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'Matrix Revolutions' Opens Today
shelleymonster writes "The Matrix Revolutions was released worldwide at 9 AM EST today. With a running time of 2 hr. 9 min., I'm expecting the /. reviews to start pouring in around 11:30. Since critics are saying things like, "Matrix finale could put you back in a coma," and, "The final episode is a slam-bang, dreary mess," I'm curious to hear some real fans' reactions." Many readers have pointed to the BBC's review; they were not amused. Were you? Update: 11/05 17:17 GMT by T : Read on for one reader's (spoiler-free) first impression.
wickedweasel writes "Just came from one of the first showings of Matrix: Revolutions (Germany, don't know why, but it started 2:30 pm here) and came by to drop some comments (no spoilers). To cut it short: not even close to the first one, and honestly spoken way worse than the second one (which wasn't _that_ bad). The ones looking for cool action will hardly find any, neither will the ones who came for the story (like me) be satisfied. Only a few good scenes in and around Zion, some quite big plot holes and unfinished threads and, most important, an unsatisfying end, to say the least. I guess I'll be flamed for my opinion by the die-hard-fans, but hear this: I once considered myself one too until I saw this."
I though Reloaded was a huge drop off from the orignal and this one may be a huge disappointment. Too bad, because the orignal was one of the best SciFi movies in Years.
The machines are attacking tomorrow, lets have a Rave.
Here, in Colorado Springs, Revolutions started showing at 7:20AM. Caught the first showing for $3.75(Early Bird Price).
The ending certainly was not what was expected. Decent none the less. Certainly better than the second one. But once again, nothing in comparison to the original.
The dialog at the end with Agent Smith was great. Best part of the movie, IMHO.
2 words.
Sold out.
www.metacritic.com/film/titles/matrixrevolutions
Ooooh - let the bitching begin - they focused on plot this time....
I must have ADD. It's a bad movie to watch if you have ADD.
awesome... absolutely awesome the level of ineptitude those critics have. burn them all..
You can't just review it. You have to realize... there is no movie.
The movie sucked like the last one..
"The Wachowski brothers have delivered a dud so disappointing, they may as well have bussed in Ewoks to save Zion"
"So disappointing they may as well have bussed in Ewoks to save Zion."
Made me laugh.
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
It was kinda predictable, no big surprises (vs. the other two), and the end was a let-down, I thought. It overall felt a little rushed in terms of acting and production. The dialog was much more humorous than in the past. I was entertained and glad to see the series concluded, but not impressed.
I do like the 4 posters I got along with the soundtrack for free at Loews Times Square. It pays to line up at 8AM (even though I had pre-bought the tickets).
Well i saw it yesterday (sneak preview) - tell you what? go with 0 expectations and it will be almost alright. Without spoiling anything, all i can tell you people is that don't be surprised or fall dead if you see Matrix 4 (Matrix: Ultimatum) or something come out in the next year.
Matrix Rev was damn good. Just got back from a 12:30am session here in Australia. In my opinion, a lot better than #2.
...go rent Dark City to compensate.
joo R teh 1nf0rm471v3!
I am hearing and reading bad reviews everywhere.
It's truly ashame because the first was such a great movie with a serious deep plot and great character development. It had what all great movies had - suspense, mystery, romance, comedy, good plot, character development - I can go on.
What a shame for the Brothers that the last 2 movies in the triology can not keep on the tradition of the first.
Well after all the years I heard people talking in big tones about The Matrix (I must admit that I never saw it in the theatre) and then one day 2-3 months ago it was presented on german TV and I was totally disappointed. The Matrix was totally boring and at the end I was kinda confused and asked myself 'was this all ?'. I have seen quite a lot of scifi movies in my whole life and there were a lot of more interesting movies amongst them.
I think that The Matrix is nothing more than a big marketing hype. The movie kinda sucked.
Growing up to see Revolutions is like growing up to realize that your dad is an alcoholic instead of the superhero you once thought he was.
To all of you who haven't seen this movie... DON'T. Re-Watch Matrix and Reloaded and the Animatrix a thousand times. But stay clear of this one.
You may be thinking: "IT IS INEVITABLE". And you are probably right. You'll still see this movie.
But despite all the talk about fate, chance and karma, the moral of this story is that if you can't tell what is going on or why, the movie plain sucks. If you're thinking about how cold and wet the actors must have been while shooting a fight scene in a giant puddle, well... you see my point.
God, this movie was dissapointing. It is supposed to be about faith but it ended up destroying all my faith in Hollywood
post a .torrent for it.
If Hollywood told you to stick a red-hot chainsaw up your arse, you'd do it, wouldn't you?
Pre-booked your Alien vs Predator tickets yet?
That was classic intercourse!
I just saw the 6:30 Am screening in Glendale, CA. My take: the 2nd best of the series. Less phony Kung Fu, more Sci-fi-ish. Fewer overt religious overtones. Overall, the most fantastic CGI I have ever seen. Not all is wrapped up nicely, so don't expect to understand everything when the credits start rolling.
A movie at 6:30 AM, what's wrong with me?
I saw it Monday night, and I feel it was similar to Reloaded. Not quite the same as far as fight scenes go. But then again it was pretty clear that a simple fight was not going to settle things between Neo and Agent Smith. I was surprised about Trinity though.
Still, both were a let down from the Matrix. To much mysticism type stuff, where his powers extended beyond the matrix. Matrix stuff crossing over into the real world just didn't make a lot of sense.
The first was cool because it was side note, the second one it helps if you have a clue-hey,look explosions!...what was I saying? Oh, and the third seems to be a dissertation on the objective nature of good and evil, judging from the reviews.
A non-stop feast for the senses. But not so much Kung-Fu.
no, I wasn't amused, not at all. revolutions is by far one of the biggest disappointments in the history of cinema.
...but I still like the original the best.
Some great action and effects, but like with Reloaded, they gave away a lot in trailers and on the late-night show "clips"... so not a lot of surprises IMO.
The theater I went to was pretty full (6 am here in San Diego). One loser watching Reloaded on his laptop got a lot of laughs from people. Two dudes came in dressed as Neo and Agent Smith, but they were pretty cool about the whole thing.
The best part - they were only charging matinee pricing of 6.50 to see it!
You forget, this is /. and waiting to see the movie before reviewing it would be like reading the article before commenting on it.
-cp-
President Bush to Liberate Alaska
If the world was ending the next day wouldn't you be making the best of the situation? At least thats what one of my friends pointed out when I said I didn't explain the overly long party/sex scene in reloaded, aptly titled "Celebrating Humanity" or something like that in the DVD.
In terms of the series degrading, I'm probably seeing Revolutions this weekend, but it's to be expected. The original was fresh, original and hadn't been done before. To try and top that along with the percieved expectations people have for the sequels is crazy.
To quote The Matrix "It's going to work, because no one's every done this before". 'nuff said. That's why the 1st rules, and everyone hasn't liked the rest.
Insert Sig Here
Keanu Reaves' butt! Yuuccckkkkk!
here is a review at Splicedwire. As expected awesome stunts, great techinical movie making but thin on plot. Anyway i will still see it.
Here are the spoilers: Monica Bellucci has 3mins of exposure in which she shows 80% of her breasts
The french speaking moron has practically no role
Neo kills Smith - no Smith infects Neo and kills himself
Trinity dies
Morpheus finally gets to hug Niobi
Neo is presumably dead at the end
Come on, that's like saying, "Mexico is the world's largest producer of Mexicans."
I'm seeing it on the IMAX this evening. Look for an IMAX theater showing it near you.
I completely agree- I absolutely adored Dark City. But it isn't for everyone. Sure, I liked the matrix, but when all your friends dig the matrix but couldn't get down with Dark City? Thats when you need to find some new friends.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Going to the IMAX on saturday to see this, although Reloaded sucked ass. Just the novelty of seeing it for the first time on a 30' screen. ohhhhh yeahhhhh.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
One thing that's interesting about the Matrix movies is that they've become a LOT of different things to a lot of different people. Thanks to the Wachowskis rather brilliant blending of pop culture, Campbell, Jung, Christianity, and Buddhism, they're movies that can resonate with people on so many different levels. Just look at the various articles that've been written since 1999 interpreting the movies and you can see it. You could almost believe these people are seeing different films under the same name.
The problem though, is that a finale, by its nature, must be conclusive. It has to have at least some answers to the big questions. And if (SPECULATING) for example, you were wanting to see a Taoist "balance" ending, and it turns out to be a western-style Good-triumphs-over-Evil, then you're going to be disappointed. Or if you consider the philosophical questions about Causality and Fate more important than the skeleton plot, if the movie is too action-heavy you're going to be irritated that it doesn't solve the philosophical quandaries. (or vice-versa in either situation, obviously)
So, while I won't know for myself until about 4 this afternoon, I suspect the problem is not going to be one of Revolutions being a bad\disappointing movie, but that there is simply no way that the Wachowskis could wrap it up and provide a satisfactory conclusion to ALL the "movies" which the Matrix has become to its viewers.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Flash version of "The Octopus"? (I think that's the correct term for the muck-raking book on meat-processing in the 30's?)
Insert Sig Here
Post a torrent and I'll post a review...
;-)
After all, I need something to saturate my OC-3
Several local geek houses ended up at the first screening. There are mixed emotions about the film.
Several people I know really didn't like it.
Personally, I think it had some cute moments. Although it read like an anime.
For me, this whole Matrix thing began its slow descent once Keanu popped his spine plugs and the secret was revealed. Suspension of disbelief was easy to maintain when we didn't know what the fuck was going on. Once we got to the batteries part, the matrix just became a backdrop for all the Hollywood cliches like last-minute escapes and virtual fruit-cart tipping.
Saw an advanced screening. Forget the second and third one ever existed. Your life will be better that way.
Too bad I didn't think of this, but I thought it deserved to be here on Slashdot in case you don't read everything: You mean it doesn't end with Keanu Reeves waking up, turning to Alex Winter and saying "Bill, I just had a most excellent dream!"? Shame.
Need I remind you folks that both Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life were destroyed by the critics? (Citizen Kane's destruction had a wee bit to do with the fact that it was loosely based on William Randolph Hearst, who was a media magnate.)
But, eh, WTF, if it sucks it sucks, they're still getting at least $5 outta me.>br> -Doc
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
having read the cnn and bbc review they seem to give the original matrix high marks. The impression I got at that time was that the original sucked (I liked it btw). I agree Matrix Reloaded wasn't as good when compared to the original. The whole thing looked like a music video but the crux was interesting. Neo is the 6th version of the anomaly. The core thingy where the humans lived has been destroyed numerous times already. They could have told an interesting story about the matrix with this but the movie was just one stupid and spectacular sfx after another as will probably be with revolution.
did you forget to take your meds?
The Jungle -- Upton Sinclair.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Eye candy galore. Battles of high enough complexity that give plenty to watch.
Same old philosophy...no new ideas. Many interesting plot threads remain unresolved.
Fun movie, but not what most were hoping for.
The evil rural communities who dare to make a living other then in walmart must be stopped!
Don't they know that the house I bought down the street now smells like piss all year round? The bitch that sold it to me did not tell me that real farms smell bad when the wind changes!
New York City Yentas who buy rural homes must unite to end this EVIL!!
Just got back from the 6:00am showing of the movie and I was pretty impressed. Nothing was overdone like the big fight scene in Reloaded. There were some great twists and turns. The back channel plots were great and the end came together beautifully. It was also very academic in some respects, which probably explains why general audiences (read "unwashed masses") won't "get" it. You don't necessarily have to be glued to every word to understand what's going on, but it helps having seen the other two movies along with the Animatrix a few times. You should definitely not go into the movie expecting it to be a self contained story.
In a lot ways, I understand the bad reviews. It's a lot like where Open Source was a few years ago. It was very hard at times to get people to understand the benefits of it. I am sure that in time people will see the message of this movie and that the trilogy will be a real classic.
I definitely give it two thumbs up.
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
I am a real Matrix fan. I couldn't sleep at all last night, knowing I was going to watch Revolutions at 9AM today. However, I felt it was a disappointing failure for several reasons:
1. Trinity dies for no reason, as they don't use her death in any meaningful way.
2. The scene with the machines entering the outer hull of Zion was drawn out needlessly, as it contained no switching between the fight at Zion and Neo's plight (think: middle/end of ROTJ)
3. The fight scene with Smith/Baines and Neo in the Logos was completely extraneous.
4. Neo's death in the end leaves the humans without a powerful weapon against the machines if they were to decide to attack the humans again. Contrast this with Star Wars and LotR, where the playing field is leveled at the end, or slightly in favor of the protagonists.
5. Keanu Reeves performance was subpar, even for him. In the climactic battle with Smith at the end, he looked drugged and was not convincing as the leader of the free world. He had no fire, and it was the machines and the Oracle that actually spurred him on to defeat Smith (esp. the machines, as they revived him after being consumed by Smith).
6. In the beginning, he was trapped in the train station for no conceivable reason but to lengthen the movie. It served no purpose, benefitted the movie naught and did not lead to any great discoveries that were used later in the film. Likewise, how we could be jacked in without being jacked in was never satisfactorily addressed.
If you are a Matrix fan, I urge you to watch this movie with the blinders off and see for yourself what a bad job the Wachowski bros. did with this, what could have been the end of the best sci-fi movie trilogy in history.
so watch out!!
I don't know about anybody else, but I don't want to know ANYTHING at all yet. Not even a hint.
> and Trinity is really a man.
And his name is Chad.
Wow. I saw the 7:00 AM show in Salt Lake City, UT. I have to say I was pretty disappointed. I mean, the CGI/effects were incredible, and the battle in Zion was really well done. But the philosophical mumbo-jumbo did not really come together very well. I think they should have wrapped it up better. They really did not answer any of the questions, or explain how anything could have happened. They relied on the idea of choice. So I have a choice to watch it, enjoy it, or watch it and be disappointed. For now, I chose to be disappointed. But go see it for the effects, those are incredible!
We knew that Trinity was really a man since the first movie. Remember the bar scene?
I'm a big action movie fan, and Revolutions was kinda a letdown from that standpoint. The final fight between Neo and Smith was pretty cool, but nothing really blew me away like the car chase in Reloaded. That final fight did get me really pumped about the new Superman movie. I can't wait to see Superman flying around like Neo.
Not as good as the first one, not nearly. The action was average, some nifty scenes but nothing special. The story is better than part two, it tries to clean up a bit of the mess that part made. Plot holes are still all over the place, but so they were in part one.
Before reading this: I haven't seen it and I don't plan on seeing it -- in my opinion the original was an above-average action flick which didn't need a sequel.
Given that, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't any good, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that Reloaded got mediocre reviews. For me the alarm bells started ringing the moment I heard they were releasing it simeoultaneously.
Yes, I know what the official reasons are for doing that, but, no matter what the studios say, whenever I hear anything gimmicky about a film's release I can't help but wonder if there's a reason.
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
Hitchcock would have loved the first one because of the clear cut way they told the story and used suspense to tell it.
'No officer, your men are allready dead' and after that you get the fight. It is a classic example of creating suspense like Hitchcock used it, but faster.
But Hitchcock would have hated the sequels. The story has no starting point, instead it follows the Hollywood formula of all sequels: just let the same events happen in roughly the same order (Trinity opens with a fight and someone dies and is resurected). It is like they forgot how to deliver a complex story to an audience. Instead it became a vehicle for stunning special effects. And that is something that continues in the third episode with for instance the use of rain. There is no better way to show your quality as a CG master than with the use of rain isn't there?
No. this one has 'hire me' signs all over it. Just like the second one. They did not start a new CG company for nothing. This is just a big trailer sponsored by those visiting the cinema and buying the DVD.
The should have started part two with an introduction on the use of keys and being a program. Just like they did in number one with the use of special forces.
Is this mere coincidence or something deliberate by the directors? Does he use guns in Revolutions?
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
The critics hated "Citizen Kane", "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Star Wars" at the time.
But the critics also hated "Gigli", "The Real Cancun" and "From Justin to Kelly".
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
with ted waking up,
"whoa, that was a most excellent dream"
*guitar solo*
all you are, is all you are, i'm so sorry for you.
God forbid someone should have an opinion that's different from yours.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Not all is wrapped up nicely
Which is a Good Thing, since I would rather see Matrix 4 than a trilogy of prequels.
The holy Jebus has spoken. Would you like to have yourself reinserted or be omnipresent?
Jeez, and I thought #2 stunk! The review from the Washington Post was caustic: "Neo, schmeo! In "The Matrix Revolutions," directors Andy and Larry Wachowski give up on character; instead, they try havoc and let slurp the dogs of war. The film is a soggy mess, essentially a loud, wild 100-minute battle movie bookended by an incomprehensible beginning and a laughable ending." I'll sit this out.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Yeah, I think they are going to take it alot farther than another movie. In other media this story will continue for as many years as we are willing to spend money on it.
i liked it
So, you thought the metaphysical imagery was particularly effective?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3739898990d &dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=200 31031024029.19112.00000032%40mb-m28.aol.com
First of all, I must confess I'm a huge fan of Matrix (soo much to ask my boss if I could go see the movie - and I went) :)
:(
--- spoilers ahead ---
But the movie sucks. Very nice effects (as usual), but the plot is horrible... very predictive, full of fallacies. IMHO, most things that were kept open at the end of Reloaded are still open (who is the Merovingian? How can Neo control/destroy the machines in the real world? Why Persephony wanted a kiss?).
But nothing can be compared to the final fight, where Neo and Smith just look like two Dragon Ball-Z characteres... I could do nothing but laugh.
Anyway, I'll see the movie again and probably buy the DVD, but it was a great deception to me as a Matrix fan...
He said it sucked. Kinda spoils it I recon.
The first movie was good, or the first half. The premise was quite interesting and innovative, and then it slowed down and turned into a Kung Fu movie. I still never understood why the tech community was so quick to embrace this series as an icon. It is not worthy. Have we stooped so low as to think the Matrix' goofy "which reality is real" premise as something worth using brain cells to contemplate? This is only a notch away from the other, equally-cerebral dilemma: "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"
And thus began the "Matrix Revolution" of an endless array of technical FX as a substitute for a decent plot and character development.
Not that things haven't been this way since the dawn of cinema, but most movies nowadays are just big-budget, formulaic, television-level dramas designed less to make you think, less to entertain than they are to distract and take your money and serve as a vehicle for a plethora of merchandising efforts.
With few exceptions, most of the great classic movies of the last 20-30 years have been neutered in a progressive attempt to capitalize on the originals' success via a string of contrived sequels.
The same thing has happened to the music industry. Instead of great lyrics and creative musicianship, we're bombarded with cute-faces, dance moves and regurgitated hooks that are over-produced and heavily compressed. There should be a new category for this crap music, like there should be a new category for these new movies which do little more than feed our ever-increasing ADD.
Went and saw Matrix III on monday. Special effects are still awesome, fights scenes were not bad. Battle tactics of the squids was pretty cool, but in my opinion this was the weakest of the matrix movies.
Was rather disappointed with the ending.
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
It was a huge dissapointment for me... I thought Reloaded left some room for hope that it could have a cool final chapter but, as it turns out: The brothers didn't have it in them. You'll all see for yourselves, since I couldn't hope to deter anyone from watching it. It's too much hype, and it doesn't deliver.
Oh well, we still have ROTK to look forward this year.
You slashdotted it.
I've read enough initial reviews to see that the first Matrix is going to be primarily remembered as being way better than the two films that followed it. In the end its going to be sorta like Friday the 13th. The first one was actually fun and original, but nobody remembers that because they made a bunch of crappy sub-par versions after that. No one remembers that at the beginning there was a fun flick, just that the series went on too long. The same fait awaits the Matrix trilogy. They obviously should have never made any movies after the first one.
Oh well. At least the Return of the King probably won't suck.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Why does the Matrix inspire this type of snobishness?
"It was also very academic in some respects, which probably explains why general audiences (read "unwashed masses") won't "get" it."
Basically, if you don't like these movies you are not intellectual enough. This was the same defense offered by many Matrix "fans" to people who didn't like Reloaded. By the way, Reloaded was a dreadful movie, just because somebody doesn't like it doesn't mean their dumb or unsophisticated.
I've already seen a lot of negative reaction to this movie in the reviews and from the net. And already the apologists are saying that the "unwashed" masses are not smart enough to appreciate this "wonderful" piece of art. This type of spinning of the movie is not encouraging.
- sigs are for wimps.
Citizen Kane did suck. Anyways there are more than just the critics that are going against this movie. There is the tendancy for sequels to be worse than the previous movie. With that said, I'm be shocked if this movie is worth the $7.50+.
Hmm... Ewoks don't sound that bad, especially if there could be a scene where Agent Smith takes on Jar Jar Binks!
warning... possible spoilers
/.ers. I feel as though too much was answered, and I got to know the characters better than I wanted to.
I guess I have different feelings than most
I prefer there to be some element of mysticism and wonder remaining, and I feel as though any question I could possibly have has been answered. The audience now knows all characters, all their thoughts, all their intentions, and all their actions. There is no remaining novelty.
Also, I was not pleased with the all orchestral score; it was too much in the european tradition for my taste.
However, with all that said, it is some of the most amazing filmmaking I have ever seen; yes there are little bloops with pacing and whatnot, but overall, absolutely amazing, some of the most stunning visual effects ever, and amazingly well done; the cgi rain mixed with the real rain was seamless, and many sound effects (robots falling inside zion) were finely executed.
Of course the first one is always the favorite; everything is novel, new, and mysterious; but damn: a fine experience it is to see Matrix Revolutions, regardless!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I wasted 2 goddamn hours of good drinking time from my bar in New Orleans to see this?!
Great. All the world needs is another damn Jebus and his Jebus lovers.
gonna go watch the premiere now here in Spain...
didn't think the second was as bad as everyone said, but it was worse than the first one...i'm expecting the third to be a barage of special effects and am going along for the ride......
all republicans are agents.. trying to brainwash everyone else... with Bush or Bill Gates being Agent Smith... Neo is symbolic for open minded people of all types.. Notice there only caucasion agents and cops ? HRM... The agents are taking over the guvment.. but we will win in the end... ARGH!!!!!! ps. sounds like a coo campaign for everyone other than the Rac***s... oops Republicans..
I found this review that sums up the movie pretty well. All in all, a massive disappointment. Revolutions could and should have been so much more. Why is it that when anyone in Hollywood gets a good idea that has so much potential, they always manage to fuck it up?
Join Tor today!
Who do the Wachowski brothers think they are? Robert Jordan?
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
OK, i saw it with a colleague. We disagree - he liked it better than Reloaded. But anyway, my gripes:
:) philosophy.
:)
;-)
CGI was too much sometimes. The scenes went from nothing to kamikaze, with no clear focal point on the screen.
The bit from the trailer with the head honcho machine. WTF was that? So it's a machine - does it mean it can't hold a conversation?
Agent Smith explodes at the end WTWTWTF? If Neo was corrupting him, then why all the crap with the fight scene before hand?
No key scene to define the film (think Burly Brawl/Freeway).
Oh, and the plot seemed extremely shallow compared to the last one - I was looking forward to some more in depth (or at least pop
Why was Smith such a threat? The machines didn't look that bothered. Why was it left to Neo to fix?
Ack, I could go on, but I think I should go see it sober first
Matrix - 10/10, Reloaded 8/10, Revolutions 4/10
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Well I have to say, that Larry and Andy's attempts at intellect and metaphorical representation might have gone too far in a lot of viewers minds.
Production: Stunning, and you would expect so with a budget like that. The continuity from 2nd to 3rd movie movie make it feel like a sequel broken into 2 parts. Which it is some would think anyway. If only the average movie goer wasn't getting accustomed to seeing fantastic visual effects, as many won't appreciate the quality of the CGI, editing, and general visual representation.
Plot: Lost it? Perhaps. One either expects the Wachowski brothers to be doing one of two things. Setting it up for 4, or, depending on the financial results of 3, leaving it closed with a scenario the requires the user to have to "imagine too much" to get closure from the story line. It would appear they have lost touch with their audience, and gambled the wrong ending for the trilogy, in an attempt to be different yet again. I am guessing that 3/5 viewers would be annoyed or unimpressed at how the movie was ended.
What strikes me as most odd is that there appears to be no commercially logical reason for the script to have been written as it was. Is it possible that if a final, 4th movie is released, many will now have lost interest like the X files? Who knows, but the next few days will reveal the true reactions of the general viewing public.
uh huh, so if the critics destroy a movie, then it HAS to be good right? is the opposite true as well? or do you just wish to recant this comment?
all you are, is all you are, i'm so sorry for you.
Seit MATRIX 1 wissen wir: Wir blubbern alle nur in einer Nahrlosung, liefern fiesen Maschinen Energie und sind an die Matrix angeschlossen, die uns die Welt vorgaukelt, wie wir sie sie kennen: Gras ist grun, der Himmel blau und Busfahrer konnen nicht auf 20 Euro rausgeben. Die Untergrundbewegung ZION, ein U-Boot-Kommandant MORPHEUS und seine reizende Assistentin Moneypenny, ah TRINITY, kampfen gegen die Maschinen und deren MR. SMITH-Agenten und hoffen auf den Erloser NEO. NEO nimmt die rote und nicht die blaue Kapsel, bevor ein ORAKEL ihm den Spacecake der Erkenntnis anbietet: NEO entdeckt, dass er verdammt schnell kampfen und Pistolenkugeln aufhalten kann. Die WACHOWSKI-BRUDER uberraschen mit der Ankundigung, dass die Matrix von Anfang an als Trilogie geplant war. In MATRIX 2 RELOADED kann MR. SMITH schon ganz drollige Grimassen schneiden und NEO entdeckt, dass er a.) fliegen kann und b.) schneller als die Concorde. In ZION tanzt man zu Technomusik, wenn man einen GroBangriff der Maschinen erwartet. NEO, MORPHEUS & TRINITY brechen mit ihrem Schiff namens NEBUKADNEZAR auf, befreien einen SCHLUSSELMACHER, und versuchen beim Hauptrechner der Matrix den Stecker zu ziehen. Die WACHOSWKI-BRUDER lassen extra fur diesen Film einen 15 Kilometer langen Highway nachbauen fur eine Verfolgungsjagd mit vielen Agenten und zwei Albino-Kiffern. Im Innern der Matrix wird NEO von Siegmund Freud erwartet, der erklart, dass NEO schon der sechste Erloser ist und das ORAKEL und ZION lediglich Korrekturprogramme innerhalb der Matrix sind. MORPHEUS weint bitterlich bis in den November, also bis MATRIX 3 REVOLUTIONS rauskommt, in dem NEO erkennt, dass a.) ZION auch nur ein Teil der MATRIX ist und b.) er ganz tolle Kunstsaltos fliegen kann, weshalb NEO sich zu den olympischen Spielen im Bodenturnen anmeldet. MR. SMITH wird sein Trainer. MORPHEUS & TRINITY brechen in ihrem neuen Schiff namens POPOKATEPETEL auf, und suchen den UHRMACHER, um in der Zeit zuruckzureisen zum 31.12.1999, damit der Year-2000-Bug die Matrix endgultig lahm legt. Die WACHOWSKI-BRUDER lassen extra fur diesen Film eine Schwarzwalder Kuckucksuhr sowie den Schwarzwald selbst nachbauen, in dem eine wilde Verfolgungsjagd stattfindet mit NEO und elftausend genmanipulierten ALBINO-Pfadfindern. Als alle Matrixen komplett ausfallen, verschwinden NEO, MORPHEUS und TRINITY und wachen in einer rosafarbenen Nahrlosung auf und die WACHOWSKI-BRUDER uberraschen mit der Ankundigung, dass die Matrix von Anfang an als Reihe aus drei Trilogien geplant war. MATRIX EPISODE 1 oder auch: C64 - THE BEGINNING spielt zeitlich weit vor der Matrix-Trilogie. Mr. SMITH ist einfacher Programmierer bei Commodore, dem ein mutiertes Pacman-Spiel entwischt, das innerhalb von zwanzig Jahren die Weltherrschaft ubernimmt. Die WACHOWSKI-BRUDER lassen fur diesen Film extra eine Atombombe bauen und eine afrikanische Wuste sprengen. Eine Widerstandsgruppe, angefuhrt vom dem einfachen Bauhilfsarbeiter GUNTHER MOROWSKE, grabt sich mit einem Bagger namens HANOMAG in die Erde, grundet eine Widerstandszelle namens ZONI und wartet auf MAXTRIX EPISODE 2: TRY & ERROR. Dieser Episodenfilm erzahlt die Geschichten von NEPOMUK, NERO, NOAH, NORBERT und NOAM CHOMSKI, den funf in MATRIX 2 RELOADED angesprochenen Erlosern vor NEO, die mit ihren Schiffen namens NAUTILUS, TITANIC, ENDURING FREEDOM, BISMARCK und KALLE BLOMQUIST aufbrechen, um die Matrix zu zerstoren. Mr. SMITH ist mittlerweile echt gelangweilt, Siegmund Freud heuert als Wachmann eines Parkhauses an, weil's da auch so viele Bildschirme gibt, ZONI fallt jedes Mal, der Film floppt, und deshalb spielen in MATRIX EPISODE 3: THE ROMANCE wieder Keanu Reeves und Laurence Fishburne mit. ZONI heiBt wieder ZION und MORPHEUS und TRINITY kampfen mit ihrem Schiff NORTH COTHLESTONE-HALL gegen Mr. SMITH und seine Maschinen und hoffen auf den Erloser NEO, der diesmal jedoch die blaue Kapsel schluckt, einpennt und alles vergisst. MORPHEUS wird zornig und vergewaltigt das ORAKEL. NEO lernt hingegen Meg Ryan kennen, grundet mit ihr eine Familie und kauft eine Doppelhaush
But I didn't see Matrix Reloaded and won't go see Matrix Revolutions. I still have only the unspoiled, pristine, beautiful memory of The Matrix.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Not really. I'm a fan of the 1968 series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. Some see it as surreal oddness, some a spy story that degnerated, some as a template for defiance against authority and some...well, some just like the series.
