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'Matrix' Sequels In Trouble?
jopasm writes "The Matrix sequels may be in trouble. They've had one of the major actors pull out due to scheduling conflicts and Keanu is rumored to have broken his ankle while in training. Scifi.com is
carrying the rumour/style. " Yes, Michelle Yeoh [?] (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) has pulled out - but the other part to remember is that SAG [?] will almost be certainly going on strike, delaying production in any case.
I won't be too sad if there's no sequel. The matrix is one of the best movies I've ever seen, and the number of movies that hollywood will leave alone to enjoy their limelight are few and far between - look at what happened to Highlander *whince*. I don't believe a sequel was ever made to Bladerunner, either, and it hasn't hurt it's cult following.
..don't panic
And as for a leading lady, somebody will step in. There are a ton of great acresses out there that kick ass (It seems everyone is either taking Tae-bo or kickboxing now).
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Please, do NOT introduce the Battlestar Galactica "Balthazar" traitor-to-the-human-race concept.
If you do, make it clever, like they are hackers in a 2199 virtual world, with computers duplicating reality, who think they are trying to stop some kind of robot intruders, like role-reversed.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
What? Nero Burning Rom is not good enough?
CGI = computer generated images or computer generated inference (were you take several shots and make up (infer) the ones in between)
but usualy it's the first
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
If the plot is sufficently well thought out, and the acting good enough then people will overlook the loose ends in the plot because they are simply entertained by the movie.
I feel sorry for someone who goes to see a film, and then complains about "gaping plot holes" that are in reality insignificant.
Oh, now I understand why people use Windows!
All Rights Reversed.
This comment is marked funny, but it's undoubtable that in time, computers will be used to creat actors. If you trace the history of CGI you can see that it's gone from non-realistic non-interacting stationary objects, to moving objects, to interacting characters, to photorealistic non-human characters, to humanoids. Humans are the next step. I'd expect that due to the SAG & other unions, it will probably be first seen with the likeness of a dead actor or actors, in an advert, probably for a superbowl Sunday. Quite possibly Marilyn Monroe or James Dean.
Umm... I hate to break it to you, but They Live pretty much blew. It was a good concept, yes, but beyond that an absolutely worthless movie.
"Put on the glasses!"
"No! I don't wanna put on the glasses!"
Really, what the hell was his objection to trying on a pair of shades? Was it worth the most drawn out, boring fight scene in the history of film?
I'm all out of bubblegum.
He is the One, and he is supposed to be able to move in and out of the Matrix at will. Of course, at the end of the movie, it's much more dramatic if he needs to get to the proper telephone in time, rather than just "moving out at will."
Rest assured, the plot of the first movie can be broken enough to permit Neo to not be able to do the things he is able to do.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
He's only "The One" inside the Matrix. He's still very vulnerable in the real world - hence the whole rush at the end of the movie to get him out of the Matrix. Here's what I would do if I were the machine in charge of the Matrix and wanted to elimate Keanu:
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Instead of wasting ten minutes telling us all about how humans are now batteries, how "your body cannot survive without your brain", and shit like that, they could have had Morpheous say a couple criptic things while playing with his pill-box, and then go straight to the ass-whooping.
Personally, I thought The Matrix was one of the best Kung-Fu action movies ever made, but it was not a good example of science fiction. What separates science fiction from outright fantasy is not the presense of computers or space-ships or robots... it is that the story follows its own rules, based on a theoretically possible speculation.
1. In The Matrix, we are told that man blotted out the sunlight, because the AI's got their energy from the sun. (Where the hell did they thing we got our energy from!?)
2. The AI's decided to imprison people to harvest their energy (People make horribly inefficient energy generators. You would need to consume more energy to collect it in those quantities than you would get out. Also, with no solar energy, life on earth dies unless you replicate it, which again costs more energy than you will get out of the people.
3. The dead are fed to the living. (One corpse has enough calories to feed one person for what, a month? You would run out of people very quickly with this system.)
4. The AI's have control over the Matrix and everything in it. (Ahem... ps -ef | grep neo. Then "kill -9" the little bastard and go back to torturing Morpheus. Movie over.)
5. The EMP is "the only weapon we have" in meatspace. (They can carry an EMP generator on their ship, and hack into the Matrix, but could not figure out how to mount a gun turret!?)
The bottom line here is: crappy story, cool fight scenes and stunts. The same is true for just about any Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee flick, and if you watch The Matrix with the same expectations, you will have a fun time.
People looking for a good version of this same story should watch Dark City, from two years earlier. No Kung Fu, but the plot works better.
Also, Cronenberg's eXistenZ was better a better sci fi VR story, but damn weird, and a little predictable in spots.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
>My main problem with the original is the same problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer type clones: why in the world would your brain kill your body if you 'thought' you died in some VR-type world? It makes no sense.
Are you familar with shock. If your brain believes that you have lost an arm it changes the way blood flows in your body to preserves as much as possible for the brain to survive as long as possible, shutting off blood flow to many sections of the body.
If there was a way to tell someone's brain that their heart had stoped beating or that it was no longer recieving oxygen who knows what the effect might be.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
absolutely, I'm no scientist, and I thought it was absurd.
...
It would've been better, and even more disturbing, if the machines thought of themselves as "taking care" of humans by enslaving them
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I doubt there are any statements left to be made, or that they were really trying to make any to begin with.
I read a few interviews with the Wachowskis after The Matrix was released, and they said that they wanted to make a series (trilogy, I think) of superhero movies, but felt they needed a new way (at least in terms of superhero movies) to capture the audience... By setting them in another (believable) world, they didn't have to require the audience to set aside quite as much disbelief as they would if these superhero movies were set in the real world. It's an age-old sci-fi trick... it's much easier to make the action occur in a world that you can manipulate to your purposes as a writer than it is to adapt the action to the world we all live in.
That said, The Matrix was the set-up movie... it established the new world, the origin of the superhero (Neo), and the arch-villain (the machines). Now we get to sit back and just have some comic-book superhero action.
Cool. Not everything has to be an intellectual pursuit to be worthwhile and entertaining.
Dude, that busted ankle is totally not righteous!
Bill, dude man, your stepmom's a babe!
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Computer generated imagery.
Lowmag.net
last I read (eyecandy.ucsc.edu)... I doubt that strike will occur.
"Worst Episode Ever!"
"Worst Convention Ever!"
"The Collector!"
I don't remember the guy's name either but he's funny when they use him, I think their selective use of him is a good idea though, he won't make a spin-off show alone.
As for the Matrix, it just didn't seem original, in general it followed the standard style over substance. It wasn't a bad movie, it just felt too rushed with almost didly character development, IMO.
I fail to see the importance of the Matrix and it's so called problems. I can understand /. ers facination with Star wars and their desire for Star wars news, but does this really deserve to be reported? I guess if it's a slow news day (it is a Monday) you want to put some story up.
Did anyone ever see Dark City? Compared to the Matrix I think it is a magnatude better. I can't remember when it came out, 93-95? It didn't have the special effects or the big name actors, but it asked the question about "what is reality" in a much more realistic sense. Almost every idea in the Matrix it seems was copied from that movie.
Back to my point. Do you really think this is worthy news for nerds? If so, hey, I'm outvoted, that's fine, I'm just curious if others feel the same way.
the ideas that lay the foundation for the Matrix are so hoary that they were ancient when philosophy was new. i'm not going to look up the actual dialogue, but even plato, when presented with the concept of world-as-elaborate-illusion, wondered aloud why anyone would want to dredge up "such old matters" and moved on to more interesting topics. finding yourself intellectually stimulated by the matrix is kind of like getting wasted on one beer right after giving blood.
whoah();
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
A little late for this thread, true, but consider this:
There is a medical condition called anencephaly, which essentially means to be born with most of the brain missing. Children born like this are still technically alive.
