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'Matrix Revolutions' Opens Today
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Nov 05, 2003 12:14 PM
from the wait-til-the-price-drops dept.
from the wait-til-the-price-drops dept.
shelleymonster writes "The Matrix Revolutions was released worldwide at 9 AM EST today. With a running time of 2 hr. 9 min., I'm expecting the /. reviews to start pouring in around 11:30. Since critics are saying things like, "Matrix finale could put you back in a coma," and, "The final episode is a slam-bang, dreary mess," I'm curious to hear some real fans' reactions." Many readers have pointed to the BBC's review; they were not amused. Were you? Update: 11/05 17:17 GMT by T : Read on for one reader's (spoiler-free) first impression.
wickedweasel writes "Just came from one of the first showings of Matrix: Revolutions (Germany, don't know why, but it started 2:30 pm here) and came by to drop some comments (no spoilers). To cut it short: not even close to the first one, and honestly spoken way worse than the second one (which wasn't _that_ bad). The ones looking for cool action will hardly find any, neither will the ones who came for the story (like me) be satisfied. Only a few good scenes in and around Zion, some quite big plot holes and unfinished threads and, most important, an unsatisfying end, to say the least. I guess I'll be flamed for my opinion by the die-hard-fans, but hear this: I once considered myself one too until I saw this."
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'Matrix Revolutions' Opens Today
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Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Interesting)
I though Reloaded was a huge drop off from the orignal and this one may be a huge disappointment. Too bad, because the orignal was one of the best SciFi movies in Years.
The machines are attacking tomorrow, lets have a Rave.
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.chemicalwonderland.net/ | Last Journal: Monday September 03, @10:34PM)
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Funny)
(http://3l337.org/)
I, for one, welcome our naked, wrinkly, Palpatine overlord.
Return of the Matrix -- The Sequel, Episode $$$ (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday November 16, @12:15AM)
Scene I
Setting: In the swamps of Zion.
Morpheus: [ with much spit and slobber ]
B-b-b-b-b
Neo: [ questioningly ]
Dude?
Morpheus:
Yousa gonna teach Z-z-z-zion howza fight! B-b-b-b-b-b!
Neo: [ righteously ]
Dude.
Trinity:
Help us, Johnny Mnemonic! You're our only hope!
Neo: [ emphatically ]
Dude!
Scene II
Setting: In the Matrix world, which looks suspiciously like Rivendell placed on the Forest Moon of Endor.
Agent Smith:
Hobbits
Neo: [ puzzled ]
Dude?
[ Agent SMITH divides like an amoeba, but unsuccessfully. The second Agent MINI-SMITH is only 1/4 the size of the original. ]
Mini-Smith:
Ki-yii!
[ Uses martial arts to punch and kick NEO, along with the larger SMITH. ]
Neo: [ startled ]
Dudes!
[ Fighting ensues. At each punch at a SMITH, the SMITH divides into more MINI-SMITHS. The MINI-SMITHS mainly try to bite NEO's crotch. ]
Neo: [ pleading ]
Dudes!!??!!
[ All the population of ZION appears. Most of them look like Ewoks. Most of the Ewoks of ZION are wearing pink.]
Ewoks of Zion: [ caringly ]
Ooooo! They're so cute!!!
[ ZION swarms MINI-SMITHS ]
Mini-Smiths:
Nooooo!!
[ MINI-SMITHS run away; as they are beaten they are dividing into more MICRO-MINI-SMITHS on the way. ]
Neo: [ victoriously ]
Dudes!!!
SCENE III
Setting: A parade field in the landing bay of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Trinity:
For bravery in the face of danger, and the best played game of 3D Tic-Tac-Toe Hogwarts has seen in many a year, I award you this diploma. No, wait, you get the medal.
[ TRINITY kisses NEO ]
Neo: [ lustily ]
Dudette!
Ewoks:
Awwww!
[ EWOKS break into joyous song of celebration. Roll credits. ]
SCENE IV
Setting: Theatre lobbies around the nation.
Audience: [ waving pitchforks and brandishing torches ]
We want our money back!
Wachowskis: [ laughing, on the way to bank ]
Ka-ching, suckers! Did you really think it would end any other way?
About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:5, Informative)
* None of the questions in Reloaded are answered. How does Neo really stop the Sentinels? How did Smith enter Bane? How did he get so powerful? It's all explained away with one or two sentences. We're just supposed to accept it because it's "symbolic" of something. Reloaded seemed to treat itself like a bridge to some sort of great explanation for everything in the third movie. Guess what? It never comes! What the fuck?
* The focus is Zion. Instead of freeing the people of the Matrix, as the first one suggested, the sequels have been all about saving this dirty underground city we don't care about. What the hell happened to the people of the Matrix? It's like the movies don't even care.
* No humanity in the characters and dialogue. The movies just don't enjoy themselves. The first one had a mixture of humor and joy and was just having fun with what it could do. That's why things like the lobby scene kicked so much ass. It was like, "We've smashed the barriers of physics, now lets see what we can do with it!" And you had the fun human moments like the discussion during breakfast, the Cipher character, and so on. Neo was just a normal computer programmer who discovered the world around him wasn't real. More importantly, the movie was FUN.
Now, the sequels tried to change that story into a post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic about an iconic Christ figure who lives and dies. Which leads me to the next point...
* Nobody is freed, Trinity and Neo die, and we're left with the same situation we had at the beginning of the first movie. We've invested our attention to these three movies all for nothing. It was pointless. Why even have Trinity live in Reloaded? She should have stayed dead. It would have been more interesting to see how Neo copes with being unable to save her last time.
I'm completely disenchanted with the Wachowskis. These two guys were considered genius filmmakers after the first movie. The second one was tolerated because we assumed everything that was put in it was for a reason, but it turns out they just dropped the ball on what could have been the most groundbreaking science-fiction trilogy since Star Wars.
At least there's Return of the King this December.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Funny)
(http://yablog-gary.blogspot.com/)
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.geektownhall.com/ | Last Journal: Friday November 28 2003, @09:26PM)
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:5, Insightful)
The previous situation had those who wanted out being tossed out, but in a controlled fashion wherein they would be terminated before they could reach critical mass, sustaining a cycle. The new system, brought in through Neo's actions and manipulated into place by the Oracle, would allow those who wanted out to go out and rejoin a budding new human civilization. The machines would no longer have complete control, so the humans would truly be "free", where before they only thought that they were free.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:5, Funny)
Why just hope, when you can contribute? [gnu.org]
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:5, Interesting)
Similarly the Wachowskis know that the implication (Zion isn't in -reality-, but is instead another layer of simulation) isn't a popular theme amongst the broad audience - who coincidentally don't mind science fantasy (case in point: Star Wars).
And if science fantasy was their goal with the matrix (which one would doubt given their attention to detail) they would clearly realize how poorly scientific explanations of fantastical elements work out (case in point: Midichlorians)
In the end, it really was an ability best left undiscussed.
smith copied himself onto bane, an unplugged character -then- uploaded himself through the hardline. putting himself in bane's shoes initially is the actual leap in science for scifi fans. how could Smith do that when in M1 it was established that agents could only jump into plugged-in people?
the ending fight was just more kung fu. it was all style with only slight implication. I thought it was a bit excessive, but other than that i didn't have a particular problem with it.
coexistence is indeed the point of the movie, i don't quite understand the people who complain about it. it's as if they didn't hear Neo's speech at the end of The Matrix. (where it was quite clear that he wasn't out to destroy all machines).
However i agree with the poster that the sequels lost all attachment to the people -in- the matrix. of course, this is only a complaint because a bad introduction to Zion left most audience members not caring at all about it.
I mean, it's not like people were really attached the plugged-in masses in M1 - what with nary a complaint about the innocent cops and soldiers killed in droves when subdual was entirely possible. (they had their own load program and they couldn't think to bring tear gas, microwave weapons, or rubber bullets?).
Now i'm not saying that M1 should have been a buddhist exercise in peaceful application of force - most people probably wouldn't have liked that nearly as much. I'm just pointing out that critics are complaining 'what about the plugged in people' precisely because we care even -less- about Zion.
It's more a complaint that Reloaded introduced us to Zion as a whole poorly, and then didn't follow up with even any decently developed characters in Zion to give the audience an attachment. For comparison: no one really cared about the mass of rebels on Hoth, but the audience was drawn in because they wanted to see the main characters get away. But most of the fight for Zion happens away from the characters who got decent development.
And while we're drawing SW parallels - the Wachowskis should've killed off Morpheus if all he was going to do is sit there for the whole movie. It was only in later script revisions that Lucas killed off Obi Wan on the death star in A New Hope - after he realized that Kenobi didn't -do- anything to propel the movie once Leia was rescued.