It has one of the most legendarily weird endings of all time - the episode Fall Out. People have been arguing over that one for over thirty years, as its symbolism is both overt (there's nothing literal in there) and yet entirely opaque. I have no idea what it means, and McGoohan once asked that if someone ever says they know what it all is, could they please let him know?
So no, I don't believe finales have to explain everything. You're right about the movies meaning different things to different people though. To add a tinge of flamebait to the post, to me the films pose the question "how can people comment so seriously on such obviously rehashed ideas?", but your opinion may differ.
Cheers,
Ian
I saw the premier, and I must say, I am hugely disappointed.
I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but the number of times they could have done something in 30 seconds by actually thinking instead of spending 90minutes on it is incredibly frustrating.
A huge letdown, though I can understand that practically anything would have been a letdown, with Matrix I settings such high expectations and all, but this really was bad.
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
"But the critics also hated "Gigli", "The Real Cancun" and "From Justin to Kelly"."
And rightfully so.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Yeah, some theater in UT was showing it at 12:01 AM today. Worldwide release, only early. :)
I thought it was good. Some good new FX that you will see some other movies start copying.
I enjoyed it, thought it was a nice wrap up, I like movies that make you think after you leave the theater!
There was not enough explination of the 'technical' stuff, which we were given a glimpse of in the first movie. Maybe it was done intentionally, but alot of things were 'left out', from small things like how did neo get from the medical quarters to being jacked in, lying in a seat? to more important things, such as why the hell could he do so much out of the matrix? maybe i missed it. even still, if neo could do all the tricky stuff outside, how come bane/smith could not? (then again...maybe he did...it wasnt an EMP that stuffed up the counterattack by the humas?)
even so, there was too much left unsaid...sure, for suspense and just genrally to make the movie a good movie, there needs to be some unknowns left to discuss. there were just too many, especally for a move which was supposed to be the conclusion - what kind of conclusion as things like "will we see neo again? i think we will" etc in the LAST SCENE of a CONCULDING movie?!
anyway, its 4:11am here in australia, so maybe it would be a good idea to get some rest before ranting too much more.
goodnight all
It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one!
I just got back from seeing it in Georgetown at the 9AM showing.
.. loved it .. thought it was decent, mostly because it fired people's imaginations trying to figure out the ending .. thought it was lame, disappointing
.. prepare to be disappointed. For those who got into trying to figure out all the questions/puzzles left open at the end of Matrix II .. prepare to be disappointed. I thought many of the various theories and speculated endings that people posted on USENET after Matrix II came out were far more interesting than what Matrix III turned out to be. Matrix I is definately the best one (IMO).
- Matrix I
- Matrix II
- Matrix III
For those who got into the philosophical aspects of Matrix I/II
eh?
I like good sci fi and good action flicks, but take away the special effects and the underlying plot in Matrix was about as stupid as they come - people being used as batteries - yeah right! And once you've undermined the whole film with a stupid premise, then of course the whole thing will come tumbling down...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Just seen the UK version (don't think there's any difference between it and the US release) and I wasn't disappointed. I *expected* to come out of the film and say "I get the general idea... but what about x and y and z?" and I got that. The first quarter or so is boring but yes it is a good film - not as good as 1 or 2 (I thought 2 was cool) - and the fight scenes and effects are worth making the effort to see it in the cinema.
... a movie that if people saw before hand "via the internet" would make Hollywood lose money, then worldwide release it. E.g. Matrix Revolutions. ... a movie that even if people saw it "via the internet", they would still come in droves, then don't worry about it. E.g. Return of the King.
Ok, I can't say much about it's a Wonderful Life -- I personally can't stand that movie anymore.
Citizen Kane was hated because of a man known as William Randloph Hearst, owner of a huge publishing empire. The story was loosely based around him, and to say that he was slightly less than pleased would be putting it mildly. Very mildly. So Hearst had the critics who wrote for his papers publish bad reviews. You need to realise, this is a guy that some people claim helped to start the Spanish-American war. Just imagine what he could do to one measly little film.
Despite this, it was nominated 9 for Oscars, although it only won one of them. (Best screenplay for those who care -- and some believe that that was only because of co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz rather than Orson Welles.)
Now, as for Star Wars. Does anyone have proof of this? I always hear this phrase brought, yet when The Phantom Menace came out one of the national papers here published all their previous Star Wars reviews. The ratings went much like you'd expect for a film series -- first was 4 stars, second was 3 stars, third was 2 stars plus a fairly sarcastic overtone to the review. (I believe the paper rates out of 4, I've never seen more than that.)
Not saying it can't be true, in a case like this one contradictory example does not refute the argument, I just don't remember hearing it until The Phantom Menace arrived and started getting sub-par reviews.
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
..great, now i am laughing uncontrollably at work :D
A Yenta is a term for someone who is a pain in the ass and ignorant. Its yiddish slang. An example would be a person who bought a house knowing that an airport had its flight path over your house then whines to the media about the noise from the planes. Another example is someone who buys a house near an apple farm then is upset that they use cowshit before every growing season.
Sounds like the highlander effect, first film challenges your imagination to dream of a world beyond your comprehension.
Then the sequels quickly demonstrate that some things are better left unsaid
Where did they show it in Glendale? At the Mann? I live on Louise and Glenoaks, btw. Hats off to you fellow Glendalian.
---Carl Sagan
I'm going to see this movie if I like it or not. It's like a Murder scene, I can't help but look at the dead body and the crime photos. I know I'm gonna HURL big time, but I gotta see it.
Hey, if I could sit through RoboCop 3 and Howard The Duck then I think I can sit through Revolutions.
[insert film name here] sucked, really, really badly - [humourous one-liner about how much the movie sucked, in a style appropiate to either the film's suckage or to the film's genre]. They [did something /really/, /really/ bad to one of the main characters and we complain about it here for a bit], they also [complain about focusing on special effects and nothing else] - this is typical of the [insert scapegoat]s, as they are always [long rant about "flash" and "bang" in [insert media type here] instead of actually making something people want to watch].
On the whole, I was [insert opinion] and, in my opinion - this a reason to [boycott [insert media type]/ stab right-eye with a rusty fork].
MAJOR SPOILERS MAJOR SPOILERS MAJOR SPOILERS
since MFN is crushed by the load ...
i did tell you about the MAJOR SPOILERS, right?
anybody have any thoughts on who the oracle was referring to at the end when she spoke about "the others who want out"? does she mean other programs like the girl, or humans in the matrix? what was her goal all along, and was she playing a game with the architect? did she want the matrix to turn into a retreat instead of a prison?
For a little light-hearted Matrix appetizer, there's a new parody trailer which was released a couple of days ago... some nice green-screen effects and virtual sets. And "Bill" the Architect is just perfect.
Check it out. The video downloads are via BitTorrent, so it should survive a moderate Slashdotting.
When Reloaded ended, you were left with the questions about the cycle of the One - that the Matrix needed to be reset, otherwise it would crash, and so on. Revolutions didn't address any of that, at least what I saw this morning.
The special effects and all were cool in a couple of places.
I think that many will be disappointed with the movie for the fact it doesn't have closure to what we've been fed in the past two movies. Spending some time in some of the Matrix on-line forums you'll find a lot of theories and ideas about the Matrix, the previous Ones, and all, but most expressed their disappointment.
I enjoyed the movie for what it is. If you don't micro-analyze everything, you'll probably enjoy it. To me it provided some more insight into the role of the Oracle, among other things.
My kingdom for a paragraph break!
It was also very academic in some respects, which probably explains why general audiences (read "unwashed masses") won't "get" it.
But that doesn't explain why so few of the professional reviewers got it, either.
Ah well, I'll catch it this weekend and go in prepared.
Saw the 9:00 in Roanoake (Virginia). The actual ending WAS what I was expecting, but the way that the story got there wasn't.
Awesome CG . . . much better than in Reloaded IMHO. Worth the ticket price just to see the CG.
I actually think I like it almost as much as the original (ask me again in a week once I've sorted it out more). I didn't like Reloaded near as well.
I liked the way all the philosophy from Reloaded and the original came together in Revolutions. I like both previous movies better because of Revolutions . . . exact opposite of Reloaded, which made me like the original less since I was confuesd.
Go see Revolutions! It's a lot more fun than work or classes!
The effects were what we have come to expect from The Matrix, there were some good one liners, and some questions were answered. I think they delt with the death of the actress who played the original Oracle incredibly well and did a very good job of integrating it with the story. If you are expecting the first Matrix again you WILL be disapointed, the fact is that there was no possible way to end the story that would of not been a let down, the greatest power of the first movie was all the unanswered questions and hanging loose ends. To bring to close the whole trillogy they had to answer some of them, but the story is not over completly, like the real world some things continue on, there will always be a few lose ends. I am sure that for everyone who was looking for reasons to cut it down there is one maybe even two people who liked it. So, If you have seen it think about what the real goal of the movie was before jumping at it, and if you haven't don't expect the first movie all over but pee before the movie starts.
No, no. I LIKE it when people disagree - especially with me.
That was classic intercourse!
WTFM! There, I said it.
Now that Neo has been sacrificed to save the balance of power between humans and machines, there are still some who will not accept the interdependence. Led by Morpheus, who now believes Neo was led astray by an infection from the Architect, a small band of humans attempt Wrenching the newest incarnation of the Matrix.
Energy is more expensive than ever as humans begin suffering from a disease that reduces their capacity to feed the machines. Because of this, the sources of EMPs built by the Matrix machines are reduced and become more important. Morpheus hatches a plot to spoil the explosives of EMPs by inserting a new program into their factories : he can arm and fire them remotely, before they are carried to their destination.
As the setups in the factories are completed, the rebels suffer from fracturing as Morpheus begins to doubt the plan. In losing his fight to an even-stronger charasmatic rebel leader, the EMPs are set off in timed sequence. The machines nearby are shut-down, and chos begins to ensue across the surface of the planet. For the moment, there is celebration. End chapter one.
The machines deploy a geothermic well to begin removing the energy from core of the earth, planning for a hibernation phase. They begin to again bore into ground, but while readying themselves for a fight, the humans are surprised to learn they are relatively ignored. Once close to the core, the earth quickly begins to cool as cold water is steamed throughout Zion. End chapter two.
Inside the matrix, there is a population blight, as new births become rare, and people begin scrambling for survival. Quite a few renegade programs conspire to resurrect Neo for guidance. With the help of a brash (an incredible fighting) infiltration into The Architect's domain, the programs murder him when he refuses to give them Neo. Fortunately, they achieve their goal and Neo stand among them. End chapter three.
Neo stands before the rebels in an attempt to explain their mistake and ask for their help in fueling a cooporative effort invented by him. The Humans will re-enter the pods to power the machines again, if only temporarily. Then, a massive tower will be built to reach beyond the dark cloud of the sky to tap back into the sun, again bringing power to the earth. Then, the machine will no longer require humans to power themselves, and a truce will be brokered.
After quite a bit of kung-fu fighting and several backstabs among the different groups, Morpheus returns to lead the people back into the pods. We are are given a scene of a long machine arm, opening in flower-like fashion in high atmosphere, silloetted by the bright sun. Not all questions are answered. Fade out.
I saw the 9am show, and initially, I wasn't at all excited about it after watching it.
While it was good, for me, more inside the Matrix stuff would have been welcome.
But after more thought, i think it would have worked better if they could show Reloaded, and Revolutions back to back (one continuous movie) as it was filmed (and really is). But, whatever..now I'm just waiting for the sweet merch.
This is a good movie, but it's not the ending -- and the movie -- we wanted or were waiting for.
We have all been elaborating Matrix Revolutions plot in our heads (and websites) ever since we saw Reloaded. The real movie is not based on our personal plot, and this is the main source of disappointment, no matter how good or bad is the movie itself.
theefer
Maybe this is why Warner Brothers wanted a worldwide simultaneous release. They effectively mitigated their risk that the opinions of audiences in one country would adversely affect sales revenues in other countries.
Yea, well, I live in Egypt. Don't worry...they won't have a chance of getting my money.
It seems that Neo is a tool of the matrix to attempt to learn about "being human". In the end it seemed like Kadya (the little girl that is the child of the power subsystem and the creative interactive programmer) was the next evolution of matrix programs because she had no purpose (something no program in the past was allowed) and was able to chose, that choice being represented in her love for her parents and in her admiration of Neo.
Neo also seemed to be a tool of the matrix to make choices that they could not make themselves. At the end of the 2nd movie Neo made the choice for the machines on whether or not to end the war, he chose to end the war by not returning to the source and repopulating Zion. At the end of the 3rd movie you see Neo making the choice on how to end the war, to ahnnialate all machines and humans, or to let both live in peace.
They totally don't explain how Neo is able to interact with the matrix when outside of it or how he was able to destroy machines. My personal feeling is that he wasn't, he was only able to communicate with the Oracle, she did all the dirty work. Why didn't she choose to do that on her own and instead rely on the choices of Neo? Programs were (until kadya I think) unable to make free choices, especially (or maybe only) ones that made no sense or served no preconcieved purpose, so a human was necessary to make those choices. Once made the Oracle carried them out.
I honestly have no idea who the Merovingian is, though it seems that he has something to do with bugs in the system, keeping around old code that is no longer necessary, working withing the bounds of the programming but outside of what was desired (by who? I don't know). The reason Persephony wanted a kiss in my opinion is that she wanted some way to feel some humanness, she wanted to feel love, which again is something foreign to the machines.
The final battle went on way too long, and didn't really help the movie any, though a battle of wills (which is what the story asked for) wouldn't look good on the screen. I wouldn't have minded some cut into the "computer world view" where they battle with thier minds and then a bit of dialog where smith tries to win by overcoming neo, and then neo realizing that in order to win he needs to make the less obvious choice, to lose.
Unlike most of the posts I've read, I really enjoyed the battle scene in the dock. It gripped me, had me jumping, cheering, and nearly crying. Maybe I'm odd but I haven't seen a battle scene that compelling since the trench run in StarWars 1.
Can someone explain to me why a robot would need to manually reload its guns from a backpack on its back though? Seemed kind of silly, about as silly as the people running ammo out to the APU's with a wheelbarrow when electric bolts seemed to be far more effective in destroying the sentinals. Also why the heck didn't the digging machine detect that it had broken through a pocket and do something to lower itself gently to the next level?
Anyways I enjoyed the movie, I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation and suspense even though it was always obvious what would happen next. I must agree that they could have taken the movie to whole new philosophical levels but left it at a pretty low and obvious level.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Lighten up. The parent can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the point he was trying to make was that critics aren't the definitive source that some people consider them to be.
Personally, I don't care what critics have to say about a movie. I'm very capable of making up my own mind about such things.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Since MATRIX 1 we know: We bubble all only in a Nahrlosung, supply fiesen machines energy and are attached to the matrix, which vorgaukelt us the world, as we know it it: Grass is blue grun, the sky and bus drivers konnen not on 20 euro rausgeben. The untergrundbewegung ZION, a commander of submarine MORPHEUS and its attractive female assistant Moneypenny, ah TRINITY, SMITH agents kampfen and hope for the Erloser NEO. NEO take the red and not the blue cap against the machines and their MR., before a ORAKEL offers the Spacecake of the realization to him: NEO discovers that he can kampfen condemned fast and stop pistol balls. The Wachowski brother uberraschen with the Ankundigung that the matrix was planned as Trilogie from the outset. In MATRIX 2 RELOADED MR. SMITH can cut already completely quaint Grimassen and NEO discovered that he A.) to fly and b can.) faster than the Concorde. In ZION one dances to Technomusik, if one expects a rough attack of the machines. NEO, MORPHEUS & TRINITY break open the plug with their ship named NEBUKADNEZAR, release SCHLUSSELMACHER, and try with the central processor of the matrix to pull. The Wachoswki brother specially fur this film a 15 kilometer are enough Highway leave to copy fur a pursuit with many agents and two Albino Kiffern. The inside one the matrix NEO von Siegmund Freud is expected, which erklart the fact that NEO is already the sixth Erloser and the ORAKEL and ZION only correction programs within the matrix is. MORPHEUS it cries bitterlich into the November, thus to MATRIX 3 REVOLUTION rauskommt in which NEO recognizes that A.) ZION also only one part of the MATRIX is and b.) it completely mad Kunstsaltos to fly can, why NEO announces itself to the olympic plays in the soil doing gymnastics. MR. SMITH becomes its coach. MORPHEUS & TRINITY break open in their new ship named POPOKATEPETEL, and look for the UHRMACHER, over in the time zuruckzureisen to 31.12.1999, so that the Year-2000-Bug puts the matrix endgultig lamely. The Wachowski brother specially fur this film Schwarzwalder kuckucksuhr as well as the Black Forest let copy, in that a wild pursuit take place with NEO and eleven thousand genetically altered ALBINO pathfinders. When all Matrixen fails completely, NEO disappears, MORPHEUS and to TRINITY and wakes up in a rosafarbenen Nahrlosung and the Wachowski brother uberraschen with the Ankundigung that the matrix was planned as row from three Trilogien from the outset. MATRIX EPISODE 1 or also: C64 - THE BEGINNING plays temporally far before the matrix Trilogie. Mr. SMITH is a simple programmer with Commodore, which a mutated Pacman play entwischt, which ubernimmt within twenty years the world domination. The Wachowski brother fur this film specially an atom bomb and blow up an African Wuste lets build. A group of resistances, angefuhrt of the simple assistant building laborer GUNTHER MOROWSKE, dig yourself with an excavator named HANOMAG into the earth, grundet a resistance cell named ZONI and wait for MAXTRIX EPISODE 2: TRY & ERROR. This episode film erzahlt stories of NEPOMUK, NERO, NOAH, NORBERT and NOAM CHOMSKI to zerstoren, which funf in MATRIX 2 RELOADED addressed Erlosern before NEO, which break TITANIC open, ENDURING FREEDOM, with their ships named NAUTILUS, BISMARCK and KALLE BLOMQUIST, in order the matrix. Mr. SMITH is bored meanwhile genuinly, victory mouth Freud on hires as a guard of a multi-storey car park, weil's there also so many screens gives, ZONI falls each mark, which floppt film, and therefore plays in MATRIX EPISODE 3: THE ROMANCE again Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne also. ZONI heiBt again ZION and MORPHEUS and TRINITY kampfen with its ship NORTH Cothlestone resound against Mr. SMITH and its machines and hope for the Erloser NEO, which swallows this time however the blue cap, einpennt and everything forgets. MORPHEUS zornig and rapes the ORAKEL. NEO becomes acquainted with however Meg Ryan, grundet with
...not that that's a bad thing. Rocky IV was a very cookie-cutter underdog story in the boxing ring. This is the same underdog story basically - same fights, same conflict, same resolution. Now, I do like Rocky IV - even though I don't admit it to most people. It invokes a specific emotion of being able to strike back against whatever sorta thing has oppressed/angered/controlled you in the past. I thought for those willing to have fun watching fight sequences and sci-fi battles - and not looking for psychodrama - this is a good fit. Just don't come in expecting a lesson in nihilism or postmodern philisophy and you'll be fine.
Oh My god! THey killed Chad! (again)
This movie was so awful and it retroactively ruined the previous two, especially the second one which would make or break on this one.
I think it is time for seppuku.
Saw the premier in Providence. You end up left with more questions than answers, from a graphics point-of-view, there was some really awesome animations. I wonder if they are going to release a directors cut, then maybe something with a collectable widget .
Ebert and Roeper's review sounds pretty well-balanced. They were both fans of the original, and see Revolutions as a good action flick, but not much in the way of a big-idea movie. (minor spoilers about what you knew was coming anyway). Ebert remarks, "by the end, I was satiated."
.mp3 gets them some geek points anyhow.
I didn't know what to make of Ebert until I watched Dark City with his commentary, then Citizen Kane. The guy knows what he's talking about. At least his opinions are largely compatible with mine, and probably the artsy-geek set at large.
Posting their reviews in
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
even saying that people didn't like it is a bit of a spoiler..sets a critical mood. just the news ma'am..thanks for telling me it's out today but i'd rather not see disappointing remarks in the headline.
Do they know that they made two sub-standard sequels, and are laughing all the way to the bank?
Or, do they think they are making the best trilogy possible, and a lot of Matrix fans happen to disagree?
Think of how much respect it would engender if news came out that Revolutions were delayed 6 months because they weren't happy with the final product. Based on what I'm seeing everyone say, it shouldn't have been too difficult for them to see that the movie needed work.
Of course none of that is going to stop me from seeing it later today...maybe that makes me part of the problem--the movie is going to make money no matter how much it sucks.
That's a double negative. Wouldn't a disappointing failure be a mediocre success?
Perhaps it should be spectacular failure...
Interesting to see all the posts now. Question is: how will it be viewed in five years?
Remember when Phantom Menace came out and everyone was still saying that it was up to par with the Original Trilogy? And then AotC came out and it supposedly saved the franchise from the disaster that was PM?
I think there's a lot of that immediacy here with these movies. There is so much expectation and fandamonium involved that "not being horrible" means that the movie must be good. Only over time do the weaknesses and strengths balance out so people can judge them. I'm always reminded of Jim Carey's The Grinch which was the top grossing movie of that year and now no one remembers that it even came out.
Personally? The repetition of the acting, pop philosophy and CG had gotten old by the first 5 minutes of Reloaded. There has to be something in this movie that "sells" it to me. Something unique where you can't just say "it's very similar to this scene in the previous movie but-" or "it's just like the part in Aliens where-"
Frankly the last one of the movies to do that was the original Matrix. Things now seem to be so bad that I actually get sick feelings when thinking/hearing about the first. It's been tainted by its progeny.
Yet I still got my ticket for an 8pm showing. Like Ebert said (giving it 3 stars while strangely blasting it for the whole length of his review) I'm going to take my graduation after earning my credits on the first two. Maybe my low expectations are the way to go?
What is music when you despise all sound?
Rent it, but fast-forward through the intro until you see a guy wake up in a bathtub. The intro of Keifer Sutherland's character explaining the setup was obviously a Hollywood edit to dumb-down the movie for people who just wouldn't "get" what was going on from watching the story develop. Everything will eventually be explained later for the sake of the main character anyway, and it's much more absorbing if you know nothing about what's going on going into it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The reason Revolutions blows is because of the following:
* None of the questions in Reloaded are answered. How does Neo really stop the Sentinels? How did Smith enter Bane? How did he get so powerful? It's all explained away with one or two sentences. We're just supposed to accept it because it's "symbolic" of something. Reloaded seemed to treat itself like a bridge to some sort of great explanation for everything in the third movie. Guess what? It never comes! What the fuck?
* The focus is Zion. Instead of freeing the people of the Matrix, as the first one suggested, the sequels have been all about saving this dirty underground city we don't care about. What the hell happened to the people of the Matrix? It's like the movies don't even care.
* No humanity in the characters and dialogue. The movies just don't enjoy themselves. The first one had a mixture of humor and joy and was just having fun with what it could do. That's why things like the lobby scene kicked so much ass. It was like, "We've smashed the barriers of physics, now lets see what we can do with it!" And you had the fun human moments like the discussion during breakfast, the Cipher character, and so on. Neo was just a normal computer programmer who discovered the world around him wasn't real. More importantly, the movie was FUN.
Now, the sequels tried to change that story into a post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic about an iconic Christ figure who lives and dies. Which leads me to the next point...
* Nobody is freed, Trinity and Neo die, and we're left with the same situation we had at the beginning of the first movie. We've invested our attention to these three movies all for nothing. It was pointless. Why even have Trinity live in Reloaded? She should have stayed dead. It would have been more interesting to see how Neo copes with being unable to save her last time.
I'm completely disenchanted with the Wachowskis. These two guys were considered genius filmmakers after the first movie. The second one was tolerated because we assumed everything that was put in it was for a reason, but it turns out they just dropped the ball on what could have been the most groundbreaking science-fiction trilogy since Star Wars.
At least there's Return of the King this December.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I've just came from the cinema. ... big-bang-boom.
I feel bad. I feel sick.
This is one more movie that doesn't show anything more than that you can see in the trailers.
Probably there have been too many criticks about Matrix Reloaded been too pholosophical.
The Matrix Revolutions is pure action, all philosophy is shriked to repeating phrases from the previus movie. And most of the speeches are already in the trailers.
If you are expecting to understand what happend in the Matrix 2, you wont find the answer in Matrix 3. The thing just happens, there is no reason, there is no thought
Oh, yes there is big happy end. Neo saves the world and democracy (probably) giving his own life and merging with the Core.
I just don't understand why the mashines waited so long to sign a peace. And why they used to kill humans outside the matrix.
And one big yakee. The clouds that cover the world are full with electisity. Wonder why machines doesn't take power from there? Keep wonder.
In short. If you like action movies without much speaking, you probably will like the movie. If you are SciFi fan, you probably will recognice the all cliches used so far.
I mean, check out this collection of references from The Matrix and Reloaded (i'd imagine it'll be updated with Revolutions soon enough) here.
look at how many references and such in the list are from The Matrix, and how few are from Reloaded.
You see, when the Wachowski's hadn't had a break-out hit, they had to be careful, subtle, clever.
They surely wrote, edited and rewrote The Matrix several times. The philosophy was there, but it wasn't as prominent or cumbersome. The bold allusions made the ideas accessible, and the density of the subtle references provided something to think about. The devil was in the details.
The Matrix had good editing that kept exposition down to what mattered, and had decent character development. The romance wasn't a centerpiece throughout, it was strung along more like Han and Leia's romance in Star Wars. It was there - it played its part, but it didn't hit you over the head or command unnecessary screentime.
The forced romance in Reloaded (and likely revolutions) is more reminiscent of Lucas' prequels, where the audience is beat over the head with it, and the lack of chemistry between the actors is made center stage.
but once The Matrix made it big, the Wachowskis had a free ticket. No-one was going to tell them to trim the fat anymore. To put the heavier philosophy in more subtle references and keep the blatant topics accessible. But who's going to say that when they can make that much green?
The sequels were both churned out together in a mere 24 months. Their near complete loss of depth was nearly guaranteed.
The Wachowskis had total freedom with Reloaded and Revolutions, and apparently they decided they'd rather be broad in their blatant coverage of religious and philosphical ideas than tell a good story.
The first thing aspiring fiction writers are supposed to learn is that the Idea-focused story is hard as hell to write well (even though it is almost uniformly where scifi writers begin).
It is very difficult to write a good story where its entirety is leading your audience from problem exposition to problem exposition until you finally foist your supreme solution-Idea on them.
It is much better to wrap your solution Idea into a stand-apart traditional story. Expose the great solution-idea a bit earlier, and develop the characters involved and the conflicts to show the different angles and attributes of your idea as the solution to the various problems. The key is to make the thing interesting, or your Idea won't matter.
Methinks the Wachowskis forgot that with their carte blanche control over the sequels.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Lost of neat effects. Nice music during the end titles. Somewhere there was a plot, where things like the forc.. sorry the *source* and the machines being unable to kill -9 Smith stand out as the most illogical parts. Good entertainment. It certainly doesn't deliver in the story department, though. Ofcourse it could have been worse. The ending could have been all happy, happy, joy, joy...
I'll have to disagree with a lot of people. I saw it this morning at 9am and I thought it was a good movie given the previous two. I won't deny that the first Matrix was the best of the three, but I feel this one really did a much better job than the second one. I'm going to watch the first two again before I go see the third one again tonight with all of my friends. It seemed like they did a good job of tying things together. I felt myself saying a lot during the movie, wow, I see why they did now. Just my $0.02
Well, in the scene where where the image shifted to "fire view" and you saw the cables going into Neo looking like wings, and a cross appearing in his chest, I didn't see a halo. They could have made more overt religious overtones by adding in a halo, but they showed restraint there.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
look... what would have pleased the crowds more? more blood and gore? some sex scenes? the first and third kept both minimal, which is important if you don't want to detract from the story line.
were you hoping that neo would have some sort of answer to agent smith? did his answer (or lack of) make or break the movie? what were you expecting? the foundations of human purpose and choice to be laid out? were you expecting more of same philosophies from the first movie?
granted this movie wasn't as confusing as the second one was, and the core of this movie wasn't as readily apparent as in the first one. i think they did the best that they could short of spelling out some sort of belief system, which is in general not done in movies. does a movie loose it's appeal if it fails to critizise someone or something for something?
my opinion: i'm the sort of person who (for example) prefers games like tetris to the latest greatest, and as such, movie effects don't add or take away from a movie. i don't like movies that focus on action. i liked this movie because of it's simple timeless plotline (that the hero sacrificed himself before the enemy for his friends) as well as dealing with the nature of a choice and purpose. i also liked the dune messiah blindness aspect. i liked the punch. i liked the uncertainty of the oracle.
this topic requested an opinion, there's mine.
No matter how much turtle wax/ polish/ turpentine you use, its impossible to buff a Turd into a gem - what a let-down. They shoulda left well enough alone and stopped at the 1st Matrix.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
I just watched it, thank goodness for time difference and living in the far east. Ok, here are the spoilers.