Don't wrestle with pigs; you'll both get muddy, but the pig likes it.
Wah!! Matrix had a plot! It wasn't all CGI! Wah! The Matrix will go down in history along with Star Wars and <insert name of obscure japanimation here> as one of the greatest movies of all time!!! You don't know what you are talking about!!
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
You'll find the following in many of the promotional sites for the movie:
The title 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' draws upon an ancient Chinese saying, a proverb used to characterize situations wherein there dwell hidden heroes and the fact that nothing is ever what it seems.
"Do you think there are answers to everything here? Is that true in the place you come from?" - Agia
The plot wasn't just simplistic, it was outright boneheaded. Robots have creating an incredibly complex and rich VR environment just to harvest the electricity from our bodies? Why not just kill the humans and burn the food in a reactor? Or, if you need the humans for something (what?), give them all lobotomies so you can shut off your main power drain: the Matrix.
I will admit the special effects were well done. But like the OP said, they've been done to death now (even before the Matrix was out, I note).
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MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Dubbed in english, in my home country. Subtitled in english, in the US.
I have to say whoever did the english dubbing did a damn good job. The subtitles suffered in comparison. I usually prefer subs, but this time I found them distracting.
Parenthetical note: you might be wondering, why dubbed? Because most people here understand spoken english better than written. Why english? There are multiple native languages spoken in this country. English is at least understoond (to varying extent) everywhere.
"Do you think there are answers to everything here? Is that true in the place you come from?" - Agia
you're about two or three years too late. you've never seen fred astaire dance with the red devil vaccuum cleaner? or john wayne in the coors commercials?
complex
Matrix was so hard to understand, even for a average geek, like myself. Was I the only one that really doesn't understand the story behind it? I know there in a computer related world, that computers have taken over (Most likely ran by Microsoft) and they have to beat the computer? Something along those lines. Even though the movie is very confusing -- it's still a great movie, with the special effects, and so on. So, yeah! Lets make another one..
What surprises me is how the geek community has embraced this film, even though most reviewers (as did I) didn't think it was a good film at all. Was it just because of the high-tech content?
I think the essense of it was that it made being a geek doing geek things seem cool. It appealed to the "hack-ethic" of geeks, essentially telling them that Planet Earth is a computer program they can just hack to become superheroes, and they can win against The Man(TM). The fighting and action went towards the excitement too, but I think geeks connect better with Keanu than Bruce Willis or Arnie.
Ghost in the Shell did a better job of selling virtuality over reality, IMHO, but that's another story.
Does my bum look big in this?
Screamers was a piece of shit that gave the finger to Dick's amazing story, and I get down on my knees every night and pray for God to smite me so I don't have to remember that awful movie anymore.
But back to the Matrix: it was a great movie. The CGI was integrated extremely well with the live action, and even if the acting mostly sucked (Keanu, I'm looking in your direction), the story was good (rehashed, but good) and the mood was compelling. The sequels might suck, but who knows?
-Legion
"Your mind makes it real." - Morpheus.
It's not just philosophy professors. I met an Episcopal Priest at a bar the other day who told me that the other priests on her priest mailing list talked about it all the time.
Well, maybe there are new & improved agents designed to go up against The One?
The reason that people are willing to overlook these gapping plot holes is beacause it's a god damn movie!
People watch a movie so that they are entertained for a couple of hours. That's all. If the plot is sufficently well thought out, and the acting good enough then people will overlook the loose ends in the plot because they are simply entertained by the movie.
I feel sorry for someone who goes to see a film, and then complains about "gaping plot holes" that are in reality insignificant (Like the internal wounds and blood coughing). That sort of thing adds a little to the overall scene, but as it isn't used at all after that one scene, and certainly isn't used as a pivitol plot point in the film, whats the harm in it?
Just lighten up, please. It's only a movie!
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Oh, well I suppose that my 3 years of martial arts was wasted time. I should have gone to Hollywood instead and taken the "4 month accelerated course" in MA. Silly me. :P
(No, this isn't a flame of you or what you said, it's just something I thought of. YOU HEAR THAT, ROGUE MODERATORS?! Sheesh.)
-Legion
>> My main problem with the original is the same
>> problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer
>> type clones: why in the world would your brain
>> kill your body if you 'thought' you died in
>> some VR-type world? It makes no sense.
It makes sense to me if you consider the following (yes, yes, off-topic). The brain implants are put in by Matrix AIs, for their own purposes. If the implant gets the message "this person is dead", it seems like a simple matter to shut off the autonomic nervous system, or overload it - this "the body cannot live without the mind" stuff isn't necessary.
Nothing worth doing is worth doing today.
When Jet Li jumps 20 feet through the air, and kicks 3 people into unconsciousness before landing, the director actually expects us to believe that a person did it. Boring.
In The Matrix, when Trinity runs on walls, and Neo and Morphius pounce around like characters in a Mortal Kombat game, the director tells us "this is a virtual environment, where the rules of physics can be bent". Nice.
Of couse, we all know that getting root means you could simply delete any artifact of the artifice you don't like, saving all the trouble of fighting, but that would be a short movie.
While they failed to create a plausable background for all of this, they at least created an excuse that lets you suspend your disbelief and accept a fat old actor in a leather duster can jump from one skyscraper to another. For that, all I can say is, "whoa!"
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
is the moderation here in /.
;-)
Can't critisize a MOVIE without being -1 Flamebait / Troll??? WTF?
This whole discussion should be posted back as a 'Your rights online' -story.
And the movie wasn't too good either.
Or my karma.
All Rights Reversed.
I have some points to pick:
That's funny, in the rescue of Morpheus alone, the agents were "killed" at least 5 times (all 3 when Neo is shooting from the helicopter, "dodge this" on the roof beforehand, and Agent Smith in the train station). And every time that the agents "die," they don't -- but the human that they had taken over does. Notice how the soldier has a hole in his forehead after "dodge this"?
Did you miss the whole initial Construct scene, where Neo freaks out and pukes, not wanting to believe?
Also, it is not fair to compare The Matrix with Pi; they are very different in character. And, fwiw, although I agree that Totall Recall was a good movie, I still enjoyed The Matrix more.
>There's nothing more poorly done than a >movie with sub-titles. Hmm...I'm sure every non-English speaking country shares your opinion about U.S. movies (note: they are usually subtitled in whichever language). Man, what ignorance! >It's all about the dialog. I agree with you there. That's why it's subtitled. Any dub of any movie take liberties on the original script. Usually for cultural adaptation (or marketing), but then the film seizes to be foriegn.
Now please don't ever speak of The Thirteeth Floor again.
Seriously.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Rumors that I've heard (at Coming Attractions, if I recall correctly) is that now that Neo is The One, he flies around the city doing all sorts of incredible things in an attempt to wake up the populace that they're all living in a dream. The dramatic tension *inside* the Matrix will be gone (for Neo, anyway - the rest of the crew still doesn't quite believe they won't die, perhaps), but the humans are still very vulnerable in the outside world. (Kind of ironic - humans hold the greatest power in the virtual world, while computers have the most power in the meat world...) Anyway, I never bought the whole "using humans as batteries" idea. That's profoundly inefficient. Personally, I think we'll find out that humans are enslaved because the computers need humans to keep writting their AI code, since computers won't be capable of the brilliant flashes of insight that leads to new, elegant algorithms...
I'm not entirely sure about the way the brain receives and processes the shock response, but I do know that there is no way to 'tell' your brain that it is no longer receiving oxygen - either it is or it isn't! The body doesn't have an oxygen-o-meter, so the only oxygen deprivation sensor it has is *brain damage*.