Re:thirteenth floor, few others (Score:5, Interesting)
The Matrix worked as a standalone film because it was hard pressed to convey its ideas in an accessible manner with a tight storyline that didn't dwell or indulge its philsophical excess. Blatant references to philosophy and religion stuck to concepts familiar to nearly any audience: christianity, buddhism, alice in wonderland. Many deeper metaphors exist, (baudrillard, bohm, gibson, ploughman, gnostic christianity) but the key there is they were -subtle-.
(a neat matrix reference... reference here [blogspot.com])
Aside: Most people who find the Matrix to be merely philosophy 101 have clearly only a 100-level familiarity with philosophy themselves. The rest are simply arrogant
The deeper questions, concepts, and correlations to mathetmatics and religion are unequivocably there.
I digress: The average film audience member does not associate with causality, nor with the concept of conscious free will and unconscious impulse. Hence, those deeper blantant dialogues in the sequels aren't well received. They exemplify the cardinal sin of those sequences: too much high level exposition, not enough subtle metaphor, bad pacing.
Morpheus explained the concept of virtual reality to Neo at high level, implying the low level, while taking him on a visually impressive whirlwind ride through postapocalyptic earth. He explained the rules of the matrix and hinted at the implications during a fight. He explained the prophecy and hinted at the undertones in bits and pieces across several scenes.
The merovingian covered causality for 3 straight minutes over dessert, with only a thin layer of metaphor. It's no wonder people didn't like it.
Well that, and we are never meant to believe any character is -actually- in danger in reloaded except trinity when she is falling. How Morpheus and trinity survived so long against upgrades when they fell so quickly against the old versions killed a bit of drama as well.
Thirteenth floor and Existenz were both movies that dealt in recursive or nested realities, and neither received the large audience success of the matrix. though 13th floor was fairly well done, the ending seemed cinematically cheap (though i didn't mind the implication, i thought it trivialized the first 90 minutes, and resting on a gimmick like that kills rewatchability). Existenz was just sloppy.
That said, the clear trend is that a more accessible movie leads to more box office success. The wachowskis are, after all, trying to reach the largest possible audience. By leaving the interpretation of reality being a Blue Matrix open they both engage those of us who want to look deeper, and hold onto the larger audience who has no interest.
Re:thirteenth floor, few others (Score:5, Interesting)
I must add my $0.02 though. Here goes...
The first time I saw MR, I was very dissappointed. The reason I was dissappointed was because there was so much action going on outside the matrix. I missed the M1 feeling of a Noire Detective story with myriads of mysteries... But I soon realized that was the key to enjoying the Matrix trilogy... M1 *was* a Noire Detective story, just like M2 was more of an action movie, a movie where the matrix itself was being exploited... an answer to everyone's internal desire to kick ass inside the matrix, now that we had disspelled that our world was just virtual.
The MRevs was yet another genre, it was about the fight for Zion... it was an Epic. Just like The Return of the King. And the scenes in it are great as far as an epic goes if you ask me.
The plot holes are annoying at best, but really they aren't so much bigger then the questions left pending at the end of M1.
Also, without digressing, I would like to mention that it is my firm belief M1 wasn't made with the intent of being the first of part of a trilogy... I believe the trilogy idea came later (when money started pouring in).
Despite that though, I would like to say MRevs was much better than M2 in the sense that it managed to return somewhat to the M1 mentality of "we aren't here to answer your questions... to tell you exactly why everything is the way it is. We're here to show you another story, put some unbelievable facts out in the open and leave you wondering."
I personally really liked the idea of there being sentient programs who basically come to live in the matrix as if it were a vacation resort of some sort. And the ideas raised in this one are just as valid - and arguably (by some, not me) - just as shallow (or deep) as the ones in the matrix.
All in all, it's very ironic to watch everyone practically spit on the screen because they came here expecting a movie like the M1... that story's already been told. If you wanted to see the Matrix again, go watch it again. How very typical of western culture to feel a great emotion for something, and then demand feeling that same emotion again... it's simply impossible: and that is why the M2|3 will never live up to some people's expectations.
Re:thirteenth floor, few others (Score:4, Interesting)
Whop whooop... That makes perfect sense now.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
"Me wanna help protect Zion."
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.ender.com/)
Neo stops the sentinels because he was enlightened by the process of becoming the One. He sees the Matrix as what it is -- an input/output stream communicating with the senses, and sees it logically instead of allowing his senses to interpret it. It's very Eastern - the idea that the world is not what you simply perceive.
Smith enters Bane by essentially hacking his brain. Realize that Neo empowered smith by destroying him, just as Smith symmetrically empowered Neo by killing him. Neo was a martyr who's death allowed him to transcend the "living" in the Matrix and realize that it was all just input. Neo's slaying of Smith was unorthodox, and showed Smith that people exposed themselves by being part of the system. So Smith uses that knowledge, and his amalgam of knowledge about human biology and such, to hack Bane's brain. It is, on one level, just a machine. They mention brain scarring and cross-synaptic firing in Bane's brain scan -- essentially, Smith rewired him, and it was possible because Bane had his brain wide open jacked into the Matrix. If you can die in the real world because you think you're dead in the Matrix, can't you become Smith in the real world because you think you've become him in the Matrix? If you accept the premise of the linking of those two worlds in the first place, this is not really a stretch.
How did he get powerful? Everyone has boundaries in the Matrix. Neo is enlightened by his virtual death and transcends his senses. It gives him the second sight in full strength. Likewise, Neo destroys Smith's boundaries to 'enter' him. Smith gains the ability to 'enter' others and take them over, becoming a virus. Notice that his Neo-like powers come chronologically after he absorbs the Oracle. This is not coincidence. He needed Neo's enlightenment in full, so he took it from the only person he could get it from. But where Neo earned it, Smith had to steal it, because that's all a virus can do, is absorb. It doesn't evolve or grow or change.
Zion is the focus because its the free world; everything else is 'controlled', whether virtual or real.
Nobody is freed, Trinity and Neo die, and we're left with the same situation we had at the beginning of the first movie. We've invested our attention to these three movies all for nothing. It was pointless. Why even have Trinity live in Reloaded? She should have stayed dead. It would have been more interesting to see how Neo copes with being unable to save her last time.
Trinity isn't human when she says that dying was fine, but she should have been telling Neo how good it was instead of apologizing for dying, and thanks for the second chance to be real? I dunno, I thought that scene was a LOT more touching and a lot less fake than EITHER of the first two movies Trinity-saves-Neo or Neo-saves-Trinity scenes.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe the architect scene from Reloaded is "the answer" to the questions that anyone has, even if it was an obnoxious scene that was probably shortened so they could fit in lots of action. The previous poster used eastern philosphy, but let's throw in some western and the concept of free will and "the soul".
I see instead the matrix as a simulation and sort of a recession test of machine intelligence where each human is plugged in to get a wide sample. It is perfecting itself, by modelling us. It passes only when it achieves long term stability. If there is a "one" and if a zion is created, then it fails. The architect is one such program designed to compensate for failure. Analysis of the failure is done by systematic reduction of possibilities to a single point of failure, in this case, someone who continuously fails to accept the system. If it can construct a system that properly accounts for human intelligence in all cases, the computer has finished learning from us.
How do you reverse engineer anything? There is only one method that does not rely on inside knowledge: you do a side by side comparison, feeding the same inputs and predicting the outputs. When the output of your created box, differs from the output of the original, you know you have a flaw and must investigate.
The problem is identified as choice, free will, thinking outside the box, creativity. The computer can beat us or fight to a standoff in all cases but loses when we do something not expected, something that can't be concluded from the facts at hand. The matrix is a specific test suite designed to quantify this behavior, understand it, and adapt to it.
Agent Smith is the embodiment of this effort, learning from Neo, trying to understand him. I believe he is the "mother" that the Architect referred to, not the oracle necessarily. The architect on the other hand is about order, organization and deduction, things that in general machine intelligence beats us silly on.
All the stuff about smith enterring bane, neo enterring smith etc. is just an elaboration of this. Neo figured it out first, Smith learned and adapted and use this on Bane. Around and around they go. One point I believe is that ALL humans, zion or not, are still jacked in, thus smith can pull his stunt quite easily with, as MattW suggested his very accurate and detailed knowledge of human biology. Not so easily can he do it to Neo, who invented the trick.
Eastern/western/etc. spiritualism are a core of the movies precisely because they are our current explanation or qualification of free will. They're not exact because we don't really know either, but they are somehow at the core of our intelligence. After all we're not particularly consistent and rational, things even lower life forms exhibit more reliably that we do, but our ability to come up with new ideas seemingly from thin air has no explanation and is quite valuable.
The problem is that this is one hypothesis you could have produced from the first, much more entertaining and consistent movie. These last two movies I think are failing us because they are simultaneously trying to demystify and answer questions, while at the same time trying to keep the mysteriousness that defined the original. It's fundamentally flawed, but this is an example of squeezing the franchise for all it's worth.
