were they trying to kill anyone?

      No, they weren't trying to kill anyone. Just put a good show of doing so, to manipulate the Zion people into attempting to gain access to the Source.

      Don't forget what the Architect told Neo - he was the sixth One to be born. They basically now know that their Matrix is imperfect and a One will always continue to be created. Hence, they created a system that utilizes that to their advantage to maintain control.

      This system involves accepting a 1% group of humans that go off to form Zion. Once this "resistance" group is born, they must be allowed to fight a battle against the Agents of the system, who are there both to provide an enemy but also to ensure that they never truely succeed. (After all, why can people be unplugged from the Matrix at all? Why not just immediately Agent-ize them? (Why dump them in a pool, alive, and ready to be picked up?) Because a canidate to be freed is already know to the Machines, and they are more useful outside the system than within.)

      The Machines knew that they could not kill the Keymaker - his task was not complete yet. So they needed to put up a good fight so that the One could sweep in and save the day. But the fight had to be winable by the One. It's possible that the Agents themselves do not know this, and that they are just further tools of the Architect and whoever he serves.

      The Machines are more than capable of whiping out Zion. They are more than capable of destroying the hovercraft and avoiding the EMP. (Hence the bomb being used to destroy the craft in this movie - it keeps the Sentinels outside of EMP range, while forcing the ship to either dodge or EMP prematurely and then be destroyed by the surviving Sentinels while it's dead in the water. It makes sense that they were always capable of this, and always capable of destroying Zion. They were only waiting until the One reappeared, so they could restart the process.)

      I don't think you're giving the Wachowski's enough credit. While I do agree that this will not be the greatest or deepest work ever created, I think they deserve credit for bringing a relatively deep and complex plot to the screen. If there's enough action, I think people will be willing to watch, even if the don't understand the deeper meanings.

  • You're just in love with the flashy effects.

    If you really were into philosophy, then you would've read up on it, or watched a movie that's not just an action flick masquerading as something else.

    Problem with the young generation of today, is that they lack concentration and got zero attention span. Everything nowadays are abridged, dumbed down and laced with sugar (as in flashy action). People need to wind down and understand that some things are more complex and deserve more attention than the latest Bri

  • The Matrix is some mishmash of mostly biblical myths, mostly Old Testament. For example, the city is called "Zion" and looks like a Middle Eastern bazaar and the ship is called the "Nebukadnezar". And the humans are faced with and enslaved by a powerful enemy. I suggest reading up on your Bible.

    It could be that they just pilfered the Bible for ideas, with no goal in mind other than a lot of eye candy and stories people can relate to (the Bible is a great source of stories). Or, maybe they are using sci
  • The first time i saw Matrix I thought it drew out a lot from other existing philosophies (religions).

    For example one saviour thinking is not new - its been there in Christianity and Islam. Hinduism itself is based on the philosophy of reincarnation - which states that what you see around you (materialistic self) is not what is real (sounds familiar ?). Your soul (mind in matrix) is the real you - which can be passed on from one body to another (yes you could be born a dog in your next life). Realization of

  • Reading too much in? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigdavex ( 155746 ) on Sunday May 25, 2003 @06:54PM (#6037202)
    From linked article [corporatemofo.com]:

    Neo and Trinity are shown making love beneath an arch. In religious iconography, being shown beneath an arch is a traditional sign of divinity.

    An arch is also a way of keeping the ceiling from falling on your head.

  • America Is Fantasyland (Score:3, Insightful)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug@RABBIT ... minus herbivore> on Monday May 26, 2003 @04:04AM (#6039352) Homepage
    Many aspects of American life are fantasies hidden in plain sight. We Americans imagine ourselves living in a democracy, while our elected representatives represent the special interests who shovel money into the advertising machine. Election results measure the effectiveness of the advertising, not the will of the people. The very term "will of the people" means nothing anymore, because Americans are predominately ill-informed "consumers" whose opinions and decisions are essentially meaningless.

    In everyday life we strive constantly to conform to fictional ideals of what is normal, and are constantly told that we are succeeding, as long as we keep spending more money than we can afford. All sense of perspective about ourselves has been replaced by an advertising-induced fantasy that we are smarter, wealthier and better looking than we really are. Our regulatory agencies, run by the industries they are supposed to regulate, have taught us to ignore the small print and consume products that are mere shadows of real things. Instead of lemonade, we happily drink "lemonade-flavored drink mix" that contains less actual lemon than furniture polish does. Our food industry spends billions figuring out how to make more things out of hydrogenated vegetable oil.

    Yet our collective self-image is that we are those people on television -- smart, health-conscious, independent-minded folks who insist on quality. We're involved with our kids and savvy about our investments. We're not in debt up to our eyeballs, we're just leveraging our money. Our health-care system is the finest in the world. People in other countries who hate us are just envious. The list of American fantasies is endless, but at the top of it is the fantasy that collectively we have a life rather than just a lifestyle.

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