Let me give an example. Imagine someone was in a VR world, underwater, drowning. If the interface intercepts the nerve signaling (i.e., moving an arm in VR does not move the arm in reality) then the interface intercepts any conscious control of the autonomic system, and he breathes normally, regardless of what his brain is telling the rest of his body to do! If it does not, then he might hold his breath until he falls unconscious, at which point the autonomic system kicks in again. Either way - he wouldn't die. The only way you could die from drowning is to not have air available. Basically the same goes for other forms of death as well.
waah, believe me, you're better off NOT understanding some of the dialogue... go watch the original version without subtitles, and simply enjoy! you'll get the story nonwithstanding, well all-right, you're gonna miss some of the jokes, but that's no big deal. ;o)
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Matrix-bred humans have their vital functions run by the Matrix - at least within the Matrix. Their brains have co-developed with the machinery this way. So if the matrix decides that you have been struck with bullets, it does bad things to your body via brainstem implants.
Notice that the free-range humans can't even enter the Matrix.
The logic does closely resemble the common stupid device you mention on the outside, but on the inside it's totally different.
Now if they were smart, the sequel will have Neo struggling to alert Matrix humans to the Matrix - maybe they don't care, maybe they turn against his warnings.
And they will have to work hard to avoid the biblical-derived sci-fi plot device (a lot bad sci-fi cribs from biblical sources) which they dangerously stirred up with Neo being a little too messianic (died, but is reborn, etc).
I'm interested to see where they go with the future matrix films, but they have some severe challenges that could be glossed over somewhat in the first one - sequels are MORE difficult to do well.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
They used to say this about flight, you know.
No, I just don't shut off my brain during a sci-fi movie - just like I don't shut off my brain during any other movie. Non-sci-fi movies have to justify major plot points - why are sci-fi movies exempt?
Granted, the Matrix did try to justify this as best they could - by stating it. At least they didn't just 'assume' it was true. But I just really didn't enjoy the movie at all - they explained far too many things poorly (the need for humans to be around... should've just been left as either unknown, or should've been more creative) - and simply neglected other things(like the AI's driving intention - what were they trying to do, besides being at war with humans? why were they at war with humans?) All the viewer knew was that 'they were the enemy', but they had no drive, no justification for their actions.
Why not use computers to create actors, George Lucas would?
...the Wachowski brothers saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and they pissed their pants ;)
"No green screen, what?!@"
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Neafevoc
What's the freaking point of sci-fi to begin with?
It all depends on what your views are on things. I always try to be optimistic, and take the "good" out of everything. The Matrix had some pretty bad parts, but that's what makes it complete.
Imagine a whole shitload of "perfect." Could you cope with that? Think again.
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$_='hfflbwfsbhfzp vs';s/(^.{4})(.{7 })(.+$)/$3 $2 $1/
in the day and age when first run stories cost upwards of $100mil and the original ranks in at #55 all-time with $177mil world wide, have no fear.
they will make this film - without Yeoh, with Keanu, and as quickly as possible (even if SAG strikes.)
what you SHOULD worry about is whether the Wachowski boys were a one hit wonder with the original or will they come through. sequels generally suck....
INHO, of course!
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
The one versus the two?
Perhaps if Luke Goss was still attached as a.n.other agent, it might have been Smith & Jones vs. Neo. Perhaps this time Neo could be in a wheelchair with like Professor X/the Mekon?
Psychos do not explode when the sunlight hits them, I don't care how fucked up they are.
V2.0 to be precise. Bug list fix since V1.0 : No godlike humans alowed. Matrix.net server now improved and unhackable....
<Keanu>
Whoah. *crunch*
</Keanu>
The biggest reason the sequels will be in trouble is that they are based on such a shitty original. Sure, the movie had some great visuals, but the plot was ill conceived.
The Matrix is a classic example of Hollywood style over substance. Seems that all the effort went into this new vision of live anime. In that effort they may have succeeded, but the concept of The Matrix is just an excuse for a second-rate TV cop show plot. If you are willing to put you brain on pause, maybe this movie works for you. I suspect the sequels will just devolve into a series of virtual car chases, ending with a spectacular crash into a virtual street vendor's fresh fruit stand.
I hope Hollywood surprises us by investing some more creativity into this franchise. I'm not holding my breath on this one.
According to this (the site linked to from sci-fi), most of the rumours are wrong.
Uhm.. wouldn't it be rather easy, then, for the Matrix AI's to say "this person is dead" as soon as they connect?
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That doesn't impress me at all. Personally, I think the plot from The Matrix came from The Neverending Story.
(Or maybe I'm kidding.)
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
When I watch a movie I don't care that much about hard science. I'm not saying I want a movie to out right insult my intelligence like Armageddon and ID4. But saying the movie sucks because it's not scientifically sound is ridicules. Buy that logic star wars star trek and just about every other space movie sucks because rocket engines, lasers and explosions don't make any noise in space.
Some of you sound like the comic book guy from the Simpson's.
Call me a troll I liked the Matrix and I look forward to seeing the sequels.
Praise Causey http://www.thecauseyway.com
A movie to based on DC Vertigo Comics Hellblazer. Yes. They only thing cooler would be a movie based on the watchmen.
>Are you suggesting that David Peoples wrote Bladerunner?
>Thats a little strong. He co-wrote the screenplay with
>Hampton Fancher, which in turn is based on the book
>'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick.
I was at a book shop the other day and I was saw a copy of the book, except that it had a massive "Blade Runner" title with "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" written in small print, and artwork from the movie on the front. I understand the need to promote that it is the book that Blade Runner was based on, but it seems a little harsh to completely minimise the title of the book that Philip K Dick chose, especially seeing as "Blade Runner" is never mentioned in the book.
My other sig is does 0 - 100km in 4.9 seconds
less interview, more hottie pictures.
let's have her petrified after filming ends. |\| 4 k 3 |) of course.
actually morpheus was the one who said 'no one knows who started it', by which i took to mean 'no *human* knows who started it' -- i left open the possibility that the machines still remembered, but that the humans had simply forgotten.
*shrug*
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
This is from the producers themselves.
For that matter, I don't understand why the AIs weren't omnipotent in Matrix. Did they have the Frankenstein situation, created the Matrix, found it became sentient and ran out of control or what? Raise your hands, everybody who hasn't heard a story about computer that turned on its creators...
P.S. What is it with people pointing at every sufficiently complex system and screaming "it's conscious! sentient! self-aware!"? Of course we (and especially I) don't know a shit about mechanisms of consciousness, but I dare claim that consciousness does not automatically follow from a damn large MUD that Matrix is. Or that's how I would figure; Matrix would contain a full state dump of Earth and just run the simulation under few simple laws of physics, with one exception: brains in bodies in the system do not follow the laws but instead are blackboxes linked to the brains in tanks. Um. Although you might ask what's the point, but this takes us to the question of "bioelectricity? what the fsck is that?".
Um. Why does slashdot always make me like this. I'm scared to proofread these posts.
- Kaatunut
that would probably go against the first law of robotics. ;)
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
I can recomend "The Heroic Trio" as well.
My thanks.
Prequels, eh? Well, the universe does have a bit of story potential... but it seemed to me that the main gimmick of the movie was the wall-running and the abundance of firearms. I would concur that there is little that could be added.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Wow. Weak, but passable. I'm impressed.
After all, the Agents were conscious AIs - there's no reason to suppose that the Matrix itself also wasn't sentient. In this case, its intentions could have been separate from the Agents. (This was my interpretation of what the Oracle was, after all) This would explain why it didn't indiscriminately kill the rebels at any chance - it had stepped back, and decided not to interfere, and see who is the more resilient of the two.