Stop living in the past. (Score:4, Insightful)
Neo doesn't die.
He is carried off into the machine world after he completes his quest. He is motionless after a battle, just like the second movie. Granted, Trinity is dead as dead can be. The Orcale and the last refugee give an homage to Neo with the sunset at the end, but that doesn't mean he's dead. The Oracle answers he guardian's question quite accurately: "no, I didn't see any of this... I had hope."
Overall, this was a great movie. I have some questions that I want answered, but it did a good job answering most of them. For example, the Oracle and the Architect are cordial adversaries, and Agent Smith and Neo a ying/yang brothers, whose mother is the Oracle. The reason why the movie changes focus from the people in the Matrix to the peopel in Zion is clear to me. More insight as to WHY Neo was found is unravelled and you realize this is a fight between the architect and the oracle, which are representations of order and chaos as created by the machines.
The movie is deep. Just because it changes direction does not mean that was not intended in the first place. It may take a turn or two that I disagree with, but overall it leaves me wanting one more movie... the one where the people are freed from the Matrix and Neo leads them to the promised land. Judging by the end of this
Another thing... (Score:4, Informative)
Smith didn't take people over that way. Smith copied himself onto others, apparently overwriting them (at least part of them) with his code. The Agents were 'moving' from connection to connection. Smith was copying himself onto anything currently inside the Matrix. Two different methods of 'taking over'.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Interesting)
being conscious and having self-preservation instincts doesn't necessarily imply emotion or free will in the human sense. Dogs do turn on their masters after all.
Smith hates humans, because he is programmed to hate humans. He wants the codes to Zions mainframe because he is part of the garbage collection routine that must find and destroy Zion to avoid the rebels from reaching critical mass and threatening their power supply.
Persephone gets jealous because she was the computer program designed specifically to identify and study emotion. (my guess, she's mother of the matrix - but i haven't seen revolutions - support [blogspot.com]).
The Merovingian does not get jealous of Persephone, he simply is angry that she betrayed him by turning over the Keymaker - one of the objects he hordes for power. Note how he is more exasperated by her stunt than angry. She is the one program that understands his need to gather power - and yet she consciously subtracted from his power.
Again, he behaves merely as designed, as he participates in the cycle of the error handler for the emergence of 'the one'. Were he not programmed to amass power and collect, he would let the Keymaker go free (who is honest in saying he does only what he must do).
We are led to believe humanity survives in the matrix because the machines need a power source. humanity survives in Zion because the machines cannot create a perfect simulated reality, and so they've encoded an error handler and garbage collector to at least achieve stable power from 99.9% of their crop.
I haven't noticed the machine's exhibiting mercy.
If anything, the animatrix supports that the vast majority of machines are indeed merciless (excepting Persephone who arguably is simply striving to taste emotions as she doesn't -want- the rebels to succeed, she only -wants- the passionate kiss).
Their extermination of human resistance down to the man is clearly and violently depicted. the only sequence that suggests a random machine -is- capable of emotion is the one in which they plug a robot into the matrix and turn it against its kin. however, as with extended universe star wars, one cannot expect the movies to be consistant with every tangential novel/comic/cartoon.
Admittedly I only watched Animatrix once, as Anime really isn't my cup of tea, so i may have to fall back on my extended universe defense if there is a segment that specifically shows mercy.
But it is certainly not clearly conveyed to the film audience that the machines feel mercy or compassion.
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday October 11, @12:31AM)
That's a particularly arrogant stance.
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.pbase.com/goosekirk)
But consider: Point Break is an amazing film. Not a "good" film, but still amazing. Take three of the worst actors in Hollywood - Keanu, Swayze, and Gary Busey - and write an inane script about surfing bank robbers, and somehow produce a loud, stupid, but thoroughly entertaining and fun film from start to finish. On paper, Point Break should be just about the worst movie ever made, but somehow it isn't. Director Kathryn Bigelow put enough into it that it not only works on its own level - it does what it set out to do, perfectly - but it also succeeds above and beyond with at least one of the best chase scenes ever filmed. And unlike Revolutions, there isn't really a dull moment.
Revolutions, on the other hand, tried to be deep sci-fi and failed miserably. Unlike Point Break, which took terrible actors and made them watchable in a fun, goofy way, the Wachowskis just let the bad actors suck and made the good actors suck, too (like Fishburne's big speech in Zion). There wasn't a single scene in Zion that was better than a shitty, boring episode of some Star Trek franchise show, except you got to see nipples during the rave. Even its action scenes, besides the burly brawl and the semi collision, were pretty dull. Some of the martial arts wire work, supposedly what the Matrix does so well, was awful and laughable, so it couldn't even succeed on its own level as well as Point Break.
I actually really liked the Architect scene, though - I thought it was good "Prisoner"-esque fun, and one of the high points of the movie. Still... as counterintuitive as it might seem, I'd argue that Kathryn Bigelow could teach the Wachowskis a few things.
He spoke in amphibolies (Score:5, Interesting)
the architect was seemingly saying what you so neatly summed up - but what he was actually saying was:
humans have free will but they don't realize it. they make impulsive decisions but don't know why. they are slaves to the ideas they use to justify their impulsive decisions -after- they've made them. they don't actually think freely, and they certainly don't act freely.
he was reinforcing what the oracle already said when she told neo he had already made his decision, but didn't yet understand why.
the key was that he wasn't -actually- choosing right then. he had previously decided he loved trinity (perhaps solely through suggestion), and love means selfless sacrifice. he also hated the machines and didn't want to be connected to them, even if the two are codependent. so he justifies his gut reaction with the ideas, and then can 'understand' why he does what he does.
Were Neo making his decisions by free will he'd know 'why' -before- his actions, and according to the Oracle he would be able to see past them, seeing the entirety of the world without time.
Neo does pretty much only what he is expected and told to do throughout Reloaded. What makes it so painful to watch, was trying to convey -why- it was painful. The Merovingian likewise had an amphiboly laden sililoquoy that covered -roughly- the same ground.
The problems with Reloaded were pacing, editing, and tension. The Architect and the Merovingian pretty much covered the same topics, so one of them was wholly redundant. Leaving both of them in turned much of the movie into a drag.
Note how few times someone gets a 5 minute dialogue in a sterile sequence in The Matrix. It doesn't happen. Good editing and tight writing kept the exposition to a marriage of dialogue, example, and visuals. Morpheus -showed- at least as much about what 'reality' and 'the matrix' were to Neo in the load and sparring programs as he conveyed through dialogue. The Architect and Merovingian did not.
Re:He spoke in amphibolies (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Neo most probably was not human. Or, if he was, perhaps he was a clone of many before him, created by the Architect and the Oracle to try to work out the the anomaly caused by their conflict, order versus chaos. He is the One, the anomaly that causes Zion to fall, and be reborn - and be reborn himself as well.
Neo has done this many times before.
Trinity has not; she is new to the cycle.
The world without time is central to the story. Neo has always been the answer to his own questions, but never had the courage or the motivation in his prior incarnations to face that he either WAS the Matrix, in a circular karma sort of way, or had to BECOME the Matrix, a different way of stating it. To defeat the enemy he had to let Smith win, something he had never done before. Most likely he just kept fighting until he died, in the prior cycles of his last confrontation with Smith. But this time, with Trinity's loss and sacrifice still fresh as a bloody wound in his mind, Neo was able to understand that he had to lose, and in losing, take control of Smith. The Smith/Neo/Oracle conglomerate then simply took viral control of the entire 01 nation, and called off the hertofore inevitable destruction of Zion.
In previous incarnations, Neo simply lost as he fought Smith, and Zion fell. In this one, he took a measure of control over the situation. He also understood that he had messed it all up, many times before, and that this time he was doing it right.
Neo broke the karmic wheel, finally. Cue the Christ metaphor.
My head is still assimilating all this. I'm looking forward to reading anyone else's ideas.
Is an unfinished story better than a poor one? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
In a triology, the second film is usually the worst. The first is "new", and the last has all the big "final/ultimate" scenes. The second is well.. it's usually just more of the same. Maybe Matrix: Revolution is an exception to the rule, but it's not really all that stupid to find out.
The problem is, I want to know what happens to Neo and Trinity. Good, bad story, I still want to
"know". Of course you might say that is silly and that it's just a movie and it doesn't matter. But if you don't care about what you're watching, why do it at all? And I want to see the last of the LotR films too, even if all the critics say it's a complete and utter turkey (which I don't think they will, but anyway). Just human nature, I think...
Kjella
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, they're really "squeezing every dollar out of the franchise" by making the third movie in a story designed to be a trilogy.
