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Harry Potter with Guns
kauff writes "Slate has recently released a somewhat-inspired article
about what the Matrix was. You have to read it for yourself. Good way to
hype yourself up before Reloaded on May 15th."
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I don't agree w/the comment that it blends "mass appeal with cult".
This movie was good period. It had exceptional and ground breaking special effects. The story-line was great and contrary to the comment of the author the dialog was good.
Nope, it didn't have a ready made fan base but it does now.
I wish people would watch movies to watch movies instead of reading into them so much.
Am I the only one sick of product placement and movie tie-ins? I didn't mind too much, since they were all movies I wouldn't like anyhow, but the serious movies such as castaway are becomming multi-hour-long commercials that you have to pay $10 to watch...
I wouldn't think Matrix would stoop that low, except for the current commercial tie-ins, that are making me suspicious.
I really think the MPAA should have a rating to indicate if there is product placement, and how extensive it is...
I would hate to see a good movie series ruined so the studio can make a little bit more money... *cough* *cough* *star wars*
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I always thought that it would have been a better to line to say that they were using humans for processing power (a beowulf cluster of billions of humans brains). They could have even made a comment about how most humans only use, what like 10% of the brain, because the other 90% was taken by the machines.
Man, do these types ever give up? It's like the business world is convinced that everything is about trends, ratings, etc.
Here's a thought... Did it ever cross anyone's minds that the Matrix might just be a dammed good movie? One that is unique and creative?
If you listen to these guys, you could take the same elements, and make movie that would be just as successful. If that were true, Star Wars 1 & 2 would have been just as good as 4, 5 & 6... If that were true, the last two seasons of the Simpsons would have been just as good as the rest, but they certainly aren't (it's like they fired the writing staff and hired guys that have only heard about the show 2nd hand).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Now, if the robots have enough computer power to simulate reality for millions of humans, you might think they have enough computing power to control the power plant, but oh well, I thought it was a clever excuse for a pretty glaring hole in the movie.
Unless reality is simulated client-side in human brains, which would explain how Neo can create his own rules.
echo 'Header append X-HD-DVD "0x09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0"' >>
"what is reality ? Is it waht your senses tell it is to your brain ?"- this is a very "budhist question" (not only Tibettan, but accross the differnt form of budhism), and definitely a very valid question !!
It probably was inspired by Plato or Descartes. It's the *Western* philosophy of rationalism.
See here
and
here .
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. -- Walt Whitman
the parent should NOT have been modded down like that.. did any of you mods know that phoenix cant render that page? and some of us wouldnt be able to read it if it wasnt for the parent.
please, pull your heads out of your arses.
You know, that's what bugs me the whole time about the movie (which I've seen multiple times -- only topped by TESB)... obviously Neo can manipulate his reality because he's "gifted" (he's found a link to the matrix, he can tap into some control function, whatever, he can just do it). Why can't the agents do the same? They are part of the entity controlling the matrix, so they shouldn't be constrained by the rules created for the humans. But what you say is very interesting. What if the entity driving the matrix can't actually control it because the simulation is run in a distributed neural-network fashion? What if a bunch of humans can sync their simulations because the can somehow control (some of) the input to the simulation? That would explain why the agents can't just do whatever they please.
The Matrix is is popular not because of nerds but because of its great quality and entertainment value as a movie. Quite simply, there aren't even enough "nerds" to justify the massive figures at the box office and the hordes of fans that will swarm to the theaters next week. Case in point: 15 of my closest friends on my dorm floor have never even heard of Linux (*gasp*, in some cases they don't even know "operating system"), yet we're all going to see the Matrix on opening day, because of how much we loved the first one.
Nerds. Pfah.
Moral of the story: Stop listening to community college professors.
Depends on your definition of "loser" and "nerd" I suppose.
For that matter, what makes the nerds so apart from the rest of the world? When the non-nerd male population watches Die Hard, of course they idolize Bruce Willis, seeing themselves in his shoes, thinking to themselves, "Yeah, I could do that! I am much man!". It's the same thing. Everyone loves fantasy, especially one in which one's self is made brave, important, powerful, etc. It's not just the "nerds" or the "them" as you put it, as though to distinguish yourself from those techno-untouchables. (Well, to be wholly fair, I guess I sort of think of myself as being above the furries, but I'm not sure that's quite the same.
