'Matrix Revolutions' Opens Today 1691
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."
Wouldn't you? (Score:2, Insightful)
In terms of the series degrading, I'm probably seeing Revolutions this weekend, but it's to be expected. The original was fresh, original and hadn't been done before. To try and top that along with the percieved expectations people have for the sequels is crazy.
To quote The Matrix "It's going to work, because no one's every done this before". 'nuff said. That's why the 1st rules, and everyone hasn't liked the rest.
The critics don't have a really good track record (Score:2, Insightful)
But, eh, WTF, if it sucks it sucks, they're still getting at least $5 outta me.>br> -Doc
hitchcock's horror (Score:5, Insightful)
'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.
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.
Matrix and snobishness (Score:5, Insightful)
"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:Thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
I should hope so, as it is literally live action anime, nothing more nothing less.
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.
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Insightful)
reminds me of highlander (Score:2, Insightful)
Then the sequels quickly demonstrate that some things are better left unsaid
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:3, Insightful)
a) You saw "The Matrix" and liked it.
b) You saw the sequel and DIDN'T like it.
c) You STILL PAID to see the 3rd film, but you paid EVEN MORE this time.
Do you realise that THERE'S NOTHING BUT YOUR OWN STUPIDITY that's making you give Hollywood your money.
Let's summary all in one sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the thing that is most sad about the current situation with the Matrix. If they would have just let the original stand alone, it would forever go down as one of the top movies of all time. All its open-ended questions would continue to keep people coming back to it for years (I've seen it probably 20 times so far).
The advent of the sequels simply ruins the aura and mystery surrounding the original by explaining away most of the parts that could be taken as insightful or even philosophical and replacing them with crap that is trying way too hard to sound philosophical.
On top of all that, Keanu was incredible in the first one precisely because he was playing a char actor that was supposed to have no clue what was going on (his only mode of acting) and that was being pushed by others to his destiny. Now that he has reached that destiny, he just looks like an out-of-his-intellectual-league nitwit like he does in Speed and all the rest of his movies. Watch the SNL Celebrity Jeprody episode featuring "Keanu" for an intelligent critique of him as an actor.
Skip the Hollywood edit, though... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Formula moviemaking (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a particularly arrogant stance.
Is an unfinished story better than a poor one? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Is an unfinished story better than a poor one? (Score:2, Insightful)
Strange... I always thought "The Empire strikes back" was the best Star Wars movie
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
People expect too much. (Score:2, Insightful)
But to two or more classics in one series? It's not going to happen... ever. The only exception is Star Wars (Episodes 4-6). They are no doubt sci-fi classics. It was also one big story split up into 3 parts (or was it 6 parts but he only made the last 3?)
People went into the Phantom Menace expecting to be utterly wowed as they were when they were kids (okay, and some adults) seeing the original Star Wars movies. Here's a tip: it's never going to be as good as the original. It's nothing but an extension of the original story for die-hard fans. That and good marketing.
Just because a movie doesn't live up to the hype of the original doesn't make it a "bad" movie. Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones weren't nearly as good as the original Star Wars movies, but they weren't HORRIBLE movies.
I highly doubt that the original Matrix was created with two sequels in mind. Perhaps the Matrix could've done what Star Wars did if they elaborated more with the first movie and made it longer to split into 3 parts.
But really, it's just a sequel. Hype (caused by fans) is what "ruins" a movie. No, it won't be as good as the original Matrix, but it's not a BAD movie. Reloaded wasn't a BAD movie. It was simply over-hyped.
It happens with everything. Movies, music, video games, tv... something good and original comes out and if the second installment doesn't make you crap your pants like the original did, it's merely "okay" or "old".
Re:Dragon Ball-Z - Warning *spoilers* ahead (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't look promising (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Like Bladerunner... (Score:3, Insightful)
Scott's director's cut, released later, is the film as he intended it and it's much better.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I was hoping that the matirx and the humans were ALL the creation of an advanced AI program at MIT, or some such, with the creators not aware in the least of the real passion of their created entities.
Wasn't that bad, but biggest problem was CHANGE (Score:2, Insightful)
Ultimately, did Neo win? Regardless of if he lived or died in the end, the computers still control the matrix, and there are humans living under ground in Zion.
We go through three movies, and end up with no change.
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.
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:"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: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.
Joel Silver wrote it (Score:3, Insightful)
Dodge this.