Here's a positive review... (Score:5, Informative)
It is thematically and philosophically the strongest of the entire trilogy, and accomplishes as much more subtly than its predecessors. Viewers were confronted with great ethical dilemmas and metaphysical conundrums in the form of 'in-your-face' one liners and headache-inducing dialogues in the first two Matrix films, but Revolutions takes a different approach. Its depth and philosophical richness comes in the strength of its visual metaphors and an intriguing storyline pulling on everything from the Bible to The Wizard of Oz, grounding the story in cultural identification and modern mythmaking.
Sounds good to me. I don't like professional critics, anyway.
==========
And worse, it was shitty action... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Oh, and the hour-long action sequence we got!
That had to be the absolute worst battle sequence I've seen in those movies my brain has allowed me to remember.
And if you don't want more spoilers than that, don't read on. But if you don't want spoilers and are reading this on
The entire horrible problem with that insipid scene can be summed up thusly: There were too fucking many squids and the humans didn't die.
Of course I'm long winded and irritated at the recent pain.
The scene should have been at most a minute long. Drill drops through. Squids come through, and are temporarily held back by the concentrated gunfire of the defenses. Some eventually break through forcing the humans to spread their fire, allowing more to come through. Eventually there's a massive swarm, an opaque cloud streaming from the hole and gathering around the ceiling. This all takes about 50 seconds.
Now, in the good version of the movie -- this titanic swarm in which you can barely distinguish individual squids -- spreads out, swoops down, and fucking envelopes the human army. Within moments, every last defender in the docks has been disemboweled. Giving the humans the benefit of the doubt, this takes about ten seconds.
Geek note: You can see the squids fighting this way in Second Renaissance in the Animatrix, and it looks viciously effective against infantry. It takes them a bit longer to cut through actual armor like the humans had in the short, but is still deadly. So in the good version of the movie, give the humans thirty seconds.
But instead the squids start flying around in tightly packed tubules of squids, like gigantic robotic recreations of The Abyss. And I mean flying around not attacking. I just feel I should emphasize that. Because they're flying in huge thick clouds, they're impossible to miss. So they're taking gigantic losses while just flitting around, and this is what they spend most of the godly interminable scene doing. Eventually the squid in the front of this tremendous mass will see a human looking at him funny, and will attack head-on bringing all ten thousand of his buddies behind him. The human will fire at the front of the squid-stream with their high-velocity high-rpm weaponry that goes right through the squids killing masses until one chickens out and pulls off. Repeat for way too god damn long.
Sometimes a squid will break off and flit about on its own. These are the only ones that manage to kill anyone, mostly from surprise. But even they mostly just fly around. Even when the big drill got a leg blown up, only a squid or two decides to notice that someone is firing rockets at it.
Which reminds me: Before the battle, the commander guy keeps talking about how important it is to target the bores so they can't dig through into the city. So when the tip of the drill emerges through the roof of the dock, I'm loudly thinking That's the bore's bit! That's what you want to destroy! Shoot it! But the humans just sit there until squids start pouring out.
So at least partially due to their own stupidity, the humans lose anyway. There's just too many squids. Which is the problem. Whether for rendering reasons or because it was the only way to make the scene longer than two seconds the result is the same: The squids end up with AI that is a cross between Galaga and Centipede, only not as smart.
Cut down the squids a lot. They said two hundred thousand or whatever, but it's okay to lie when you only bother to put in twenty humans. Make them (sq
"Lord of the Rings" has even become a book (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
I agree. Last time I was at a bookstore, I even noticed that Lord of the Rings, this masterpiece of an epic, is already out in book form.
Pathetic what lengths commercialization will go to these days. There's just no leaving good movies alone anymore.
Re:"Lord of the Rings" has even become a book (Score:4, Insightful)
Somewhere along the way, "troll" became synonymous with "flamebait", and internet vocabularly lost an invaluable word.
I originally posted this as an AC like a dumbass.
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Informative)
(http://carewolf.com/)
At a supposedly really tragic scene by the end of the movie, the scene dragged on for so long that the hardcore fans present started to laugh, and when it dragged on even further, to shout: "Just die for crist sake!". I am not sure if is supposed to look like that, the scene seemed to loop 3 or 4 times.
I end it self doesnt make any real sense, or rather it makes less sense than making electricity from humans.
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:4, Funny)
(http://bance.net/ | Last Journal: Sunday December 28 2003, @08:50PM)
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe this is why Warner Brothers wanted a worldwide simultaneous release. They effectively mitigated their risk that the opinions of audiences in one country would adversely affect sales revenues in other countries.
In essence, the movie sucked, they knew it, and used the gimmick of the worldwide simultaneous release to increase first-weekend sales to the point that it wouldn't matter if everyone thought the movie sucked.
Better than the second, first is still the best... (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.woods.us/ | Last Journal: Monday May 03 2004, @08:32PM)
The ending certainly was not what was expected. Decent none the less. Certainly better than the second one. But once again, nothing in comparison to the original.
The dialog at the end with Agent Smith was great. Best part of the movie, IMHO.
But... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.ferion.net/ | Last Journal: Monday May 06 2002, @02:16AM)
Yeah the reviewers are saying that too.
This was my favorite quote (Score:5, Funny)
(http://pheared.net/)
Re:Ewoks? (Score:5, Funny)
"Meesa hang up dissa phone now. Meesa show deesa people what youssa hide from dem. Where wese go from dere choice meesa giva you."
they set the movie open (Score:3, Interesting)
Well i saw it yesterday (sneak preview) - tell you what? go with 0 expectations and it will be almost alright. Without spoiling anything, all i can tell you people is that don't be surprised or fall dead if you see Matrix 4 (Matrix: Ultimatum) or something come out in the next year.
Re:Sequels Galore (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.ssinow.com/ | Last Journal: Monday October 01, @02:25PM)
Gee, you mean like some kind of MMORPG? Considering they've been talking about The Matrix: Online for awhile now, but haven't said what it is, it's actually not surprising there's no "conclusion" to the film. Any real fan isn't expecting one.
If you are too let down... (Score:5, Interesting)
Skip the Hollywood edit, though... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I wish i`d haven't seen this movie. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.j-san.net/)
You had what in what?
I just saw it. (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.loscreepers.net/)
A movie at 6:30 AM, what's wrong with me?
About the same as Reloaded (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.mickunas.net/)
Still, both were a let down from the Matrix. To much mysticism type stuff, where his powers extended beyond the matrix. Matrix stuff crossing over into the real world just didn't make a lot of sense.
Better than Reloaded... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://lamphowto.com/)
Some great action and effects, but like with Reloaded, they gave away a lot in trailers and on the late-night show "clips"... so not a lot of surprises IMO.
The theater I went to was pretty full (6 am here in San Diego). One loser watching Reloaded on his laptop got a lot of laughs from people. Two dudes came in dressed as Neo and Agent Smith, but they were pretty cool about the whole thing.
The best part - they were only charging matinee pricing of 6.50 to see it!
This is /. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://alaska-freegold.com/)
You forget, this is /. and waiting to see the movie before reviewing it would be like reading the article before commenting on it.
-cp-
President Bush to Liberate Alaska [alaska-freegold.com]
Just a thought (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that's interesting about the Matrix movies is that they've become a LOT of different things to a lot of different people. Thanks to the Wachowskis rather brilliant blending of pop culture, Campbell, Jung, Christianity, and Buddhism, they're movies that can resonate with people on so many different levels. Just look at the various articles that've been written since 1999 interpreting the movies and you can see it. You could almost believe these people are seeing different films under the same name.
The problem though, is that a finale, by its nature, must be conclusive. It has to have at least some answers to the big questions. And if (SPECULATING) for example, you were wanting to see a Taoist "balance" ending, and it turns out to be a western-style Good-triumphs-over-Evil, then you're going to be disappointed. Or if you consider the philosophical questions about Causality and Fate more important than the skeleton plot, if the movie is too action-heavy you're going to be irritated that it doesn't solve the philosophical quandaries. (or vice-versa in either situation, obviously)
So, while I won't know for myself until about 4 this afternoon, I suspect the problem is not going to be one of Revolutions being a bad\disappointing movie, but that there is simply no way that the Wachowskis could wrap it up and provide a satisfactory conclusion to ALL the "movies" which the Matrix has become to its viewers.
The Prisoner (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.eruvia.org/)
Not really. I'm a fan of the 1968 series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. Some see it as surreal oddness, some a spy story that degnerated, some as a template for defiance against authority and some...well, some just like the series.
It has one of the most legendarily weird endings of all time - the episode Fall Out. People have been arguing over that one for over thirty years, as its symbolism is both overt (there's nothing literal in there) and yet entirely opaque. I have no idea what it means, and McGoohan once asked that if someone ever says they know what it all is, could they please let him know?
So no, I don't believe finales have to explain everything. You're right about the movies meaning different things to different people though. To add a tinge of flamebait to the post, to me the films pose the question "how can people comment so seriously on such obviously rehashed ideas?", but your opinion may differ.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Just a thought (Score:5, Funny)
(http://syberghost.livejournal.com/)
Which of these two definitions of "brilliant" did you mean:
2. (Print.) The smallest size of type used in England printing. [1913 Webster]
3. A kind of cotton goods, figured on the weaving. [1913 Webster]
Because I know you didn't mean the first definition for it.
