Slashdot Mirror
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."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
"The Matrix is a sci-fi John Hughes movie, in which a misfit learns that he's actually cool. (Think Harry Potter with guns.)" How is a programmer who sleeps in front of his terminal a misfit around here?
Oy Malfoy!
What is it, Potter?
BLAM.
No, but really, does anyone see the resembelance in the most recent matrix trailer at the end where he flies past the castle and hogwarts/quiddich?
Neo: I don't need broomsticks.
Does this mean that MPAA boycatt ends on May 15th???
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Have things gotten so bad that people have to be explicitly directed to read the article??
Good point made about this dark future. While on the surface the matrix is a prison, it is a prison in which you can fly, dodge bullets and jump into the chests of your enemies (without all the trouble that comes with your run of the mill prison made psychedelics).
all I want to know is, if there are hovering robots and a computer reality, is there no space capability? I mean, why don't the machines just purge the faulty human batteries and move into space? plenty of solar power, plenty of room. Besides, regardless of the number of humans you have powering your MMOR (Massive Multiplayer Online Reality) I cannot help but speculate that a nuclear reactor has a great deal more potential for raw power than small to mid-sized mammals...But what kind of a movie is that right?
About 2 months ago a very anti-technology professor of mine pointed out that the reason the matrix is popular is because it tells nerds what they want to hear, that they can still be cool and powerful even if where they are right now is a small room, by themselves, spending 14 hours a day stairing at a computer screen.
I do security
The fact that Keanu Reeves might actually go down in history as a great actor. We all know that he is NOT, but many years from now, people will only look at the success of his movies and actually claim that he CAN act.
Harry Potter with Guns
:-p
Ok, so obviously Harry would be Neo and Hermoine would be Trinity, but who would be Morpheus?
My vote's for Dumbledore. Just imagine him in a black trenchcoat with some slick shades.
MPAA exec #1: We need another $2,000,000 to buy this senator his dream home.. which will get us our "dream legislation".. I was thinking it would be funny and ironic if those pirates and thieves on Slush Dot paid for it.
exec #2: You mean Slash Dat. Shall I have my well-paid contacts at the Slash post another pointless article on the Matrix to get them interested? Then they will flock to the movie and we will laugh uproariously as we use their own money against them.
exec #1: Actually, it's Slosh Dot, now that I think about it. Whatever the case, that's a great idea. They are all a bunch of hackers and pirates, so why not let them pay for the law that hangs them!
exec #2: BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! MWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!
exec #1: Still have that bad cough?
exec #2: Yes, whenever I cough it sounds like an evil laugh or something.
exec #1: Weird.
I agree. I personally do not care for for special effects, but I need a good story, and the Matrix was a very good story. Something very original, not your typical clever, good looking, young lawyer that beats the big bad guy. Not as predictible as the average movie either, and the "standard american set of morales" is not necessarely respected, contrary to 90% of movies coming out of Hollywood.
I have met Christians who saw the matrix as a metaphor for God, I personally think it was a modern version of a lot of the Tibetan Budhism teachings (an no I am not a Budhist, but interrested in the different perception of realities both in eastern and western culture).
In the movie, when the hero (Neo ?) is sitting in an armchair, and wonder if everything is fake, and the other hero asked him "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 !!
I wish people would watch movies to watch movies instead of reading into them so much.
I'm speechless. I really don't know what to say to this, and I wonder what you are trying to say. Are you saying that movies shouldn't have anything to say and that people shouldn't look for what the movie says? Do we just sit a watch a movie mindlessly, without thinking about what it is doing?
This is a very, very odd thing to say.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. -- Walt Whitman
I'll have to say that the movie was good, but the storyline wasn't too hot, and anyone who thinks the dialogue was any good should go read a book. Or better yet, watch the first Wachowski brothers movie, Bound. Now *there* was an excellent movie - tension, humor, drama, awesome cinematography and far better dialogue than The Matrix, all on a shoestring budget on a very limited set. As for watching movies to watch movies instead of reading into them, well, the directors DID want you to read into The Matrix. Did that fly over your head? The problem is, while there is something there, there's not a whole lot of it. See, the storyline was just a mishmash of practically every single piece of popular sci-fi (lit or movie) previously, with a muddy undertone of religious and philsophical musings. While highly entertaining and even groundbreaking in certain considerations, imo, I consider The Matrix to be just short of being among the best. Good scifi is all about the human condition, which The Matrix touches upon, but never really goes into much depth with. It's basically the brain equivalent of eye candy; fun, makes you think a bit, but in the end, you want something real to chew on. Examples of good scifi: Blade Runner (duh), Solaris (original Russian version), The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and anything but Stanislaw Lem or Jorge Borges.
For those of you who didn't read the article, Read this! it is all of Neo's dialogue, all 3 pages of it. I never realized it before, but most of his lines are questions. and the only really long line is his ending narration.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
One of these movies... has a future, and one of them does not. Now, I'm going to be as... forthcoming, with you as I can be, Mr. Anderson. You're here because, we need your help. We know that you've acquired the highest karma rating on a certain website, one that calls itself Slashdot. Whatever you think you know about this site is irrelevant, it is considered by many corporate executives to be the most dangerous site on the web. We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start, and all that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing known Microsoft bashers to justice.
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 great thing about it was that it appealed on so many levels. The following exchange shows what I mean...
Poster A : See, Neo is forced to question the very fabric of existance. He questions everything that we take for granted and reveals that the truth is vastly different to what we perceive to be true. Its an existential quandry, are we just figments of someone's imagination? How do we know that what we perceive to be "real" is what is actually reality?
Poster B : I like the bit where he fights an agent.
I would dare to angry anybody and say Star Wars is Lord of the Rings a couple of millennia into the future. Same for The Matrix being Harry Potter. But in terms of movies, I think the reverse is equally true. I think LOTR has to be thankful to Star Wars for part of its success, the same way Harry Potter has to be thankful to The Matrix opening the gates to the Magic Hero trail.
However, ancient and future heroes, battle of good and evil, greek, roman, chinese mythology have been part of a zillion good movies. I mean, good vs evil is THE subject of all modern movies. So why doesn't Sixth Sense, Toy Story and Austin Powers generate such an impressive fandom?
Let me wobble over a couple of reasons I think stand behind such a tremendous success as these four movies have inspired:
__________
Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace!
I wish people would read comments to read comments without reading into them so much.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I only saw the Matrix once when it came out on DVD, but I always thought it was sci-fi metaphor for Christianity.
Anderson (which means "Son of Man") is the messiah/Christ who is going to save humanity from the illusion that life on earth is all there is.
In the Matrix (just as in Chrsitianity's teachings) there are good angels and bad angels in our world who are in a constant battle for our everlasting lives.
Some guy came to Keanu's apartment early on and said something like "you're my savior, man"; and later Neo was resurrected by "Trinity" (Father/Son/HolySpirit), reinforcing Neo as the Christ character.
There are plenty of other references like the name of the ship Nebecanezzer (sp) who was the king in the book of Daniel who wanted his dreams interpreted. The traiter's name was "Cipher" (ie. Lucifer). And there's probably a lot more that I have since forgotten.
The most poignent moment in the film for me was when Fishbourne was tied to the chair and the "bad angel" was saying something about how he hates people, that he hates their smell -- and he equates them to a virus. To me, this sounded like something a "fallen angel" or Satan would say to a real person in the same situation.
Anyway, just one guy's opinion. I spotted references to some web sites in the article, "Messiah in Matrix" and knowthematrix.com -- maybe I'll check them out.
Stephen Legge