Neo's superpowers wouldn't have to be an incorrectly wired up interface - his autonomic system just might not work exactly the same way in exactly the same *place* as other humans. Thus, when he died, and his body didn't really die, his brain realized something was strange, and essentially concluded he was in a dream-state, or something like that. Not out of the question.
OK, so that's one problem I had with the movie that's not entirely fully resolved (they would need to use that explanation) but is at least possible to resolve.
(The rebels also might not understand the hardware at all... this is also possible.)
Yes, but there is a question of consistency, or potential realism, or whatever you call it. As I see it, suspension of disbelief means that you will treat the world as true even though it is different from our world. However, I cannot (as I suspect barawn can't, either) suspend my disbelief when I'm presented with a world that is internally inconsistent, or, impossible to exist. With impossible to exist I mean that there has to be clear, distinct rules for every universe, whether fictional or real, and these rules are all there is. In a world like Matrix's, which very clearly shares all the rules of ours, only differing in the contents (the setting of world), things seem highly unplausible even in suspension of disbelief. That kind of world (or at least the history) couldn't exist if you created infinite random universes.
Yes, scifi is more fun when you let your imagination fill in. What do you think they are doing here? Did you see the thread about plugs and stuff?
P.S. ....and cheesy scientific explanations. -- scuse me, isn't this science fiction? It's SUPPOSED to be scientific, damn it. Call it "unscientific, inconsistent, totally unplausible fiction that you shouldn't watch with your brains on" instead if you think like that
- Kaatunut
Just what makes you think that "the real world" is really "the real world?" Ever seen Thirteenth Floor?
Given the abilities of the Matrix to fabricate a convincing reality, how difficult would it be for it to one-up Neo and shunt him off into a sandbox where he can waste his time fighting phantom Agents?
What of the human bad guy hackers who really run the Matrix and whose abilities inside the Matrix far exceed Neo's? (think: Planet of the Apes XII or whatever it was).
Sequels call for bigger, badder, trickier villains,and I'm sure Matrix 2 and 3 won't dissapoint.
slashdot broke my sig
Well, like starwars, the matrix was orgionaly planned as a trillogy. And considering how much everyone is looking forward to the movies...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Did ANYONE else see the fat white guy with sunglasses in the crowd of ruffians in the desert/hair-comb scene? He also appeared in the background of another scene, but I forget which.
Anyone?
Beuler?
**>>BELCH
LOL. Yeah, why not even Van Damme or Steven 'Seagull' Segal? As 'The Two' mabbe... Make Matrix2 a slapstick episode and Matrix3 an ultra-violent slasher, sorry: decoder. Now that would be fun!
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Actually, when the bad guys assume someone else's body, they person is lost and therefore "flushed" from the system. So each time you see them assume someone's "body" they are killing that person.
-
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Technically, there *was* another movie set in the same universe, or at least (loosely) based on a short story by PKD that was (according to his agent) supposed to be in the same universe as DADoES... The movie was entitled "Screamers", and the short was entitled "Second Variety". Having read the short, I could (sort of) see the possible colocation... having seen the movie, I'd say "Cr*p".
The only other author that writes short stories with that level of gut-wrench in such a short space, suitable for movie conversion, is Brian W. Aldis (only one so far that became a movie was his novel "Frankenstein Unbound", but his 8-page short "Super-Toys last all Summer Long" is soon to be a movie directed by Speilberg, originally under the direction of Stanley Kubric, entitled "AI"... I've got a bad feeling about this one. Kubric could have made it work. I've got fears of too much early "Third Kind" in it, and they've already spoiled the point of the short in the tag line alone...
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
So to sum up the theme of the Matrix: Religion is a means to enslave our creator or some higher being in our view of the universe.
I don't agree with that theory of religion, but I think that's how The Matrix portrayed it.
The "die in VR, die in RL" mythos we are stuck with. Its not any different really from the whole dream death thing that a lot of people believe in, and that has graced such pre-VR movies as Nightmare on Elm Street and Dreamscape. I suspect that if real high-quality VR becomes available there will be people who are afraid to "do it" because they could die because of all these movies.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The wire work in Crouching Tiger was used more to enhance and underline the fairy tale nature of the story. I don't think it was intended to look 'real' at all.
**>>BELCH
....no wonder they're in trouble!
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Moderator's essentials
I know this is slightly off topic but a link on that rumors page0 1- 01/11/11.30.rumors
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?20
has Bill Clinton playing the role of president in a 007 Bond movie.
Why stop their Bill you can play Neo. Imagine Clinton in a Kung Fu fight seen running up walls. Or maybe he can play the part of an Agent.
"there is no blue dress... um spoon"
Ha ha, that is exactly why I was incredibilly happy to find a copy of DADOES with that title and no mention of Blade Runner at all (minus one quote like "This is the book that inspired Blade Runner)
I also don't believe that the movie Blade Runner is based on the book DADOES (merely inspired by it)
Double J. Strictly for the . . .
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
Oh damm i spelled li wrong I hope the spanish inquesition does not get me ( chances are i spelled that wrong aswell dam my african education
That's a good point. I've had the same problems with accepting "VR-Death means Real-Death", and I think the movie *should* have elaborated on that matter to support the illusion better. Because it spoiled some of the illusion I had, being such an old clichee. Especially when it should be possible to hack these machines, so that you don't receieve such extreme inputs. But then again, real risk makes for exciting gambits, and if it was all just a game, it wouldn't be interesting enough. Watching them hack on the machines for hours until they cracked the Matrix, people would flee for home.
;)
:-)
However, once again technology in fiction is treated as magic, and frankly that spoils a bit of the fun for me. Nothing a little double-thinking during the movie can't fix though.
On the dreaming stuff: I have never experienced sleep paralysis, but I've been awake and seen a spider/roach/something on the wall/in the bed that isn't really there. Basically, your whole mind tells you it's there, except your sanity/awakeness. I'm glad I'm not experiencing such nightmares very often. They can make you jump out of bed, even run out of the room. Though, when knowing what it is, a harmless hallucination, it's easier to confront the fear instead. I wouldn't like to experience a mix of that and sleep paralysis though! (Bet I just sealed my fate by saying that...
It's probably more common to "fall down" when becoming awake, been there, done that. It's interesting how easily your senses can be fooled. That's what makes movies like The Matrix popular. Basically our minds are models of a "real" outer world we can never experience directly. Who's to say if this outer world exists at all? Maybe the irrational exists in non-existance? =)
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Want to know why the fight sequences were better in CTHD? Well, most of those fighting in that movie were experienced martial artists training for many many years. In Matrix (like Charlie's Angels) actors were taught prior to shooting. Check out Twin Warriors. Good movie.
SGI stands for Silicon Graphics Incorporated
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
If you have a region-free DVD player, you can already get CTHD on DVD - the region 3 version has been out for a few months.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Yeah but then again, its just a game/movie/comic so why get so beat out of shape about it? It makes no sense.
Personally, I thought The Matrix was one of the best Kung-Fu action movies ever made
Really? I thought it was one of the worst kung-fu movies ever. great Sci-Fi, but c'mon. Laurence Fishbourne and Keanu Reeves spent a few months learning some moves. How on *earth* can that compare with the Wing Chun moves you'll see in any Bruce Lee movie, or the Chinese-Opera based moves you'll see in any (early) Jackie Chan, Sumo Hung (before Hollywood) or virtaully any other movie made in Hong Kong?
The difference was a big budget, but wow, man, you can't compare it as a Kung Fu movie to even "Armour of God" (early JC). I mean JC uses *no* special FX, and doesn't speed up his film, but the action still beats the hell outta anything Hollywood ever produced (or any other western film company for that matter).