Should have ended this way (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The critics don't have a really good track reco (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
The critics hated "Citizen Kane", "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Star Wars" at the time.
But the critics also hated "Gigli", "The Real Cancun" and "From Justin to Kelly".
Just got back... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.quantumlinux.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday August 29 2004, @04:20AM)
In a lot ways, I understand the bad reviews. It's a lot like where Open Source was a few years ago. It was very hard at times to get people to understand the benefits of it. I am sure that in time people will see the message of this movie and that the trilogy will be a real classic.
I definitely give it two thumbs up.
Matrix and snobishness (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
"It was also very academic in some respects, which probably explains why general audiences (read "unwashed masses") won't "get" it."
Basically, if you don't like these movies you are not intellectual enough. This was the same defense offered by many Matrix "fans" to people who didn't like Reloaded. By the way, Reloaded was a dreadful movie, just because somebody doesn't like it doesn't mean their dumb or unsophisticated.
I've already seen a lot of negative reaction to this movie in the reviews and from the net. And already the apologists are saying that the "unwashed" masses are not smart enough to appreciate this "wonderful" piece of art. This type of spinning of the movie is not encouraging.
Re:Just got back... (Score:5, Funny)
You probably fell asleep 20 minutes into it and dreamed a better movie. It's the only explanation.
[SPOILERS] a disappointing failure (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Trinity dies for no reason, as they don't use her death in any meaningful way.
2. The scene with the machines entering the outer hull of Zion was drawn out needlessly, as it contained no switching between the fight at Zion and Neo's plight (think: middle/end of ROTJ)
3. The fight scene with Smith/Baines and Neo in the Logos was completely extraneous.
4. Neo's death in the end leaves the humans without a powerful weapon against the machines if they were to decide to attack the humans again. Contrast this with Star Wars and LotR, where the playing field is leveled at the end, or slightly in favor of the protagonists.
5. Keanu Reeves performance was subpar, even for him. In the climactic battle with Smith at the end, he looked drugged and was not convincing as the leader of the free world. He had no fire, and it was the machines and the Oracle that actually spurred him on to defeat Smith (esp. the machines, as they revived him after being consumed by Smith).
6. In the beginning, he was trapped in the train station for no conceivable reason but to lengthen the movie. It served no purpose, benefitted the movie naught and did not lead to any great discoveries that were used later in the film. Likewise, how we could be jacked in without being jacked in was never satisfactorily addressed.
If you are a Matrix fan, I urge you to watch this movie with the blinders off and see for yourself what a bad job the Wachowski bros. did with this, what could have been the end of the best sci-fi movie trilogy in history.
This one was a disappointment.... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.antiochmanagement.com/buy.html)
hitchcock's horror (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://annomedia.com/)
'No officer, your men are allready dead' and after that you get the fight. It is a classic example of creating suspense like Hitchcock used it, but faster.
But Hitchcock would have hated the sequels. The story has no starting point, instead it follows the Hollywood formula of all sequels: just let the same events happen in roughly the same order (Trinity opens with a fight and someone dies and is resurected). It is like they forgot how to deliver a complex story to an audience. Instead it became a vehicle for stunning special effects. And that is something that continues in the third episode with for instance the use of rain. There is no better way to show your quality as a CG master than with the use of rain isn't there?
No. this one has 'hire me' signs all over it. Just like the second one. They did not start a new CG company for nothing. This is just a big trailer sponsored by those visiting the cinema and buying the DVD.
The should have started part two with an introduction on the use of keys and being a program. Just like they did in number one with the use of special forces.
Re:Unbelievable comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
So how could any of the sequels have the same kind of suspense? We already know a lot of the story, so there isn't nearly as much room for surprise.
i hope it ends (Score:4, Funny)
(http://spekesel.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday October 18 2003, @04:41AM)
"whoa, that was a most excellent dream"
*guitar solo*
Martrix Regurgitated (Score:4, Informative)
What J.M. Straczynski says about it - No Spoilers (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://panzanella.net/)
Dragon Ball-Z - Warning *spoilers* ahead (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.ademar.org/)
--- spoilers ahead ---
But the movie sucks. Very nice effects (as usual), but the plot is horrible... very predictive, full of fallacies. IMHO, most things that were kept open at the end of Reloaded are still open (who is the Merovingian? How can Neo control/destroy the machines in the real world? Why Persephony wanted a kiss?).
But nothing can be compared to the final fight, where Neo and Smith just look like two Dragon Ball-Z characteres... I could do nothing but laugh.
Anyway, I'll see the movie again and probably buy the DVD, but it was a great deception to me as a Matrix fan...
Re:Dragon Ball-Z - This is 100% spoiler filled. (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://programmers.malfunct.net/)
It seems that Neo is a tool of the matrix to attempt to learn about "being human". In the end it seemed like Kadya (the little girl that is the child of the power subsystem and the creative interactive programmer) was the next evolution of matrix programs because she had no purpose (something no program in the past was allowed) and was able to chose, that choice being represented in her love for her parents and in her admiration of Neo.
Neo also seemed to be a tool of the matrix to make choices that they could not make themselves. At the end of the 2nd movie Neo made the choice for the machines on whether or not to end the war, he chose to end the war by not returning to the source and repopulating Zion. At the end of the 3rd movie you see Neo making the choice on how to end the war, to ahnnialate all machines and humans, or to let both live in peace.
They totally don't explain how Neo is able to interact with the matrix when outside of it or how he was able to destroy machines. My personal feeling is that he wasn't, he was only able to communicate with the Oracle, she did all the dirty work. Why didn't she choose to do that on her own and instead rely on the choices of Neo? Programs were (until kadya I think) unable to make free choices, especially (or maybe only) ones that made no sense or served no preconcieved purpose, so a human was necessary to make those choices. Once made the Oracle carried them out.
I honestly have no idea who the Merovingian is, though it seems that he has something to do with bugs in the system, keeping around old code that is no longer necessary, working withing the bounds of the programming but outside of what was desired (by who? I don't know). The reason Persephony wanted a kiss in my opinion is that she wanted some way to feel some humanness, she wanted to feel love, which again is something foreign to the machines.
The final battle went on way too long, and didn't really help the movie any, though a battle of wills (which is what the story asked for) wouldn't look good on the screen. I wouldn't have minded some cut into the "computer world view" where they battle with thier minds and then a bit of dialog where smith tries to win by overcoming neo, and then neo realizing that in order to win he needs to make the less obvious choice, to lose.
Unlike most of the posts I've read, I really enjoyed the battle scene in the dock. It gripped me, had me jumping, cheering, and nearly crying. Maybe I'm odd but I haven't seen a battle scene that compelling since the trench run in StarWars 1.
Can someone explain to me why a robot would need to manually reload its guns from a backpack on its back though? Seemed kind of silly, about as silly as the people running ammo out to the APU's with a wheelbarrow when electric bolts seemed to be far more effective in destroying the sentinals. Also why the heck didn't the digging machine detect that it had broken through a pocket and do something to lower itself gently to the next level?
Anyways I enjoyed the movie, I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation and suspense even though it was always obvious what would happen next. I must agree that they could have taken the movie to whole new philosophical levels but left it at a pretty low and obvious level.
Spoiler free? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.johnmalone.org)
Formula moviemaking (Score:5, Insightful)
And thus began the "Matrix Revolution" of an endless array of technical FX as a substitute for a decent plot and character development.
Not that things haven't been this way since the dawn of cinema, but most movies nowadays are just big-budget, formulaic, television-level dramas designed less to make you think, less to entertain than they are to distract and take your money and serve as a vehicle for a plethora of merchandising efforts.
With few exceptions, most of the great classic movies of the last 20-30 years have been neutered in a progressive attempt to capitalize on the originals' success via a string of contrived sequels.
The same thing has happened to the music industry. Instead of great lyrics and creative musicianship, we're bombarded with cute-faces, dance moves and regurgitated hooks that are over-produced and heavily compressed. There should be a new category for this crap music, like there should be a new category for these new movies which do little more than feed our ever-increasing ADD.
Re:Formula moviemaking (Score:5, Interesting)
I do lament the new breed of techies, who think any movie that has the wherewithall to incorporate 10 seconds of a computer screen showing a shell prompt as worthy of respect.
I'd like to still think there are core groups of tech people who are motivated by solving problems (that don't involve remotely finding out how many Mountain Dews are in the vending machine down the hall). But you're right, the tech community has changed. And entertainment has changed as well.