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
Re:Skip the Hollywood edit, though... (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I don't remember there being anything before the bathtub part. Well I guess that shows how much impact it has. :)
If you have the DVD, what you *really* need to do is watch it a second time with the Rodger Ebert commentary track on. He does an excellent job of exploring every nook and cranny of the movie; he obviously prepared for days before sitting down to record the commentary.
One further note: *do* watch the trailer *before* you see it for the first time. Unlike most trailers, it really doesn't give anything away, and it's so well balanced, without dialoge but with a great soundtrack, that it really sets the mood for the film.
Oh, and *don't* bother with the stupid treasure hunt in the DVD menus. The payoff is so lame, it detracts from the movie itself.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:2, Insightful)
I understood it just fine. But the movie never explained HOW it happens. That makes it just a convenient deus ex machina (pun intended).
Saying "the One's powers extend to the source and the real world" doesn't actually explain anything. Look, Oracle, we KNOW that. It's obvious. But tell us why and how? Why didn't he have the power before? What is Smith, really?
Smith entered Bane by somehow hijacking the hardline or something I guess, I just kind of look at it as he found a way to the subway station (what the hell was with making the portal between worlds a subway station anyway?) and then entered the real world.
Hijacking the hardline? So you find it completely plausible for a virtual AI program to somehow "download" itself into a random human brain? I know people mention the training programs, but we're talking about a fully self-aware AI being here. How does its executable code transfer to a human brain?
As for the subway station, notice the train says "Loop" on it--it's the same subway train from the first movie.
*The people of the matrix are freed. The Architect said the machines agreed to free all humans who wish to be freed now that the humans and machines are going to coexist peacefully. This was kind of what the entire movie was about.
Look, who's holding the cards here? The machines. They have all the power. We're back to where we started, except that we have the word of some random AI we know nothing about.
I understand that many will enjoy the lesser amount of monologues in this film, but after raising so many questions in Reloaded--is Neo a program? Is the One designed? Who is the Architect? What was the point of Persephone's kiss?--and not having them answered, it's completely unfulfilling.
That's why the reviews are so bad. It doesn't resolve anything.
Re:Here's a positive review... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. The first two introduced a new world and laid the foundation of a deeper philosophical understanding of reality. Compared to them, the 3rd Matrix movie should have starred Jean-Claude Van Damme Gary Busey and gone straight to USA Network.
The 2nd movie was kind of annoying in that it gave you a lot of questions, but didn't deliver any answers. This was tolerable though, because you assume that its a set up for the revelations coming in the 3rd movie....
They never come though. The answers to the big questions that you're left with after the 2nd movie are glossed over in literally one or two sentences. "oh ummm there's some magic mumbo jumbo 802.11b wireless brain chip or something, and the French guy has some magic subway train. There's your explanation, on to the hour-long action sequence!!"
There were a million different fan theories about what the Matrix really was and what the ending was going to be. And unfortunately, every single one of them was wrong. The real ending was far lamer than anyone could have imagined.
Revolutions must not be the final (Score:1, Insightful)
Ok, I have thought about it after seeing this horrible movie, and I have concluded that this must not be the final movie. There are too many things that are left completely unanswered, and almost deliberately so. Here are some of them:
1) How did Neo end up in a train station? He did not jack in, but was in the matrix. Did he have a wireless card in his freaking head or something? (WTF??)
2) What the hell happened between the oracle and the french guy? Something happens, and the french guy says he hopes that she learned her lesson, but it never explains anything.
3) Programs feeling love? I understand what I hope was the point of them saying this: that love is extenal to humans and not just a human emotion, but were the waskowski brother trying to imply that programs loved each other?
There are other minor ones that I will allow to get by me until I figure out why such gross inconsistencies were built into this movie. All of these three things were deliberatly put into this movie, and were completely unexplained (except for, arguably, the last one, which can be explained philisophically, although by doing this, they violated the story which was previously a fully self-consistant metaphor).
But here is the main reason I think there is another one coming (a secret one): my hypothesis (which was pretty well thought out) was not proven or disproven. This was my hypothesis: that the matrix that was the city and the agents and mr.anderson and all that was really a matrix nested inside the real matrix that was zion, and that whole world. A redundant system of control seems like something that a machine would definitely think of. Most people will stay in the nested matrix, but even the most "rebelious" ones who happen to escape from that one will be so caught up in their war against the machines that they don't realize they are still in the matrix. This of course would explain Neo's otherwise silly supernatural powers.
I also know for a fact that I am not the only one who thought of this. I don't know why nobody on
The machines so happy to extend peace to the humans, if they so wished. Doesn't freeing all the people imply that most of the machines will die? Why didn't they just lie to Neo and let him kill Smith and then kill Zion and Neo?