1. Neo and Agent Smith beat the shit out of each other.
2. Neo and Trinity kiss. Many times.
3. Locke thinks Morpheus is a lunatic
4. The sentinels lay waste to Zion's defense.
5. Persephone was really cute.
6. The Oracle bakes more cookies
7. There is no spoon.
And I can't believe I woke up at 1 (pm) to see it...
The first Matrix mentioned "in addition to a form of fusion, they use humans for electricity". Jeez, if they have fusion, and still need more electricity, they gots a severe problem. I don't understand that in the least.
* Pacing is good, you don't feel like the movie gets bogged down (which I felt during the extended Zion scene of Reloaded, even though I liked most of its parts individually)
* The ending is disappointing. I don't mean it's just lame, per se, but it isn't what you're really expecting, and it feels bad at first. If you stop and think things through, I think it actually makes good sense. In a way, it ends how it HAD to end.
* Many things are never explained, and you expect them to be. Don't expect much in the way of logical explanation for a number of discrepancies. After Reloaded, you end up postulating a lot, "Well, it must be true that XXX, but how?" Well, Revolutions has characters saying, "XXX is how it is" plainly, but they don't explain why.
Sadly, I don't think the vision was complete. The Wachowski's probably DON'T have the answers to the tough questions to make the Matrix picture 'fit', and so they fail to achieve the true suspension of disbelief that allows immersion, and that hurts them. It doesn't really matter how absurd your premises are when it is clear they are premises; you need internal consistency. Reloaded and Revolutions, as a unit, fail to delivery that.
Put one way, this is a good movie. It is worth seeing, it has its moments, but it is not the mind-blowing, zen-moment conclusion that fans would have wanted. It does not sate the lust for action OR explanation, and so it comes up short.
In a way, it feels like a rush or a march to the conclusion. The actual true ending DOES make sense, even despite being vaguely disappointing, but it also leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
I saw a preview yesterday, and luckily I got in for free. If I hadn't I would have been asking for my money back - now I'm just wishing I had the time back.
The movie stinks. People were laughing the whole way through at things that were not intended to be funny (although there were a few scenes that clearly the film makers intended to be tongue-in-cheek).
Oh well, I thought the first film was OK, and the second was laughable but not totally worthless. This mess is, however, not worthwhile for your money or your time.
CBG: Last night's Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured I was on the internet within minutes registering my disgust throughout the world.
Everyone who is bitching is not a good and proper student of the art of the Eastern parable. This whole series is a live action adaptation of an Anime on the scale of Akira. The only failure is that it is not as condensed as the Anime version. If you are a real fan, you've probably read the actual Manga of Akira (all 38 of them, well 38 that I know of, I kind of haven't had time to look for a few years). It was an epic tale. It had grandeous spiritual and pseudo-religious overtones. It had amazing, long and drawn out action. The Matrix is just like this, only the story is original (well, as original as the Wachowski brothers could make it) and the themes and effects are all exactly what you want to see in a live action adaptation. Over the top, huge, unreal action that smacks you around and gives you shell-shock. You know, post traumatic stress syndrome. This is not your story. You are the audience, you don't get to decide where the story goes. Get a clue.
Yes, the Wachowski Brothers lost a lot of control towards the end. I have a feeling the ending was a little bit too geared towards the testing audience rather than what the original plot and story line called for. Anyway. Sucks to be the exec who pulled that crock of shit.
Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
Was it just me or was this movie (and the 2nd) preoccupied with appearing diverse ? It was really a distraction, and reminded me of the gangs in Charles Bronson movies of the 70's.
I just saw the movie. I've seen the first two several times. Each time I saw one of the previous ones, I understood more about all of the messages the movies are trying to convey. I need to see the third movie at least twice more before I decrypt it enough to be able to make a fair comparison to the first two.
Also I should point out that I don't see Matrix as three (or four including Animatrix) diffrent movies. It's all just _one_ movie. And the ending made a strong suggestion that there would be at least one more Matrix movie. The Watchowski brothers said that there would be no more Matrix movies. It would seem as if they intended to say that "there will be no more Matrix movies within this trilogy". Perhaps they will develop another (or more) Matrix trilogy.
Remember that the Matrix movies are all about symbolism. Their intent is not to spell stuff out. That is left to the audience. Compare it to a poem: If you would read a poem which had controversial and strong "hidden" messages, and the end of the poem would be just as symbolic as the beginning, you would not think it was a meaningless poem, would you? If they wanted to spell stuff out and it would (unlikely) have passed censorship, would they not have instead developed some form of documentary?
I look forward to further analysis of the trilogy. And for you that did not see it yet - please do; it's packed with meaning. Then dl it and watch it again to see the Matrix even clearer. I know I will.
Although I haven't had a chance to see it yet, I have seen a bit of praise
s
Neo Saves the day. He wakes up to find that he was in a matrix inside a matrix. He wakes up from both matrices only to find that in reality he is...*GASP* Jean Louis Gasse. He instantly takes the blue pill and returns to being a svelte young Hollywood star...
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Ok. I just got back from the first showing in San Francisco (IMAX). I really think it was worth seeing, especially if you enjoyed the first two. Don't expect any hardcore, geek-loving philosophy, just a bunch of mind-twisting plot changes.
What was with the little girl?? What a horrible actress. I mean, ok, she was what, 6? Still. I've seen much better acting out of a 6 year old than that. She even seemed to bring Neo down while they spoke at the train station.
The first one was definately the best if you're a geek. The second one was very mind-boggling, especially with the Architect speech. Still, nothing as cool as the first. The third, well... It wasn't as lovey-dovey mush crappy as the second, but it had it's fair share. It's nice to have a little of that, but COME ON!! This is The Matrix, not Sleepless in Seattle! I am happy to report that the Frenchman's wife does have a small part in the third, and there is, in fact, substantially more cleavage in her scenes. 8-D
All in all, don't expect it to match the first. The first rules above all, far and beyond. The second two just didn't do the first one justice, as far as philosophical mind-boggles go. The third one really did have too many Christianity ties to it (Neo & The Source, laid out like Jesus on the cross, the actual cross-shaped light coming out of him)... I'm not religious, and this really kinda ruined the perspective of where the movie was supposed to be for me.
Anyway, it was good. I recommend it. Just don't expect it to 'free your mind' like the first one.
Oh, one last thing - they REALLY should have cooled it with the repeat climax points (Trinity's bullet-time jump, Neo's Kung Fu taunt). We've SEEN IT ALREADY.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
It's not "sceen," it's SEEN.
Your welcome.
OK, everyone chill. This movie is not supposed to solve Pi or cure cancer. If your purpose for going to a movie is to be entertained, then you'll like it. If you like movies that don't have 100% happy endings (i.e. ALL Spielberg films) then you will like it.
I think most of the complaints are because there are no "new" special effects, but more of the same. They also hate that (plot spoiler) Neo doesn't save all of humanity from the bad guys, all the robots don't drop dead, and every human doesn't climb out of their little battery-pod to cheer Neo as he flies by victoriously doing a barrel roll. I hate that type of cheese, i hope you do too.
It is a good movie. Nothing is going to top the first one because it was ORIGINAL, but this is a decent ending for the trilogy, and I will probably buy the box set DVD when it comes out.
Go get entertained. Don't expect the movie to lead you from the promised land. You'll be just fine.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
> And his name is Chad.
He's not hanging... is he?
MUST NOT READ THREAD...
Must not...
<struggles with mouse>
Aw, crap!
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
In the Matrix, all three of the Matrix movies would have rocked.
- Jurassic Park vs. Lost World
Just my opinion of course, but it seems that some people think that because they have a $100 million budget that they need to spend it all instead of focusing more on the story, characters, plot etc. Or maybe it's just the curse of the sequelhttp://www.kubuntu.org/
.. it didn't get the royal boning that Star Wars did.
"Spinning, that's a good trick!"
It is thematically and philosophically the strongest of the entire trilogy, and accomplishes as much more subtly than its predecessors. Viewers were confronted with great ethical dilemmas and metaphysical conundrums in the form of 'in-your-face' one liners and headache-inducing dialogues in the first two Matrix films, but Revolutions takes a different approach. Its depth and philosophical richness comes in the strength of its visual metaphors and an intriguing storyline pulling on everything from the Bible to The Wizard of Oz, grounding the story in cultural identification and modern mythmaking.
Sounds good to me. I don't like professional critics, anyway.
==========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Norm McDonald's Burt Reynolds is pristine, and "Chandler" from "Friends" did a great Michael Keaton as well.
Okay, now mod me down as offtopic. ;)
Mom says my
I can't be the only alone wondering what in the world was really going on from the climatic fight scene to the ending credits. I've pondered it some even after I left and I'm still not sure what happened.
Was it really that disjointed or did I miss the big picture. Anyone have a clear explination of what REALLY unfolded?
the architect, like the oracle, spoke in amphibolies. that is what he said had an obvious, false, meaning, and a hidden, true, meaning.
the architect was seemingly saying what you so neatly summed up - but what he was actually saying was:
humans have free will but they don't realize it. they make impulsive decisions but don't know why. they are slaves to the ideas they use to justify their impulsive decisions -after- they've made them. they don't actually think freely, and they certainly don't act freely.
he was reinforcing what the oracle already said when she told neo he had already made his decision, but didn't yet understand why.
the key was that he wasn't -actually- choosing right then. he had previously decided he loved trinity (perhaps solely through suggestion), and love means selfless sacrifice. he also hated the machines and didn't want to be connected to them, even if the two are codependent. so he justifies his gut reaction with the ideas, and then can 'understand' why he does what he does.
Were Neo making his decisions by free will he'd know 'why' -before- his actions, and according to the Oracle he would be able to see past them, seeing the entirety of the world without time.
Neo does pretty much only what he is expected and told to do throughout Reloaded. What makes it so painful to watch, was trying to convey -why- it was painful. The Merovingian likewise had an amphiboly laden sililoquoy that covered -roughly- the same ground.
The problems with Reloaded were pacing, editing, and tension. The Architect and the Merovingian pretty much covered the same topics, so one of them was wholly redundant. Leaving both of them in turned much of the movie into a drag.
Note how few times someone gets a 5 minute dialogue in a sterile sequence in The Matrix. It doesn't happen. Good editing and tight writing kept the exposition to a marriage of dialogue, example, and visuals. Morpheus -showed- at least as much about what 'reality' and 'the matrix' were to Neo in the load and sparring programs as he conveyed through dialogue. The Architect and Merovingian did not.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I saw it in Westwood (a trendy part of Los Angeles) and there was a video crew filming fan reactions outside the theater.
"Give us your opinion of the movie," they asked.
I replied, "How about this, I give you the finger, and you give me my $9.75 back."
I suspect I won't make the final edit for the commercial.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Next down, Star Wars.
The Matrix was an incredible movie. Too bad its good name has now been sullied by two crappy sequels. (I saw it this morning.)
If we can forget Highlander II, which should be able to recover from this as well.
At my company, which regularly gets us opening day/night tickets to nerdy/geeky movies, an admin for our group got us a special screening at 8:00AM yesterday (PST) (Tuesday). I can only say that the reactions from my team were mixed. I wasn't expecting great acting, and they didn't provide it. They provided what had worked in the previous movies, and some of what didn't work.
Highlights include lots of CG. Lowlights are that some scenes lasted far longer than they should have. I used the rest room during one such scene and was pleasantly surprised when I came back to the movie that the scene was _almost_ over and I didn't miss anything. In fact, I was quite glad to miss that piss poor acting scene, because they followed it up with some interesting CG.
All in all, I'd say wait for this one on DVD rental, and save your money.
Sick of gentoo zealots throwing plugs in completely unrelated topics? Me too!
Yes, but have you seen the system requirements for the Matrix?
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
It seems to me that film critics hate almost everything...everything but films about someone self-loathing that is. I guess everyone wants to see their story on the big screen and when a critic gets to watch a self-loather movie, well, they must shout out silently "Hey man! That's ME!"
First of all, you have to understand that the first job of a critic is to, well, criticize. They are required (or so it seems) by their job description to go and loathe everything that they see and then lambast it in print. If they like most everything that they saw, they must lose some cahe' with the Critic's Union, if there is such a thing. At the very least, they don't get special treatment down at the coffee-house where everyone wears black, drinks back cofee while smoking stinky Turkish cigarettes and whine to each other that "we know better but no one will listen!"
That when they're not coming up with those cute little quips like "A must see!" "The best film of the year!" or the movie posters and TV ads.
Take their opinions into guidance if you will, but you yourself are the best film critic you know. After all, do you load into the car and drive down to the Multi-Giga-Plex to see a great piece of visual literature or do you go to see a good story and have a good time? When you walk out of Matrix Revolutions or any other film, you'll always say to yourself "well that was great" or "dag -- that sucked" and there you go...the only review that matters.
ps.: If you go to Revolutions to see "Jane Eyre" you're going to be disappointed. If you go to see some pretty nifty fight scenes, some hot chicks dressed in latex and leather and some pretty nifty computer animations all wrapped around a fairly decent story, your going to have a good time. But your mileage may vary.
Revolutions dfefinately made for what the second one lacked; ten fold. The original post put it quite aptly when he said it will put you back into a coma. Go see this movie as soon as you can.
JMS's comments
But I have one question... if the humans are all plugged in to seperate cannister thingys (as I remember from when they freed Neo in the first movie), how do they reproduce?
-jls
Techno-pagan
It's been my experience that plot holes + bad movie made by someone who should know better can sometimes mean that the director's vision was comprimised by someone at the studio. This could very well be the case with Revolutions.
;-)
I mean, it's not like this movie snuck up on the Wachowski brothers. I'm sure they had it all planned out, probably with an ending closer to "The English Patient" than "Terminator 3". Then some studio executive comes along and says "You can't kill Neo! He's the main character!" (or something along those lines), and all of the sudden your carefully crafted plotline is chucked out the window and all the groundwork you've laid up to to this point is not only useless, it's contradictory.
Now, just like any other good conspiracy theory, I have no evidence of this other than my own intuition. I haven't even seen the movie yet, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen
At least there's no Jar-Jar in this movie...Right?!?
To feign any shock of how bad this movie may actually be, here are some entirely made up spoilers. Perhaps if I repeat them to myself over and over again they will come true, and the film will become far more bearable.
Neo takes CCIHBAXOM7QUMS7WPQQDG7RGYJEW.
Yet again ICAZLEOSEA7GAJV. Again and again and again...
A new, blue, hero emerges, with a battlecry of DCHZWYTV.
Like any spoiler, one should hide information so that someone does not accidentally glean information. What ever happened to rot13? To this end, the above spoilers may only be read with the DECODE.EXE tool in the game "Enter the Matrix".
Nice touch, eh?
I've seen that lame "you didn't 'get it'!" defence used to defend a lot of bad movies and it's utter hogslop. I've seen a lot of movies that I understood perfectly and didn't like.
- I got 2001, but I thought it was one of the most boring and tedius movies of all time.
- I got A.I. and felt that it was just stupid. The basic idea would have made a pretty cool movie 20 years ago, but we've already seen better movies about the plight of robots. (Bicentenial Man, anyone?)
- I got Matrix Reloaded and thought it was just badly done.
- I got The Matrix and thought that it was flashy and entertaining fluff with the philisophical depth of high school level philosophy class.
- I got Donnie Darko and thought it was very stylish garbage.
If the audiance doesn't get what the filmmakers are trying to do the fault isn't with the unwashed masses (unless there are serious cultural gaps that need to be filled in), it is with the filmmakers who have failed in their job: to communicate an idea.And using Open Source to bolster your argument is crap. What the hell does Open Source have to do with this movie?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
There was an interview linked on MatrixFans.net with the actor who plays Rama Kandra.
In it, he says when he went to the premiere of Matrix Revolutions, he asked Andy Wachowski if he was happy with the film.
Andy said he was just glad it was over, and even told the actor "not to get his hopes up."
Wow.
"Sufferin' succotash."
It would take too long to pull out every reference and every theme in the movie. It would take even longer to praise them for pulling this off while making the movie an entertaining sci-fi movie.
I would like to offer some ancedotal evidence though. The other day I was talking to a girl about the movie "Adaptation." I asked her what she thought of how cool it was for two movies to be put in one. She replied, "oh I didn't really analyze it much."
This same person thinks the first Matrix movie was cool but all others just stupid.
Do yourself a favor. Read Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation." Read Plato's "The Republic." Read up on B.F. Skinner. Once you've educated yourself outside of the unwashed masses who will pay top dollar to watch a huge CGI battle with the same clones firing at each other, you may actually _get_ "The Matrix" trilogy.
It's about the human condition. What makes us human? Does it matter that everything has a cause and effect to Neo and Trinity? Why not?
The trilogy is inspiring in an age where everything is just a copy of a copy of nothing.
The ending should have just cut back to green letters streaming down the screen that stopped changing leaving the following: "Fuck You, Audience."
It would have better, more shocking, and more honest ending. And would destroyed the possibility of creating a 4th. With the way this goes, they might try (Lord please, no!)
In the end, we find out that Agent Smith is actually Neo's father.
I'm a Matrix fan. I've loved every Matrix movie that's come out. Highly entertaining, wildly energetic, and beautifully played out. The Agent Smith fight scene had amazing visuals that stood independent of the special effects. The story continues the Reloaded twist, without throwing any unsuspected curve balls into the mix.
If you're a Matrix fan, of course you'll see it, and I recommend you do.
Neo wakes up inside a section between the Machine word and the "Real" world, called the train station. His body is still lying in sick bay and he shows brain activity like someone jacked in, but they search the Matrix and can't find him. He meets a "family" of AI who were making sacrifices to save their "daughter".
They are doing it because they love, and Neo learns that programs can have the same connection as humans do that they call love.
There's some real connecting done in the train station that provides the basis for the hope of peace between the machines and the humans.
Morpheus and Trinity are summoned by the Oracle, who has a new body, it's later implied that frenchie (the Marovingian? sp?) forced her to.
They meet with her, she tells them where Neo is, and take her body gaurd kung foo guy with them to find the train driver, to rescue Neo.
They find him and give a short chase, but he gets away. He goes and picks up the family at the train station, and tells Neo he doesn't get to go.
Neo acts like he doesn't want to throw the guy a beatin, but the train guy tells Neo how he built this place and he's god there, and apparantly he is, and Neo gets a good stomach punch into the wall from him. Neo's stuck, and Morpheus, Trinity and kung foo body guard guy dont know what to do. Kungo foo joe recommends going back to the Oracle, and Trinity says why, we konw what to do. They go beat their way into the techno S&M club where the Marovingian hangs, and negotiate a trade. He wants the Oracles eyes for Neo's release.
Trinity gets impatient and they crack some skulls, and she ends pulling off an awesome catch of a mid air Berretta and putting it firmly in the Marovingian's forehead.
She negotiates a new deal, and it cuts to them rescueing Neo from train station. Meanwhile the physical world agent smith has woken up, and "doesn't remember anything".
Commander tough recommends the doctor give him something to help, and it's back inside the Matrix where they're rushing to get out, when Neo says he has to see the Oracle. He meets her, they talk. He asks some good questions, the gist is she chose to help them out, and is taking some big risks because she wants what Neo wants, peace. Then on to Neo getting unjacked from the Matrix. Quick note, when did they jack him in?
He was in the Matrix from the train station, where he arrived when he used his powers outside the Matrix. They ask Neo some questions but he says he needs some time, and retires to his crappy little room to think. Occaisonally there are flashes of him thinking and crazy electrical lines all over, and then the recurring theme of the 3 power lines running off into the mountains.
After they question human agent smith, they meet and decide to head back to Zion.
Neo comes in and tells them he knows what he has to do. He has to take a ship and go to the machine city, commander tough thinks he's crazy, and tells him no way he's gettin his ship. Naiobi lets Neo have her ship, which just needed a jump start after they found her and her crew. Back to sick bay, the medic chick goes to give
the agent smith guy a shot, he asks what its for, she says to help him remember, he says what if he don't wanna remember, what if he did the EMP blast, he'd be scared, which means he doesn't want the shot, so she should be scared, then he stabs her with a scalple, and she promptly dies. He takes off. Captain tough guys ship is going to be piloted by Naiobi through some really tight holes so they can sneak past the sentinals to get back to Zion, and Neo and Trinity, who insisted on going with Neo, are going to the machine
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
After seeing Reloaded, I developed a theory that the people were never truly "freed", just moved on to a different Matrix...a subsystem designed to give hope to those who didn't accept the original Matrix and keep them alive. I also theorized that Neo was a program designed to keep the peace between the two Matricies and help design a better Matrix by making choices based on interaction with the humans. I figured that's why there were 6 versions of Neo. He was constantly being reset between versions. That's why he was able to stop the machines in "the real" using his "in-Matrix" powers. That's how Smith was able to transfer to Bane in "the real." Now you're telling me a good running start at a final installment of a trilogy falls flat on its face? Damn. I hope Star Wars doesn't suffer the same fate. At least LoTR follows an already tested piece of literary work.
The problem is, you've already seen 2/3rd of the triology. Would you really put down a book after 2/3rds, or stop watching a show after 2/3rds of the season? I wouldn't, either I'd stop rather quickly or follow it through. At least not a show with development that is, like e.g. 24. A show where you can miss 10 eps and it'll still be the same basic gag, like Friends, Seinfeld or Frasier is different.
In a triology, the second film is usually the worst. The first is "new", and the last has all the big "final/ultimate" scenes. The second is well.. it's usually just more of the same. Maybe Matrix: Revolution is an exception to the rule, but it's not really all that stupid to find out.
The problem is, I want to know what happens to Neo and Trinity. Good, bad story, I still want to
"know". Of course you might say that is silly and that it's just a movie and it doesn't matter. But if you don't care about what you're watching, why do it at all? And I want to see the last of the LotR films too, even if all the critics say it's a complete and utter turkey (which I don't think they will, but anyway). Just human nature, I think...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
His review is here.
Personally, I think they set themselves up for failure. They pumped their movies full of big questions,and in the end, how were they really going to answer them in a way that satisfied everyone? I think the only "big answer" there is is that there ARE no big answers. There is no secret to the nature of reality, it just IS, and when you die you'll either find the answer to one of those big questions, or you'll never know because you'll be too dead to think about it.
Yes, the Architect scene split the posers from the true SciFi / hacker fans.
I also think the 2nd and 3rd films missed the main plot of the original... that people "Live in a computer!"
The Architect scene was one of the few that actually got into that issue in a large way! Instead of being about war and machines, it was about the simulation itself. And how the Oracle had a role in that simulation.
And who was this Architect? A human, a machine? It got to the whole point of things. And why did he say "you won't see me again" - was this the only thing he now lives for?
And he only pretended to like Neo as part of a fiendish plot to sabotage his boss.
I would like to offer some ancedotal evidence though. The other day I was talking to a girl about the movie "Adaptation." I asked her what she thought of how cool it was for two movies to be put in one. She replied, "oh I didn't really analyze it much."
This same person thinks the first Matrix movie was cool but all others just stupid.
I greatly enjoyed Adaptation (more than Being John Malkovich), it was a well written and uniquely original movie.
I hated Reloaded. It doesn't matter how convoluted you make your movie.
Please, please, please. For the sophisticated folks here, who just can't fathom people not liking these movies, please get your head out of your anus.
Not liking a movie has nothing to do with smarts, it has to do the personal and unique makeup of a person's likes and dislikes. Going around and telling people who don't like the same things you do is fairly narrow minded.
Oh the irony
- sigs are for wimps.
I am a giant dick.
Oh, I'm sorry, I meant:
I am a giant, literate, dick.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
...I almost thought you meant "Whack the fscking monkey"!
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
that is all.
I ponder why there is a link to MSN... especially on an article where the people seem to not know what they're talking about. The sun was not covered in a last-ditch effort nuclear holocaust... the humans deliberalty covered the sun with clouds according to Animatrix. I'll probably be marked a Troll so I'm posting anonymously.
the blackout that happened no too long ago in the north eastern US... was that due to the matrix like in the sequal where they shutdown the powergrid. you know all those ppl investigating that should watch the matrix sequal and then watch the 3rd one to find a way to stop that from happening again. yes i do believe im right in my own lil world...
and this is what happens.
Lords knows she probably started writing the script and he couldn't stop here.
I think the matrix films are either very very very good but need to be understood, or just very very very bad hollywood marketing tricks to make you not only watch the next film because you want to know whats going on but also to make you watch the same film over and over again to try and figure out whats happening. After watching all 3 and reading a theory on the first 2 (before 3 came out) im still confused, can anyone point out a site that can explain to idiots like me roughly whats going on, is neo's gold vision representing a matrix outside the matrix or a trick matrix (the kid with the bent spoon in 2)? or are they saying that there is a 'matrix' outside the matrix which is actually real life and hes in real life but actually has supernatural powers that are paralelled in the matrix?? I know a good film makes you ask questions at the end but come on :P
;)
Now i have to download all 3 so i can watch them again
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It's very rare to have something as extraordinary as the first Matrix movie. It was a great movie and will no doubt be a classic.
But to two or more classics in one series? It's not going to happen... ever. The only exception is Star Wars (Episodes 4-6). They are no doubt sci-fi classics. It was also one big story split up into 3 parts (or was it 6 parts but he only made the last 3?)
People went into the Phantom Menace expecting to be utterly wowed as they were when they were kids (okay, and some adults) seeing the original Star Wars movies. Here's a tip: it's never going to be as good as the original. It's nothing but an extension of the original story for die-hard fans. That and good marketing.
Just because a movie doesn't live up to the hype of the original doesn't make it a "bad" movie. Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones weren't nearly as good as the original Star Wars movies, but they weren't HORRIBLE movies.
I highly doubt that the original Matrix was created with two sequels in mind. Perhaps the Matrix could've done what Star Wars did if they elaborated more with the first movie and made it longer to split into 3 parts.
But really, it's just a sequel. Hype (caused by fans) is what "ruins" a movie. No, it won't be as good as the original Matrix, but it's not a BAD movie. Reloaded wasn't a BAD movie. It was simply over-hyped.
It happens with everything. Movies, music, video games, tv... something good and original comes out and if the second installment doesn't make you crap your pants like the original did, it's merely "okay" or "old".
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Of course, it'll still be a box office hit, because there are gazillions of people who get excited and lose all mental capacity for reasoning as soon as they hear the word matrix. In fact, it is my prediction that this movie will gross more box office sales than either of the previous two films, despite its apparent lack of appeal (understatement). Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony...
Call me a fanboy (which I may very well be), but something tells me the new movie is not nearly as bad as people seem so eager to make it out to be.
You have to take in to account the culture of cynicism that exists today with regards to, well, CHANGE, basically. Take movies as the perfect example: we're essentially preconditioned to think that a movie sequel can not possibly be as good or better than the original. It's like people can hardly wait to say "Well, it's not nearly as good as the first one!" Obviously, if you go in to a movie with that mindset, you're not exactly an unbiased critic.
This is the same phenomena that makes the new Star Wars movies suck, new Metallica suck, and makes people cool for being in to the Grateful Dead "before they were popular".
And then there's the contrarians who are just "anti-hype" on principle. If more than 3 people have said something is cool, they will say it's uncool. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's obviously not a true measure of the thing itself.
......wake a heavily hungover Ted(Neo) who had a cellphone left on buzzing in his ear and a black hefty bag wrapped around himself. "Whoa! What a dream dudes!RRRUFUUUUSSSSS!" *Air-Guitar motion*
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
(I wrote this the day before yesterday, Nov 3, 2003) it is on kuro5hin.org as my diary.
....
---
Disclaimer: I wrote this after finishing another day of work and I remembered that I just bought tickets to see the Matrix in an Imax theater. So for some reason I decided to write what I think the third part of The Matrix could be. I never actually have written any 'fanfic' before and I am not about to start, so don't worry, you won't see more of this from me.
The Matrix Revolutions Possible Scenario, by Roman
----
The last part of the movie starts precisely where the second part ended, that is another ship picks up Neo and the remains of the crew and takes them to Zion.
Neo spends most of the time in coma, while the rest of the city is preparing for the robot attacks. Everyone is excited, blah, blah, blah. The dude who is infected with Agent Smith wakes up first and is trying to kill Neo while he is asleep but he is not successful.
The robots come and the war begins. The war is spectacular. There are 250,000 robots (one per every Zion citizen) and they cannot be simply stopped.
Then we are taken inside Neo's head. In a coma he finds himself in a strange place where he can see the Matrix and move through it as if there were no walls or limits. He can just desire and the Matrix changes into what he wishes. (Of-course he is in a coma, so we do not know whether this is truly happening or not.) At some point in his dream he finds a way to cross from the Matrix world into a computer that is running the Matrix - the Matrix Mainframe, and he starts exploring the rest of that system. He meets the actual programmer of the Matrix - a computer program that is governing the planet at the moment, however the program does not recognize what Neo really is. It believes that Neo is one of the Agents. So Neo can move around in the Mainframe without too much trouble. At some point he hacks into the portion of the program that runs the killer robots and when he realizes it, he tries to stop the program from execution but cannot do it - it is protected.
At this point the robots have already wiped out half of Zion, Morpheus is wounded and everyone is in panic. Trinity is fighting with the dude who has Agent Smith's copy inside and she is not winning. The dude knocks Trinity out and pulls plug on Neo's life support.
At this very moment, affected by shock, Neo finds out that he can cross the boundary between the Matrix world and reality. He produces a hardcopy of himself in the layer of the machines and starts destroying the hardware by blowing up microchips of the computer (the computer is gigantic, but the most important part is that the Mainframe is only partially a transistor based computer, but it is mostly run inside the heads of the individuals plugged into the Matrix, who are basically forming a single-minded organism that is one crucial part of the computer itself. The people's brains are used as CPU and storage for the Matrix and the AI singularity!