It makes you wonder if a movie like 2001:A Space Odyssey would even get made now? Hollywood would have to spruce it up with a naked shower scene, a slo-mo CGI battle between apes and evil aliens, and an epic space chase through a mythical gothic future city. HAL's voice would be dubbed by Angelina Jolie and she wouldn't be cold and logical, but bitter and evil-toned. There's be a Coca-Cola emblem on the Monolith. And of course the movie would start off with "Episode 8".
matrix-regurgitated (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.photohole.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday October 30 2003, @08:58AM)
Was rather disappointed with the ending.
(spoiler) questions... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://cliveholloway.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday February 28 2004, @05:54PM)
CGI was too much sometimes. The scenes went from nothing to kamikaze, with no clear focal point on the screen.
The bit from the trailer with the head honcho machine. WTF was that? So it's a machine - does it mean it can't hold a conversation?
Agent Smith explodes at the end WTWTWTF? If Neo was corrupting him, then why all the crap with the fight scene before hand?
No key scene to define the film (think Burly Brawl/Freeway).
Oh, and the plot seemed extremely shallow compared to the last one - I was looking forward to some more in depth (or at least pop
Why was Smith such a threat? The machines didn't look that bothered. Why was it left to Neo to fix?
Ack, I could go on, but I think I should go see it sober first
Matrix - 10/10, Reloaded 8/10, Revolutions 4/10
cLive
Please Don't Hate Me (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Matrix Resurrection Plot (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://morningcuppa.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 25, @02:23PM)
Energy is more expensive than ever as humans begin suffering from a disease that reduces their capacity to feed the machines. Because of this, the sources of EMPs built by the Matrix machines are reduced and become more important. Morpheus hatches a plot to spoil the explosives of EMPs by inserting a new program into their factories : he can arm and fire them remotely, before they are carried to their destination.
As the setups in the factories are completed, the rebels suffer from fracturing as Morpheus begins to doubt the plan. In losing his fight to an even-stronger charasmatic rebel leader, the EMPs are set off in timed sequence. The machines nearby are shut-down, and chos begins to ensue across the surface of the planet. For the moment, there is celebration. End chapter one.
The machines deploy a geothermic well to begin removing the energy from core of the earth, planning for a hibernation phase. They begin to again bore into ground, but while readying themselves for a fight, the humans are surprised to learn they are relatively ignored. Once close to the core, the earth quickly begins to cool as cold water is steamed throughout Zion. End chapter two.
Inside the matrix, there is a population blight, as new births become rare, and people begin scrambling for survival. Quite a few renegade programs conspire to resurrect Neo for guidance. With the help of a brash (an incredible fighting) infiltration into The Architect's domain, the programs murder him when he refuses to give them Neo. Fortunately, they achieve their goal and Neo stand among them. End chapter three.
Neo stands before the rebels in an attempt to explain their mistake and ask for their help in fueling a cooporative effort invented by him. The Humans will re-enter the pods to power the machines again, if only temporarily. Then, a massive tower will be built to reach beyond the dark cloud of the sky to tap back into the sun, again bringing power to the earth. Then, the machine will no longer require humans to power themselves, and a truce will be brokered.
After quite a bit of kung-fu fighting and several backstabs among the different groups, Morpheus returns to lead the people back into the pods. We are are given a scene of a long machine arm, opening in flower-like fashion in high atmosphere, silloetted by the bright sun. Not all questions are answered. Fade out.
Let's summary all in one sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://sirius.cine7.net/)
We have all been elaborating Matrix Revolutions plot in our heads (and websites) ever since we saw Reloaded. The real movie is not based on our personal plot, and this is the main source of disappointment, no matter how good or bad is the movie itself.
Two Couched Thumbs Up (Score:3, Funny)
(http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 07, @06:50PM)
I didn't know what to make of Ebert until I watched Dark City with his commentary, then Citizen Kane. The guy knows what he's talking about. At least his opinions are largely compatible with mine, and probably the artsy-geek set at large.
Posting their reviews in
How will this age (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://kulturkrieg.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday February 10 2007, @10:13PM)
Remember when Phantom Menace came out and everyone was still saying that it was up to par with the Original Trilogy? And then AotC came out and it supposedly saved the franchise from the disaster that was PM?
I think there's a lot of that immediacy here with these movies. There is so much expectation and fandamonium involved that "not being horrible" means that the movie must be good. Only over time do the weaknesses and strengths balance out so people can judge them. I'm always reminded of Jim Carey's The Grinch which was the top grossing movie of that year and now no one remembers that it even came out.
Personally? The repetition of the acting, pop philosophy and CG had gotten old by the first 5 minutes of Reloaded. There has to be something in this movie that "sells" it to me. Something unique where you can't just say "it's very similar to this scene in the previous movie but-" or "it's just like the part in Aliens where-"
Frankly the last one of the movies to do that was the original Matrix. Things now seem to be so bad that I actually get sick feelings when thinking/hearing about the first. It's been tainted by its progeny.
Yet I still got my ticket for an 8pm showing. Like Ebert said (giving it 3 stars while strangely blasting it for the whole length of his review) I'm going to take my graduation after earning my credits on the first two. Maybe my low expectations are the way to go?
The Idea story, sequels, and the sophomore curse (Score:4, Interesting)
look at how many references and such in the list are from The Matrix, and how few are from Reloaded.
You see, when the Wachowski's hadn't had a break-out hit, they had to be careful, subtle, clever.
They surely wrote, edited and rewrote The Matrix several times. The philosophy was there, but it wasn't as prominent or cumbersome. The bold allusions made the ideas accessible, and the density of the subtle references provided something to think about. The devil was in the details.
The Matrix had good editing that kept exposition down to what mattered, and had decent character development. The romance wasn't a centerpiece throughout, it was strung along more like Han and Leia's romance in Star Wars. It was there - it played its part, but it didn't hit you over the head or command unnecessary screentime.
The forced romance in Reloaded (and likely revolutions) is more reminiscent of Lucas' prequels, where the audience is beat over the head with it, and the lack of chemistry between the actors is made center stage.
but once The Matrix made it big, the Wachowskis had a free ticket. No-one was going to tell them to trim the fat anymore. To put the heavier philosophy in more subtle references and keep the blatant topics accessible. But who's going to say that when they can make that much green?
The sequels were both churned out together in a mere 24 months. Their near complete loss of depth was nearly guaranteed.
The Wachowskis had total freedom with Reloaded and Revolutions, and apparently they decided they'd rather be broad in their blatant coverage of religious and philosphical ideas than tell a good story.
The first thing aspiring fiction writers are supposed to learn is that the Idea-focused story is hard as hell to write well (even though it is almost uniformly where scifi writers begin).
It is very difficult to write a good story where its entirety is leading your audience from problem exposition to problem exposition until you finally foist your supreme solution-Idea on them.
It is much better to wrap your solution Idea into a stand-apart traditional story. Expose the great solution-idea a bit earlier, and develop the characters involved and the conflicts to show the different angles and attributes of your idea as the solution to the various problems. The key is to make the thing interesting, or your Idea won't matter.
Methinks the Wachowskis forgot that with their carte blanche control over the sequels.
PH34R and Trembling (Spoilers) (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.doxagora.com/ | Last Journal: Friday February 28 2003, @05:39PM)
I believe the Matrix is largely incomprehensible unless one has at least a reasonable familiarity with S0ren Kierkegaard ("SK") and crisis theology. In fact, I'd argue that the series narrows down from its expansive view of philosophy in the first two movies to, in both the EtM video game and M:Rv, a tight focus on Kierkegaard's conception of freedom as radical choice. By contrast, M:Rld went all over the philosophical map, my favorite example being that the Zion council seems to be populated entirely by Jamesian Pragmatists (including Cornel West, whose most interesting work was a sustained discussion of American Pragmatism).
Just a few Kierkegaardian references in the Matrix:
- In EtM (which crystallized my understanding of TM as Kierkegaardian), Ghost quotes SK on faith and absurdity. In the game, the tripartite crew of Sparks, Niobe, and Ghost are almost certainly representative of SK's view of human life as aesthetic, ethical and religious, respectively. (The three Demiurges -- the Merovingian, Architect, and Oracle -- seem to recapitulate this schematic.)
- The Christ parallel in Neo is so blatant as to hardly be worth mentioning, but his death deserves some observations: he died to redeem Man (and Machine), since Trinity's death precluded his doing it out of love for any one individual; his death redeemed M&M from Smith (who seems, amongst many other things, to represent Original Sin, being the ultimate descendent from the war between M&M); his death also freed the condemned from hell (when the Architect agrees to release programs and persons who wish to leave the Matrix).