Hollywood got to Jackie Chan too late in his career. They should have done something better than "Canonball run" when they had the chance. Ah well.
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'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
Sure. Might be a good idea too... It was done with good effect in The 13th Floor.
And of course, one can never know whether the "real" world is a simulation or not...
/ Peter Schuller
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peter.schuller@infidyne.com
http://www.scode.org
... there's no reason to suppose that the Matrix itself also wasn't sentient. ... This would explain why it didn't indiscriminately kill the rebels at any chance - it had stepped back, and decided not to interfere, and see who is the more resilient of the two.
:)
Sounds like a pretty good description of God to me. And I'm not even a religious zealot or anything.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Cyanide?
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Pictures of Keauneau with a cast on here. Also, at the same place are some rumors that Yeun Woo Ping, the awesome Hong Kong kung fu choreographer who did the wire work for both the original Matrix, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, might not work on the Matrix sequels.
Rumor has it that the American stars are sucking up all the money from the production, leaving Woo Ping out in the cold. That is also rumored to be the reason that Jet Li bowed out of the movie, to be replaced by Michelle Yeoh, who is now bowing out. If they want to get a world class kung fu actor, they should pay him what he's worth. Hell, The Matrix was really just an appropriation of the Hong Kong action movie, with a bigger budget and better special effects. First they rip of the concept, then they won't pay the originators of the idea what they are worth.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
your absolutely right. My question is, why are you even looking for a plot when the only things you comment on are superficial attributes of the film?
And the reason why the 'wrap around' camera effect have been copied a 'zillion' times is because it was origional at the time and recieved rave reviews from movie goers. If you want to see breasts in a movie, check out - chicken run
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
The plot had major holes (like the internal wounds and blood coughing somehow occurring,) but apparently people were willing to overlook them. A little more consideration would have made the movie atleast decent but as we all know Hollywood often doesn't have that capability. For what it's worth, I really can't remember the ending of the Matrix.
:) (j/k)
Come on.. you`re not being fair: e.g. it was explained in the movie that if the mind experiences serious beating or pain, then the body would respond by acting like so. "If the mind dies then your body dies too. ".. something like that..
The movie ended by Trinity kissing Neo when the guards were busy destroying the ship, and by that waking up Neo in the parallel world so he could stand up again after being shot and see the world as a Matrix, and finally kill Agent Smith.
Now, tell me you don`t remember "there is no spoon", and I`ll let you live
With great power comes great electricity bills.
The Matrix was sooo lame, I just can't understand why so many people love it:
Ie: A bunch of assholes wearing sunglasses decide to save the world in their own way, by using "guns, a lot of guns", and killing as much people as they can (for the record, the so-called bad guys don't kill anyone)
Reality twist is probably my favorite theme (as a Philip Kindred Dick lover), and The Matrix is probably the worst movie I saw about it (Neo don't even questionate the reality of what is presented to him, after been explained that everything he knows is false. IMNSHO, he have a [Celcius] room temperature IQ). Dark City was far better, even Total Recall was good (as that the ending scenes of Totall Recall are oniric, you know he _should_ have taken the pill). I don't know, Pi, Cube, Existenz are good reality-is-not-exactly-as-it-should movies.
Let's be serious. You are in the matrix. Are you going to use *kung fu* to fight ? Or maybe keanu reeves is a modern Midas that turns everything in sh*t. Johnny Mnemonic was a fucked movie too (saved by a great scene showing virtual-reality from the outside) : the heroin should have had her body modified as in the short novel. That was great.
Mmm. I should not talk about the matrix. Makes me angry, and loosing karma...
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
It wasn't the tech, it was the ideas. My favorite line in the movie was "There is no spoon.". Very Zen. IMHO, Zen, and Taoism fit the hacker mindset very well. Especially if you're one of those who believes machine consciousness is achievable.
Not only that, but every single incredible thing that was done in that movie was a result of mental discipline. It takes an amazing amount of mental discipline to program well. Watching the feats that these people pulled off was reminiscent of what it's like to create an incredibly good hack.
It doesn't surprise me that mainstream critics didn't like it. They don't understand at all.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
He is the One but not the One. Zathras said so. :)
Sequels are rarely as good as the original, and in the case of a truly unique movie like The Matrix, the sequel is almost certain to disappoint. So the sequels are now in trouble? Fine - let them die, and we'll keep the Matrix as top flick in a category of one.
--Jim
Actually, there IS another major motion picture set in the Blade Runner UNIVERSE (though not technically a "sequel"): Soldier , starring Kurt Russel and written by David Webb Peoples, the writer of Blade Runner. See this info at the IMDB (also quoted below): Writer David Peoples has said that Solider is a "side-quel" to Blade Runner (which he also wrote) because it takes place in the same universe and in fact the vehicles used by the Blade Runners, spinners, are also used in Solider. All of this is not, of course, to negate your point, which is that Hollywood has a habit of screwing up perfectly wonderful movies with sequels-that-never-should-have-been.
Are you suggesting that David Peoples wrote Bladerunner? Thats a little strong. He co-wrote the screenplay with Hampton Fancher, which in turn is based on the book 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick.
Similarly, while there are references to Blade Runner in the scenary and the script, there are references to a whole host of other movies as well such as Aliens, Star Trek II and others. I'd hardly class that as a sequel to BladeRunner. I know David Peoples is quoted as calling it a 'side-quel' but I personally find that a bit rich - simply associating your own screenplay with another one you co-wrote based on someone elses novel does not give you automatic kudos.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
BTW, if Keanu had become the One in Matrix1, I believe they had to invent something incredible if they still want him to fight in its sequel.
The One vs... the Other One?
For more information about the Matrix sequel, please go to the following page:x 2info.html
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/matrix2/matri
That is pretty funny stuff. I took it seriously until I visited the link.
Good one!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
...007 Tomorrow Never Dies???
Mike
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
did someone just try to argue that Keanu Reeves is a better actor that Jarr Jarr? Now, i'm not an expert, but I can't believe that a man whose claim to fame is the line "Whooa, duuude" could possibly be better than a computer generated amphibian.
not that we're talking about massive distinctions here, both of these characters are scraping the bottom of the acting barrel.
!-- wit --!
And I'm not really talking so much about Yeoh. "Biggest movie" is kind of a flexible point anyway -- from what I understand, 'Crouching Dragon Hidden Tiger' will probably be bigger in Asia than the Matrix was here in the US, so any question of "bigger" has to state where you're talking about geographically. Further, she was also in one of the recent James Bond movies, which maybe (I don't know for sure) made more than the Matrix did, at least in terms of net profits after tie-ins and what have you. So you also have to account for whether 'biggest' deals with the number of people that saw & enjoyed it, the money it made, etc.
Anyway, as I understand it she's already a well known & liked martial arts star in Hong Kong, who's movie industry is almost as big as Hollywood, so I don't see why having to be successful in the US is such a big criteria for overall success, which she already has.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Consider the reverse of dying in The Matrix, thereby killing you in the real world.:
My friend has told me a story of how he once woke up in the middle of the night, but his body did not. He couldn't move at all and immediately started to panic, thinking he was paralyzed. He started to hyperventilate and his mind started racing. Finally he realized that by going back to sleep he might later wake up ok. He did so and then woke up fine. Now, whether that was just a dream or not, the point is that who is to say that severe trama that happens to you in a state in which your mind is fully engulfed in the participation of (The Matrix), or in real life wouldn't kill you. If every input signal to your brain told you what each part of your body was feeling, then your brain would go into a state of automatic response. And if your brain thought a severe gun shot wound to the chest had occurred and your heart had stopped beating, what would it do then? Shut off most likely.
"Your mind makes it real."