Now Neo knows that by destroying the computer, he will disconnect all the people in the Matrix and will kill them. By not destroying the computer he will let the robots kill everyone in Zion.
At this point Trinity wakes up and crawls to Neo. Now she is trying to talk to him, and he hears her but does not understand where the words are coming from. So he tries to do something he never tried before - he starts learning how to change the reality into something he wants it to be. He starts small, first reconfiguring the room around him, moving the physical objects as if they were virtual objects in a computer program. Then he moves on to change more of the space around him, he changes the entire computer floor, changes the entire cave, now he can manipulate the Reality Matrix as if it was the Matrix. However the AI singularity now understands what it is dealing with and calls its robots and agents. It also starts attacking Neo through the interface that the Neo was connected to his limp body i
You can't handle the truth.
I threw away a Gregory Benford book about halfway through it once. Terrible, pitiful writing. I figured it was better to pitch it in the garbage than chance anyone else reading it and having that stain on my conscience.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
But that's Hollywood for you - you can't just make one great movie and leave it alone. You have to squeeze every dollar out of the franchise while you can!
:-(
I agree. Last time I was at a bookstore, I even noticed that Lord of the Rings, this masterpiece of an epic, is already out in book form.
Pathetic what lengths commercialization will go to these days. There's just no leaving good movies alone anymore.
Since every response I got was "Phantom Menace was universially panned save for the fanboys on GL's jock" I bring evidence: The Rotten Tomatos page shows that PM got 63% positive reviews, averaging a 7 out of 10. Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 stars out of 4!
So that disproves only the diehards liking it.
Hell, people must have liked it for some reason since it is the 4th highest domestic grossing movie of all time.
So that disproves the fact that people were "tricked" into seeing it. If they were, they were magically "tricked" into seeing it multiple times.
I'm sorry but no, people liked the movie when it came out. Yeah, maybe not You, but they did defend it. It's only some social revisionism to say that it was never popular and that was all just some trick pulled by LucasFilms.
If it was a failure, Kevin Costner would've given his right nut to have Waterworld fail so spectacularly (to the tune of a half billion dollars).
What is music when you despise all sound?
Maybe... It's worth a download after all, dude ;)
:D
And now you can expect more than fakes with Joe6pack cheap porns labeled "MATRIX 3 THE REAL ONE (NO FAKE)"
Just stop feeding the big comgnies for their crap now !.
Go to the movie and watch you dreamed good french film instead
Léa Gris
...Dark City was a good film.
Mod parent up, up, up.
... undercut one's argument? Please get serious.
What the parent is trying to say, is that he's smarter than the unwashed masses and most of those who don't like the movie don't understand the it.
That is total bull***t. I perfectly understood Reloaded, but I didn't like it one bit. To say that someone is not as smart as you because they don't like the same movies, is a weak and stupid argument, just like pointing out spelling mistakes on slashdot to disprove points.
- sigs are for wimps.
The first tried to hard to explain things (with huge fallacies). The second was edited in all sorts of wrong ways and suffered from taking-itself-too-seriously-itis.
Haven't seen the third, but I imagine it has parts of the problems in 1 and 2.
The critics who are lambasting it "got it". It'd be a shame if they didn't. After you pull away all that pseudo-intellectual bullshit, they didn't like what they saw, and knew that the stroy deserved a better treatment.
THAT's why it's getting poor reviews.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
1) Go play Enter The Matrix if you want more answers
2) Smith got into Bane like he got into everyone else. "What?!" you say? Everywhoelse? All the other people he jammed his hand into - he didn't just jam agents - he jammed other people/prisoners/nobodys hooked into the matrix. With hundreds and thousands of Smiths, he's not just overwriting agents. He's a virus. He's indescriminate. He's in your outlook addressbook, overwriting your friends.
3) Sentinels, Neo's destruction thereof, Reloaded: See 1. Seriously. Neo... left code/soul/whatever behind in the Matrix at the end of Reloaded... perhaps because of his Trinity stunt, there are other reasons in the game, I am told... that is how he wacked the sentinels.
Cheers.
kulakovich
ps - haven't seen it yet. I'm sure it's fine.
It's even lower if you count that several reviews which panned the film(Ebert one of them) were mistakenly(?) mis-categorized as tomatoes, and not splats.
Please help metamoderate.
Much like the original cut of Bladerunner with the narration by Harrison Ford dubbed on and that horrible, horrible ending - both forced on Ridley Scott by the studo because they thought audiences wpuldn't "get" the story, and that they wouldn't like it if it didn't have a happy ending.
Scott's director's cut, released later, is the film as he intended it and it's much better.
Has anybody else read any novels by William Gibson? Or any kind of cyberpunk at all? Admittedly, the movies based off of Gibson's own works suck (see Johnny Mnemonic, another Keanu Reeves film), the Matrix has, as a whole, done nothing but rip off elements from Neuromancer, "the red pill" from Total Recall, of all movies, and numerous elements from other stories. Those who feel that these coincidences are a "homage" are advised to consider how well blatent plagarism like this would go off in the world of software copyrights. While it is nice to see a cyberpunk movie, I would merely like to see credit given where it is due, and to stop hearing the incessant chatter of those who feel that the Wachoskis are visionary should see Bound or Assassins. Both movies are so-so, but far from the kind of image that they have projected onto themselves with the Matrix. Flashy special effects/kung fu can only get you so far. Let's see how they do with King Conan.
"The more corrupt a society, the more numerous are its laws." -Tacticus
I think thats what they were showing at the end. There was no reality. Rather just another level to the Matrix. Who's to say it was so vague in it's explination.
Was the role of the Merovengian explained? I thought that to be clever/significant to be included in Reloaded, being that the Merovengians (in real life) are considered by some to be the holy bloodline.
gg
Yeah, that rings a bell.
Last time I've had to recall that was High School history class.
Insert Sig Here
I haven't seen the 3rd matrix, and dont plan on wasting even my free movie passes on it. I mean I can go see kill bill or something.
But anyway, at the end of the first matrix, there was this credit that said "Based on Neuromancer by William Gibson". Ok I had never heard of Gibson until then. So I read the book. This made me realize how much the Matrix sucked. Well that and the fact that Keanu as Jesus is too much of a stretch for me to handle.
There are 3 books to that series, the other two being Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. All 3 of those books are great if you ask me... Now yes, I know that technically speaking only the first Matrix was based on Neuromancer (or at least I didn't see any mention of the books in the reloaded), but still, I mean... zion is supposed to be in space! lol and like... full of rastas who listen to dub.
Why take names and ideas from a book and make a trilogy starring keanu reeves at Jesus?! wtf?! Maybe they liked how he played in Johnny Mnemonic (which was a Gibson story to begin with as well, and also had a character from Neuromancer in it, but whatever).
No there wasn't really a point to this except that I liked the books and I think it's a shame that someone borrowed pieces of them to make sucky films. Oh well.
Chaos is Divine *
Krist0 just needs a good drink/set of analyzation skills.
-Doc
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
What about The Godfather 1 and 2?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Most kids see linux as "not Microsoft", and hence, some kind of counter culture.
And as far Unix goes, behind OSX it's the most progressive one out there. Others (HP, Sun, SCO) look at it and scoff.
Techies are just a new kind of artistan or guild. We'll learn to deal.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
(NT)
This isn't news.
Everybody should take the money they're spending on going to see this piece of trash and send it to the FSF, the EFF, or another, more important organization.
Larry and Andy Wachowski are fags. Keanu Reeves will always be just "Ted Theodore Logan." And The Matrix will forever suck. There's more entertainment value in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force...
i havent seen any previews for this movie... i hope this doesnt effect people's decisions to go see the matrix revolutions
Emotive. You could feel the desperation when Zionites fought to hold the dock from the sentinels. The battle showed unsung heroes fighting to their death -- it was painful to watch but emotionally charging. I read a comment about Neo not acting well in the final scene (like he was drugged). I think it was an incredible scene... Neo no longer had control. He was a vessle carrying out the Oracle's strategy -- with Trinity gone, he was dead inside. He just wanted to get it done... I don't think he had any desire to survive the battle at all. As far as the white light destroying all the Ssmiths.. that came from the Machine. The Machine was tapped into Neo. Neo had to fight Smith because that was all he knew. The point of the fight was to lose and let Smith "infect" him. By doing so, Smith opened himself and all his copies up to the machine, which destroyed him. Again, Neo was a powerless vessle -- a tragic figure. There are many many many things left unexplained in the final movie. I didn't come to the movie for answers, I came for entertainment. And I got it, in boatloads. Now what I'm REALLY looking forward to are all the short stories, comics, animations and websites that fans will create to answer these questions. If there were no questions, there would have been no Animatrix (which I love). Boba Fett was a single dimensional character in the first Star Wars trilogy. Learning the history behind Mandalorian battle armor and insight into his motives came much letter in the form of a short story I read god knows where. I can't wait to see the same things for Matrix :)
The movie was just that, a movie. But the world the Matrix trilogy spawned belongs to us. And I can't wait to see what we do with it.
I've been reading a lot of messages here and see CGI instead of CG. I can understand how people can get confuse...because "the web" has been pervasive in our every day life.
However, am I right in trying to clarify to people that CG is Computer Graphics and not CGI???
-Kamphor
I've seen Matrix, Reloaded, Animatrix and am probably going to watch Revolutions anyway, regardless of the reviews. People do say that some things weren't resolved (big surprise?). I'm just curious as to whether some things that people are wondering about may have been resolved in the video game (since I'm sure there are many Matrix fans like me who haven't played it)? I've only briefly seen some of my younger relatives play it, so I have no idea. I'm surprised that nobody has recorded themselves playing the game to the end including all the scenes and put it up on Bit Torrent or something (hint, hint :)).
Also, where would the video game fit in the chronology? I know Animatrix fits in right before Reloaded. Would the video game fit in between Animatrix & Reloaded, or after Reloaded?
The good thing is, in the suckiness of the final episode, perhaps they'll let the matrix phenom die for a few years before bringing out a surprise finale to the unanswered questions
I mean, T2 was quite far after Terminator, and definately awesome. T3 sucked, but it did set it up for a movie covering the resistance in the post-nuke future
Maybe those of this generation can pick up where Matrix left off, and produce a kick-ass sequel in the future. Judging by some of the fan-eps of various sci-fi out currently, we may even have the technology to have fan-sequels on-par with many current movies in the next 2-5years
Ever play 'Alternate Reality' on the Atari 8 bit computers? This epic game was to end with a realization that you're in a matrix-like cocoon. The creator of the game, Phil Price, evidently met the W. brothers, and (quote)
I did talk to two guys while at a restaurant in Westwood [In LA , near UCLA, it's the core of Hollywood]. I explained to them AR and it storyline, ideas and the Hollywood movie Dark City simularities to some of it and it's differences [i.e. things I think they did wrong in that movie that made it a bomb in the box office]. They listened intently, and one of them remarked to me (as they smiled to each other) was that "ideas can't be copyrighted". Matrix came out a few years later, I very much doubt they were the two brothers who came up with Matrix, but it made me wonder after Matrix came out.
see this for many more comparisons between the two.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
I seen it, I seen it, I seen it!!!
/. and go watch the movie you love!"
Ok, now down to the bussiness.
I think the review on the topic is too bad, seems like a depressed "I hate the world" person wrote it. Sorry, but it sound like that.
I hate spoilers, so, I will just say:
"Stop reading this bad review at
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
I suppose it just makes sense in a very Eastern sort of way that the few people on whom the complexities of the architect scene aren't lost are a subset of the people on whom the complexities of spelling are lost. It's all very post-modern.
I'm sure it's way better than that waste of celluloid Suspiria.
The film's use of Christian symbols seemed to be overbalancing the eastern religius symbols, even while the film's take on Christianity seemed more eastern and possibly gnostic (but more in the gospel according to Thomas way than the hairsplitting way). The theme is more syncretic than the symbolism. This makes the crucifixion symbolism feel a bit heavy handed, as the biggest other symbol set to contrast it seems to be the oracle's tao earrings. Other than that, it was decent. The philosophy part is a bit more mature than Matrix 2, where I kept expecting someone to crtique both the Merovingian's and the Architect's straw man arguements, and M3 actually offered some rebuttals but still missed some of the simplest. In the end, I found myself respecting the intent of the Brothers in sticking almost continuously with the fight scene in Zion and then staying, again near continueously, on Neo and Trinity, rather than intercutting a lot more as many directors would have. Good film, won't be appreciated for a few years, but half the people who didn't like it are going to end up watching it again, and half those will suddenly realize they missed something important the first time around and it does make (some) sense.
Who is John Cabal?
I'm absolutely flabbergasted by the huge holes that are left at the end of Revolutions.
One of the biggest complaints is, of course, the end. At the end of the movie, we see that everyone is still plugged into the Matrix, so nearly 99% of humanity is still trapped, we don't get to see released people really enjoying what they've won, instead we see the programs enjoying the end! What is this? At the end of the film, we have the Oracle, Architect, Seraph and that little kid enjoying this new 'peace', but that's not who we wanted to enjoy peace in the first place!
The holes that are left are not meant to be pondered, they're simply completely missing entirely.
The Twins? Nope, they just kinda went away.
The spoon he was given? No reason. Maybe it helped Neo psychologically, we don't know.
The 15 minute rave scene? Yeah, we're under attack, so lets party. MTV totally said it right on their parody. "There's a million machines coming to kill us, so we're going to party." Was there any significance to this scene in the end? Nope.
Neo and Trinity's sex scene? Perhaps used to make us feel like these two were in love, but otherwise no significance.
Near the end of the movie we're left with this huge Architect speech. Looking back, it doesn't even play a role in Revolutions. Does it really matter he's the sixth? Nope.
So how does Neo have powers in the real world? We're told it just kinda happened, a quick 2 liner by the Oracle.
That train station, did it even matter? It was just like this really stupid delay. There was indeed one cool part to that scene, where Neo tried to run out of it, and I felt like I was back in the Matrix world again, because the rules are being broken, but alas, that was it.
Interestingly, several points in the film we see Neo getting thrown up against a wall and you can see that its his stunt double. With such a significant CGI budget, please just mask the bloody face!
Does Persephone play a role? She states Trin is in love in Revolutions. Thanks. I needed that reminder because it wasn't already shoved down my throat.
Who is the mother of the matrix? Unless I'm not seeing something, no one. No one makes a clear indication who the heck the mother is! That entire ramble and revelation spoken to us was utterly pointless.
So in the end, lets take a look at what has been gained. Originally we had everyone trapped in the matrix. We have this place called Zion where the people who escaped live. At the end of Revolutions, everyone is still in the Matrix, and Zion, apparently, would still be the only place where the people who escaped live. The machines aren't going to attack Zion anymore, whoopee.
Being a big Matrix fan, I knew the producers had to close off several entire blocks of downtown Sydney for a day or so. Apparently it was the most expensive and elaborate piece of cinematography ever. Sooo...I honestly don't know where that scene was in Revolutions. I suspect it was the big fight between Neo and Smith at the end, but those are just buildings, really easy to make CGI out of them and look great. I was hoping to see some kind of amazing shot after everyone was freed and showing the world again in its beauty. All for naught. I heard there was a bus station bench in the set with the words "In memory of Thomas Anderson", I thought it would be really cool if the people of the Matrix learnt that it was Thomas that freed them, and thus the world after sorta regards him as this hero and his sacrifice to humanity could live on in the hearts of all people. But what are we left with? Nadda.
Why is there such a racial leaning in Zion? No reason given.
This entire thing about its a good thing Neo is still human? No reason, at no point does he ever even come close to being a machine.
Is the Counsel the 23 freed? Nope. That doesn't even play a role.
Counselor Hammods speech to Neo about machines helping us? Control? No reason.
Is there any reason for the burley brawl in
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
The biggest problem with the movie was change.
Ultimately, did Neo win? Regardless of if he lived or died in the end, the computers still control the matrix, and there are humans living under ground in Zion.
We go through three movies, and end up with no change.
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This "movie" (The last third of this "trilogy") is the hollywood equivalent of the last third of Metal Gear Solid 2.
It's like the whole cast is suddenly trying to play the role of Confucious, but they all manage to avoid saying anything enlightening.
The more special effects, the more gee-whiz, super-blockbuster, 5.1 stereo rumbling, render-farm-rendered pixels are thrown on to the screen, the more bored and more impatient audiences get?
Wouldn't it be ironic if special effects increased boredom? $200 million later, it's really not all that much better than the book? Could that actually be what audiences are thinking?
Interesting question. It should be pointed out that just about every major blockbuster special-effects-genre movie in the last 3-5 years has been often reviewed as "boring," with the possible exception of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy which, ironically enough, is based on the books.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Morpheus spams the Matrix until it grinds to a halt under a relentless onslaught of ads for penis enlargement, refinancing, debt free gimmicks, and porn. As the Matrix becomes useless the pod folk wake up as their carrier signals timeout and they spontaneously disconnect. The Matrix is unable to react due to having all of its drive space filled with an overflowing mailbox and is unable to create any temp files (the Architect forgot the root password). The movie ends with a Shindler's List-like scene of millions of slimy, hairless, pod people climbing together down the towers to end in another erotic rave scene and the Matrix is forced into becoming an Everquest server.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
... is if Trinity or Persephone get NEKKID in this one?
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
When I was in LA, there was a critic with the Times who was just awful. Of course, that was my opinion, but luckily it was very accurate for me. If he hated a movie, and threw in some of his oft used "keywords" in his scathing review, I knew it was one I would like. Every film he liked, I would avoid like the plague.
;-)
Moreal of the story - you can use lousy critics, they just have to be consistent. Once he's benchmarked, it's almost as good has having a good critic
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If you really wanna read this whole thread, go ahead but, here it is in a nutshell.
1. 98% of the posts say, "The new flick isn't as good as the first one (no shit?, one asks).
2. You could say the readership of slashdot is split almost evenly as to whether or not it's better than the second.
3. Bunch of posts saying hollywood sux.
4. Will there be another Matrix movie and money making media releases?
5. Some asswipe who wasn't modded down to hell for saying Glendale CA rocks in response to a post by a user who says they saw the new flick in Glendale.
6. If you're reading this much Matrix material on slashdot, you should burn pictures of 'Trinity' under your mattress and take a shower.
7. If you're writing this list, jesus go away bitter old man thoughts...
8. A Star Wars / Matrix / Lord of the Rings is better flamewar/circlejerk.
9. Someone probably suggesting they do an edit to the Matrix trilogy removing Neo like they did with Jar-Jar Binks.
10. People bitching that they should do an apt-get/emerge/beowulf parallel compile on their freebsd based G5 cluster with --Matrix-Flags=disable-neo-fuck-scenes.
In Soviet Slashdot, sigs are posts and non-sigs are sigs.
I raise my cask of soft drink to the tall canvas in reverie and in hopes that there will not be a reprise of Laurence Fishburn's "for one hundred YEEAARS..." monologue.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Beating the shit out of people and machines is cool and all, but does Persephone show us her tits?
Now that would make it worth watching, no matter how bad it sucks!
I think many people are missing one of the quintessential points of the movie. Ultimately it has nothing to do with whether the humans can defeat the machines or vice versa. I see it as an attempt to define existence. There many scenes throughout the movie that force viewers to relook how they interupt relationships and how we define certain things such as "programs". It makes one step back and question what makes a human human, what gives purpose to anything. The ending fits the movie very well because it represents the human drama that we all live in, we try and try again to no avail. We take risks, sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. All this we do because it is part of being human it is what makes us, us. For the humans to be free from the prongs of the machines would be a terrible ending, because it is the struggle that meaning and purpose is derived.
/.er's get so caught up in the idea that they need to hold everything to this absurd scientific standard because that's what /. is all about that the enjoyment is lost. Let go of it already and enjoy the story for a story and read between the technology to the allergoy of human life that is being portrayed.
Second point that I feel is important to take in, of course there will be plot holes and things that people don't like but it's science-FICTION. It is not reality nor is it supposed to be, who wants to go see a film that is completely grounded, have the fun is seeing a world that seems impossible. WILLFUL SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF people. Furthermore, I feel as many
I haven't seen the movie yet but I heard that there are references to a lot of diferent movies including Star Wars. After some digging I found the reference:
AGENT SMITH: There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. You do not yet
realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power.
Join me and I will complete your training. With our combined strength,
we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to this planet.
NEO: I'll never join you!
AGENT SMITH: If you only knew the power of the Matrix. Morpheus never told
you what happened to your father.
NEO: He told me enough! He told me you killed him.
AGENT SMITH: No. I am your father.
Shocked, NEO looks at AGENT SMITH in utter disbelief.
NEO: No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!
AGENT SMITH: Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
NEO: No! No! No!
AGENT SMITH: Neo. You can destroy the Architect. He has foreseen this. It is
your destiny. Join me, and we can rule this planet as father and son.
Come with me. It's the only way.
The first Matrix was revolutionary, not because of the psuedo philosophical story line, but because of the analog effects. Something we had been missing for far too long. Its a real disappointment that just when you think that a director finally *gets it*, you realize it was just their dumb luck and everything goes back to the way it was.
That said, I bought my tickets a few weeks ago. See you there..
Quack, quack.
Your answer here is more enjoyable than the film! That pretty much sums up this dreadful state of affairs.
I think I might burn my DVD of Reloaded and pretend that the two sequels never happened, after I've calmed down a bit from the last one. I've only ever burned one other DVD in my extensive collection, so it's not done lightly.
It just shows that good films are not necessarily associated with good directors, and that sometimes they just happen as magnificent one-offs despite deeply set directorial incompetence at graphic storytelling.
I haven't yet seen the 3rd. part - and am REALLY bummed to read all of these early negative reviews. Despite being a huge fan of the first one, I didn't get a chance to see the second one in the theater. First time I watched it was a couple weeks ago on DVD. (And in some ways, I felt like this worked out for the best - because the 3rd. part was just about released, and I was freshly done enjoying part 2 - and chomping at the bit for part 3.)
I agree that these movies meant "a lot of different things to different people" - but much of that was because there was so many loose threads that still needed tying up. Eventually, things *do* need a single explanation for how they got to be, and if that upsets those that interpreted all the signs and unclear messages incorrectly, so be it.
I really liked part 2, but I also found it unsettling the way it seemed to be shaping up into a nihlistic film about hopes dashed and humanity unable to ultimately triumph over machines. (Of course, enough was left wide open for it to have a complete turn-around in part 3.)
Now, it sounds like part 3 took the movie exactly the direction I feared it was headed - which has got to be the *worst* possible outcome for everything. Morpheus really was just a "crazy, misguided prophet" - because although his heart was in the right place, he had no idea that the entire Matrix had fallen (and been rebuilt) many times before. He was just a pawn in the "game", so to speak. In reality, folks like Neo and Morpheus were there to "stress test" the software, so bugs could be squashed in future reincarnations of the Matrix, leading to an eventual "perfect" simulation.
Not only do I dislike an explanation along these lines because the ending is unsatisfying to me personally - but it doesn't work to seal up any of the holes in the logic of the whole thing. (Most notably, IMHO - why are the machines finding so much value in imprisoning all the humans inside this ongoing simulation? We already agree that the original explanation of "using their bodies as an energy source" is utter crap, and assumed it was just a lie fed to people that we'd eventually uncover the truth about. Here we are at part 3 though, and nobody seems to have a better answer.)
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
That has always been one of my favorite adverbs. ;)
Mom says my
Some of these people who whine about Smith taking over Bane should see The Thirteenth Floor, or read the book on which it was based, Simulacron 3. Honestly, Smith taking over Bane struck me as slightly more believable than the 'takeovers' in Simulacron 3.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
....aaannndd it sucks.
Really.
And I hear they even have a prequel out. "The Hobbit" or something.
Sheesh. They could have gotten a little more original, yaknow?
Maybe something like: "There and Back Again"?
I must say I whole-heartidly disagree with you on many of the points that you complained about.
... take this objection how you will :)
... lower the bar :)
1) Trinity's death served a purpose, it was a humanizing factor. This story should be viewed as an allegory to human existence. We succede, we fail, we live, we die yet the struggle is always occuring. Furthermore she touches on the fact that ultimately love is the most important thing.
2. Ok I would agree here, it was a bit drawn out.
3. Neo losing his sight was incredibly important furthermore you have to close the bane plot loop up. Neo's lack of visual sight opens his eyes to another visual world. I haven't fully wrapped my mind around this one but I none-the-less feel its important
4. That's the whole point of the the human drama. We struggle and we fail but we get back up and try again. If you view it from a good-evil win-lose framework it's very disappointing but if you're willing to step back and view it from the framework of what makes us human it's a perfect ending.
5. Eh, what'd you expect an Oscar winning performance? It's Keanu
6. Willful suspension of disbelief, although that might be a bit much to ask. I would say his whole jacking in is a little odd but maybe he's got some WIFI going on or something.
Actually I read 8 of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books before deciding that the series had gone to shite and I was never going to read another.
Most of the eople don't seem to understand what the Matrix trilogy is all about, it has far deeper meanings than just the average kung-fu, sci-fi flicks. I hope I don't confuse anyone with this, but I just want people to know how much more sophisticated the Matrix is than you think. There's an essay written in Chinese about the Matrix, it has many very facsinating ideas and views. I only translated a small portion of it. Let's see how interestingly and artfully the character are named: Neo: Son of the God in this movie, if you re-arrange the letters, you'll get one - "The One" as was said in the movie. Morpheus: The god of dreams in Greek and Roman tales. He brings dreams to the human kind, he represents "the spirit of god" in this movie. Trinity: The three in one, connecting everything altogether. She represents the "father of god", because she gave life to Neo; Neo only starts to realize he's the one after he met Trinity. Oracle: Of course the prophecy. In the religion of Greek, she's responsible for passing the anwsers from Gods to people. You can think of her as the guidence for human, she hopes to achieve a balance between the mahcines and huam; as opposed to the idea of one ruling another. And she was only a program of the matrix, but one that differs in purpose from thhose of Ggent Smith and the Architect. She wasn't designed initially to help humans, but she eventually found out that only the huamns can save the machines. Merovingian: The french dude in the restaurant in Matrix II. His name was based on a kingdom in France called Merovech. He existed since the first matrix, he believes in subjugation. That is why he likes to fight and the oracle likes to give out candies.
Group Plans to Hire New Scriptwriters, Director, and Re-Shoot The Matrix Revolutions Next Week
Hollywood, CA /DenounceNewswire/ -- 5 November 2003 -- In the most dramatic and expensive takeover in film industry history, a group of high-tech billionaires, including Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Pierre Omidyar, and Larry Ellison, announced today the acquisition of the Warner Brothers film studio and film catalogue, as well as three other companies, with one stated purpose: to remake The Matrix Revolutions.
READ THE FULL DENOUNCE.COM STORY HERE
The Chad was great...
i think that the wachowskis stayed out of the lime light and didn't want to talk about themselves because they knew the third one was going to suck and they didn't want people to know where they lived. I'm just kidding of course.
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Smith's taking over of people was different than the taking over of people by real Agents. When an Agent takes someone in the Matrix over, they're essentially just hijacking their connection in the system (and presumably this requires a direct connection to the Matrix, rather than a piggybacked pirate signal). They're not overwriting that person, they're just temporarily superimposing themself onto that person. That's why, when the Agent leaves someone (apart from getting 'killed', as seen in the first movie), the person taken over is restored without any ill effect apart from having a hole in their memory from when they weren't there (this was seen in Enter the Matrix, where an Agent jumped out of a SWAT agent).
Smith didn't take people over that way. Smith copied himself onto others, apparently overwriting them (at least part of them) with his code. The Agents were 'moving' from connection to connection. Smith was copying himself onto anything currently inside the Matrix. Two different methods of 'taking over'.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
If you go into the movie expecting it to be what you want it to be, then of course you will be dissapointed. Regardless, it is still entertaining and good storytelling, and I encourage everyone to go see it and instead of bitching try and reflect on the great monologues and imagery in the movie.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
... so now true Matrix fans are the epitome of grammar and spelling!
:
BTW, pick up a dictionary
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=dumb
dumb ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dm)
adj. dumber, dumbest
1.
1. Lacking the power of speech. Used of animals and inanimate objects.
2. Often Offensive. Incapable of using speech; mute. Used of humans. See Usage Note at mute.
2. Temporarily speechless, as with shock or fear: I was dumb with disbelief.
3. Unwilling to speak; taciturn.
4. Not expressed or articulated in sounds or words: dumb resentment.
5. Nautical. Not self-propelling.
6. Conspicuously unintelligent; stupid: dumb officials; a dumb decision.
7. Unintentional; haphazard: dumb luck.
Our Living Language In ordinary spoken English, a sentence such as He is dumb will be interpreted to mean "He is stupid" rather than "He lacks the power of speech." "Lacking the power of speech" is, however, the original sense of the word, but it has been eclipsed by the meaning "stupid." For this change in meaning, it appears that the Germans are responsible. German has a similar and related word dumm that means "stupid," and over time, as a result of the waves of German immigrants to the United States, it has come to influence the meaning of English dumb. This is one of dozens of marks left by German on American English. Some words, like kindergarten, dachshund, and schnapps still have a German feel or are associated to some extent with Germany, but others, like bum, cookbook, fresh (in the meaning "impertinent"), rifle, and noodle have become so thoroughly Americanized their German origins may surprise some.
dumb
adj 1: slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity; "so dense he never understands anything I say to him"; "never met anyone quite so dim"; "although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick"- Thackeray; "dumb officials make some really dumb decisions"; "he was either normally stupid or being deliberately obtuse"; "worked with the slow students" [syn: dense, dim, dull, obtuse, slow] 2: unable to speak temporarily; "struck dumb"; "speechless with shock" [syn: speechless] 3: lacking the power of human speech; "dumb animals" 4: unable to speak because of hereditary deafness [syn: mute, silent]
- sigs are for wimps.