In addition, the last conversation between the Oracle and the Architect seemed alot like a setup for a new movie. "How long do you think this peace will last?", "As long as it can". This sounds really weak. If the oracle, as the end of reloaded proposes, is just a part of this control system, then she is asking this question wondering how long zion will be content inside of their matrix.
Is there another trilogy coming, or at least another movie? What do all you
Re:[SPOILERS] a disappointing failure (Score:2, Insightful)
Neo had to let himself be taken over by Smith in the final fight in order to defeat Smith. Trinity had to die, or Neo would never surrender himself. He was willing to risk the future of the entire human species to save her. He would survive to go back to her no matter what. The Oracle surrendered to Smith in order let Neo know -- at precisely the right moment -- "Everything that has a beginning has an end." Neo had to come to some kind of end. B5 fans will remember that "The only way out is to surrender to tock."
4. Neo's death in the end...
Neo isn't dead.
Check the dates on the call traces [scottmanning.com] in the first movie. Matrix is in early 1998. Reloaded is six months later, Revolutions comes minutes to hours after Reloaded. But 13 months after Revolutions, Neo is in the phone booth telling someone:
I thought perhaps Revolutions would end inconclusively with respect to the war, and that Neo was talking to the Agents, or the Architect. Now, who knows? Is this an old enemy or a new one? Did the Architect change his mind? Is/are Smith still out there somewhere? Do the Agents continue fighting the humans? Are there humans who don't want other humans to be free of the Matrix?
Who is Neo talking to?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:[SPOILERS] a disappointing failure (Score:2, Insightful)
I forget the exact quote, but ``the point of life is to die". Had you noticed that most deaths aren't "meaningful"? That, in fact, they SUCK?
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)
Two words. So what? The fact that it didn't switch made it needlessly drawn out? How about the sheer, overwhelming endlessness and hopelessness of fighting a never-ending horde? Worked for me.
The fight scene with Smith/Baines and Neo in the Logos was completely extraneous.
Nonsense. It left Neo blind, which (to run with these stupid Star Wars metaphors) left him open to see through the Force. It taught Neo things, as well.
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.
Unless he comes back, Gandalf-like. Plus, we don't know that he's dead (although I "believe" he is).
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).
Shrug. I think he was supposed to appear weak. It was inevitable, and helped him realize the way to victory was... to give in.
I can think of at least three answers to your final complaint, but anyone who was paying attention rather than being all pissed off because it wasn't the movie they wanted to make should be able to come up with at least one of their own.
Did I think it was a great movie? No. But neither was it the pile of fetid garbage you seem to think it was. Still better than average for Hollywood.
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.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, but how do his "powers" carry over into the "real world"?
It was my impression from having seen the first two episodes that Neo was able to step outside of the rules of the Matrix because the system was designed to be believable by its occupants. As a result, it would allow Neo to do what he believed he could do. Since he knew that the system's rules didn't apply to him, the Matrix did his bidding.
When you say, "his powers are not limited to just the matrix", to which powers are you referring? His powers within the Matrix are limited to presenting his set of beliefs to the system (that he could fly, etc.) and allowing the system to present a reality to him which matched those beliefs.
Your claim that Neo's power to know that the Matrix is fake extends to the real world. That I can believe.
However, how does his knowing-that-the-Matrix-is-fake allow him to manipulate robots in the real world?
The parent poster basically said that he wasn't sure how Smith entered a real person. You say, "I just kind of look at it as he found a way to the subway station... and then entered the real world."
In short:
Parent> I don't see how he entered the real world.
You> He found a subway station, then entered the real world.
The parent wasn't questioning Smith's ability to locate a subway station (in fact, he was in a subway station in the original movie), but wondered how Smith (a piece of software) could control a human.
That's what the parent was complaining about! Playing the "it's just a movie" card when somebody complains about plot holes doesn't excuse the fact that there are holes in the plot.
Again, in dialogue form:
Person> That road is full of potholes, and my car's suspension is bad from driving on it! What crappy roads Pennsylvania has!
Other person> I'll agree that having your car suffer damage is disappointing, but it is just a road.
Person> Whatever. It's still a crappy road.
Saying that unjustified technical matters which oppose "reality" are excusable in a movie intended for a geeky audience is like saying that it's excusable for the girl to fall for a half-wit jackass who beats on her in a chick-flick.
That would also be "just a movie", but I'd be surprised if many would call it a good one.
You go on to say that you liked it because the computer agreed to live peacefully with everybody in the end, and that you disliked the dialogue in the second movie.