Have you ever been in an 'almost asleep' mode where your mind thought you were falling off the bed, and in response you wake back up and immediately jump to save yourself from falling even though you are positioned perfectly in the middle of the bed? I did once and threw myself into the wall doing it! And that is a fact. (I had the bruise on my elbow the next morning to prove it.)
I doubt this will sink the flicks. With the amount of talent involved, one or two people leaving is hardly a dealbreaker. Speaking of breaks, Keaunu's limb..... did you know that Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith) hurt his back really bad during training, but still made the flick? Maybe this is just the "required injury/doubt inducer". Until i see Mr. Reeves being hauled around in a wheelchair, i won't lose sleep.
Could you on a second? I still gotta send Kurt my spam.
Conversely, I've noticed that some of the martial arts/stunt work going on in two of my favorite "switch off your brain and drool" shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Xena - the first couple of seasons, the stuntwork was pretty obviously stupid, but in the later seasons, both Lucy Lawless, and Sarah Michelle Gellar have vastly improved (at least in the scenes where they aren't using a stunt double). Not to mention, the fight choreographers are starting to think more lately - I guess even they get sick of doing the same old fight scenes over and over, and occasionally have been pretty imaginative lately. . .
(Who else thinks they should cancel Angel, and give Oz his own show?)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
In the 'lady in the red dress' training sim, Morpheus states that the Agents are bound by the rules of the world, yet Neo is not (thus spurring the quote 'So you're saying I can dodge bullets'). Though sketchy, it is a rational for why the Agents can't simply terminate a person at will.
Raven
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
IMHO.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
Not only that, but every single incredible thing that was done in that movie was a result of mental discipline.
On the whole it would have been better it the Wachowski brothers had summoned the mental discipline at the outset to concoct a premise that made even a smidgeon of sense.
I was prepared to like the movie, I really wanted to like the movie, but its unvarnished stupidity kept interfering. There were bits and pieces that were inspired, to be sure -- I liked the ideas that people cannot adapt to a perfect world -- but these only made me wish the rest of the movie wasn't so dumb. The basic premise that the matrix needed people as organic batteries is so inane (how many synonyms for dumb do I need here?) that I just couldn't get over it. Naturally this lead to questioning the other things that in the normal course of a sci-fi movie I could take for granted. Why do people die when the die in the Matrix? Why does figuring out that it's all a program allow people to bend the rules of physical reality without destroying them altogether? Why should I care when Neo fights the agent once I know he's invulnerable?
My favorite line in the movie was "There is no spoon.". Very Zen. IMHO, Zen, and Taoism fit the hacker mindset very well.
It is self-consciously meant to evoke a kind of faux hollywood "zennishness" without really getting anywhere near the whole point of Zen. If anything, the movie's outlook is more platonic than eastern.
But then, they got the hacking part of it wrong too.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You're joking right?
Seriously.
Please tell me you're joking.
--"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
Actually, there IS another major motion picture set in the Blade Runner UNIVERSE (though not technically a "sequel"): Soldier , starring Kurt Russel and written by David Webb Peoples, the writer of Blade Runner. See this info at the IMDB (also quoted below): Writer David Peoples has said that Solider is a "side-quel" to Blade Runner (which he also wrote) because it takes place in the same universe and in fact the vehicles used by the Blade Runners, spinners, are also used in Solider. All of this is not, of course, to negate your point, which is that Hollywood has a habit of screwing up perfectly wonderful movies with sequels-that-never-should-have-been.
Neo's already 'The One', what's he gonna do now? Jump inside bodies of agents and make them explode 20 times? Maybe the matrix that Neo beat was just a sub-matrix of the 'REAL' matrix, and he beats the REAL matrix. Maybe he falls in love with the 'Lady in red'. The Matrix are going to end up 'killing' the first one by over doing it in the sequel.
Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back!
I though all they had to do was plug the thing in the back of their heads and shake like they just saw another siezure-inducing episode of pokemon.
I like meat helmets.
The guy is named Woo-ping Yuen (thanks IMDB). If you like his stuff, track down Fist of Legend. It's gotten a lot easier to find since Hollywood picked up on Jet Li. I believe that Yuen was hired for The Matrix specifically because of his work on Fist of Legend.
-B
One thing that I really liked about the film is that a lot of the martial arts looked like the actors knew what they were doing; even if they were assisted by wires. Seeing the 'making of' videos afterward, I saw that the actors trained for four months to get ready for their roles...that kind of dedication is rare in Hollywood films. Rarely do actors get the time to get good at what they are supposed to be doing. Anyway, I have heard that Matrix II is really Matrix 0; the story of the loss of the earth. thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I disagree. At the risk of offending assorted slashbots, if you make a film with lots of special effects without worrying about plot or characters, you get rubbish like The Phantom Menace. I went to the Premiere and left feeling I'd just sat through a 2 hours SGI showreel.
The Matrix, OTOH, was an intelligent film (I remember /. posts on how philosophy professors were impressed enough with it to mention it on their courses). It bears repeated watchings, and leaves the audience thinking.
The abscence of the actors is no big deal
Again, I disagree. Keanu isn't a great actor, but he was perfectly suited to the role of Neo. And the film wouldn't have been nearly as good without Morpheus' charisma, etc.
I finally got to see CTHD, it was amazing...good story, super high production values, and great martial arts (I like the trashing the restaurant scene best I think). I was stunned by CTHD...expecting only another Fists of Legend or Twin Warriors! Fists of Legend was decent, but you should try Twin Warriors- at least if you're just looking for out of control martial arts...it's a lot of fun!
Bound was good; yes it was a rental, but enjoyed.
Assassins should have left the "ins" off the end of the title - then it would have been titled Double "Ass" - describing how a crappy film it was. of course, coming from the director (Donner) who then went on to direct Conspiracy Theory and Lethal Weapon 4....can't fault the boys - sometimes you write a good script and it still gets turned into drivel.
But no, i don't think either of these two films leads to the assumption that The Matrix 2 will be a winner. if anything, Bound shows how easy it is to make an OK film, but for something to top the draw and reach of The Matrix.... their work is cut out for them.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
My main problem with the original is the same problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer type clones: why in the world would your brain kill your body if you 'thought' you died in some VR-type world? It makes no sense.
I mean, honestly, think about it. Most of your body which is devoted to survival is autonomic - heart, respiration, all take serious conscious effort to control, and quite a bit of training. It's extremely unlikely that your mind, thinking that you died, would cut off the *autonomic* response of breathing/heartbeat. That's idiotic. How does your brain know that you honestly died? All those bullets could've passed straight through, and not harmed anything.
Consider reality: several people wake up in hospitals thinking that they have died. If your body doesn't die if your brain thinks you died in reality, you wouldn't die from dying in VR!
Of course, the better analogy comes from dreams: if you die in a dream, do you die in reality? No... so why in the world does anyone think VR is any different?
Granted, the Matrix wouldn't exactly have any 'punch' if they didn't really die, but that's another example of Hollywood sacrificing common sense for theatrical effect. It'd be really nice to see someone who's very very smart come up with a good, scientifically sound plot that's still good cinema.
Yep. Both Michelle Yoh and the younger chick. Absolutely beautiful. The movie was a visual masterpiece. The first fight scene alone was worth the price of admission. And it kep going. How they did it, I have no idea. Pure genious.
I hate to be a source of dissent, but I thought some of the fight scenes in CTHD were poorly done. The flying was comical, some of the wire work was very obvious and some of the action was so blatantly just fast-forwarded that it detracted from the work as a whole.
I much prefered the camera-work and effects in (e.g.) Crying Freeman (the live action, not the Manga), which had fabulous combat scenes.