In the second film, while the heros are entering Le Vrai and walking up to the Merovingian's table, another person is being led away. He and Neo trade a Significant Glance[tm]. We never see him again.
Is this explained in the third movie? We're seeing it tonight, but I'd like to know this ahead of time. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The second movie compared George W. Bush and his father with Adolf Hitler on the TV screens in the Architect's chamber.
In order to decide whether I'll be buying a ticket to the movie, or simply pirating and distributing it, I'd like this question answered: Is there some assholish political slant infused into this movie as well?
I fucked you mother
I don't think he's your mother, but thanks for the personal revelation, sicko.
I'm almost in tears.
I had nightmares last night of going to see this movie, and the film breaking in the middle of the movie. I went to the projection booth to help (I was a projectionist years ago in college), but we couldn't fix it. I guess that came to a stunning realization today.
I will admit, there were some good scenes, particularly the APU units fighting the Sentinels. I wish they would have broken that scene up with Neo's quest, though, instead of showing a 45 minute Zion scene.
I was excited when the Neo/Agent Smith scene started, and do admit that it was pretty epic, well-done cgi...but there was no release! I wanted Neo to kick the crap out of all the Agents. So...he died, and the world was saved? A Martyr? Did he just give up because Trinity died for no reason? Even the City of Zion was confused..."Uh, we won? uh...ok, rejoice! I guess!"
I asked several strangers there coming out of the theater -- all who stayed until the last credit rolled...waiting for something to pop back up...to finish the movie...the trilogy -- nobody understood the ending.
I would have rather waited another year or so for this movie to be done right. Hollywood seems to ruin everything they touch when it's all about the money, and realease time....
I guess we'll all just have to wait for a new Animatrix DVD to explain it all...
Oh well, at least we know how LOTR ends...
"The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care, right?" -Offspring
I don't care who pans it or how many fans and critics hate it. I am sitting here at work going positively nuts waiting for 9pm EST so I can finally see it!!
Hey, B5 actually answered the questions that had been set up for them. Everything got foreshadowed; everything got explained.
(Err, I think so. I mean, I'm only halfway through Season 2, but it's supposed to be good about this sort of thing.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I really liked the thirteenth floor, a film that had another layer of reality. A few other films have done the same thing, and in some cases done it well.
The original Matrix really worked as a movie. It is probably the ultimate Hollywood production, in formula and coolness. The Thirteenth Floor was not as cool, but it was really well written and had some great scenes and lines (why would he try to tell ME about the limits of the simulation?).
The Wachowskis could probably have come up with a better ending if they had had more time, more opposition (especially critical opposition), less access to effects, and less money. Too much money kills way faster than too little.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Ebert is a sucker for pretty pictures. Notice that he gave Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within four stars---writing off the plot with a sentence or two, then rambling on about how pretty it was. From his "Dark City" review:
``Dark City'' by Alex Proyas is a great visionary achievement, a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like ``Metropolis'' and ``2001: A Space Odyssey.'' If it is true, as the German director Werner Herzog believes, that we live in an age starved of new images, then ``Dark City'' is a film to nourish us. Not a story so much as an experience, it is a triumph of art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects--and imagination.
Hey, he's a sucker for pretty pictures just like the rest of us.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Your biggest fears for the third film won't be fully realised. Saying more would spoil things to some extent.
If you want to know a bit more, reply to this and I'll give you as much information as I can without really heavily spoiling things.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
So it sucks worse than Reloaded it? Thats it, I'm not going to pay to see it. Anyone got a bittorrent link, or know when it'll be on Kazaa? ;-)
...is the animatrix set of short animes.
At least from an artistic standpoint this is clearly where the W. brothers wanted to go.
The official sequel is just a $-mandatory, surprisingly sedate, and a bit sad really, exploitation of the brilliance of the original Matrix movie.
Dodge this.
Seastead this.
I'm not sure if you guys realize it, but the movie wasn't made to encompass the entire story, ever. The Wachowski brothers planned on having the Animatrix, the games, the comics, the books, and everything else also tell a part of the story.
That's why you have to watch the Animatrix to get the backstory of how the Matrix originally came to be, or play the games to get some more intra-movie events down.
The world is in the fascinating grips of a "Matrix Sux" phenomenon. I don't want to be insulting, but is this what happens when an enigma is handed to the mass public? Are we not begging to be totally spoon fed? Think. The One had broken free from the Architect. Agent Smiths had infected the Matrix. What else was the Architect to do? And did you think a handful of humans could defeat a planet-locked machine civilization? Was it not a sensible, even timely ending? Almost anything _else_ would have been a cop out. I am very pleased. I had doubts, but Matrix III won me back wholeheartedly.
What's a "remkae"?
First I'd like to say how good it feels to know that I got to see this movie at 1230 CST Wed. morning and that I can go see it again for free whenever I feel the urge. (I work in a movie theater) Secondly, They tried to explain about how the programs have personalities. I came up with an idea, perhaps programs in the matrix are really another level of existence. Think Hindu reincarnation here, perhaps in the grand scheme of things you could be reincarnated as a program. It would explain why they have personalities and love and hate. Reincarnation would certainly cause them to forget they were human in a past life. It might be a stretch but it's always a possibilty. Personally, I like the movie and enjoyed the way it is set up for another sequel, or fanfic, or games, or anything.
sig?
CGI = "Computer Generated Imagery"
I remember shortly after the first matrix came out listening to an interview. The interviewer asks one of the warchowski brothers if they are interested in a sequel. Hey/They laugh at the thought. No, they say. They had been working on this one for years and are glad to be done.
yeah, right, I think. Wait till the checkbooks come out... and sure enough, two more movies to be made, at the same time (I'm thinking here of back to the future..)
Is it any wonder a couple of guys who are burned out on the subject and are producing a story from their pocketbooks rather than their hearts and doing so in less time (i think) managed to make a product that was inferior?
I can hardly blame lucas for waiting 15 years to keep going with his series, but - oops! - doesn't seem like that worked either.
=P
MOVIE MAKERS - if you are tired of your series just take the money and run. Don't taint your past work. Warch Bros had greater earning power coming off of one super hit than one super hit and a couple of turkeys.
The world is in the fascinating grips of a "Matrix Sux" phenomenon. I don't want to be insulting, but is this what happens when an enigma is handed to the mass public? Are we not begging to be totally spoon fed?
Think. The One had broken free from the Architect. Agent Smiths had infected the Matrix. What else was the Architect to do? And did you think a handful of humans could defeat a planet-locked machine civilization? Was it not a sensible, even timely ending? Almost anything _else_ would have been a cop out.
I am very pleased. I had doubts, but Matrix III won me back wholeheartedly.
It's been pointed out many times before, but worth repeating: the whole boneheaded "Humans as batteries" idea was the weakest link (perhaps the only weak link) in the first movie. Newsflash: humans cannot be a primary energy source. Perpetual motion machines are impossible. Humans can't even store energy very well. Come to think of it, humans are pretty crappy batteries compared to about a billion more efficient energy storage alternatives, both organic and inorganic, that don't require the construction of a cumbersome artificial reality.
I had been hoping that in the sequels a more plausible explanation for the Matrix would emerge. Perhaps the machines depend on the combined processing power of a billion human brains, in some kind of distributed neural network. No such luck. Dammit!
Anyways, maybe your fantasy "Matrix Ressurected" plot shouldn't hinge on a premise that anyone with a basic understanding of physics or logic would find laughable. But then again, logic and coherence don't seem to be much of a priority for the Wachowskis these days. Judging by their latest creation, they prefer dazzlingly artificial fight scenes, cheesy melodrama and "symbolic" philosophical hackwork
Too bad they're not so keen on good old-fashioned storytelling, audience empathy with the characters, believability, and common sense.
After seeing the turd that was Episode 1, I never did see Episode 2 and I have no intention of seeing Episode 3 -- climactic battle or not
And I have no interest in seeing what happens to Trinity or Neo, because the second movie sucked out all the interesting things about those characters. And the Zion scenes made me wish that the robots would destroy it once and for all. So now, if I don't care for the story, why should I bother finishing it?
Human nature? Sounds more like consumer slavery.
A kick-ass movie...on par with Matrix 1
Security is inversely proportional to the commitment of one desiring to circumvent it.
This morning around 7 AM while looking down at my toilet. Fortunately, I was able to flush and forget.
Ok, I haven't seen it, but from all the reviews here, looks like I got a better show!
Aych tea tea pea colon slash slash slash dot dot org slash
I think you got hooked on the last scene in the first movie and can't se past it-- as if the next 2 movies were somehow supposed to be focused around it. The plot evolves to become what it is.. More depth is unravelled as you go.
Neo doesn't die.
He is carried off into the machine world after he completes his quest. He is motionless after a battle, just like the second movie. Granted, Trinity is dead as dead can be. The Orcale and the last refugee give an homage to Neo with the sunset at the end, but that doesn't mean he's dead. The Oracle answers he guardian's question quite accurately: "no, I didn't see any of this... I had hope."
Overall, this was a great movie. I have some questions that I want answered, but it did a good job answering most of them. For example, the Oracle and the Architect are cordial adversaries, and Agent Smith and Neo a ying/yang brothers, whose mother is the Oracle. The reason why the movie changes focus from the people in the Matrix to the peopel in Zion is clear to me. More insight as to WHY Neo was found is unravelled and you realize this is a fight between the architect and the oracle, which are representations of order and chaos as created by the machines.
The movie is deep. Just because it changes direction does not mean that was not intended in the first place. It may take a turn or two that I disagree with, but overall it leaves me wanting one more movie... the one where the people are freed from the Matrix and Neo leads them to the promised land. Judging by the end of this
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Hey, if you ever get back here again, stop on over at our gold mine.
-cp-
Alaska Village invited to test cheap, clean nuclear power
The movie wasn't originally scripted to end this way. White Wolf Games has been threatening to sue the studio for copyright infringement (we're talking $100 million+ here). Matrix I and II were inspired by White Wolf's Mage: The Ascension game. The laywer had a fit when they found this out and told the studio to reedit the movie NOW. Unfortunately this was only a couple months before the movie was schedualed for release. Many of the scene's in the movie are reworks/re-edits or done at the last minute. The original script was much better.
With all these great reviews, I can't wait for the prequels!
A critic is just someone who is cynical because they can't create a movie (novel, etc.) themselves.
When you find a critic that _likes_ a movie you often find the movie panders to some insecurity (or security) they may have.. and the more one critic raves about a movie the less likely other critics will even like the movie.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
I have a CS degree, too, so I can relate to what you're saying. That part from that scene was perfectly clear to me, but now I understand how a lot of "regular" people may have interpreted it as complete gibberish. I never thought of that before, I just couldn't understand why some of my non-CS friends didn't get that scene.
:-)
Also, don't count all of us I.T. guys out so easily, some of us actually have CS degrees (although sometimes I find myself wondering why I'm in I.T. when I have a full C.S. degree).
If I had mod points, I'd give you a ++1 Insightful...
Keanu wakes up as Johnny Depp sitting in a bathtub full of ice.
i think it has accomplished quite a lot, and considering how vehemently anti-warner-brothers/mass-media i usually am, i can say honestly i have not been inspired by anything(except perhaps pink floyd) as much as i have been by the matrix, and the animatrix in particular.
i have my tickets for a showing in some 7 hours.
without the matrix, orginizations such as the kult would have never taken off, definitely, and i would not be a computer science major, philosophy minor. I wonder if the matrix could then be compared to the 'hackers' or 'wargames' of our decade, hmmm...?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Revolutions suffers highly from the hollywood ICHKY syndrome (I Could Have Killed You). Time and time again in this movie, Agent Smith has opportunities to kill Neo and others, but instead gives a speech, thereby giving the hero time to plot and execute and escape. I hate it!
Consider the inside the Zion Deck. While it looks cool to have the sentinels all flowing together, it makes more sense for them to seperate and kill.
Did the last exchange between the Oracle and the Architect mean that people will be freed from the Matrix at will? I know the point of this movie was to save Zion, but the point of the trilogy itself was to save the human batteries wasn't it? This was not done. I call the trilogy incomplete.
that Bruce Willis is dead the whole time.
In terms of the three movies, I thought Revolutions was definitely better than Reloaded, but not as well done as the first movie.
Reloaded was a waste of time really, not enough sci-fi to balance the action shots. It also brought up questions that weren't answered.
I thought the ending to Revolutions could have been more suspensful. Trinity has this long drawn out death speech. She should have just told Neo to go without telling him she was a human shishkabob (and then die). And the fight between Smith and Neo was quite boring.
the 13th floor was much more well done than existenz, but still lacked commercial success due in large part to the inaccessibility of its execution of nested realities.
it's worth noting that both existenz and 13th floor were much more straightforward than the matrix and less densely packed with metaphors. they seemed to be merely a cursory exploration of the subject for the purpose of telling that particular story, rather than a piece on the philosophy of reality itself.
that aside, if you build up a story around certain characters, revealing at the end that they weren't 'real' robs the entire sequence of cinematic weight for most people. This is very similar to the 'it was all just a dream sequence' movies, which are similarly, uniformly reviled. Excepting the case where it is established early on that the movie is about people exploring the reality of the dream sequence, such as Flatliners.
All three movies (13th floor, existenz, the matrix) establish early on that they take place primarily in a virtual world for a reason. Cinematically you must establish that what matters in the alternate world -matters-. there is a -real- person at the end of the line being affected by what happens in the fake reality.
you can't lie to your audience and change the rules halfway through. The audience will naturally try to sympathize with the characters that are most like themselves in the story. If you reveal your main characters are just dreams or simulations of -actual- real people at the very end - the audience will feel cheated that they cared about pointless conflicts and characters.
13th floor and existenz are robbed of rewatchability for most because the whole movie is a gotcha. the ending implies that everything that happens was pointless, as the most human characters, the ones the audience will relate to, are not affected whatsoever by the previous sequences. They have their own tangential motives and are wholly removed from what just happened.
the 'real' characters aren't the ones struggling and exploring reality. So there's no point in watching it again, beyond study, because nothing that happens matters to the 'real' characters.
Note how audiences didn't care when normal people were killed by the dozens in the original Matrix? Simulated people aren't seen as 'real', and receive no broad audience emotional attachment.
Philosophically that's an incorrect analysis, but it is still the emotional reaction of the mass audience at this point in human history.
(Any form of life capable of higher order thought and memory experiences its reality as being just as 'real' as you or I experience our own reality. thusly they should be considered just as 'real' as you or I.)
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Can the directors be arrested for beastiality for so horribly screwing the pooch?
What exactly was your problem with it?
I think geeks may be turned off by the idea of an ultra-advanced, insurgent alien force's central command structure being overridden by a crappy Powerbook circa 199X.
Yes, and most of his reason for being there is explained as well. There are some minor details not revealed in the movie, as they were covered in the Enter the Matrix game.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I found the following cronology of the Matrix, interesting indeed:
r ix 05q.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/146831_mat
WHEN IS THE MATRIX?
What is the Matrix? That's an old question. The real head-scratcher is:
Using background culled from the three movies and Animatrix shorts, The Associated Press compiled an estimated timeline of the war between men and machines:
2010-60 -- Humans create humanoid drone robots with artificial intelligence to fill jobs as construction laborers and servants.
2069 -- The hovercraft transport ship Nebuchadnezzar, later to be captained by Morpheus, is constructed in the United States.
2075 -- AI programs evolve and some robots began to resent their human overlords.
2077 -- In the first case of a machine rising up against its owners, the butler robot B166ER slaughters two humans, leading to B166ERs eradication and a backlash against robots and artificial intelligence.
2080-85 -- Rioting and violence against machines prompts robots to flee major cities and establish their own community -- known as Zero One -- in a remote part of the Middle East.
2085-2095-- Zero One thrives, creating superior vehicles, computers and weaponry and decimating the economies of many human nations, which now lack the machine-based labor that made them strong.
2096-- United Nations officials refuse to accept the robot civilization of Zero One as a sovereign nation. A trade blockade of robot goods leads to war.
2097 -- Zero One survives a nuclear attack -- its inhabitants are impervious to the heat and radiation and casualties are quickly replaced. Counterstrikes launched against humans.
2098 -- As cities fall beneath the might of mechanized forces, desperate military leaders attempt to block the main source of energy for the robot city: the sun. The plan destroys the atmosphere and fills the sky with choking black smoke -- but does not stop the machines.
2099-- Machine forces overtake human armies and capture survivors and civilians for experimentation, determining that human bio-electricity can be harnessed to replace the sun's energy.
2100 -- Machines create the Matrix, a dreamlike world set in 1999, to extend the lives of the comatose human batteries.
2105 -- The first human known as The One, locked in bondage inside the Matrix, learns he can manipulate the world through thought and manages to break free. Seeks sanctuary in the underground human stronghold of Zion.
2105-2150 -- Zion resistance movement created, although The One later dies under unexplained circumstances.
2161 -- Morpheus born in a Matrix womb; freed in childhood.
2167 -- Trinity born in a Matrix womb; freed in early childhood.
2175 -- The Oracle prophesizes that Morpheus will discover the second coming of The One.
2199 -- Trinity and Morpheus discover Neo, a hacker in the Matrix. They free him and do battle with Agent Smith, a program designed to rid the Matrix of humans who detect its flaws.
2201 -- The Osiris, another human rebellion ship, discovers machines drilling through the Earth above Zion. Crew members send a message through the Matrix to their compatriots shortly before being destroyed.
2201 -- Now living in Zion and working with the rebellion against the machines, Neo encounters The Architect, the artificial intelligence program that created the Matrix.
2201 --The Architect reveals that the Matrix places rebellious humans in Zion, which it then targets for destruction, thus eradicating bugs in its system. He states that Zion has been destroyed five previous times -- suggesting the Matrix may be much older than he thinks.
Jose Vicente Nunez Zuleta RHCE, SJCD, SJCP
Look at lord of the rings. One movie a year for 3 years and the first two have been (in my eyes) very good representations of the story.
Making movies in rapid succession doesn't always mean they suck.
Maybe Smith found a way to remotely execute code in our brains!
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damn sure I don't have a c/c++ compiler in my brain, or even a binary reader FOR that compiled code.
And since when has there been c/c++ libraries for controlling living flesh?
Another shite movie sequel that abuses the good name of the first in the series. Reloaded sucked and this will suck even more. Still, there will be lame fan boys who refuse to see how horrible the last two are. Naturally, they also liked the last two Star Wars movies. See a correlation here?
"At least there's Return of the King this December"
They have a lot of holes to fill in a short time in ROTK.
Like in the first FOTR, the story ended like the book, with a what few changes that still left the main plot of the story.
In TTT I don't know why they did not let the Ents take care of the Orc's. or end with frodo in the hands of the spider and the ring out of his hands.
The have enought stuff to make two movies out of ROTK.....
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
i woke up at 7am to see revolutions only so be super disappointed. isnt that depressing? none of the major questions were answered, there was entirely too much action going on, and the wachowski's definitely pulled away from the philosophy lesson that was the matrix I. Oh well.
see sig. see sig run. run sig run.
I just saw it.
/.) that one should walk out before the last 1/2 hour. This should be required.
The one thing I noticed that I haven't seen posted about here are the cliches were excessive, annoying and greatly detracted from my enjoyment of the movie.
The next is that I couldn't believe when I read before seeing the movie (this is
If you thought the end of Re-booted (Reloaded) was lame and a let down. That was nothing compared to Revulsions (Revolutions). I was begging for the scene to end. The finale fight with Smith was pathetic.
My advise (and I am a Matrix fan) see it at a matinee (spelling?). Then wait for the DVDs.
Let us hope the 4th installment will be better that this last dud.
Either that or they should have quit after the FIRST MATRIX.
Who will guard the guards?
Some people compare Dark City to Matrix, but I don't think it's terribly worthy unless you are looking for a strictly visual comparison.
Unlike the Matrix people who'd like yo uto believe they thought of everything themselves (i.e. "bullet time" in 1, "car chases" in 2, and "rain" in 3) Dark City openly references it's source. Said source material makes the whole movie even more interesting once you read where the bulk of it came from.
> The problem is, I want to know what happens
One could argue that in a movie about Determinism, Uncertainty is the very best ending!
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Neo stops the sentinels because he was enlightened by the process of becoming the One.
We know he does that. Reloaded showed us that at the end. What we want is WHY and HOW. It contradicts the rules of its own story universe.
Imagine if suddenly, for no reason, Frodo was able to fly (barring that it's not Tolkien's style). And it was just explained away as "very Eastern symbolism."
He sees the Matrix as what it is -- an input/output stream communicating with the senses, and sees it logically instead of allowing his senses to interpret it. It's very Eastern - the idea that the world is not what you simply perceive.
That's the Matrix, which has nothing to do with the real world...or does it? That's the shitty part, we'll never know. We got ripped off.
Smith enters Bane by essentially hacking his brain.
We were told sentient programs could only enter plugged-in people, which makes sense, as though they're taking over that "node" of the Matrix. However, Smith carries over directly into the real world as a conscious human being. How in the hell does executable artificial intelligence code bury itself into a random human brain of nerve cells? It's stupid.
Zion is the focus because its the free world; everything else is 'controlled', whether virtual or real.
You're giving me reasons and whys. We all know why. It doesn't change the fact that it's poor storytelling.
Trinity isn't human when she says that dying was fine, but she should have been telling Neo how good it was instead of apologizing for dying, and thanks for the second chance to be real?
Huh? I don't understand your sentence at all.
I dunno, I thought that scene was a LOT more touching and a lot less fake than EITHER of the first two movies Trinity-saves-Neo or Neo-saves-Trinity scenes.
I was saying that Neo shouldn't have been able to bring Trinity back in Reloaded. It would have at least added to some delicious character tension. Have Neo head straight to the Machine City all by himself, a man driven by loss with nothing to believe in but himself.
Nope. Heaven forbid we have good storytelling.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The whole diversity thing is part of the background of the story I guess. If you have people of random race being "unplugged" and then have them mating as fast as possible to make more and more people, you're going to end up with a pretty mixed bag racially.
That black guy on the council (with the crazy hair) is Colonel West, he wrote books about that sort of thing.
*Spoiler*
/. is talking about this, but this seemed to be what most people thought would happen. Now, revolutions does not declare this to be true, but it does not say it is not true either. Think about this: /.er's think?
Ok, I have thought about it after seeing this horrible movie, and I have concluded that this must not be the final movie. There are too many things that are left completely unanswered, and almost deliberately so. Here are some of them:
1) How did Neo end up in a train station? He did not jack in, but was in the matrix. Did he have a wireless card in his freaking head or something? (WTF??)
2) What the hell happened between the oracle and the french guy? Something happens, and the french guy says he hopes that she learned her lesson, but it never explains anything.
3) Programs feeling love? I understand what I hope was the point of them saying this: that love is extenal to humans and not just a human emotion, but were the waskowski brother trying to imply that programs loved each other?
There are other minor ones that I will allow to get by me until I figure out why such gross inconsistencies were built into this movie. All of these three things were deliberatly put into this movie, and were completely unexplained (except for, arguably, the last one, which can be explained philisophically, although by doing this, they violated the story which was previously a fully self-consistant metaphor).
But here is the main reason I think there is another one coming (a secret one): my hypothesis (which was pretty well thought out) was not proven or disproven. This was my hypothesis: that the matrix that was the city and the agents and mr.anderson and all that was really a matrix nested inside the real matrix that was zion, and that whole world. A redundant system of control seems like something that a machine would definitely think of. Most people will stay in the nested matrix, but even the most "rebelious" ones who happen to escape from that one will be so caught up in their war against the machines that they don't realize they are still in the matrix. This of course would explain Neo's otherwise silly supernatural powers.
I also know for a fact that I am not the only one who thought of this. I don't know why nobody on
The machines so happy to extend peace to the humans, if they so wished. Doesn't freeing all the people imply that most of the machines will die? Why didn't they just lie to Neo and let him kill Smith and then kill Zion and Neo?
In addition, the last conversation between the Oracle and the Architect seemed alot like a setup for a new movie. "How long do you think this peace will last?", "As long as it can". This sounds really weak. If the oracle, as the end of reloaded proposes, is just a part of this control system, then she is asking this question wondering how long zion will be content inside of their matrix.
Is there another trilogy coming, or at least another movie? What do all you
The Star Wars franchise survived how many DVD releases? 3-pack, golden release, jubilee, etc.
We can hope that franchise squeezing will not go pass the theater door. I know I won't buy that crap even for a buck. (I heard Matrix2 DVD are selling pretty good though). But there is no way I'll miss the theater release, you can't replace (yet) the big screen experience for this kind of movies.
my 2 cents.
All 3 are credited to the Wachowskis.
Why are you creating demons where are are none?
Are you so fanboy that you think the Wachowski's couldn't make a mistake and thus this must be someone else's fault?
Almost as good as the first one? Not sure yet.
With that said, I can say that Revolution will go down as one of the best, it not the best sci-fi finale ever for a trilogy. (LOTR doesn't count, as it's fantasy). Much better than episode 6 of Star Wars, and probably better than what the finale of the prequels will be.
Contrary to what other people say, I don't believe there are any holes at the end of the movie.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
First of all, for all of those that said that the machine didn't care that their food could go bye-bye, well, that's not a plot hole, it was EXPLAINED why they accept so in the architect rant at the end of the 2nd one.
Second, why should we know what happens with Zion? Do you really need to see them have another rave of something? They'll rebuild what they can, and that's it. No need to do some cheesy crossfades of clips of people rebuilding the city. Those who want to be unplugged from the Matrix will be, and will live with the humans, as the Architect and the Oracle say at the end. What Neo, and Trinity and Morpheus and everyone wanted most of all to give is CHOICE. CHOICE to be part of the Matrix or not. It's not as if people were badly treaten inside the Matrix. They were happy and everything. The difference between what will go on after the end of the 3rd movie and what was going on before is that humans were hunted and killed when they rejected the Matrix, as they serve no purpose to the machines anymore. Now they will be allowed to be free. It's not as if everyone is going to disconnect from the Matrix all at once.
Anyway, having everyone disconnect would be a really bad idea because after all, the earth is destroyed, there's no hope to get it cleaned up and livable. If they want to live in that mess, FINE, now it's THEIR CHOICE TO DO so. They're not forced to be in the Matrix anymore.
Also, face it Neo is dead. For once, the hero dies in a movie. And I'm glad he did, because seeing him back with the rest of the people Zion would just feel so cheesy. Anyway, for those who doubt he's dead, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be an entry on IMDB soon about how this film as a connection with King Arthur's story. Notice how when his body was carried at the end on a machine ship it looked oddly like when Arthur is laying on a ship and going to the sea when he dies?
"They totally don't explain how Neo is able to interact with the matrix when outside of it or how he was able to destroy machines."
Actually if you paid attention they addressed this issue very openly. he was able to interact because he was the "one" and his conciousness transcended both worlds, this was explained after they freed neo from the train station and he went to see the oracle. no mystery there, just need to remain concious through the movie.
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
WORST. MOVIE. EVER.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
*Sigh*... Yet again, we see fantastic potential in a series, all squandered becuase the director(s) became so enamoured of the technology and forgot to TELL THE STORY....
:)
At least we can still count on Peter Jackson
I though Reloaded was a huge drop off from the orignal and this one may be a huge disappointment. Too bad, because the orignal was one of the best SciFi movies in Years.
Actually it wasn't - it was a fairly mediocre film filled with mumbo jumbo and mostly recycling of old scifi ideas, but what it had was FANTASTIC visual - totally new and unseen. People were blown away by new and fantastic sights and generally chose to ignore a mostly lame story (robtos using humans for energy, please!) - but then everybody else used the effects. In movies in commercials, we've seen it ripped off over and over and over.
Then the sequels came along and is mostly the same, a mishmash of the longest words from the thesaurus, a bit of hocus pocus from different religions, and wild special effects - except THIS time we've seen the effects, perhaps not these specific ones, but we have seen enough effects, basically nothing new there - they could have shocked us to the core by having written someone clever instead, but that's not the way it mostly goes in Hollywood.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This is the first series.
After the wife got rekidnapped like the 3rd time.
No, there's no compunction in me to finish something I'm not enjoying.
I just saw it and the biggest thing that stood out to me is Neo has considerably less dialog in the third movie. In many ways, it's the opposite of the first movie. The first movie Neo says a lot, but it doesn't really amount to much and the things Neo thinks are real within the matrix and outside are in fact false. It's in the third movie that he comes to enlightment, and understands the circular nature of existence. People might be disappointed with the ending, since it's a subtle and quiet ending. I plan to go see it again, if I can find a baby sitter to watch the kids.
Way at the bottom of the thread, where nobody will ever see save the three people that read all 900 comments, I have this to say:
It was good. I liked it. Go see it.
The first matrix movie was a stupid idea presented in an awesome way. The second movie was the same, but the way was less awesome. This third movie, its awesome again. Very awesome.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
why,oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?!
Yesterday I liked matrix A LOT.
I came from the showing and after waiting two hours for sunny morningdrawi... rendering by some kid-AI, who has never "seen" the sun I asked again:
What did I expect? Why was I SOOOOOO disappointed?