The first two movies reminded me of Goedel's incompleteness theorem. Smith (in the first movie) said that there had been talk of lacking a language sufficient to describe a "perfect" world. In the second movie, I felt that the system had been built in such a way as to allow these flaws in their system to allow it to function anyways. The Oracle existed to help to isolate those who might threaten the system.
You claim that there was too much talking, and that things which weren't justified should be ignored because "it is a movie."
Somehow that doesn't compel me to go watch the third movie.
Is this not always the case? (Score:3, Insightful)
This can be taken a number of ways. From the "you aren't smart enough to understand it" to "you aren't cool enough to understand the references" down to "you aren't uneducated enough to think that this material hasn't been done to death already".
How many people want to watch 12 hours of "Barney"? Dude, you just don't "get" Barney.
But there are lots of 3 year olds that would love that.
And they'll watch it over and over and over.
The Matrix was a decent movie. A little bit off on the science bit (human batteries) with some light philosophy thrown in and lots of guns and explosions and a hot chick in leather.
The sequels aren't as good. There's the "Matrix" world which is a computer simulation but the computers have real locations in the real world.
Now there is a "world between"?
They aren't keep up with their philosophy. There is the real world, there is the fantasy world that you have to wake up from, but now there is a third reality?
The way the fantasy world affects the real world is with the squids. They don't need the Smith character in the real world. He doesn't provide any clarification of the plot.
Neo should not be affecting the squids in the real world. Fantasy powers should stay in the fantasy world. I can accept that you die in the real world if you're killed in the fantasy world because that injects an element of danger. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any real threat to people operating in the Matrix.
The biggest problem I see with this trilogy is that it wasn't planned to be a trilogy. The second movie invalidated parts of the first movie and the third movie invalidated parts of the first and second movies.
Re:He spoke in amphibolies (Score:2, Insightful)
1. They violated the initial premise of the movie. Morpheus told us that the Matrix was a prison meant to keep humans occupied while machines used their bioelectric energy to power themselves. Fine. It's your movie. But in the end, no humans got saved. There's a truce, and therefore the machines get to keep their batteries. Sure, we could discuss the dilemmas inherent in jacking folks out of a happy illusion and into a tragic reality (sort of an anti-Plato's cave), but there's the problem: This would have been a MUCH more satisfying discussion.
2. Neo gets to take his superpowers with him. He's the One because he can violate the rules imposed by the Matrix. Fine. It's your movie. But in the end, he gets to control the machines from -reality-. Problem is, we've been led to believe that the Matrix is just a giant UPS system connected to a much larger complex. The Architect is not the thing Neo speaks to at the end. And yet, he still gets to blow Real machines up and see fictional Matrix characters when looking at real poeple with his inner sight (Anyone read Dune Messiah?) This means that there is a God, he's interested in humans, has taken a fancy to Neo, and wants a big machine to understand what's going on. There's no other explanation, unless I was getting popcorn when Trinity found an 802.11x antenna in Neo's ear.
3. The Architect has problems he shouldn't have. If I were building a Matrix and I didn't want people to reject it, I'd fake a new reality just like I faked the old one. The idea that Zion is just another part of the Matrix has been rejected in other threads, but too hastily IMHO. In other movies it would be a copout, but here it would be central to the Matrix premise. What better way to imprison minds than an illusionary escape? What better way to explain Smith's presence in Bane? What better way to explain Neo's powers?
4. Smith, Smith, Smith. We are led to believe that Smith has (or shortly will) overwritten himself onto every human in the Matrix. Jeez, the problems with that one. Are the original personalities lost? If so, why didn't the Architect do something like that himself a long time ago, and solve his problems that way? And just what exactly how did Neo defeat Smith? 'He let Smith win' isn't Eastern philosophy, or Karma, or Christ. The architect tells us that the Matrix has been done before, but this Smith thing is new to this cycle. Every other time, the Matrix has either ended with the One's cooperation or without. Zion is destroyed. This time, Smith is here, and this time Neo is fighting in part on 01's behalf. So this the fight itself is entirely new, no matter how it ends. There's no Karmic wheel to get off of, or if there is it's way, way before the Smith/Neo fight. So with Smith gone, where are the Matrix humans? If they're dead, what did the 01 Nation gain by letting Neo fight?
So, they could have gone Schwartzennegar simple, but didn't. They could have gone for good, meaty morale dilemmas, but didn't. They went for tea-party philosophy, and succeeded.