Having said that, even with those flaws I found CTHD to be a very good movie, which I'm planning to buy on DVD when it's released.
~Cederic
(\/)atthew
Don't suppose you could provide a link to those studies, Bluedemon? Otherwise it's just your word against common sense.
Thought not.You are right that the stunts can not possibly compare to those of "Project A", and the fighting is more of a homage to Wire Fu than a new development of it. What sets The Matrix apart from even the better Hong Kong flicks is the overall production values. It's a beautiful film to look at, and a fun story to follow (if you can get past all the holes). There was only one reason to ever watch a Bruce Lee movie... to see Bruce kick ass in his own unique and graceful way. The Matrix can be appreciated on more levels. For example, the scene where the glass windows of the skyscraper bow and shatter in a huge ripple was a cooler effect than anything Lucas ever dreamed of.
Come on, tell me you don't skip over the plot exposition scenes of "Enter The Dragon" when you are watching at home.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
... ankles will heal, strikes will be over, and replacement actors will be had.
Hey, Neo DID take the... uh... which pill was it again?
Akardam Out
Actually, I wish I could. I've been looking for the study ever since I heard about it.
Sorry for not having something to back it up with.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
I'll lighten up when they stop charging $8 to see it.
I'll lighten up when they say it's okay for me to make a copy.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
What? She's not that good looking and her her old played out American style of martial arts action looks really bad on screen. Even if she did have mad fighting skills (which she doesn't) it doesn't even come close to the Peking opera style that Michelle Yeoh can pull off with a hell of a lot more grace and fluidity.
Just checking these lame Linux servers are working OK.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
...I was looking forward to new screensavers based on things that showed up in the Matrix sequel! Now where is all that creative energy going to come from?
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Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
1-3) Maybe the second law of thermodynamics is something "they" teach you to hide the truth of the Matrix and how it works. Are you likely to accept this battery notion if you're holding onto the lie that is the 2nd law of thermodynamics? (for that to work though, we must REALLY be in the Matrix, right?)
4) The AI's have control over the Matrix, but perhaps they didn't bother to engineer in a back door into the abstraction, or perhaps there's a level of complexity that's computationally too intense to deal with - without some trade offs (ie. interfere with data integrity "outside of the rules", and you run the risk of destroying the illusion for millions of humans, and therefore, lose some power generation; remember, they said that early on, they made the Matrix a perfect world, and humans rejected it, they lost entire crops, so obviously, the rules-structure is very important in maintaining the whole thing).
5) EMP may have been the only EFFECTIVE weapon. Maybe they do have gun turrets, lasers, etc. but the AI's have good defenses against them - on the other hand, it's probably relatively trivial to shield against an EMP. . .
I don't think that the story was all that crappy. It was okay. Definately overrated - mostly by people who weren't already familliar with existentialism. (ie. dropout philosophy majors). Personally, I didn't think Dark City was all that great - well mostly I was pissed off at the totally over the top crap acting job by Sutherland. (Get a life, you HACK!)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Coming soon!
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter's Absolutely Excellent Adventures ... IN THE MATRIX!
--
Rob Carlson
If I remember reading right, in "The Art Of The Matrix", one artist noted that the W. Brothers stated machine society wasn't nearly as unified as it seems, with renegade bots sucking juice off of the Power Plants in sneak raids. It isn't hard to postulate that there might be other stronger AIs out there pulling the strings of everyone else(including the Oracle?), without concluding the Matrix is sentient. Mebbe the best example of a situation like this is Gregory Benford's "Great Sky River".
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The matrix brought nothing to the table in the way of original thought, or even plot line for that matter. It was yet another of the dark-future saved by messianic figured who starts out the film thinking that "something is not quite right" and then goes through a process of realization only to come to the conclusion that he can beat the "master race" at their own game (for another of the same plot... see Dark City).
The one thing that the Matrix did which I have seen no other film do yet, was make the movie truely beatiful and captivating. Their use of special effects to tell the story (remember that old quote from "The Making of Star Wars" a special effect without a story is very boring??!? Well that applies here big time). They used their special effects in such a wonderful and artistic manner that i (and many others) was completely captivated by it. There were many shots in that movie (such as the shot of the group off of a rear view window on a car) which were just unbeleivable (at least to my eye) and made it very easy to endure the same old plot yet again.
The Matrix is an example of a movie doing what it meant to do. I don't beleive that the makers of this movie were trying to make some philosophical point that would enlighten the viewer. On the other hand, I think the Matrix was meant to entertain you sensually while giving you enough of a plot to keep you interested. Its more intelligent than your average action flick, but not much.
I live where the orginal was shot and would like to point out that the orginal production also got alot of flak.
For instance there where "matchtricks" radio send ups with reeves doing dog tricks and rumours floating around that he was only doing it so he could tour with his band etc etc.
The point is that noone thought that the orginal was going to be a hit when it was in production yet everone rekoned that mission impossible 2 would be when it was in production (and look at what happened to that).
I wish ppl would wait six months instead of slamming a movie when its still in pre-production
At Mrshowbiz. They mention the sequels...
Keanu Reeves == remarkable dimwit and huge girl
Do you actually expect people to ignore a movie just because some little reviewer didn't like it?
Personally, I didn't care for all those 'kung foo' scenes, I liked the idea. The whole concept of the 'fake reality' (a lot of people don't get that) and 'there is no spoon' is very cool.
I didn't like the way the ideas were developed (I wouldn't necesarily see the matrix as the evil entity), but I really liked the movie.
(yes, I said 'foo')
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
I understand that the ORIGINAL premise was that in order for the machines to replicate, and move forward, consciousness-wise, they needed to keep the humans alive and drain their essence or souls.
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The machines realized that they were finite, material beings, and somehow found a way to use the humans to trascend that state. . .
It was deemed (by the investors) to be too complicated a concept for American audiences, so they simplified it to "electricity".
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Of course, this was all party chit-chat by some pothead from LA. .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The Matrix knows about and wants to stop the movies so the truth doesn't get out. Michelle Yeoh was an agent and pulled out on purpose to damage the movie. Keanu is lucky that all he got was a broken ankle.
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How the hell did this get modded up to Interesting?
Somebody shoud mod is down to -1 TROLL
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I guess Michelle Yeoh's best reference right now is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I finally saw Tomorrow Never Dies last night and she was quite impressive there as well.
Um. Matrix sequels? Not necessary, methinks. It seems that The Matrix has a sort of pseudocult folllowing, and that's probably who the sequels are aimed at. It was a fun movie, but I don't really have any burning desire to see a sequel.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
The only difference to these trilogies is that the W brothers weren't sure if their idea is good enough for taking the chance, or they didn't have the funding anyway, so they only made the first part to start with.
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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Yes I think it was a great movie. And before I get slammed to death let me just tell you why:
It`s got a rithm that makes it totally different from any hollidwood movie, it`s got an incredibly fast pace which takes leaps in the story that jump just that little bit further than you expect them to be. It`s got style, special effects, great fighting sequences, an epic but not-so-classic underdogs-fight-higher-forces theme, with that extra touch of GITS running alongside. Most of all, it`s a romantic, optimistic and hotshot action movie that drags you into fantasylife, forcing you to see things differently, and thus appealing to people with an open mind for new angles, which is what us computer nerds are so good at, and like. I`ve seen it at least 6 times by now, and only now is it slowly starting to get booring. And through all this, the creators made sure all those ingredients certainly don`t claim too much of the time they need. Emotions and action switch so easily and uncontrolled that it can`t possibly be a holliwood movie. Add to that the fantastic soundtrack music that is being reused in movies even today (6th Day), the cyberworld setting and universal duality between alice in wonderland and our world, and you`re bound to get hooked by the unstoppable stream of inspiration and fantasy that seems to blend so seamlessly with the visuals..