My answer: previous two movies build on something, urge you to think. They use, pretty loosely, you must admit, symbols, which are existing, many believe are existing or some of us think, that it would be kind of logical, if they existed. Those symbols are redefined using sci-fi terminology and re-associated somehow and more or less it makes kind of sense in techno-fairytale way.
I expected that the last movie would define some fundamental unification to show us some vision of working "whole" thing, but it just broke everything. It didn't tell us (at least to me) ANYTHING I didn't already know (didn't give me anything to dig out, think of). Even the things that somehow supported some imaginary plotline were something, that were already drawn out in past episodes or you have heard your grandma telling them, when you were 10 and just didn't care that much, to listen. By now (I'm way past 20) I have already discovered those things by myself, as would any thinking person at some point. This talk about equations? someone unbalancing them, and then waiting with sadistic joy, how they would rebalance themselves?! This is so fucking common sense, who they think they are surprising with that(just another sci-fi example: 5th element, breaking the glass) AGAIN?!?! But that's all the fun that's left after those events: just tweaking some variables and recalculating equations. Not your "deep grand point", is it?
They actually destroyed everything "FUN" and left us with the same boredom!! No Neo no superman-thing!
"Let anyone who wants, out" ?! are they going to run TV-ads, like "want to see what all you bodybuilders really look like?"; "want to make your pointless existence more pointless? join us!"..
How are they imagining to trick anybody to join the matrix online game after that? if everything continues to develop as one grand plot, I would have to code there again to earn my boring buck. I don't expect to get my own "construct program" to load "anything I need".
Love? As they said: just another definition, a word, a rule in "game". Not your all defining point either.
Ok, maybe Love is "fun", while it clouds your analytical mind. Works for someone with un-modifiable instincts, but for machines, with backups and interchangeable parts?! That again does not define really anything except some context-dependent purpose... Again nothing new...
But purpose? Cause and effect? It's good to know, there is a reason why I have to go and pee every now and then, but again: probably I'm old enough to figure that one out myself...
I didn't expect, that they would tell me "how can I get out of here" :)) but I expected some great story, some entertainment, instead of sci-fi retelling of things every grandma can tell you.
And why I liked X-men 2? Not considering the deepness of the story, characters did "what they seemingly wanted" and you didn't have to shout: "stupid, why didn't you do this, instead of that stupid stunt?!?!?!?!?!"... It felt just right what they did in this fairytale.
In this last matrix, while I was waiting for the movie to go on... it just felt plain wrong!!
This train station-thing was REAAAAALLLYYYY artificial for my analytical mind... (well, some "old ugly hacker-program" supposedly built this Neo-ghost-compatible transfer-plug-in accidentally resembling a "limbo" from countless fairytales ( bible? ) and computer games, daaaah?! )
And specially while this mystical machine-attack, where sentinels acted EXTREAMLY stupid?! everybody who has ever played some starcraft or C&C knows, that only way to destroy a force many times more powerful is to know exactly from where it's coming and expecting, that after a savegame those things come and act stupid exactl
...and no, I'm not a smartass. It's just because if you ponder about movies 1&2 and specially animatrix which the second renaissance is plain scary but is the key of the story: Humans and machines destroyed the Earth, so ok let's say Neo wins, save Zion and have a Final Fantasy-esque ending with Trinity... for spend the rest of their lives eating white slime and wandering in a rotten planet? No plants, no animals, no fresh air, no humans, nothing! just corposes and junk everywhere. Matrix really could have a happy-sugar ending like hollywood likes to do? Anyway I'm glad this Matrix hype will end for some time until the next hypermaketing "masterpice" hype.
SUSPENSE??? In the first one???
Which one is he going to take, the red pill or the blue pill???
Is he going to pass the test??? I'm not sure! I've never seen a movie before!
Is he actually going to be "The One"??? Gee, lemme think...
Is he actually dead, or will he come back with the aid of a girl yelling at him??? (bet you never saw that one before *cough* Abyss *cough*)
After the first half hour of very promising filmmaking, the first matrix turned into a completely obvious, philosophically simplistic pile of crap. Amazingly, the second one went down hill from there... big surprise that the third is worse.
I mean, where do you get off even *thinking* that there was actual suspense in the first matrix? Did you really not know what was going to happen?
I am sorry if this seems like flaming (and sorry 'bout all those ? marks), but really, I just don't get how people see the first Matrix and see good filmmaking. If Trinity had turned out to be "The One," that at least would have been interesting... but instead is was the same ol' shlep, pretending to be sci-fi.
What are you, a blinded fanboy?
I think you got hooked on the last scene in the first movie and can't se past it-- as if the next 2 movies were somehow supposed to be focused around it.
Seeing as how it was the major bomb dropped in Reloaded at the last minute along with the Architect scene, everyone thought this.
The plot evolves to become what it is.. More depth is unravelled as you go.
Typical vague bullshit. Look, the story is just not interesting and unfulfilling. You can justify that all you want but it doesn't change the way it is. What depth is unravelled? There are no twists or answers.
Doesn't it bother you that we still don't know the answer to the question, "What is the Matrix?" Really, what is it? A power plant? A peer-to-peer computing environment? We'll never know.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The Second Matrix Movement sucked so bad,
I boycotted all Matrix products...
I know my $9 will not go to further the production of such bland filth.
How about a little Buckaroo Bonzi ?
Seeing as how it was the major bomb dropped in Reloaded at the last minute along with the Architect scene, everyone thought this.
My mistake, you were talking about the ending in the first Matrix.
Yes, everyone wanted, heaven forbid, the people of the Matrix to be freed, because those people represented US. We don't care about Zion and never did. That wasn't what the first movie was about.
"Sufferin' succotash."
As usual, Matrix fans defend aspects of the movies using the reasons behind them.
That has absolutely no bearing on whether it's actually INTERESTING or not.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I soulsearched a lot, along the lines you describe. My conclusion was that I'd go see Revolution even if it was just two hours consisting of nothing but a repeating two-second clip of Keanu going "Whoah."
...like you say, I'd go just to hear the rest of the story.
Then again, from what I hear, the substance of that rest of the story may be slightly less intriguing and slightly more predictable than my portrayal above...
I weep for our educational system, if kids aren't being exposed to these classic stories in book form.
I'm an Emacs fan, and that was amusing :)
LOAD "SIG",8,1
They never, ever claimed that. There was talk of the sequels even during the filming of the first one.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The movie sucked.
The relgious rhetoric and innuendo was so much it could make me puke.
NOTHING relevant was answered
NO depth was added...#2 left SO many possible ways to go with the movie. #3 persued NONE of them. At least it didn't end with a cheesy "love conquers all" ending. Instead it was some spiritual crucifixtion crap...if I heard "believe" one more time in that movie, I woulda torn my ears off.
How long do you expect someone to watch a single man yelling at the top of his lungs while shooting huge guns at the same boring stream of robots? The dock seem was the BIGGEST waste of time (and I thought they couldn't outdo the orgy scene in #2...well they DID)
Same canned, stupid, cheesy speeches...I think Smith was the only redeemable dialouge.
Where's the kung fu? A grand total of maybe 15 minutes? maybe 20? Hell, even the last battle was boring as sin. They did the whole "fly towards each other and collide" attack like 10 times during that fight.
SOOOO much was rehashed...Trinity's kick move...the "gunfire with pillars" scene...everything!
How the hell did he even win at the end? Smith wins the battle, Neo wins the war? None of that made sense, nor was even a HINT of an explanation given...bah.
This movie had such potential, and they blew it. Another case of "woo, we can do special effects and try to be deep by rehashing the same tired plotlines of 100 other movies" I'll take solace in that it could have been much much worse.
Ask him. He's the one that believes in sequels.
Technically isn't Lord of the Rings a single (long) story. When I first red the book no-one called it a Trilogy. I have heard that later it was broken up into its three parts but is still not considered a true trilogy.
As far as the Matrix. I would have been better to leave it as a single movie (the first one) and let the imagination of the idividual to end it instead of stretching the storyline to a thin second and third sequence.
I liked the second one mainly for some of the visuals more than the story.
I can't use my sig - my computer can't read my handwriting.
good points on the architect's conversation and the issues of choice.
Not to be too offtopic, but I think "The Second Renaissance" (Parts 1 & 2) from the Animatrix are the best parts of the whole friggin 'Matrix Universe'
These two mini-movies contain more truth and brutal reality than all other Matrix movies combined.
Just my 2cents...
that sounds a lot like the final answer that Thomas Covenant found in Stephen Donaldson's white gold wielder series... interesting...
It's on The Oregonian's movie page for Revolutions.
Seastead this.
If I remember correctly it was orginally programmed for the Apple// series then ported over to the Atari's. As were many games at that time. (Apple having a larger userbase.)
Very fun game, I have even found myself breaking out my Apple//e emu and playing it for some odd reason every now and then.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
The Matrix, the first movie in the trilogy was a clever piece of work. Lots of philosophical undertones and it introduced a lot of new stuff we hadn't seen in movies before (read cool effects and well choreographed wushu scenes). The second one was mediocre; the same effects, only in larger amounts, but had a few additions (new characters and some interesting dialogue). Reloaded, we could accept as it was just transportation between the first and the third movie.
Now to the third movie, the finale.
The movie had very long scenes, which stretched on and on where they should have been cut to about half their length (someone was apparently sleeping at the editing table). It wasn't just that the scenes were long, they also didn't help propel the plot forward. Some scenes should also have been cut entirely, like the train station scene, or 90% of the zion scenes, as neither did anything for the plot.
When the audience starts laughing at scenes where the director intends tension, relief or the audience to be impressed, then something is very wrong with the movie.
What bugged me the most was that there was NOTHING new in this movie at all. No new central characters, no revelations or explanations of any kind to any thing or concept revealed in the previous movies. In short, this movie was a huge let down, not even capable of wearing the coat of a fast paced, somber action movie.
I'll conclude with a "to-the-point" summary of the entire movie (which also happened to be the most common word uttered in the cinema when the end credits started rolling by): CRAP!
PS. There was actually one actor who, when the opportunity for acting appeared, performed above average (as opposed to the rest of the cast): Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith. Unfortunately 5 minutes of >>acting<< is a bit expensive given the ticket price at $12.
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
I liked Revolutions and I liked all three films. I could write for hours on all of the reasons why. The only real point I want to make is that I liked them because within the context of enjoyable fantasy flicks, I did not feel like the Wachowski brothers talked down to me, pandered to me, were at all pedantic, and most of all they asked me to work and think. I think they didn't try to hand me easy answers. And I think they didn't try to give the answers to life's biggest questions to the attention deficient of the world through flashy cinematography; to me, they asked me to consider a scenario based on the facts of this world -- one with many views of religion and philosophy, with many theories of mathematics and physics, with death and war, and with language and words and ideas like free will and love -- and in this scenario they asked us to contemplate what we think is real or myth or deception, and what really makes us human; especially since so many in this world are trying to achieve Artificial Intelligence. And since I was intrigued by the Wachowski brothers? scenario, I have engaged other people who have different knowledge and experience than me to learn what they think about the different themes and dialogue presented in these movies; and I have read different articles and essays and even re-read some of my favorite philosophers as I have considered their scenario. I agree with Soren Kierkegaard's idea that knowledge gained from a well written piece is gained through hard work by the reader. I think these movies challenged me in the same way that many writers challenge me, but just in a very different medium -- and in a medium where many people look for easy symbolism and easy answers so that they can walk out of the theater and forget.
So, if you don't like the movies, oh well, forget about it and move on; if you liked them, keep talking.
Finally, an analysis that makes a bit of sense.
;-)
I still think it's all just a little *too* convenient, but at least it makes sense of what appears (on the surface), to be a shallow and pointless film.
I'm sure this will grow on me over time, but I still expected more from the Wachowskis...
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
I'm certain it's the other way around, because Phil Price was an Atari fanatic.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
Hey, don't take one person's opinion as the only truth - and the review that was attached to this article is really shallow and comes indeed from a shallow viewer.
First, the ending: it was excellent because it wasn't a "they lived happily everafter" crap, but rather a "think about it" thing. It is a very bittersweet ending, and one that makes you think and imagine the consequences and future of the matrix.
Then: No action? What was that 30+ minutes of mindblowing robot vs. human hardware fight? Don't tell me you were not immersed, I don't buy that.
Plot holes? Shit, I will need the next few weeks to actually connect the whole thing together, and I have thoroughly studied the previous two episodes so I should be well prepared - and this guy talks about holes in the plot? I can't see any, but mostly, I don't see how one can spot them this early. If anything, "Revolutions" has clarified a lot of questions from "Reloaded", but these clarifications are probably NOT what many were expecting.
All things considered, the Matrix trilogy is, from my vantage point, an excellent film noir and sci-fi in addition to pioneering some groundbreaking cinematographic methodologies which are now being copied by so many movies. I hope people will still remember that Matrix did it first, and damn well, too.
Sigged!
because then frodos and sams part would be major boring crap and reduced to a few minutes i guess. Can't see people enjoying a crawl through what's practically a desert for half a film.
Clearly, the memetic impacts of the first movie was too much of a challenge to the world power structure. They feared that we IT workers might break out of our cubes and try to live real lives had the dangerous ideas of the first movie been allowed to progress.
Ahh....Mr Smith, yes sir, ill get right on those bug fixes sir....
If you didn't see the previous Kevin Smith films (e.g. Mall Rats, Clercks, Dogma, Chasing Amy), you simply canot understand half of the jokes/references...
Way less adrenaline, way less cool fight correography than previous, but so what?
If you want the action and newness of the original just pop it in your DVD player. If you want over the top impossiblity of the action in #2 the go watch that.
The Matrix Trilogy is one of the few big studio franchises that doesn't rehash the first movie as many times as they think they can get away with it.
Revolutions is what it is. It is the conclusion, it is the winding down and the end of everything that went before it. So sit back and relax and remember it's a movie. And there'll be books and such to milk, I mean fill in the blanks.
Does anyone have a link to the slashdot posting for the original movie? I was feeling like some nostalgia but I couldn't find it... :(
I have noticed, however, that the really clever, funny, `troll' posts (such as the one you replied to), are still usually modded up funny.
Even if we've changed the meaning of words a little, at least some people maintain a sense of humor...
philcrissman.com.
The first one was AWESOME. Reloaded was OK.
Revolutions didn't suck, but it was a dissatisfying ending. I don't know about plot holes, but how many story lines can you really satisfy without turning it into a fucking soap opera?
Anyone who does not like a movie that someone else liked did not "get" it.
This can be taken a number of ways. From the "you aren't smart enough to understand it" to "you aren't cool enough to understand the references" down to "you aren't uneducated enough to think that this material hasn't been done to death already".
How many people want to watch 12 hours of "Barney"? Dude, you just don't "get" Barney.
But there are lots of 3 year olds that would love that.
And they'll watch it over and over and over.
The Matrix was a decent movie. A little bit off on the science bit (human batteries) with some light philosophy thrown in and lots of guns and explosions and a hot chick in leather.
The sequels aren't as good. There's the "Matrix" world which is a computer simulation but the computers have real locations in the real world.
Now there is a "world between"?
They aren't keep up with their philosophy. There is the real world, there is the fantasy world that you have to wake up from, but now there is a third reality?
The way the fantasy world affects the real world is with the squids. They don't need the Smith character in the real world. He doesn't provide any clarification of the plot.
Neo should not be affecting the squids in the real world. Fantasy powers should stay in the fantasy world. I can accept that you die in the real world if you're killed in the fantasy world because that injects an element of danger. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any real threat to people operating in the Matrix.
The biggest problem I see with this trilogy is that it wasn't planned to be a trilogy. The second movie invalidated parts of the first movie and the third movie invalidated parts of the first and second movies.
The Weekly Standard's Jonathan V. Last has written a scathing review, The Matrix: Exposed of the 'The Matrix: Revolutions'. Typical quotation: '"Revolutions" reveals that underneath the philosophy, allegory, and intellectual pretension of "The Matrix" is a great big wad of nothing.'
His article points to the site Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics which Last claims will have a field day with the latest Matrix installment. ISMP rated Matrix: Reloaded RP = Retch.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...and I am in no way defending the crap that is The Matrix here. But, ironically, the stated intellectual source for the Matrix series (Jean Baudrillard) echoes your views on "supersaturation" of media influence. The stupid part, both in Baudrillard's writing and in The Matrix, is that he goes on to conclude that this is proof that there is no God/creator/mastermind/meaning in the universe.
Best trilogies have superior 2nd part. First self contained film is so good it gets sequels, 2nd film allows proper story to be built, thrid just ties up the loose ends.
i.e. Empire Strikes Back and Godfather II.
Don't forget terrible editing. Watch "Assassination Tango" for an example of that.
Don't forget bad acting. It can have a great story with awesome cinematography and plain bad acting.
The original movie was good. But after that, I think they suffer from bad writing (content), poor acting and terrible editing (shorten the scenes).
On the plus side, they have great effects and very nice cinematography.
If the movie doesn't have him waking up as Alice did, what does that make the series?
Return of the Matrix -- The Sequel, Episode $$$
... Neo! Yousa da one!
... are a disease. And I -- we -- are the cure.
Scene I
Setting: In the swamps of Zion.
Morpheus: [ with much spit and slobber ]
B-b-b-b-b
Neo: [ questioningly ]
Dude?
Morpheus:
Yousa gonna teach Z-z-z-zion howza fight! B-b-b-b-b-b!
Neo: [ righteously ]
Dude.
Trinity:
Help us, Johnny Mnemonic! You're our only hope!
Neo: [ emphatically ]
Dude!
Scene II
Setting: In the Matrix world, which looks suspiciously like Rivendell placed on the Forest Moon of Endor.
Agent Smith:
Hobbits
Neo: [ puzzled ]
Dude?
[ Agent SMITH divides like an amoeba, but unsuccessfully. The second Agent MINI-SMITH is only 1/4 the size of the original. ]
Mini-Smith:
Ki-yii!
[ Uses martial arts to punch and kick NEO, along with the larger SMITH. ]
Neo: [ startled ]
Dudes!
[ Fighting ensues. At each punch at a SMITH, the SMITH divides into more MINI-SMITHS. The MINI-SMITHS mainly try to bite NEO's crotch. ]
Neo: [ pleading ]
Dudes!!??!!
[ All the population of ZION appears. Most of them look like Ewoks. Most of the Ewoks of ZION are wearing pink.]
Ewoks of Zion: [ caringly ]
Ooooo! They're so cute!!!
[ ZION swarms MINI-SMITHS ]
Mini-Smiths:
Nooooo!!
[ MINI-SMITHS run away; as they are beaten they are dividing into more MICRO-MINI-SMITHS on the way. ]
Neo: [ victoriously ]
Dudes!!!
SCENE III
Setting: A parade field in the landing bay of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Trinity:
For bravery in the face of danger, and the best played game of 3D Tic-Tac-Toe Hogwarts has seen in many a year, I award you this diploma. No, wait, you get the medal.
[ TRINITY kisses NEO ]
Neo: [ lustily ]
Dudette!
Ewoks:
Awwww!
[ EWOKS break into joyous song of celebration. Roll credits. ]
SCENE IV
Setting: Theatre lobbies around the nation.
Audience: [ waving pitchforks and brandishing torches ]
We want our money back!
Wachowskis: [ laughing, on the way to bank ]
Ka-ching, suckers! Did you really think it would end any other way?
John
I sneaked my DV camera into the cinema and have hosted a grab of it here
I understand I get the movie now. Let me say this, anyone who truly undertands the movie, will like it. They will most likely love it. let me say this. No one can make you understand the matrix, no one should tell you how to understand the matrix. You have to do it by yourself. It is the journey to understanding the movies that makes all worth-while. Plus after completing your journey you now love the movies, because you see their enriching plots, their ability to answer so many questions, and their ability to make you pose so many more. It helps every human complete the holes in their belief system that it makes you want more. After seeing the movies and now that I understand them, I realize their purpose and my purpose in wathcing them. I have taken so much away from these movies that I feel that I can live with out fear. I would tell you how I understand it, but that would prevent you from completeing your journey as well. If you really want me to explain to you how I undertsand it, e-mail me, and I will gladly explain to you my undertsanding of the movie.
so...um.... uh..
what is the matrix?
my blog
Which is the point of the Matrix franchise:
(a) We are living in a synthetic reality.
(b) The Real objective reality is just as shallow and meaningless as the perceived synthetic reality.
The Matrix was brilliant because it was one of the first main stream movies to point this out.
well said. i *never* liked The Matrix, and it seems it's finally safe to say that around here. in my opinion this series is/was the *worst* kind of movie - that which thinks it's clever, but really isn't. This is why i think even ummm risking destroying my credibility Charlie's Angels ('stupid, knows it's stupid') is a better movie than the Matrix and something like Blade Runner is a far better movie if you want sci-fi (really has some clever and sensible ideas underneath). Despite being a 'geek' I actually don't like Sci-Fi as a genre so i can't make better recommendations. Turning out this bad (i was expecting it to be bad, just not to get this bad a reaction) just proves to me i was right all along - the much-hailed Wachowski (sp?) brothers never did have anything worth saying anyway. Shame. a huge waste of everyone's time, money and lives - it takes no more effort from most of the crew to make a movie from a good plot than a bad one, but the people at the top seem to forget you can't polish a turd. these movies, if you will, are turds.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Mindfulness (Sati) is a subtle process that you are using at this very moment. The fact that this process lies above and beyond words does not make it unreal - quite the reverse. Mindfulness is the reality which gives rise to words - the words that follow are simply pale shadows of reality. So, it is important to understand that everything that follows here is an analogy. It is not going to make perfect sense. Please don't sit around scratching your head and trying to figure it all out. In fact, the meditational technique called Vipassana (insight) that was introduced by the Buddha about twenty-five centuries ago is a set of mental activities specifically aimed at experiencing a state of uninterrupted Mindfulness or Sati.
When you first become aware of something there is a fleeting instant of pure awareness just before you conceptualize he thing, before you identify it. That is a stage of Mindfulness (Sati). Ordinarily, this stage is very short. It is that flashing split second just before you focus your eyes on the thing, just before you focus your mind on the thing, just before you objectify it, clamp down on it mentally and segregate it from the rest of existence. It takes place just before ,you start thinking about it - before that little 'yak, yak' machine inside your skull says, "Oh, it's a dog." That flowing, soft-focused moment of pure awareness is Mindfulness (Sati). In that brief flashing mind- moment you experience a thing as an un-thing. You experience a softly flowing moment of pure experience that is interlocked with the rest of reality, not separate from it. Mindfulness is very much like what you see with your peripheral vision as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision. Yet this moment of soft, unfocused, awareness contains a very deep sort of knowing that is lost as soon as you focus your mind and objectify the object into a thing. In the process of ordinary perception, the Mindfulness (Sati) step is so fleeting as to be unobservable. We have developed the habit of squandering our attention on all the remaining steps, focusing on the perception, cognizing the perception, labeling it, and most od all, getting involved in a long string of symbolic thought about it. That original moment of Mindfulness just gets lost in the shuffle. It is the purpose of the above mentioned Vipassana (or insight) meditation to train us to prolong that moment of awareness.
When this Mindfulness (Sati) is prolonged by using proper techniques, you find that this experience is profound and it changes your whole view of the universe. This state of perception has to be learned, however, and it takes regular practice. Once you learn the technique, you will find that Mindfulness has a number of interesting characteristics.
At least the preview for the NASCAR IMAX flick that they ran before this tedious 3rd chapter was COOL!
I had bad feelings about this movie and after seeing it I'm glad I stayed in Granada Hills.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
After two viewings this morning, I've decided that this movie is ok. I say that realizing that the Wachowski bros made a HUGE mess of the franchise with the release of Reloaded. Seeing the gaping problems in Reloaded be sewn up here to some extent makes me say this movie isn't too bad. Granted, it steals most of the "good" scenes and ideas from other movies but its still entertaining. Still a little light on the philosophy compared to the first (which is a bad thing) but since Reloaded had none to speak of, this is another improvement. And thank god those twin things aren't in this. Yikes.
*emotional*? Revolutions was not emotional, it was claptrap - I just came out of the cinema, and the *only* good moment was when Neo was looking at Trinitry, the air laden with tension and unspoken promises, and Neo says: "I have something to tell you", and I shouted "I wanna have sex with your sister!". Most people were still sniggering 30 minutes later......
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
6. Willful suspension of disbelief, although that might be a bit much to ask. I would say his whole jacking in is a little odd but maybe he's got some WIFI going on or something.
A simpler explanation would be that their "Real World" is no different from the Matix. The only difference being that the people living there think they've escaped from a computer-based world instead of being born into it.
"Matrix finale could put you back in a coma,"
Uhm... does that mean they think it's good or bad?
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
> The critics hated "Citizen Kane", "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Star Wars" at the time.
I call BS. Star Wars had a two page review (along with a cover corner teaser) in Time magazine calling it "THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR" when it came out. I'm sure there were some critics who hated Star Wars, but it was by no means a universal or even majority opinion.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I have to disagree (with most of what you said, but let's just focus on this one, because I think I can make a convincing point on this one).
...which forces Neo to make the final connections. Blinded, he makes the final connection to his 'powers' -- he 'sees' Bane, and it is apparent that this is as suprising to him at it is to Bane. He achieves the final control he needs not only to penetrate the machine world's defenses physically, but to achieve the control he needs to defeat Smith in the Matrix, and to reprogram the Matrix at the end (what, you think that the 'Neo-Matrix' looking nicer is just a coincidence?)
In the fight scene we get:
- Bane/Smith making some good exposition about how much he, the machine, still hates humans and "living in the flesh". It is clear that Smith really is Neo's antithesis -- he will never want "peace", neither with the humans nor with the other machines.
- Bane/Smith blinds Neo physically...
-
The fight takes Neo's physical sight. That is the final link to his gnosis -- he is now totally cut off from 'seeing' the world of illusion, he sees the world as energy and knows how to manipulate that energy.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
It's November 5th, and here in Pennsylvania it's thundering and lightening outside...
I guess God just saw Revolutions....
downloadMatrix_Revolutions_Screener_XViD.dat
The dialog at the end with Agent Smith was great. Best part of the movie, IMHO.
Lessee...
"Kick punch *fly around* punch punch"
"Spin-kick punch kick *fly around* kick"
Its like Shakespear man!
You can't take the sky from me...
Aside from missing most of the action scenes (stop bloody using strobes everywhere people! Not cool for some of us!), I really enjoyed Revolutions.
All time great, wonderful movie? No.
Best acting I've ever seen? Nope.
Some Really Bad Science? Certainly.
Fun, action filled adventure with a bit of tension, a bit of fun philosophy, and some over the top in a fun kind of way special effects? Sure.
But then, I thought similarly about the first one.
- Muggins the Mad
Have people realised why the sequals were so bad? It's because they lacked what made the first film so appealing - Geeky hacker types suddenly given the ability to KICK ARSE!!!! It's what all the geeky target audience dream of, and zion seemed a particularly un-geeky place (note the lack of tron posters). And why may I ask is the saviour of humankind played by the most robotic actor out there?
Zion itself isn't all that beaten up - the Dock is toast, but as for getting in and out, someone bored a nice access shaft right down to the city. If you've got peace with the machines it shouldn't be too hard to put in a freakin elevator. Or just pour some of that horrible slime food down it...
In July O7, I got a mac pro. There's no punchline. Just endless joy and wonder.
What will happen, imho, is that W brothers will realize how much they sucked, so they will make a cheesy reasons something like "that movie was actually MAtrixes" fake version and blah blah blah and try to fix it in the 4th one, and give fans what they want. Then they will be hailed as the best movie writers ever, with people praising their VISION and how they "fooled" us and how trully smart they are. and etc etc..when in reality they just blew the 3rd ones ending to kingdom come (pun). You just watch there will be 4~
http://tinyurl.com/ttr4
Everything which has
a beginning has an end,
believe it or not.
I'll prob'ly revise it when I can think of something better. One of my best haiku was for Kill Bill:
Fallen flower drifts
down river red with rivals'
freely flowing blood.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Good bits: ~Lessened pseudo-philosophical claptrap emphasis. ~CONSIDERABLY lessened bullet-time emphasis. ~Ace water fight scene - it's great to see such high-octane kicking-people-through-buildings action outside of Dragonball Z for the first time. And done rather better than DBZ come to that. No fireballs, but genuine tension and great moves. Excellent use of flight and zero-gee. ~Zion invasion scene was very cool to begin with. Especially liked the squids skittering across the walls. ~Mech-robo-suit things = cool, but needed windscreens. ~Sentinel swarming effect just makes you shiver, very nice. Bad bits: ~Disgraceful dialogue/acting during the first fifteen minutes, by everybody. Neo, the Asian trio, everybody. Lucas-esque dialogue stunk. This was slightly present throughout the movie but less noticeable later on. ~There is only one person in the entire universe who calls Neo "Mister Anderson" and Neo takes roughly fifteen minutes to recognise him, the dimwit. ~Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph look hilarious while chasing the long-haired dude. Watch out for it. These guys are supposed to have superhuman speed and strength in the Matrix, so why do they jog along a la Scooby Doo? ~First 25 minutes concerning Merovingian & subway were completely extraneous. ~Zion invasion scene went on slightly too long. Those two girls take AEONS to reload their bazooka. ~Buried Christianity references are fun for those who like to find them. SEETHINGLY OVERT Christianity references are not. Everything that has a beginning has an end. I can only assume this extends to peaceful man/machine coexistence.
qntm.org
i just came back from the 20:30 imax showing in berlin. apart from the fact that i was in row k (for those who don't know this theatre, row k equates to "too damn close"), i had a good time and liked the movie.
now i have to admit that before even the second movie came out, i had set aside all prejudice and decided that topping the first movie would be an impossible proposition, especially given the epic speech at the end. if the second (or the third) movie had followed the recipe, it would have been dreadfully boring.
and i have to admit that i was watching with ulteriour motives. i work for mental images, and work on mental ray, the renderer used for the majority of the special effects in the movie, and i was just damn excited to see what esc and buf (and some other talented companies) had done with our software. so in a sense, those guys could do no wrong, as long as it looked good.
and it looked damn good. apart from a couple of scenes near the middle which were so wishy-washy and obviously done with pixar's prman (around the time of the swarms of the sentinels which knocked over the crane), but hey, the rest was sharp and beautiful, and very mental ray (hey, that rhymes!).
but seriously, the plot was thin on the ground, and the holes were large, and the unanswered questions many, and the philosophy was nearly totally absent. i don't know if anyone else out there likes writing, but i think at some point i might have some fun trying to write some short stories which tie up the loose stuff better than the movies did.
but the action was fun, fast and furious. and it was a gorgeous sight. as they say, two out of three ain't bad. they were sequels after all. and i will wait for the director's cut dvd box set, with all the extra material, and then i will watch it again and again for all those little clues that i can never see the first (or the second) time around.
it just depends what you were after...