Fight scene in Logos was not extraneous (Score:3, Insightful)
In the fight scene we get:
- Bane/Smith making some good exposition about how much he, the machine, still hates humans and "living in the flesh". It is clear that Smith really is Neo's antithesis -- he will never want "peace", neither with the humans nor with the other machines.
- Bane/Smith blinds Neo physically...
-
The fight takes Neo's physical sight. That is the final link to his gnosis -- he is now totally cut off from 'seeing' the world of illusion, he sees the world as energy and knows how to manipulate that energy.
Re:Matrix and snobishness (Score:2, Insightful)
The "general audiences" just want to know how it works and why Neo's there. While the "general audiences are asking "Who is he?" The intellectuals are asking "What is he?" The intellectuals appreciate it more if they can have discussions and debates about this instead of the movie just flat-out telling you what to think. The "general audiences" want Neo to beat the bad guys and ride off into the sunset with the girl. The intellectuals like being able to debate whether he rode off into the sunset or was left dead.
The intellectuals are happy because they got what they were expecting from it, and the movie gave them exactly what they wanted. The "general audiences" are disappointed because they don't know what happened and don't want to think about it. All they know was that Keanu was a bad actor, they didn't understand the movie, and there won't be another one to clear it up.
DUNE anyone (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:2, Insightful)
I saw the new Matrix more like a world for the programs "without purpose", did you see how artifical everything looked and how empty? No people anywhere, just the few renegades that survived so far and they can do whatever they want, not being squeezed into an equation (notice that the architect is out of a job?)
About Smith getting inside a human or Neo being outside of his body. That is what this whole thing was about: Neo was able to upload himself into the Matrix (computer) and the virus downloaded himself into a human brain. That is the reason why Neo can take on the machines, a part of his programming is still in the computer (like the Seti@home system -> plot loophole though, because he needs some kind of link between the seperate code parts)
So there is actually now no difference between the machines and the humans anymore, they both exist without purpose and just from choice to choice, just the shell is different.
Apropos shell: What about the train station. Ever heard of a bus inside a computer? All the movies where full of a parallels to computers: shell, bus, source, buffer, oracle as cache controller, architect as CPU
Well enough of this mindless drivel already, I need to get some sleep.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:3, Insightful)
As for Bane, Smith Reprogrammed him. He basically messed up the brainwave pattern, and rerouted neuron connections. Sort of like brainwashing, but Matrix style. It was all explained when the doctor discribed his neural activity, and to me it made logical sense (for the movie, anyway)..
Some people ask what happen to the people trapped inside the matrix? Well the Architect said it himself. Those that want to be free, will be free. What part of that did you guys not understand?
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe the point is that as machines don't generally understand emotion or free will - that heavily implies that machine consciousness is incompatible with human consciousness.
But as the cute indian family says in the train station says, they are all but words. It is the connection they describe, and I think that is clearly described early on in the movie.
the 'how' is the philosophical leap as to why Smith can suddenly do this in M2, but it never occurred to any agent before then to do so or even try (and kill the Runners where they are most vulnerable, on their ship, asleep). If smith could have uploaded himself in M1, wouldn't he have just killed Cypher and loaded himself onto the Neb to clean up the rest? Clearly it has something to do with his ability to take (even unplugged) people over in M2 - but that is never explained.
This is also clearly explained in M2, as Smith in the Many Smiths scene in M2: "some part of you copied onto me, something overwritten, duplicated."
This also explains how Neo is able to destroy smith in the third movie, when smith takes him over neo gains access to smith's code, yet remains himself, and is able to destroy.
I think people are too busy bitching about M2 and M3 to stop and think about what really happens, and to understand it fully. Almost every complaint I've seen here so far I've been able to answer to myself and even quote a few lines from M2 if applicable.
Stop and think a minute? Oh, that's right, I must be new here...
PH34R and Trembling (Spoilers) (Score:4, Insightful)
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
And worse, it was shitty action... (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh well, I am still trying to sort out whether I'm really disappointed in Matrix Revolutions or just mildly disappointed. It left me craving more explanation, and clarification of the issues and questions posed in Matrix Reloaded, as it seems to have with many, and it felt like a sellout by the Wachowskis, but maybe I'll decide they just went for a more subtle, but equally poignant film. I'm still thinking on it.
Re:About the ending--**SPOILER** (Score:3, Insightful)
Smith also copied himself onto other programs, including other agents and the Oracle, herself. Agents, presumably, can't jump into other programs. But Smith wasn't an agent anymore, he was a virus, and viruses operated under different circumstances than other programs.