It`s not a normal movie, it`s manga. The only difference with normal manga being the real shots instead of the drawn art. And taking into account other attempts at that like Batman, Dick tracy and the like, that all got *such* "incredibly positive critics" they had to be good, i think this one finally cleaned out the trashcans and set the record straight that the genre CAN spawn good movies.
At least, that`s only in my humble opinion ofcourse.. I would have loved to see the sequels, though I am being a bit affraid they won`t ever be able to top the first one of the series.. so maybe this isn`t such a bad thing to happen after all, as I`d rather stick with the good memory of one film, instead of having seen parts and bits of series with various random childish, epic, boring and tiresome episodes that no one seems to really like but "you got to have seen them anyway"..
And now you can slam me..
With great power comes great electricity bills.
If you think /this/ is sensationalism, take a look at this wire article posted on salon:
http://www.salon.com/people/wire/2001/01/13/cloone y_hair/index.html
If this is news, I'd rather go back to olds.
Pyro
And it won't be the first time that a movie has been delayed, either.
The back to the future sequels (which I'm still waiting for on DVD) came out 5 years after the original.
The filmmakers wanted to take their scifi franchise to the next level, the G. Lucas level. After the initial success, they want to toss out any story or character development and replace it with something that looks a lot like Barney on Steroids. In other words, Trinity comes back to life as a CGI character. Dump all the un-fun references to a human race enslaved by robots and computers. More songs.
Read how a CGI character will be used in Ben Burns' Jazz Part 4
www.ridiculopathy.com
I don't care much about Neo -- his story is over.
Actually, I think the first movie could have been made as two movies. End the first movie when Morpheus says "welcome to the Real World" (add lots more scenes where Thomas Anderson's life becomes increasingly weirder and North-by-Northwestish). Start the second movie with the next scene: Neo in a tank with dozens of wires running into him (add lots more scenes of character development on the ship).
I agree with everyone who thinks the plot is a little ridiculous. The philosophical history goes back at least to Augustine and came into the western world via Descartes. Not that the Wachowski bros. are that smart of a pair... That said, I'd be willing to bet cash money that really this "real world" in the original Matrix is just another Matrix. I imagine this will come out in the third movie, but maybe earlier. Anyone else had this thought?
There are several possibilities:
- A form of fiction that just happens to take place in the future. It didn't happen [yet], so authors don't have [as much] pressure to stick to what's known now. This is likely the simplest explanation.
- Sci-fi is a great way to get ideas on issues across. Watch any given ST:TnG season and you'll find plenty o' parallels to various social issues. Additionally, I respect X-Men [I refer to the FOX Kids cartoon] quite a bit for being almost entirely about "racial" discrimination. That, and because for a show with a lot of fights, I've yet to notice anyone actually die (ie if a tank/building blows up, you see people running away first).
I'm not saying you don't know, only offering more ideas to the $0.02 pool.
my friend, you stand in a sewer and complain of the smell.
I really think sorry for Keanu but these should be the perfect time for the WachBro to look like for either a stunt or for some special effects instead of some fights.
BTW, if Keanu had become the One in Matrix1, I believe they had to invent something incredible if they still want him to fight in its sequel.
Has he or not become a God which could just destroy his opponents in less than 2 seconds ?
Hmmm... sounds interesting, let's see what it'll look like after all.
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
I went and saw this movie last night and highly recommend it.
:: "there is no spoon"
The same guy did the fight sequences as in the matrix and i think it would be fair to say the fight sequences in CTHD are way better than the matrix. (and more frequent.)
Its also fun to compare the number of taoist quotes in CTHD to matrix:
"all reality is an illusion"
So if your salivating over Matrix 2 already, you really MUST go see this film.
Official GOD FAQ.
It very eloquently works the good-versus-bad-epic-theme, whilst adding some very nice quirks. And it had a better-than-decent musical score to boot.
Just like the Phantom Menace my foot. Nobody liked that. They 'got their panties in a bunch' over it because of the hope that it would be of the same level as the original 3. Lucas decided instead to cater 100% to 8-year-old and Graphics Design Folks
Then again, this is obviously flaim bait. Oh well, I had fun responding anyway.
what hump?
Matrix was made in Australia and I presume the sequels are being made here as well, so will the SAG strike affect production ?
Go Go gadget sensationalism! this is why I really hate the media. Everything is blown out of proportion. So what! An actor left before they even started filming. Keanu busted his ankle. Shoot the scenes that Keanu is not in. And if worse comes to worse we just have to wait a bit longer for them to come out. The title should be: Sequels Might be delayed a bit. Not this sensationalism crap that we have to put up with day in and day out. msew
Why? Because the Matrix isn't about plot or characterisation, its always been about making its audience slack-jawed with amazement at the quality of the effects, and has been very enjoyable for doing so.
The abscence of the actors is no big deal, the Matrix series is mostly done on computer anyway, and so they can easily be replaced. The Matrix is all about the unreality of reality, so I suppose this is an irony.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
Sorry about being a little offtopic, but does anyone have any theories on the meaning of the title: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?
The hidden dragon is obviously Jen, but who is the crouching tiger allured to? Maybe the Jade Fox, or maybe it symbolises the restrained strength of Li Mu Bai? Anyone have any insights? Any Mandarin speakers out there?
Meesa think we better ALL take the blue pill. . . (g)
Anyone seen the previews for that? Looks like he's accepting the "Sensitive man" title. If I were him I'd break my own ankle.
;)
I know, I know, a lot of geeks love that movie (I'm guessing it's the weird leather superhero skinsuits -- surely not the corny plot ;), but damn I thought it was awful.
Pi. Now there was a movie computer nerds ought to be interested in...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I though keanu wasn't in the sequels...
I really think they should replace keanu with Hollywood's other WHOA man, Mr. Joey Lawrence. He can sing and dance, and LORDY can he ACT!
heh
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"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Just a possible explanation - perhaps the big sockets at the back of the Matrix inhabitants heads are also hooked up to the various parts of the brain and brain stem responsible for such autonomic activity. So, the Matrix gives your conscious mind some passable explanation as to why you could have died, and then switches off your heartbeat, etc.
:-)
The supposed l33t h4x0r rebels might have taken some of the hardware from the Matrix, and adapted it for their own use, but not particularly well, or something, leaving the 'kill' signal in. Neo's supposed superpowers could turn out to be due to an incorrectly wired up neural interface, and not some mystical 'One-ness'. Kind of takes the magic out of it...
You see - everything can be put down to incompetence of one form or another.
Ford Prefect, who is surprised he just rationalised all that.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
KW Jeter has written two sequels to "Blade Runner" called The Edge of Human and Replicant night.
This is not a troll, it's an honest question.
Is there an FAQ about this?
Seriously, tho, the conspiracy theorist in me says that this is FUD created by George Lucas over getting snubbed by The Matrix at the Oscars last year. :-)
but thats just me, and everything I say should be taken with a 2-ton grain of salt.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
I understand that the ORIGINAL premise was that in order for the machines to replicate, and move forward, consciousness-wise, they needed to keep the humans alive and drain their essence or souls.
That would have been cool. It also would have made the fight of the liberated humans more interesting, since they would literally be fighting for humanity's soul.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
D
Mad Scientists with too much time on thier hands
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So what, it's only a video clip anyway? As realistic as all the computer hacking bit is and all..
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Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
I thought they had already wrapped up the Matrix 2 and jet lee was in it, for the love of decent pop culture why cant they get a move on already , these days it seems everything i want to see is comming out in 2 years or 8 months then when it gets here im very disapointed with the final result and the movies never live up to my expectations, then again i do watch to much TV