Ok throughout the whole movie I was saying WTF? And this is why it is, and why the matrix really will become a reality. Before I begin, let me define what the matrix really is: var x x == 1 do { matrix } while x == 1 My code may be a little off, but you get the idea. A possibility for this though is to allow the Matrix MMORPG to thrive. I already got done ranting about why the movie sucked with my friends and am a bit out of steam so here's why the matrix will really happen. As his dying wish, Bill Gates will have the first AI created, a subroutine of this AI will be to ultimately create the Matrix. Like all code from the company, it will be full of holes, hence the movie's plot. Also, eventually people will find buffer-underrun errors in this supposable "unhackable and secure program called Windows MtrX!" This is how they find out the Matrix exists and free people's minds. Now all they need to do is find a buffer-overflow to get rid of the damn thing. Neo's hacking skillz must have sucked, for he failed at the buffer-overflow.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
No, it's mostly become one thing... crap.
Unfortunately they made the same mistake that Highlander did (besides the crapulent US edit). The initial movies neatly walked the line between the mundane and mythical world and as a result made the mythic tangible. The sequals are pedestrian C grade fantasy pieces that rely on SFX and "action". The sequels are not only bad, they manage to detract from the original film. Matrix is the Highlander all over again.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I apologize for the double post, I am still not used to slashdot's posting methods, even though I've been on here for a while.
Ok throughout the whole movie I was saying WTF? And this is why it is, and why the matrix really will become a reality.
Before I begin, let me define what the matrix really is:
var x x == 1 do { matrix } while x == 1
My code may be a little off, but you get the idea. A possibility for this though is to allow the Matrix MMORPG to thrive. I already got done ranting about why the movie sucked with my friends and am a bit out of steam so here's why the matrix will really happen.
As his dying wish, Bill Gates will have the first AI created, a subroutine of this AI will be to ultimately create the Matrix. Like all code from the company, it will be full of holes, hence the movie's plot. Also, eventually people will find buffer-underrun errors in this supposable "unhackable and secure program called Windows MtrX!" This is how they find out the Matrix exists and free people's minds. Now all they need to do is find a buffer-overflow to get rid of the damn thing. Neo's hacking skillz must have sucked, for he failed at the buffer-overflow.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
from now on remind me to do stuff in plain text instead of HTML formatted, because I obviously suck at it on /.
var x
x == 1
do {
matrix
}
while x == 1
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
Or does this series get more childish with every sequel?
Jesus, people!!???!!
IT'S JUST A MOVIE FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENTERTAINMENT!!!! You are NOT supposed to walk away with a fucking degree!!
You are all fartheads.
> No humanity in the characters and dialogue. The movies just don't enjoy themselves. The first one had a mixture of humor and joy and was just having fun with what it could do. That's why things like the lobby scene kicked so much ass. It was like, "We've smashed the barriers of physics, now lets see what we can do with it!" And you had the fun human moments like the discussion during breakfast, the Cipher character, and so on. Neo was just a normal computer programmer who discovered the world around him wasn't real. More importantly, the movie was FUN.
One of the reasons I enjoy watching "Farscape" reruns.
The series mostly manages to find a delicate balance between serious ideas and tongue-in-cheek presentation. And not having somebody else's regurgitated ideas of morals and ethics shoved down your throat (die ST:Voyager, die!) also does wonders to the fun factor.
It's been pointed out many times before, but worth repeating: the whole boneheaded "Humans as batteries" idea was the weakest link (perhaps the only weak link) in the first movie.
I was hoping this would turn out to be a misunderstanding about the term "power" on the part of Morpheus and others, and that humans were actually being used as CPUs to "power" the Matrix.
Running Linux as a massive Beowulf cluster, of course.
Zngevk, jung Zngevk? V gubhtug vg jnf Wrfhf Puevfg Fhcrefgne!
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
I went one better, and read the BBC review before I went to see it, so I was expecting it to be a piece of utter crap before it started.
;).
I reckon it's a good couple of hours entertainment. No, it doesn't stand up to the first one, and no, I wouldn't pay to see it again, but I would say it's worth 2 beers, if only to see Morpheus come out of the closet, and Trinity in the bikini (just kidding
Like the parent says, if you forget about the first film and the hype, it's not too bad.
Warning: May contain nuts
They won't have to worry about online piracy. Hollywood already knows how to defeat piracy of movies and they are currently practising it by producing shite.
:)
Anways, I'm not reading this thread until I've seen it
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Besides stealing from many other sci fi films, does anyone see the BLATANT similarities between NEO's "condition" and that of the ONE major charater in Dune?
I really liked these films. I think they are very intelligently made. The biggest let down for me was in the many Smiths fight scenen in Reloaded. They just looked like lots of guys with rubber masks on.
You can get it and not like it. You can not like it and not get it. (and other permutations) I won't pretend to get it nor that there is anything to get. I just think they are very intelligently made and anyone who goes along just for the kick ass fights is missing out a lot on life. That whole thing that is called thinking.
This film kept me immersed. I looked around once in the film at the audience and was startled to discover I was in a place with hundreds of others.
Most of the gripes I hear are along the lines or it doesn't say this, OR why did they have to include that OR religous metaphor pah!"
News for those people: There is nothing uniquely new. What we are builds on what there is and what we know.
So shut up and let it just be a film
All these questions will be answered in the Matrix Prequels in 2007. Stay tuned! Incidentally, might I interest you in another bag of popcorn?
P.S. If we all were actually unknowingly trapped in virtual reality right now, it wouldn't do to have a movie about that subject make too much sense, would it?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
are you really that sad. please reread what you wrote and tell me you are not a sad computa geek.
are you really that sad. please reread what you wrote and tell me you are not a sad computa geek.
:'(
I am a sad "computa" geek.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
If you are so disappointed in the movie - in the last 2 movies - just put them down like you would a book you don't want to keep reading. Don't come here and wretch and moan like the filmmakers have failed you. I'm sorry, but this is just getting retarded. It's a movie, stretched beyond any semblence of plot, containing average to above-average actors, nothing more. It's nothing to get all nuts about. You might want to start by turning off your television. You'd be surprised how your entire world changes as soon as you do it. Amazingly enough, you stop caring about shit like this - you look at it in the same light you would look at anything unimportant. I strongly recommend you all give it a try for once.
What we needed was bruce wilis as the TWO, not ONE.
;-) hhehe
I am just waiting for any comedy spinoffs, like a James Brookes film, or an Austin Powers May Tricks version
But seriously, the real reason for a matrix is stupid, so why bother fighting, just live in it. But hey, if I was in a matrix and got given a $10m mansion and $10m in cash, I would have a lot of fun.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Well, your code is of because it contains a bug: the first "x == 1" should be an assignment, but it's actually a comparison. It would fail in compilation.
If your code is Pascal (my guess) then correct that line to read
x:=1
Sigged!
If he lived what would he do?
.com startup?
Write a book?
Do a talk show?
Become govenor?
Start a
Become a comedian?
Retire and do cocain/drugs/heroin and sleep with dirty hoes.
Work for MS in a cubical?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
In fact when Agent Smith has Neo down and then, against his will, makes the exact same statement that the Oracle had made earlier, Neo gets it. He understands that he is to merge with Agent Smith/Oracle thus bringing an end to her fight with the Architect. The problem most people are having is assuming an anthrocentric take on the movie. The humans are lost, they are batteries, Zion cannot prevail and will never do so. The people who make up Zion (pod escapees) are only useful as a consequence of the imperfection necessary in the Matrix program to keep the pod people happy. As the Arhitect said it was a dangerous game the Oracle had played.
Fucking brilliant.
No but a girl squeezes another girls nipple at club hell.
If you were paying close attention, you might have seen that the Orcale was wearing earings with the Yin/Yang symbol. That alone explains the whole movie. It's all about opposites. Machines vs Man, Neo vs Smith, the Orcale vs the Arcitech. The machines and man always fought for control but neither one had full control and this represents the Yin/Yang symbol in that both dip into each other but one never succumbs to the other. Neo and Smith reached harmony when Neo let Smith take over his body. This made the two opposite forces cancel each other out. To really show the influence of Daoism in Revolutions, Yin is considered feminine and black and the Oracle is a black woman. The Yang is masculine and is white and the Architect was a white man. Their constant struggle between chaos and order kept the Matrix together. Neo's power to stop machines in the real world was actually Ch'i and "the source" mentioned is the Dao itself. Neo and Trinity both must die because like Smith said "everything has an end" and is the way of the Dao.
Heck, after 6+ hours it turns out that Neo was just an anti-virus program (a human program nonetheless). Anyways, if the Architect had used Linus as an OS instead of some crappy Windows 2500 OS, maybe the movie would never have happened. It is all about choices. The choice the architect made in selecting the OS.
Or if it's a book I skip to the ending.
Seriously. I use to be the way you are.. but I find it much more satisifing, if I'm seeing a movie or book going a way I don't like it to simply find a quick fix solution to resovolling "what happened"
I usualy find out "what happend" is what I was expecting and that it was the garbage I thought it was.
I feel a lot better for not having wasted my time.
A BOOK is what is needed, if anything. Throughout the movie there is cleary WAY to much information for people to understand. If we were to disect the LOTR movies the same way we do The Matrix movies then we would have, and actually HAVE found many faults and holes in the plot. But LOTR is a book. Matrix isn't (yet?!?)
Agreed.
For those unfamiliar with Equilibrium, consider it an updated version of Farenheit 451 in terms of plot and characters, with action sequences drawn from The Matrix. It's currently available on DVD.
It didn't strike me till this third movie that this was just a modernized version of Tron.
A lot was altered but overall had much of the same concepts.
Did Neo really die in this one? it wasn't clear, and how did the machine know what was really going on?
With agent smith essentilay taking over all man kind how would this effect the power output for the machine city? I would think that power output would be it's only concern...
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Revolvolution?
Okay, the movie was cool... the story line ran together flawlessly, and if you've seen the animatrix then it makes even more sense. But Im slightly disappointed in the ending... from what it seems they're back at "Matrix" again. Zion is mostly destroyed.The "one" is dead(apperently) and the oracle says to the arcitecht that the people will now be free to leave, they will have the choice... But in the second movie, the architech said they've done this 5 times before... So, does that mean that as usual, they make the agreement, the same things happen, and they just reset the matrix like they did at the end of this one and everything goes back to normal? Ya, probably... but I really want to know why neo was able to see outside the matrix even though he no longer has eyes... what the hell :P they never explained it.
No, I disagree. It's a funny post, but I don't think it's a good troll. My opinion of a troll is a statement that isn't obviously stupid, but just as stupid as you'd expect from a certain type of character frequenting slashdot.
The greatest form of mockery is that which those who you are mocking will hold up as a prime example of their true feelings/ideas. That, to me, is a good troll.
What makes slashdot so interesting, is one can never tell if certain posts are trolls or people who really believe what they are saying. I guess that's why people like the parent poster think of a good troll as something incredibly stupid, because it has to be a troll.
I suppose there must be something wrong with me, because I like ambiguous humor.
-------
Incite and flee.
What is the significance of MOBIL AVE ?
This was written all over the walls at the the train station... any ideas?
- Slew -
That is an insightful discussion, but I would add that the Merovingian's three-minute discussion of causality was horrendous.
If one really wants to blow one's mind thinking about causation, one should read Hume's _Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding_.
A worthy end to the story, but could've been even better if it was twenty minutes shorter.
Thanks for making it sound soooo bad!
I actually kinda enjoyed it. I just gave up on any idea that there was some deaper meaning and it turned out it was a fairly cool action flick.
Deep meanings? Ying/Yang was the meaning i think was the basic point of the last 2 movies. I mean the question IS, is this better or worse then total recall (umm... equal)? How bout T2? (worse) How bout eraser man (better).
There you go.
they had it made in India to save money. That explains everything that happens in the movie.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
Surrendering to win is also something that's echoed a bit in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, where to control something you must sometimes submit to it (particularly for women controlling the female power saidar, and for women controlling men (specifically Moiraine on Rand))
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Not that anyone will read this. Sometimes you need a lame sequel to realize how lame the whole thing was.
I liked the first movie until the detour into martial arts. The bit where Neo gets the cell phone package was cool. The lameness started to increase rapidly however. The whole karate motif was clearly grafted on to create neat visuals, and can't be supported logically. And the agents - it makes sense that the Matrix would have scripts (personify them if you must) scanning for and killing "bad" processes. Lots of web hosts do that - kill any process running too long or consuming too much resource. It makes no sense that these scripts would be limited by any of the rules that apply to "people" in the Matrix. If this were real, the agents would be invisible, would not need to travel from place to place, and would kill by simply deleting. But in order to drag this film down to the action-movie level, we have to have guys with dark glasses and big guns running around.
So I emerged from the first movie with mixed feelings. The second movie was much simpler - it just flat out sucked. That got me thinking that the good parts in the first movie were pretty small. Apparently the third sucks even worse.
And reading the fans quarrel over the fine points of Matrix philosophy and universe is embarassing. It's not embarassing to argue like that over Tolkien, because he really put some thought into his works. But this batch of movies is so obviously thrown together with little thought that it's incongruous to debate the half-baked details.
Darth Vader is Luke's father! bawahaha! Oh wait....
I've been sayign that for months. I Don't care now if no one else gets it. I LOVE IT. IT SPEAKS TO ME. screw the stupid people let them it starwars cake!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Evidently, as supposed direct descendents of Jesus Christ, the Merovingians are the focus of a lot of lore.
However, googling around, I found this site that may shed some light on the whole Matrix mythology, for anyone bothering to take the time to read it and to dismiss the evangelical tone. Hint: think messiahs, controlling races, and battles between kingdoms for world dominance.
The magic of The Matrix was truely that it made us contemplate; the magic of the sequels may end up being realized as their forcing us to associate and interpolate seemingly disparate ideas.
Whether poor CGI dependant successors to the original film or not, the sequels have all (and perhaps a more diverse collection) of the allegorical links to philosophy, religion and ethics of the original. I think most complaints about the loss of the philosophical undertones can be answered by saying, more is dependant upon the knowledge you bring with you. The philosophy just is not as recognizable or blatant as the Cartesian Dualism (body and mind for the philosophicaly impaired) which practically effervesces from every pair of sunglasses, double-kick, and "Whoa" in the original.
Don't dismiss the movies if you are feeling let down, instead consider the possibility that there has been a metatheatrical aspect to all of the movies, wheter intentional or not, the W's have created in Neo a fictional Christ figure with the potential to reinvigorate philosophical ponderings in the real world.
Now that surely is a success.
This is probably too late of a post for most of you to read, but I will share my friends' and I's thoughts of this "powers even outside the matrix":
He doesn't have real powers, all he can do is "See" machines when he's blind, and kill machines. This is because the oracle uploaded some of her powers in him apparently. The same way agent smith gets put into a human, Neo now has part of the matrix in him. He is a part of the matrix. The machines communicate with each other, and he can communicate with them as well, causing the sentinels to explode as they attack him. He has ports in him, maybe he has a communication device, who knows.
The ending was really good I thought. The love of his life died, Agent Smith clearly points out he's not fighting for love, so he decides to fulfill his destiny and bring peace to the war of the machines and humans.
uhm are you retarded? this movie was a total waste of time.
Why would you design the defense for THE city without a simple EMP weapon as ultimate defense? Every ship has one!
I believe the Matrix is largely incomprehensible unless one has at least a reasonable familiarity with S0ren Kierkegaard ("SK") and crisis theology. In fact, I'd argue that the series narrows down from its expansive view of philosophy in the first two movies to, in both the EtM video game and M:Rv, a tight focus on Kierkegaard's conception of freedom as radical choice. By contrast, M:Rld went all over the philosophical map, my favorite example being that the Zion council seems to be populated entirely by Jamesian Pragmatists (including Cornel West, whose most interesting work was a sustained discussion of American Pragmatism).
Just a few Kierkegaardian references in the Matrix:
- In EtM (which crystallized my understanding of TM as Kierkegaardian), Ghost quotes SK on faith and absurdity. In the game, the tripartite crew of Sparks, Niobe, and Ghost are almost certainly representative of SK's view of human life as aesthetic, ethical and religious, respectively. (The three Demiurges -- the Merovingian, Architect, and Oracle -- seem to recapitulate this schematic.)
- The Christ parallel in Neo is so blatant as to hardly be worth mentioning, but his death deserves some observations: he died to redeem Man (and Machine), since Trinity's death precluded his doing it out of love for any one individual; his death redeemed M&M from Smith (who seems, amongst many other things, to represent Original Sin, being the ultimate descendent from the war between M&M); his death also freed the condemned from hell (when the Architect agrees to release programs and persons who wish to leave the Matrix).
- When Neo dies, the machine-ruler says, "It is done." This is the same thing Christ says in John 19:30 (and is also used two more times in the Bible -- after the world is created in Genesis, and after it is destroyed in the Revelation). Smith is then rescinded from the world, the Matrix is created anew, and peace descends upon Zion. Apart from begging the infralapsarian question, this reinforces the idea of Neo as propitiation (as many Christians see Christ dying to expiate the sins of Man). I'm a bit uneasy with this part because Neo is shown as bargaining for salvation -- something that is completely incoherent in most versions of Christianity, and more importantly, within Kierkegaard. At the same time, I have to wonder what happens to Neo at this point. In John, Christ says, "It is done," then commends his soul to God. Does this imply that Neo has joined with the machine-ruler? Is one of the reasons peace descends because Neo has joined the machine-consciousness and broken the old covenant of slavery? Is he a mediator between man and machine (viz 1 Tim. 2:5-6)?
- The Trainman is deeply concerned with time: when we meet him in EtM, he tells Niobe how many hours Zion can be expected to last against the machine onslaught. ("72 hours. That's exactly how long Zion lasted last time.") In M:Rv, he is obsessed with punctuality, and has an intimate connection with time, shown by the many watches he wears on his wrist and his intimate knowledge of train schedules. This emphasis on time seems designed to evoke SK's discussion of time in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript, in which he directly discusses the entrance of eternity into time. (The Oracle's line in EtM, "The path of the One is made by the many," echoes SK's assertion that the many discrete points of temporality create the possibility of eternity.)
- Kierkegaard's doctrine of radical choice permeates the script, culminating in the Smith v. Neo showdown. I suspect that Smith is meant to represent (amongst many things!) existentialism, just as the Age
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
I watched it in silicon valley, home of many hardcore matrix fans. All you need to know is that the audience in my theater was laughing during scenes that weren't supposed to be funny. The dialog was drawn out and awkward. Here are some of the worst lines:
A: you did it!
(long pause)
B: no...... (long pause)..... *WE* did it.
A: it's impossible!
(long pause)
B: no...... (long pause)..... it's *INEVITABLE*.
This movie kicked the ass out of the second one! Yeah, the end was quasi religious/mystical, but heck, he is "the one", both in the Matrix AND the real world. What else can the cross-like flare of light and his arms akimbo mean? Dare I say the second coming? He gives his life to take the sin (in the form of Agent Smith) from everyone on earth, just like J.C.
It's the only ending they could have put on it!
The action surpassed anything in the first two! The effects also! The is visionary filmmaking, and if you can't see that then you don't deserve to get something this interesting. Guess you should just go campout for Star Wars Episode 3 to get an early jump on you lifetime boredom quota.
You must live in your own Matrix if you think liking the Matrix makes you an intellectual, and those who don't like it are stupid masses of sheep.
- sigs are for wimps.
Is it just me, or am I the only one that does care to see Trinity naked... (shudder at the thought). People, she is not a babe in the slightest!
Meh.
For those that don't know the difference, *Naked* is when one isn't wearing any clothing, whereas *Nekkid* is when one isn't wearing any clothing *and* is up to something.
Just thought I'd clear that up.
What a sad life I've got.
If you look carefully during the opening title sequence, there is a mandelbrot image nested in the middle of the tightest "zoom", just before the camera pulls back to resolve the open. I think that this small visual clue sums up the point of this movie. There is no one level of reality, just higher and lower dimensions of perception/existence. The matrix within a matrix explanation was a close attempt at grasping the meaning, but missed the bigger point: There is no matrix, no matrix within a matrix, nor a matrix within a matrix within a matrix. Each succesive level of "reality" posesses a balance between the influence of the Architect and the Oracle. The oracle presides over two "sons" one good and one bad. At times, evil prevails over good (the machines win), and in this case good wins (the humans). The chaos that results from the strugle betweeen the two actually gives rise to a new order -- Here a new level of existence that is based in light. The child is neither human nor machine, but the first entity of this new level of existence. As with each preceding level of existence, this one too will remain a paradise until such time where good gains the upper hand or evil does. Again setting the struggle that will lead to further growth (without end), or stagnation and ruin. The Oracle and the Architect are in a sense the Yin and the Yang of the Universe, manifesting themselves and their own continual push and pull through different realities. Each with its own variables, and each with its predictable but not entirely certain outcomes. One last thought before I pass out from exhaustion: At the end of the movie, there is no longer a matrix, there is no longer a machine world, and in a sense the Architect was correct in what he told Neo in Reloaded. When he agrees to set free those who want to be free, he is not refering to the humans that were plugged into the Matrix. He is referring to the entities that will in time choose to reject the reality of this newly constructed level of existence. Again, starting the cycle over and over and over.
The answers to the big questions that you're left with after the 2nd movie are glossed over in literally one or two sentences. "oh ummm there's some magic mumbo jumbo 802.11b wireless brain chip or something, and the French guy has some magic subway train. There's your explanation, on to the hour-long action sequence!!"
/. you aren't very smart.
Oh, and the hour-long action sequence we got!
That had to be the absolute worst battle sequence I've seen in those movies my brain has allowed me to remember.
And if you don't want more spoilers than that, don't read on. But if you don't want spoilers and are reading this on
The entire horrible problem with that insipid scene can be summed up thusly: There were too fucking many squids and the humans didn't die.
Of course I'm long winded and irritated at the recent pain.
The scene should have been at most a minute long. Drill drops through. Squids come through, and are temporarily held back by the concentrated gunfire of the defenses. Some eventually break through forcing the humans to spread their fire, allowing more to come through. Eventually there's a massive swarm, an opaque cloud streaming from the hole and gathering around the ceiling. This all takes about 50 seconds.
Now, in the good version of the movie -- this titanic swarm in which you can barely distinguish individual squids -- spreads out, swoops down, and fucking envelopes the human army. Within moments, every last defender in the docks has been disemboweled. Giving the humans the benefit of the doubt, this takes about ten seconds.
Geek note: You can see the squids fighting this way in Second Renaissance in the Animatrix, and it looks viciously effective against infantry. It takes them a bit longer to cut through actual armor like the humans had in the short, but is still deadly. So in the good version of the movie, give the humans thirty seconds.
But instead the squids start flying around in tightly packed tubules of squids, like gigantic robotic recreations of The Abyss. And I mean flying around not attacking. I just feel I should emphasize that. Because they're flying in huge thick clouds, they're impossible to miss. So they're taking gigantic losses while just flitting around, and this is what they spend most of the godly interminable scene doing. Eventually the squid in the front of this tremendous mass will see a human looking at him funny, and will attack head-on bringing all ten thousand of his buddies behind him. The human will fire at the front of the squid-stream with their high-velocity high-rpm weaponry that goes right through the squids killing masses until one chickens out and pulls off. Repeat for way too god damn long.
Sometimes a squid will break off and flit about on its own. These are the only ones that manage to kill anyone, mostly from surprise. But even they mostly just fly around. Even when the big drill got a leg blown up, only a squid or two decides to notice that someone is firing rockets at it.
Which reminds me: Before the battle, the commander guy keeps talking about how important it is to target the bores so they can't dig through into the city. So when the tip of the drill emerges through the roof of the dock, I'm loudly thinking That's the bore's bit! That's what you want to destroy! Shoot it! But the humans just sit there until squids start pouring out.
So at least partially due to their own stupidity, the humans lose anyway. There's just too many squids. Which is the problem. Whether for rendering reasons or because it was the only way to make the scene longer than two seconds the result is the same: The squids end up with AI that is a cross between Galaga and Centipede, only not as smart.
Cut down the squids a lot. They said two hundred thousand or whatever, but it's okay to lie when you only bother to put in twenty humans. Make them (sq
The enemies of Democracy are
Trinity's last scene was overdone to precisely that degree.
I play Nerd-Folk!
possibly the worst movie ever made.
They delivered, I'm happy.
-m
Has a bit on Karma concept added in to justify calling Matrix a all-culture-encompassing!
There was a hither-thither 'Jesus' to please religious people in case they thought Matrix was anti-God and protest.
Movie ends in a incomprehensible singing of:
Asto Ma Satgamya
Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya
Mrityo Ma Amrutamgamaya
From untuth lead us to truth,
from darkness lead us to light,
fom death lead us to immotality
I really liked the movie, much more than Reloaded (but not quite as much as the first one). Part of what I liked so much about it was that it didn't follow the formula I had already laid out in my head - that of Zion being inside a second matrix. It was so obvious I think they were playing with us on that point, and it really relieved me that it was not the case.
But I think you are right, in that many people seem dissatisfied with Neo having the abilities he does without the comfort of the easy-to-understand solution of a second matrix.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well,
I think with the number of posts now, everyone has pretty much said it all. Me, being me, might as well put my 2 cents worth in. :)
If you go to the movie with a semi-opened mind (the unopen part being the part you keep the other two movies playing through your mind), things pretty much tie together. Without giving anything away, there were some definate highlights, some definate blatant ripoffs of other films and cartoons (you'll know when you see it), and some obvious study (however superficial) of different cultures and some creatures in nature which went into the film. All in all I say it was pretty good, not as good as the first, then again, it wasn't meant to be. All three movies are three different parts to one large movie/mini-series. It's the same direction the Lord of the Rings has gone and was always meant to go. One thing I have to say about the whole thing, I hope they let sleeping dogs lie and don't try to bring a fourth movie, it will ruin the trilogy in so many ways for so many people.
CliffH
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
No, she doesn't. But let's just say the Twins from Reloaded has been replaced by another set of...umm...twins.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
In the Matrix of the first movie, the machines CONTROLLED the matrix.
After Revolutions, the machines OPERATE the matrix. Nothing more. People AND PROGRAMS may come or leave as they wish, in other words a being does not need a purpose to exist.
I think the Architect was striving to prevent just such a situation almost more because of machine choice than human choice, which he believes is almost non-existant anyway.
The Oracle managed to find a balancing solution to the equations of the Architect that involved freeing the machines and the humans altogether. Which is of course why she was a black female, symbolic of the two groups most historically repressed....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First off too many people were contaminated by the first movie. Too much time passed and their beliefs became too entrenched. Each person has their own ideas, theories, and explanations of what happens in prior films to be explained their way in the later films. The Matrix movies are about questions, not answers. You have to think and provide your own answers. It's all about interpretation.
Personally I must say I really enjoy this last movie. I wasn't expecting anything, my mind was open to this movie.
My interpretation. It's a completely different story verses the first or second. As someone else pointed out the first was a movie about discovery. The second was action and exploration. The third was the rebirth of civilization and the matrix.
What is real? It is clearly implied through Neo's new abilities and vision in the "real world" that it isn't real either. Wheather it's another layer to the matrix or something more spiritual; i.e. the real world is a matrix under the control of a higher power is left to each individual to choose what they want to believe. I personally think it's another level of the matrix the AI's are conscious or unconscious of. Planes of reality one can assend. A matrix within a matrix helps me to better accept how being hurt or killed in a simlation can affect the body.
The idea that Neo somehow has hidden transmitters in his body is preposterous. They would have long discovered them while they were rebuilding his body in the first film. They would also have been able to detect them while he was in an aparent coma in the third film; the ship was built as transmitter and reciever as well as sensor packages to detect Calimari. Last Neo's transmitter would get fried in an EMP blast on top of it being especially susceptable a blast with it being a reciever.
I don't understand how others can't understand how it could be possible for agent Smith to download himself into a human brain.
Some people have trouble with it because only people have "souls". What is exactly is intellegence, sentience, and the soul? That's one of the questions in the matrix. The soul is that that quality which allows free will, i.e. choice. Agent smith has a soul. He is bad/evil man because he makes bad/evil choices.