- When Neo dies, the machine-ruler says, "It is done." This is the same thing Christ says in John 19:30 (and is also used two more times in the Bible -- after the world is created in Genesis, and after it is destroyed in the Revelation). Smith is then rescinded from the world, the Matrix is created anew, and peace descends upon Zion. Apart from begging the infralapsarian question, this reinforces the idea of Neo as propitiation (as many Christians see Christ dying to expiate the sins of Man). I'm a bit uneasy with this part because Neo is shown as bargaining for salvation -- something that is completely incoherent in most versions of Christianity, and more importantly, within Kierkegaard. At the same time, I have to wonder what happens to Neo at this point. In John, Christ says, "It is done," then commends his soul to God. Does this imply that Neo has joined with the machine-ruler? Is one of the reasons peace descends because Neo has joined the machine-consciousness and broken the old covenant of slavery? Is he a mediator between man and machine (viz 1 Tim. 2:5-6)?
- The Trainman is deeply concerned with time: when we meet him in EtM, he tells Niobe how many hours Zion can be expected to last against the machine onslaught. ("72 hours. That's exactly how long Zion lasted last time.") In M:Rv, he is obsessed with punctuality, and has an intimate connection with time, shown by the many watches he wears on his wrist and his intimate knowledge of train schedules. This emphasis on time seems designed to evoke SK's discussion of time in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript, in which he directly discusses the entrance of eternity into time. (The Oracle's line in EtM, "The path of the One is made by the many," echoes SK's assertion that the many discrete points of temporality create the possibility of eternity.)
- Kierkegaard's doctrine of radical choice permeates the script, culminating in the Smith v. Neo showdown. I suspect that Smith is meant to represent (amongst many things!) existentialism, just as the Age
Spoilers! (Score:5, Funny)
1. Neo and Agent Smith beat the shit out of each other.
2. Neo and Trinity kiss. Many times.
3. Locke thinks Morpheus is a lunatic
4. The sentinels lay waste to Zion's defense.
5. Persephone was really cute.
6. The Oracle bakes more cookies
7. There is no spoon.
back from a show (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.ender.com/)
* Pacing is good, you don't feel like the movie gets bogged down (which I felt during the extended Zion scene of Reloaded, even though I liked most of its parts individually)
* The ending is disappointing. I don't mean it's just lame, per se, but it isn't what you're really expecting, and it feels bad at first. If you stop and think things through, I think it actually makes good sense. In a way, it ends how it HAD to end.
* Many things are never explained, and you expect them to be. Don't expect much in the way of logical explanation for a number of discrepancies. After Reloaded, you end up postulating a lot, "Well, it must be true that XXX, but how?" Well, Revolutions has characters saying, "XXX is how it is" plainly, but they don't explain why.
Sadly, I don't think the vision was complete. The Wachowski's probably DON'T have the answers to the tough questions to make the Matrix picture 'fit', and so they fail to achieve the true suspension of disbelief that allows immersion, and that hurts them. It doesn't really matter how absurd your premises are when it is clear they are premises; you need internal consistency. Reloaded and Revolutions, as a unit, fail to delivery that.
Put one way, this is a good movie. It is worth seeing, it has its moments, but it is not the mind-blowing, zen-moment conclusion that fans would have wanted. It does not sate the lust for action OR explanation, and so it comes up short.
In a way, it feels like a rush or a march to the conclusion. The actual true ending DOES make sense, even despite being vaguely disappointing, but it also leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
MUST NOT READ THREAD! (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 24 2003, @10:01AM)
Must not...
<struggles with mouse>
Aw, crap!
Proof that we do not live in the Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Proof that we do not live in the Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.setmajer.com/)
Nonsense. As Agent Smith says, "Human beings define their reality through misery and suffering."
Had two big-budget Hollywoood sequels rocked, we'd have all rejected the illusion and woken up.
Fan reaction (Score:5, Funny)
"Give us your opinion of the movie," they asked.
I replied, "How about this, I give you the finger, and you give me my $9.75 back."
I suspect I won't make the final edit for the commercial.
Just saw it, loved it. Here's the story, SPOILER (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.submarinefund.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 09 2005, @12:14PM)
If you're a Matrix fan, of course you'll see it, and I recommend you do.
Neo wakes up inside a section between the Machine word and the "Real" world, called the train station. His body is still lying in sick bay and he shows brain activity like someone jacked in, but they search the Matrix and can't find him. He meets a "family" of AI who were making sacrifices to save their "daughter".
They are doing it because they love, and Neo learns that programs can have the same connection as humans do that they call love.
There's some real connecting done in the train station that provides the basis for the hope of peace between the machines and the humans.
Morpheus and Trinity are summoned by the Oracle, who has a new body, it's later implied that frenchie (the Marovingian? sp?) forced her to.
They meet with her, she tells them where Neo is, and take her body gaurd kung foo guy with them to find the train driver, to rescue Neo.
They find him and give a short chase, but he gets away. He goes and picks up the family at the train station, and tells Neo he doesn't get to go.
Neo acts like he doesn't want to throw the guy a beatin, but the train guy tells Neo how he built this place and he's god there, and apparantly he is, and Neo gets a good stomach punch into the wall from him. Neo's stuck, and Morpheus, Trinity and kung foo body guard guy dont know what to do. Kungo foo joe recommends going back to the Oracle, and Trinity says why, we konw what to do. They go beat their way into the techno S&M club where the Marovingian hangs, and negotiate a trade. He wants the Oracles eyes for Neo's release.
Trinity gets impatient and they crack some skulls, and she ends pulling off an awesome catch of a mid air Berretta and putting it firmly in the Marovingian's forehead.
She negotiates a new deal, and it cuts to them rescueing Neo from train station. Meanwhile the physical world agent smith has woken up, and "doesn't remember anything".
Commander tough recommends the doctor give him something to help, and it's back inside the Matrix where they're rushing to get out, when Neo says he has to see the Oracle. He meets her, they talk. He asks some good questions, the gist is she chose to help them out, and is taking some big risks because she wants what Neo wants, peace. Then on to Neo getting unjacked from the Matrix. Quick note, when did they jack him in?
He was in the Matrix from the train station, where he arrived when he used his powers outside the Matrix. They ask Neo some questions but he says he needs some time, and retires to his crappy little room to think. Occaisonally there are flashes of him thinking and crazy electrical lines all over, and then the recurring theme of the 3 power lines running off into the mountains.
After they question human agent smith, they meet and decide to head back to Zion.
Neo comes in and tells them he knows what he has to do. He has to take a ship and go to the machine city, commander tough thinks he's crazy, and tells him no way he's gettin his ship. Naiobi lets Neo have her ship, which just needed a jump start after they found her and her crew. Back to sick bay, the medic chick goes to give
the agent smith guy a shot, he asks what its for, she says to help him remember, he says what if he don't wanna remember, what if he did the EMP blast, he'd be scared, which means he doesn't want the shot, so she should be scared, then he stabs her with a scalple, and she promptly dies. He takes off. Captain tough guys ship is going to be piloted by Naiobi through some really tight holes so they can sneak past the sentinals to get back to Zion, and Neo and Trinity, who insisted on going with Neo, are going to the machine
Ebert liked it (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Monday July 05 2004, @12:52PM)
Maybe a remkae of the 1984 Game Alternate Reality (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://mattwalsh.com/ | Last Journal: Friday July 04 2003, @04:22PM)
I did talk to two guys while at a restaurant in Westwood [In LA , near UCLA, it's the core of Hollywood]. I explained to them AR and it storyline, ideas and the Hollywood movie Dark City simularities to some of it and it's differences [i.e. things I think they did wrong in that movie that made it a bomb in the box office]. They listened intently, and one of them remarked to me (as they smiled to each other) was that "ideas can't be copyrighted". Matrix came out a few years later, I very much doubt they were the two brothers who came up with Matrix, but it made me wonder after Matrix came out.
see this [marktaw.com] for many more comparisons between the two.
My Opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.250media.com/)
One of the biggest complaints is, of course, the end. At the end of the movie, we see that everyone is still plugged into the Matrix, so nearly 99% of humanity is still trapped, we don't get to see released people really enjoying what they've won, instead we see the programs enjoying the end! What is this? At the end of the film, we have the Oracle, Architect, Seraph and that little kid enjoying this new 'peace', but that's not who we wanted to enjoy peace in the first place!
The holes that are left are not meant to be pondered, they're simply completely missing entirely.
The Twins? Nope, they just kinda went away.
The spoon he was given? No reason. Maybe it helped Neo psychologically, we don't know.
The 15 minute rave scene? Yeah, we're under attack, so lets party. MTV totally said it right on their parody. "There's a million machines coming to kill us, so we're going to party." Was there any significance to this scene in the end? Nope.
Neo and Trinity's sex scene? Perhaps used to make us feel like these two were in love, but otherwise no significance.
Near the end of the movie we're left with this huge Architect speech. Looking back, it doesn't even play a role in Revolutions. Does it really matter he's the sixth? Nope.
So how does Neo have powers in the real world? We're told it just kinda happened, a quick 2 liner by the Oracle.