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What I most admire about this movie is that it served as a proponent of free thinking. For the past few years now, 90% of movies leaving Tinseltown are ridiculous, dum-minded farces, (even the action flix and the dramas) filled with product placement. Seeing movies today is as good an experience as cleaning your toilet. The matrix on the other hand, left its audience divided. Some just scuffed it off like an of the wall movie beucase they didn't understand anything that happended in it (except for the line hwere Neo goes: "I used to eat there. Good noodles.")Others lved it for the mind-boggling philosophies it entailed, with no real message to sum it all up. I remeber walking out of a huge theater aftter seeing The Matrix, lookied up at the sky and said...whoa.
George Lucas is a bright guy. He worled with noted mythologist Joseph Campbell in designing the story line for the star wars saga, such that it is most compelling to the largest possible audience. The late Joseph Campbell theorised that there are identifiable story elements and common threads in all mythology that makes it so universally compelling and has allowed some stories to live on literally for thousands of years.
George Lucas sought to harness these concepts and taylor a mythology for the modern era, and with the help of Joseph Campbell, he succeeded. I recall hearing comments from many of my colligues that Harry Potter is a lot like Star Wars (back when the first one came out) and my imediate reaction was to examine the common threads where I found an almost identical human struggle. A lost chile finds his way in the world with the guidance of an elder who then (eventually) leaves the student to his own devices, to overcome a great evil, not only to save the world but to save some one or something far more personal to him. This is only a cursory summary of the similarities which were outlined in the article but can be examined more closely after a careful reading of some of Campbell's works on mythology. I recommend the Masks of God or the Mythic Dimention.
IN the case of the Matrix, I believe the brothers who's name I won't attemt to spell, simply stumbled upon this formula. Certainly there are similarities and this is what makes it such a compelling story, but as far as I know, they didn't approach the writing of the story as methodically, or in such a calculating way as did George Lucas or the author of the Harry Potter books.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
A grow tired of these astoundingly ignorant reviews of the matrix. Is it entirely possible that some people, especially hipster professional pop culture critics, are so ignorant of life and philosophy they truly have no idea what the fuck they are talking about?
The matrix is a great movie beacuse it is the first and only movie to really focus on the use of illusion as a tool of social control. From Plato and the allegory of the cave to Nietzsche and is exploration of slave morality, this has been a dominant theme amongst the greatest philosophers.
This movie did well because the people know in their hearts they are not free. They are enslaved by school, learning nothing but conformity and submission, then they work at a company contributing nothing of substance, wasting their lives away until its time to retire.
People know that their lives are impotent, that their hopes and dreams are completely disconnected from the reality in which they live.
This is the story of the 20th century, of people lost without the fiction of religion imposed on their minds, with governments scrambling to impose all sorts of substitutes to give life meaning to a nihilistic population, as well as find new ways to raise a worker class now that physical slavery no longer exists.
The entire social structure of the modern world is a fiction, just as the matrix is a fiction. Both serve the same purpose: to enslave the mind of free men.
Sadly, pop culture experts never read philosophy they look at everything as a fashion, a fad. "The Matrix is a mixture of kung-fu and sci-fi". The Matrix is no more "about" those things than Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is about sex or Plato's Republic is about unemployed Greek guys dressed in Togas. There is a difference between the medium and the message, and this review gets it all wrong.
The Matrix simply uses pop culture theatrical tools as a means to an end, to open the eyes of a people doomed to a life of slavery. It is a noble effort, and one that should be applauded.
Nothing will blow your mind like reading Nietzsche however especially Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy for the Future.
There is also a whole book out discussing the philosophy of the matrix, but IMHO it is weak.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
The real reason Matrix is great is because virtually all other sci-fi movies have sucked. Maybe 1 out of 10 is even watchable. Between canned storylines, making movies about special effects and Hollywood endings... it's all too sad to contemplate.
I've read a handful of awesome sci-fi books in my my life (out of thousands read) and I can truthfully say it would be sad to see them turned into a movies. Ender's Game with a happy ending? Could liberal Hollywood really get the point of "Atlas Shrugged" across? Expectations are already so low that even I compliment the latest rendition of LOTR. At least they didn't completerly bungle it. Battlefield Earth anyone?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Very true - he certainly holds more power than Torvalds. I'm not sure he's as good an example, though, since it wasn't when he was at his computer that he was becoming powerful. Gates was a mediocre coder - it's his business dealings that made him who he is.