That train station, did it even matter? It was just like this really stupid delay. There was indeed one cool part to that scene, where Neo tried to run out of it, and I felt like I was back in the Matrix world again, because the rules are being broken, but alas, that was it.
Interestingly, several points in the film we see Neo getting thrown up against a wall and you can see that its his stunt double. With such a significant CGI budget, please just mask the bloody face!
Does Persephone play a role? She states Trin is in love in Revolutions. Thanks. I needed that reminder because it wasn't already shoved down my throat.
Who is the mother of the matrix? Unless I'm not seeing something, no one. No one makes a clear indication who the heck the mother is! That entire ramble and revelation spoken to us was utterly pointless.
So in the end, lets take a look at what has been gained. Originally we had everyone trapped in the matrix. We have this place called Zion where the people who escaped live. At the end of Revolutions, everyone is still in the Matrix, and Zion, apparently, would still be the only place where the people who escaped live. The machines aren't going to attack Zion anymore, whoopee.
Being a big Matrix fan, I knew the producers had to close off several entire blocks of downtown Sydney for a day or so. Apparently it was the most expensive and elaborate piece of cinematography ever. Sooo...I honestly don't know where that scene was in Revolutions. I suspect it was the big fight between Neo and Smith at the end, but those are just buildings, really easy to make CGI out of them and look great. I was hoping to see some kind of amazing shot after everyone was freed and showing the world again in its beauty. All for naught. I heard there was a bus station bench in the set with the words "In memory of Thomas Anderson", I thought it would be really cool if the people of the Matrix learnt that it was Thomas that freed them, and thus the world after sorta regards him as this hero and his sacrifice to humanity could live on in the hearts of all people. But what are we left with? Nadda.
Why is there such a racial leaning in Zion? No reason given.
This entire thing about its a good thing Neo is still human? No reason, at no point does he ever even come close to being a machine.
Is the Counsel the 23 freed? Nope. That doesn't even play a role.
Counselor Hammods speech to Neo about machines helping us? Control? No reason.
Is there any reason for the burley brawl in
Re:My Opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://kwrussell.vox.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday June 05 2007, @11:15PM)
RE: Neo and the Architect: It's only the turning point of the entire mythology. :-)
RE: Neo's real-world powers: My inner Eastern philosopher says that his ability to transcend the limits of his senses was inherent in him, not his projection in the Matrix. My inner Western philosopher says that it is one of those Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
RE: The Burly Brawl: Exposition, to establish the magnitude of Smith's replication. The fact that it justified a huge, FX-laden fight scene was just icing on the cake. :-)
RE: Seraph: IIRC, he's the only Exile that we see represented in Matrix code, so that may explain his different appearance. Or maybe because he was meditating at the time. I don't know. That doesn't get answered in Revolutions, but we get hints that he does have a Past. As for his purpose, he "protects that which is most important." (Or was it "sacred"? Have to check the DVD tonight.) (Reloaded) We're led to believe that he means the Oracle, but I think Revolutions demonstrates that he's really meant to protect the Last Exile. (Smith kinda wrenched that, didn't he?)
RE: The subway station: Mobil Ave. Anagram for "Limbo", anyone? And, as somebody else pointed out in another thread, a metaphor for the Underground Railroad.
RE: "levels of survival": Well, if all but 23 humans are dead, the Machines don't need much of a presence in the physical world, do they? Enough Sentinels to keep the survivors in their place would be enough. Devote the rest of their energy to the Fetus Fields, and let the Matrix programs spin up the world for the baby boom to come. (This also explains why mundane processes like Ramachandra look human: to pre-populate the respawned Matrix with adults!)
RE: The Ending: If Neo is this mythology's Messiah, why not the Prince of Peace as well? Each side wanted absolute power over the other. Man's subjugation of the awakening Machines was what started the war in the first place. (Animatrix, 2nd Rennaisance) The Machines turned their victory into revenge by subjugating man in return. The result was a sick co-dependency (Reloaded, Hamann and Neo's conversation) as the Machines let those who didn't accept the Matrix build some sand castles, then kick them all down when the system needed a maintenance reboot. Just as Neo broke the systemic cycle of reboots by refusing to return to the Source, Neo broke the greater cycle of hatred by offering his life to save the Machines from the Smith forkbomb. He alluded to as much in his monologue at the end of the first film.
So where do things go from here? The implication is that the machines and humans are left to work that out for themselves. To me, the final scene was a transfer of power from the Architect to the Oracle. The Architect tried to create a utopian Matrix by forcing it on humanity, and it was rejected. Maybe the Oracle will allow a humanity that accepts the Matrix to bring it as close to Utopia as they can.
Ever notice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be ironic if special effects increased boredom? $200 million later, it's really not all that much better than the book? Could that actually be what audiences are thinking?
Interesting question. It should be pointed out that just about every major blockbuster special-effects-genre movie in the last 3-5 years has been often reviewed as "boring," with the possible exception of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy which, ironically enough, is based on the books.
All this is well & good but what I want to kno (Score:4, Funny)
(http://dylanfreak.djeaux.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 12 2004, @09:39PM)
Move along, Nothing to see here. Thread summed up. (Score:4, Funny)
(http:///www.freejake.com)
1. 98% of the posts say, "The new flick isn't as good as the first one (no shit?, one asks).
2. You could say the readership of slashdot is split almost evenly as to whether or not it's better than the second.
3. Bunch of posts saying hollywood sux.
4. Will there be another Matrix movie and money making media releases?
5. Some asswipe who wasn't modded down to hell for saying Glendale CA rocks in response to a post by a user who says they saw the new flick in Glendale.
6. If you're reading this much Matrix material on slashdot, you should burn pictures of 'Trinity' under your mattress and take a shower.
7. If you're writing this list, jesus go away bitter old man thoughts...
8. A Star Wars / Matrix / Lord of the Rings is better flamewar/circlejerk.
9. Someone probably suggesting they do an edit to the Matrix trilogy removing Neo like they did with Jar-Jar Binks.
10. People bitching that they should do an apt-get/emerge/beowulf parallel compile on their freebsd based G5 cluster with --Matrix-Flags=disable-neo-fuck-scenes.
In Soviet Slashdot, sigs are posts and non-sigs are sigs.
Joel Silver wrote it (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery | Last Journal: Tuesday September 19 2006, @10:20PM)
Dodge this.
Better than second at least (Score:5, Insightful)
With that said, I can say that Revolution will go down as one of the best, it not the best sci-fi finale ever for a trilogy. (LOTR doesn't count, as it's fantasy). Much better than episode 6 of Star Wars, and probably better than what the finale of the prequels will be.
Contrary to what other people say, I don't believe there are any holes at the end of the movie.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
First of all, for all of those that said that the machine didn't care that their food could go bye-bye, well, that's not a plot hole, it was EXPLAINED why they accept so in the architect rant at the end of the 2nd one.
Second, why should we know what happens with Zion? Do you really need to see them have another rave of something? They'll rebuild what they can, and that's it. No need to do some cheesy crossfades of clips of people rebuilding the city. Those who want to be unplugged from the Matrix will be, and will live with the humans, as the Architect and the Oracle say at the end. What Neo, and Trinity and Morpheus and everyone wanted most of all to give is CHOICE. CHOICE to be part of the Matrix or not. It's not as if people were badly treaten inside the Matrix. They were happy and everything. The difference between what will go on after the end of the 3rd movie and what was going on before is that humans were hunted and killed when they rejected the Matrix, as they serve no purpose to the machines anymore. Now they will be allowed to be free. It's not as if everyone is going to disconnect from the Matrix all at once.
Anyway, having everyone disconnect would be a really bad idea because after all, the earth is destroyed, there's no hope to get it cleaned up and livable. If they want to live in that mess, FINE, now it's THEIR CHOICE TO DO so. They're not forced to be in the Matrix anymore.
Also, face it Neo is dead. For once, the hero dies in a movie. And I'm glad he did, because seeing him back with the rest of the people Zion would just feel so cheesy. Anyway, for those who doubt he's dead, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be an entry on IMDB soon about how this film as a connection with King Arthur's story. Notice how when his body was carried at the end on a machine ship it looked oddly like when Arthur is laying on a ship and going to the sea when he dies?
Damn... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://nemesis.ee.teiath.gr/)
What really happened (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact when Agent Smith has Neo down and then, against his will, makes the exact same statement that the Oracle had made earlier, Neo gets it. He understands that he is to merge with Agent Smith/Oracle thus bringing an end to her fight with the Architect. The problem most people are having is assuming an anthrocentric take on the movie. The humans are lost, they are batteries, Zion cannot prevail and will never do so. The people who make up Zion (pod escapees) are only useful as a consequence of the imperfection necessary in the Matrix program to keep the pod people happy. As the Arhitect said it was a dangerous game the Oracle had played.
Fucking brilliant.
Re:Spoiler Alert!!! (Score:3, Funny)
And his name is Chad.