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> (a) Pythagoras got some of his ideas from visiting India,
Really? Do you have a ref?
But, apparently they can. They can take over bodies of humans in the matrix, they can make Neo's mouth disappear, they can create things like the "bug", which clearly can't exist in the "real world".
;-)
If you think too hard about what the agents can and cannot do, you will only get a headache. The only conclusion you can draw is that they have somewhat above normal control of "reality", which just got trumped by Neo. I guess the only solution will be to completely outnumber him....
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I think Dark City is all of what the Matrix SHOULD have been...
The emphasis on guns was way too heavy. While I don't believe in the direct connection of gun heavy movies to gun play in real life, this movie does put an interesting spin in the whole argument. Here's these people that can do so much with their mind, just because they believe... Yet they still use guns guns guns. Dark City showed one man take on aliens that enslaved humans for so long and he won, becoming god-like in the aftermath. I totally see this as the path the Matrix series goes. If the gun play goes down in the next two movies, it may redeem itself in my eyes.
I always thought we liked it depite Keeanu, not because of.
Seriously, I don't think his appeal is that in the Matrix he was a geek who broke into systems, it's more that he's an everyman who learns there's more behind the scenes, and he learns to master that.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. I think Neo takes the classic hero journey. Just off the top of my head:
First, he gets the "call to adventure": "Wake up, Neo. The Matrix has you..."
He meets Trinity (at the club), a messenger from beyond who re-affirms the call.
He rejects the call by getting out of the car on the way to meet Morpheus.
Next, he meets Morpheus and accepts the call (takes the red pill). (It was the red one, right?)
After being rescued from the Matrix, he is in the wild (the real world). Here, the old rules don't apply and he must forge a new identity.
While out in the wild, he discovers new powers. His wise mentor is Morpheus. The trickster is Cypher.
Next, he returns home (by jacking back into the Matrix) and brings uses his newfound powers to help the rest of society.
This is the classic hero cycle of hearing the call, rejecting the call, accepting the call, going into the wild, forging a new identity (with the help of a wise mentor), dealing with a trickster, returning from the wild with newfound knowledge and/or powers.
The same structure was used in Star Wars IV-VI and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which is part of the reason why those two series also resonate with people so much. The hero mythology is a metaphor for life and how to live it.
~percepto
------------------"You only have to realize the truth."
"What truth?"
"There is no sig."
The term "outside the box" is squarely within the box at this point.
If you watch carefully, despite the modern gloss, The Matrix was a tradition Greek play in three acts. In the work of the movie there was unity of time, place and action. All in three distinct acts.
The Matrix is no exception. The notion of humans as "power sources" makes perfect sense, then: the corporations still need votes to maintain their hold, in the US and Europe. Now that they own all the major news sources, it's easy to manipulate the electorate with delusions that lead them to vote any which way. (Over 50% of Americans actually believe that Iraq had something to do with Sept. 11. Very few know that Bush ordered all investigations of Saudis abandoned several months before it. That's power.)
As long as you think of the Matrix (and other fiction, for that matter) as just escapist fantasy, you miss most of its value.
I didn't realize that one needed to be famous to the general public in order to be powerful. I'm sure that most Americans don't know who the hell Hu Jintao is, but that doesn't detract from the fact that he's the leader of the most populated nation on the planet. (And a nuclear power at that!) No, Linus isn't particularly well known outside of tech circles and Wall Street, in whose publications he is sometimes mentioned, but that doesn't mean he has no power or has not made an impact.
As I said in another post, Bill is more powerful, but he didn't become powerful at the computer - he became powerful in business meetings, and the discussion was on the ability to become influential while "just sitting at the computer."
I'm in the real world just fine, but thanks for your concern. The world I'm in is the same one where multi-billion dollar corporations are changing the way they do business all over that little linux thing. (Sun, IBM, Microsoft come to mind?) Whole economies was probably not the correct word, though - industries would be a better term. It still illustrates the fact that Linux has been tremendously influential. Denying that is to lose one's grip on the "real world", IMHO.
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