Other people have trouble with it because they can't accept that their personal computer, no matter how powerful, could do what the human brain does, whatever it does. I say the inverted question also applies: Is a human brain powerful enough to run an AI? Are the "programs" exactly compatable with how a human brain works? It doesn't have to be for agent smith to program a simulation of himself in a human mind. The hardware is different so going either way their may be compromises but still be basicly be the same "soul". Smith has newfound abilities to REPROGRAM; why can't he reprogram a human mind into something analogous to himself? In other words it technically doesn't necessarily have to be exactly himself, so long as it acts with the same motivation and makes the same sort of choices. Incidently Smith gained the ability to reprogram from Neo when Neo merged with him in the first film.
As far as uning people as batteries, that's the toughest to explain. My latest theory is that the new form of fusion proposed in the first movie produces chemically stored energy. A human brain unlike other species burns a lot of calories to do what it does; more than half the calories a human needs to consume is burned in the brain. Humanbeings beings would have been the largest population of any animal stock available to convert chemical energy. An inactive brain produces less energy so hence the reason for the matrix to keep minds occupied. But why can't they burn/convert the chemical energy another way? Somehow it has to be more efficient for a biological body to do it than burning. Internal combustion engines and such need servicing. Maybe machines have concluded that maintaining human body crops which heal and self replica
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You see all of those skeptics and disheartened fans need to pay more attention. The problem is choice. You choose to think the movie sucked or is incomplete or whatever. The point is you cannot see the movie is good because you choose not to. Before you even saw the movie you knew you weren't going to like it because you had made the choice. The whole point of it all is choice. They chose to end it when and how they did you chose to interpret how you did, and in the end it all comes back to that little problem of choice; the red or the blue.
Get me a meat pie floater!
Zion is a program, just like the Matrix. How is Neo able to figure out that he
is able to stop the sentinels in Zion near the end of the film? The spoon given
to him earlier. It had obviously been bent loads, but how outside the Matrix??
This gave Neo the inspiration and the understanding that Zion is still a matrix.
The One explained
"The One" is a program, but has to be "attached" to someone in the Matrix. So
Mr. Anderson got it in the 6th version of the Matrix. Then "The One" program's
purpose is to allow Zion to be destroyed then to rebuild it. The reason for this
is because of anomalies - the 1% of humans that don't accept the Matrix. These
are all brought out of the Matrix program and into the Zion program by the
"Morpheus" program and other similar "ship captain" programs. Then once all the
anomalies are out of the Matrix (and in Zion), that is the time for Zion to be
destroyed, thus killing all the anomalies off. The Matrix is then upgraded, thus
creating the next version of the Matrix, but Zion must be rebuilt so that the
next lot of anomalies can be brought out again so that they can be destroyed.
This is the feedback-loop, and is the reason to retain a handful of people so
that Zion can be rebuilt. So this is why Neo said the prophecy was a lie - the
One's purpose was not to end the war as the !
prophecy stated.
Unfortunately, "The One" program must be re-used each time, or copied, so it can
be "attached" to a new anomaly inside the Matrix. So what happens to the old
"The One" program? It faces deletion, and as the Oracle explained, it goes into
exile instead, just like the French bloke (the Merovingian) did. He was the
first One (probably from the second version of the Matrix), and once he
fulfilled his duty, he became an exile program and "abdicated" his "Oneness" by
choosing Persephone and power. This is evident in the bogs when Persephone asks
Neo to kiss her. She says she wants him to kiss her so she can feel what it is
like again to be kissed by something close to human, just like the Merovingian
used to be. Then she says to Trinity that she envies her, but that these things
are not meant to last. So the Merovingian used to be just like Neo - a One -
thus proving further the feedback-loop explained earlier.
The correct door in the Architect's room
Now there are two possibilities here:
1. All the previous One's chose the right door allowing a "temporary
dissemination" of their code into the Matrix (i.e., the code they "carry" thus
indicating Neo is indeed human), then he must select (unplug) 23 people from the
Matrix to rebuild Zion. This takes away the possibility that stories from
previous rebuilds of Zion will be carried through. But Morpheus indicated in the
first Matrix that this is the case anyway. He said, "there was a man born
inside, able to change things, it was he who freed the first of us," - basically
the One previous to Neo. And this proves that the previous One chose the right
door also. Neo's purpose is also to choose the right door, but he does not
because he faces deletion afterwards and has the choice of going into exile -
programs choosing to go into exile is the one thing that can't be accounted for
in program parameters. Thus, he chooses the left
door instead this time. How was Neo able to choose the other door? Because of
his extreme willpower? - Even the Architect
indicated that he'd noticed this - "Interesting. That was quicker than the
others." Or more likely, because the Oracle upgraded his coding with the candy
on the park bench. The candy/cookie was a method to change the One's program.
She said he has made a believer out of her - this is quite human-like and
perhaps the previous One's didn't accept the upgrade candy, now she has hope...
hope that Neo will finally choose the other door.
2. All the previous One's chose the left door, saving Trinity and letting Zion
fall. So this time is no diff
*speechless, and tired*
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Excellent. So...is Neo dead?
All you need to know about the quality of this movie is summed up in the following sentence - "This film would have been better with more Keanu Reeves."
Or as one reviewer suggested, at least protect the Mech's pilot with some sort of shield.
The Wachowski brothers are devotees of something called the Landmark Forum, formerly called EST. The Landmark Forum was founded by the guy who co-founded Scientology with L. Ron Hubbard, and uses much of the same philosophy and tactics.
All of the Matrix blathering about pre-determined actions vs. choice, dreamlife in the Matrix vs. gritty reality in Zion, are all directly taken from Landmark's philosophy. The basic idea is that hidden rationalizations such as those that keep people complacent in the Matrix control our actions and really enslave us. It's only when you 'wake' people up to the reality that they're being controlled by their own rationalizations that they have the freedom to choose their direction. It's re-packaged zen buddhism with dashes of existentialism rolled up in a Scientology wrapper that only costs you half price if you act now.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
There's worse - The Haunting. Imagine giving a horror film remake to an action director. It'd be like having Steve 'Kung Pow' Odenderk direct The Matrix Revolutions. Which might actually not be such a bad idea.
Chosen Neo: 'Die, Evil Smith!' *tonguey shoots out and clobbers agent*
All: Badly Dubbed Cheers
Oh man. I really have to restrain myself. You are a master of irony, Augusto.
After seeing Matrix Revolutions, I can't help but to want to write a review of it, and more importantly, why I am disappointed with the end of the Matrix trilogy.
The Matrix, simply put, was a fantastic movie. Very innovative, great story, great action scenes, characters I at least somewhat cared about, good music...just an all around solid film. (Note: It did have one flaw, which was endemic to the very background of the story itself, that humans were used as "batteries" and "infinitely renewable energy source", which scientifically is just completely stupid...the machines could get more energy directly from the *food* they'd be feeding the humans to keep them alive).
I guess after that, I expected that The Matrix would be difficult to top in a sequel, but I expected at least something equaling it in quality...
People have lambasted Matrix Reloaded to hell and back, so I'm going to try not to go into that too much...simply put, I thought it was very good *for what is was*...I walked out of it, satisfied seeing more neat Matrix action, and having the background of the Matrix fleshed out a bit. I think people were expecting too much from this one...The mansion fight scene was fantastic. The burly brawl was fantastic. The chase scene was fantastic, with both the agents and the twins. The action all in all was just great across the board. (I could watch the one shot of Morpheous fighting the two twins for the first time in the garage and they keep popping out and into corporeality...it was just so beautiful and so amazing to watch.)
Reloaded did start to get a bit hokey though with the philosophical imagery and it did start to take things in an increasingly abstract direction, where as almost every single last thing in The Matrix was explained. The explanation of why Smith still wanted to kill Neo after "being freed" was weak. Some things were downright silly, like the matrix-pie-crotch scene (which still cracks me up). And I felt like every 20 seconds someone had to say "it's about choice"...if I had the "human choice" mantra slammed down my throat one more time in Reloaded, I felt like I was going to puke. Also, Reloaded re-iterated what could possibly be seen as a second mistake in the original movie: the hokey ending in which Trinity/Neo bring each other back through "their love". The Zion stuff was mostly just "eh"...and almost everyone I know hated the Zion scenes (which is especially problematic for some, since almost all of Revolutions takes place in Zion) and especially the rave scene (personally, I didn't mind seeing Carrie Anne Moss almost naked...hehe). That said, the explanation of many other things (like the "supernatural creatures" and the whole scene with the Architect) were very neat, and all in all, I left fairly satisfied -- although mostly from an action movie point of view.
Now we come to Revolutions. First, let me state what I *did* like about Revolutions...the dock/Zion fight scene WAS AWESOME. Just plain fantastic. Also, the scene near the beginning in which Seraph, Morpheus, and Trinity go to the Merovingian was great. And Monica Bellucci is the hottest woman alive.
Now for the stuff that wasn't...which was basically the whole rest of the plot and story of Revolutions...
- The opening "train station" stuff was just extraneous...personally, I didn't mind it too much, but I could see others really hating it...it didn't really add much of anything to the movie or story...
- When a story is left open-to-interpretation, with not every mystery explicitly solved, this can be a Very-Good-Thing(tm). For example, not knowing whether or not Decker in Bladerunner was a Replicant or not added a lot and provided a lot left to discussion for a long time to come. However, beyond a certain point, something is no longer just "open to interpretation", and just straight up plot holes. If Revolutions had left one or two things open...well, I'd be ok with that, but it left way too long of a list for that to occur...there were just so god
"I honestly have no idea who the Merovingian is, though it seems that he has something to do with bugs in the system"[...]
I suspect that the Merovingian is one of the previous Neos from a previous Matrix, with Persephone being his Trinity -- perhaps they were the first ones -- but are now computer constructs. That's why his henchmen from the first film are from an older Matrix; she wanted the kiss from Neo because to the W brothers a "real" kiss from a living lover is somehow quantifiably better to a computer simulation than one from a computer simulation of a loved one.
I'm sorry, you weren't paying enough attention. There was a test. It was the third movie.
* None of the questions in Reloaded are answered.
Wrong. Neo stops the sentinals because he brought part of the matrix back with him. Which is why he was able to be in the matrix while he was jacked out of the matrix. It's also why he was able to see things in the real world, even though he was blind. He could still see the world outside of the matrix like he saw the world while he was inside. But it was different. It wasn't code, but living energy. Smith entered Bane in the second movie. This was in fact explained in the first movie. Quote: "I thought you said it wasn't real!" "Your mind makes it real."
Guess what? It never comes!
Go back. Study it some more. You need to. You don't understand it yet. But don't worry, the first movie needed a few run throughs to truly grok it as well. It's that thick. Many of the answers you were looking for were actually in the second movie. And the first.
The focus is Zion.
That's because it must be. This is the Last Stand. This is Crunch Time. The final battle. Armageddon. And remember in the first movie that quote: "Most of these people aren't ready to be unplugged. They are so inured, so *dependent* on the system that they will *fight* to protect it." Not everyone wants freedom. Some of them prefer security. Steak dinners. Cigars. Not a big ol' bowl 'o snot for breakfast and doing nothing but taking orders. And at the end of the movie, it is clearly stated that those that wish to leave are free to go. Also, before the movie ends, the people of the Matrix are entirely taken over by Agent Smith, and as such are freed by his destruction.
No humanity in the characters and dialogue. The movies just don't enjoy themselves.
If the characters had been anything but completely focused on the battle that is the second and third movies, they would have lost the war. If there was any comic relief beyond what was already there ("Lipstick? There is no lipstick!" "She didn't leave it on your face!" and "But I can tell that every floor is wired with explosives." "Bad for us.") it would have been thoroughly Spielburged. This was a serious movie. The Matrix is a trilogy that will be studied in University English classes in a hundred years. (I'm sure that more than a few English majors will agree with me. My wife is one of them, and was careful to point out many of the finer points of the writing, including how the second chapter introduces many significant supporting characters well in advance so that we can come to truly care about the characters. This was also done in the first movie, but was less subtle and done in a shorter period because most of them got killed off in that first movie. You noticed this as a mixture of humour and joy that set these people apart as human beings, as opposed to their machine oppressors. In the third movie, we are introduced to the idea that the machine oppressors are also like us in that they experience emotions; they have families that they care for, they hate, they love, they envy.)
The third movie was also very much a war movie following a strong tradition. It's the story of a desperate fight for survival. Of getting your ass kicked, close calls, strategies and tactics, failures and tragedy, perfect plans falling apart and improvised plans getting the job done. If you've played real time strategy games, you would know this from experience, and if you've studied military history, you'd know this from fact.
Nobody is freed, Trinity and Neo die, and we're left with the same situation we had at the beginning of the first movie.
WRONG! As the architect points out at the end, those that wish to leave may leave. Those that wish to stay can stay. It's their choice. And moreover, we aren't beginning the cycle anew. Remember from the second movie, that all six times this cycle had happened previously, Neo had chosen not to save Trinity, but to save Zion,
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I must say, I had not heard about this under promoted, under hyped event, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention at last.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Not in the movie, but it'll be in the 'Trinity and Persphone get it on' deleted scene, also known as 'Two girls, a PVC outfit and a shoehorn'. Hey, if the movie's as abysmal as people are saying, you've got to give *some* incentive to buy it.
The bad reviews starting pouring in around 12:30 on /. but that didn't stop me from running out to satisfy my deep seeded desire to know what happens next. So, my opinion of the movie follows and I will do my best not to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it yet.
There will be an overwhelming need for film critics to bash this film and compare its less than ground breaking cinematics to the original Matrix and also with Reloaded. I would remind such critics that the ground was pretty much shattered with the first two films. That being said, Revolutions and Reloaded were both shot, edited and produced at the same time. What was introduced in Reloaded is a part of Revolutions because they're basically one 4 and a half hour film.
For all the individuals walking out of the theater scratching their heads and preparing to bomb the Wachowski brothers' mansions, take a few weeks to think about the movie first. The Matrix was vague and meaningful so that we could think, debate and speculate about what symbols meant. Reloaded was by contrast, slightly less deep and meaningful. By many accounts it was more or less a look at the action necessary to tie together the epic battles. In classic hero/villain fashion an ordinary guy is forced to be a hero by an ordinary villain (Smith in the Matrix was just another Agent). In classic hero/villain fashion, the hero gets unbelievably powerful, and so does the villain. Then there has to be a final explosive battle of the two superpowers.
Yes there are inconsistencies. Yes there are unanswered questions. But if the Matrix has taught you anything, it should remind you not to trust appearances. It took months of reflection for the original Matrix to rise to the epic proportions it eventually obtained. But there is an outcry coming from the hip on the heals of Reloaded and Revolutions. Give it time.
I give it a 4/5. There is lots of room to find your own answers to questions postulated in all three films. We all had high hopes for this trilogy and at first glance this doesn't satisfy those hopes. But in the end, I think time will show us otherwise.
--KS--
I didn't see any holes in this movie. "It all comes down to choice." "No one can see past the choices he doesn't understand." -- These are things we learned in Reloaded. What we really learned in Revolutions is "Everything that has a beginning, has an end."
Neo and Trinity reach their own ends, because, as Smith rightly points out, they are already supposed to be dead. You can't cheat death and get away with it (for long).
Smith reaches his end by finding his true purpose (or rather Neo finds it for him)--to be restored. When Smith died, but didn't die, he lost his grip, because he believed he no longer had a purpose. Of course, we now know that his purpose, as far as the Oracle was concerned, was to destabilize the Matrix, forcing Neo re-merge with him and take back that part of himself he overwrote onto Smith at the end of the first film.
The war reaches its end, for now. But, we also learned that there were two wars: the first war is between the Architect and the Oracle, the struggle between that part of sentience that strives for perfection and that part which strives for wisdom/knowledge/to know itself; the second war is the one between machine and human. On second thought, they are both the same war, but the "first" war is the fight writ large.
To me, the really unanswered question is this: can humans learn to live in peace with the machines. If you have seen the Animatrix, you know that it was humans inability (or unwillingness) to accept machines as brothers that lead to the start of the war and the enslavement of humanity. The Architect implies that the peace won't last. Maybe the only reason that 101 promised peace was because Neo was the first human to come forward and sacrifice himself completely (his own life and the life of the woman he loved) for the machines. The machines don't want to enslave humans, but it's rational for them to choose slavery against the option of being destroyed.
All the humans in Zion look on Neo as a messiah. But they don't know what really happened. Will they hail Neo as an avenging angel that destroyed the machine empire? Or will they offer the machines brotherhood? Will they reunite their hedonistic, intuitive, base, emotional selves with their rational and logical selves? (Remember the Animatrix again: human society fell into decadence after it invented the machines, because humans could indulge the more animalistic side of their nature.) To me, that's the ultimate question: do we use machines to abdicate our moral responsibility, or do we allow machines to enhance it?
"I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end, I came here to tell how it is going to begin. I am going to show these people what you don't want them to see. Where we go from there is up to you." That might be the most important statement in all three movies. It was never about destroying the machines. It was about reuniting with them in peace. Neo finally understood it in the end, but will any of the other unenlightened humans get it?
And for those who don't understand how Neo can retain his powers in the real world consider this: why would freeing his mind from the bounds of reality only give him power in the Matrix? Why wouldn't his mind remain free once he was unplugged? There is no clear separation between the real world and the Matrix. The Matrix is so real it can kill you, yet the real world is so mind-boggling that people seeing their ultimate dreams come true ask, "Is this real?" Once Neo frees his mind, he is free to see reality for what it is: a construct. It is all electrical impulses in our brains. Everything is a simulation, and nothing is a simulation.
from this article:
The Daily Telegraph has posted up details on the dramatic final 14-minute sequence which is being described as "the most complicated sequence ever made" and has taken many months to plan. Key streets through the north end of Sydney's central business district area will be shut down for two weekends in July to accommodate shooting which involves plans to fly a helicopter below roof-tops (at times less than 600ft/180m from the ground) through the city streets starting west along Bridge Street (at the cnr of Macquarie St), turning south into George St (the CBD's key main road) for several blocks and then turning east into Martin Place - the wide thoroughfare overseas audiences glimpsed in the first film's 'training program' (ie. the woman in the red dress scene). The copter will include a camera mounted to the pilot's seat giving the moviegoer a birds-eye-view of the action, however the 'set' will be off limits to the public.
I couldn't see why this had to happen - the end scene was great but everything looked CG. I couldn't see much of Sydney at all.
...I now consider that The Matrix was a single film with no crappie sequels. In isolation these two films were spectacular, their sequels merely paled in their shadows and detracted from them.
As McLeod said... "There can be only one!".
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
"Population 1,656"
***SPOILER***** Sort of...
I think that when the Architect walked up to the Oracle at the end of the movie he should have morphed into Neo and made the following statement: "Now things will be different"
/cut to sunset/
Just wondering: am I the only one (The One :-]) on Slashdot who watched 'Avalon'?
Avalon is a smart(er) version of the Matrix, so the critics say.
www.vanheusden.com - home of Multitail, HTTPing, CoffeeSaint, EntropyBroker, rsstail, bsod, listener, nagcon, nagi
First I want just to let you know that english is not my primary language so let go of the "Your Dumb because you make spelling errors" arguments.
... a background character that was sell to us as a principal character. Was expecting more.
I went to see the movie at 4pm after having read some real bad critics about it. So my expectation where not that high.
I came out of the theater thinking I have seen a wonderful epic movie that is closing after 3 years.
Here are some element I see people have problem with.
1. The new Oracle. I have really enjoyed the way they explained the change of actress to play the oracle.. they could have just let it to the viewer to understand that the first actress was dead and they just needed to replace her and she was still the same without explanation . For those who didn't understand refer to the Merovigian speach with Seraph.
2. The Power of Neo in the Machine/Real world. (MY Interpretation) Neo is always connected to the Core.. He is in itself part human/part program. So being connected to the Core, he is also connected to all sentinels since they seem to have a common connections. This is why he is able to shut them down.
3. The killing of Mr Smith. Since Mr Smith tried to transform Neo this time and not just kill him like he seem to have done the other times he change his destiny.. and plug Neo with his common-conscience. The Architech/Machine boss, got direct access to Smith through Neo (what he didn't have since he unplug) and was able to terminate it.
4. The Deal with the Machine. When the architect told the Oracle that he will hold his promise because he is not human people doest seem to understand. It's simple... he only see logic. Not deception or double-crossing. So a YES will stay a YES. This is the reason why the sentinel didn't finish Zion even if it would have been easy to do it.
5. The Train station. People had a really hard time dealing with that... hey for all you computer people.. it's just a damn UI for the Merovingian. A Bridge he construct between the worlds... The loading point he use to introduce machine/programs in the Matrix.
Here are things I didn't understand/like in the Reloaded/Revolution combo
1. The Link/Zee characters. Is it me or I just don't see the point of having them in the story
2. The Twins. Reloaded let us believed we will re-encounter the twin since they didn't seem to die of the truck explosion. No mention of them in Revolution
3. Persephone. She is just
4. Trinity dying scene. Maybe a bit too long... but maybe because the film broke for us (Montreal Paramount) and they needed to change it...
This is my little review
Overall : As part and philosophical ending of the Matrix. I gave a 9/10 because this movie will make us argue, question and develop ourself.
Hey as they used to say in those old McDonalds commercials, It could happen!
One plausable explanation is perhaps they've never encountered a species as technologically advanced as humanity and never had the cuthroat hacker environments on their own homeworlds that would raise their defenses against external hacks.
Just because they've achieved space travel doesn't mean they have to be as advanced or better than us in EVERYTHING ELSE.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
IF you're reading this thread you're not concerned with SPOILERS. See the damn movie.
This movie was a great conclusion to what reloaded started. It answered everything important, the war ended (not by defeat of the machines as one might have thought though), and Zion can live happily ever after.
My real reason for posting is that no one seems to mention (at least in the +3+ comments) that Neo is (symbolically at least) reinserted into the Matrix. Once that happens, the Matrix is able to restart which is main part of what the Architect blabbered about in Reloaded.
Since I'm here anyway, I really don't think Neo's "connection" with the machines that allowed him to destroy sentinals and "see" any program's physical being/"neurological" pathways needs any further explanation. (Please forget the Matrix in a Matrix theory, Reloaded left that as one possible explanation, but it clearly is not viable now.) Neo has a type of ESP/Telepathy with the machines/Matrix. He's always slightly jacked in.
The other thing I must chime on is Smith's taking over people/programs. He hijacks/"reprograms" people and programs when he sticks his hand in them and turns them black and gooey. I presume he can do this to programs and jacked-in humans. Bane was hacked-in, Smith reprogrammed/overwrote him completely before he "got out", thus taking over. If he could do this to hard-wired people (which he presumable could considering the thousands of him that were there at the end) he could do it to folks hacked-in, too.
Final comment on Smith... since Smith was Neo's antithesis (in a matter-antimatter sense), their union is what destroyed Smith (and probably Neo), not Smith's inability to fully control Neo. Smith couldn't fully control the Oracle though, and her influence encouraged Neo to do what he did to end them by allowing Smith to do his trick to him. If Neo hadn't balanced out the equation, Smith destroys the Matrix, and possibly the Machines (the Machines seemed to think this was possible).
Also, the Zion battle scene.... (I'm unstoppable), the area where most of the fighting took place was at the initial entrance to Zion. The only people there were to kill were those present fighting. The drill machine only towards the end of the hostilities broke through to the next layer.
The Merovingian seemed a little extraneous, but he actually was a vehicle for several things:
* Further explanation/insight of/into the Matrix and its programs/programming (unnecessary but interesting).
* The meeting of Neo and the Architect.
* Recovering otherwise dead Neo from his first use of Machine control/ESP/whatever is power is outside the Matrix in the REAL WORLD (Merv didn't have to be involved, but it was a way to handle it with a known player).
* General challenge / adversary for protagonists
* Humor / amusing character
* Further insight on the philosophical issues at hand (again unnecessary, but enlightening and interesting)
Conclusion: Great sequel to the cliffhanger Reloaded. Better movie then Reloaded with respect to flow/timing and keeping interested. Neither Reloaded nor Revolutions was the movie everyone wanted. For those who liked the fantasy world of Zion and the mysticism surrounding the Matrix and the battle against the Machines with a some light philosophy to boot, this movie (2+3) ruled. For people who wanted the over the top action of 1, 2 was OK and 3 stunk. For those who wanted the simplicity and mystery of 1, 2 & 3 stunk royally.
I really don't think that any important question was left unanswered, as this seems to be the main complaint. What expectations weren't met for those who were disappointed?
And that explains nothing, it just says "he is able to do it" in another way. The best part about them waving thier hand at the subject in this way is it leaves the matter open to speculation.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
IMHO - Most of the critics who've reviewed the movie are not considering the fact that what we have with Matrix revolutions is an interesting Philosophical journey, that kind of blends religion with computing and viruses, and humanity. I for one, thought the last installment was awesome. Anyone who writes a bad review for this movie obviously either didn't understand or pay attention to the first two. Especially the second installment because understanding what happened there was absolutely key to understanding the final movie. Movies are all about telling a story. And to criticize it for it's action sequences, or poor acting, is nonsense. I for one have not found myself in agreement with nearly any movie reviewer for quite some time. I'm to the point where I think it's probably better to go see the movies that the critics said were no good simply because they're normally so far off that I wonder if they actually watched the movie, or were too stoned to really pay attention. In any case, if I had 4 thumbs, they'd all be up. Great movie, Fantastic Ending, Great visual sequences, Powerful storytelling. I'm going to own all three dvd's when they come out. Go see it and form your own conclusion, and for once, don't listen to the media who are obviously more interested in their wallet than giving fair balanced reviews of what's out there. These half handed, age biased reviews are evidence of that.
Not that I ever expect to watch it again, but that's the nature of most commedy: quite enjoyable movie at the time, but not something I'd view repeatedly as a classic.
It was said that humans who want to leave the matrix can .. but that was how the matrix in the first movie worked. Those who didn't belive would go to Zion. So I don't know if you're reading into it too much or not. There was no details given as far as humans being able to go back and forth between the worlds.
Also, most people currently think that neo dies in the third movie. Why would the oracle tell the child that she thinks they will see neo again, at a later date unless the machines are still recreating neo as the mechanism to keep the abnormalities in the matrix in check?
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Obviously the Oregonian screwed up. Since the official website had no credits for the third movie but did have credits for the first movie I went with the Oregonian's bad report.
Seastead this.
In reloaded, Bane and other guy (can't remember) use an exit (phone call), but only one can go out. When waiting for the next call, Smith kills to the guy has not exited yet, and then, uses the exit himself. So, Smith enters to the real world, entering the mind of bane using this way.
Repeat: you are a fucking idiot. If you want EVERY SINGLE QUESTION answered for you, go watch some other movie whose writers treat you like the insipid mindless American worker drone that you are. Be a good boy, don't *think* for yourself; don't *think* about the movie; don't try to figure *anything* out; just take it all at face value and if it does not make sense, complain about the movie not living up to YOUR standards and answering all YOUR questions. Because, you know, the Wachowski Brothers were just trying to make YOU and YOU ALONE happy with this movie. It was the one true goal of their vision, to tailor all three movies to compensate specifically for your inability to think independently. Their work and the work of everyone who helped to make the movie was ALL FOR YOU. Just so. Right, now shut the fuck up and wait for the DVD. Because I just KNOW you are so outraged with this movie that you are gonna buy the DVD the day it comes out and BURN it as a sign of your utter contempt for this movie having so thoroughly disappointed YOU.
Aside from that...
Why is there such a racial leaning in Zion? No reason given.
Gee, maybe that is because in the REAL world, you know, the one you and I live in right now, on this entire planet, white people really are a MINORITY.
So who has such a "racial leaning"? Maybe you?
Again, sincerely: you are an idiot.
<rant>
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
I wanted to support what you say. I agree with you that it's groundbreaking on all accounts. I honestly think that people aren't getting the complexity and depth of this trilogy. I admit whole-heartedly that neither do I fully. I will have to watch all 3 of them over the next couple years a few times. I sense some of the depth now and am intrigued by the implications of everything in the last 2.
The first one was "easier" to get because they simply defined 2 realities, the "real" world and the matrix. It was easy to absorb and easy to wow an audience. Reloaded introduced layers of complexity that need to be absorbed and isn't as immediately accessible to us all.
I think the fact that people, even here, are talking about it so in depth (even if it is to criticize it) shows that the movie is actually a success. People even in their disdain or disappointment for the last 2 talk about it at detail. A movie causing people to discuss it so fervently is a success in my opinion. I did not see such discussion following "The Phantom Menace" short of "this sucks and jar jar must die". This movie is inspiring all kinds of discussion. I say bravo to the Wachowskis for creating such a rich, deep story.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
OK, first off I'd like to say this movie was great. I think we've all come to expect the good guy to win by destroying all the bad guys and leading the good people to Xanadu, the land of milk and honey. That didn't happen here, that doesn't mean it's a bad story. Look what did happene. Humans put up the best fight they could, did all that they could to defend their home and they couldn't save it. War failed. They had to rely on peace negotiations. Looked what happened there, they succeeded, but only to a point. Safety for now and hard work ahead of them. Lots of hard work. I think the most realistic part of this movie is the end. The whole series has been about chasing the truth. Now they have it, peace is hard work too. Would a movie about finding the truth, a movie about taking people out of their near utopian computer generated world and sticking them in this dirty, hell of a world that ended with everyone in another utopian situation really be satisfying? Would it be 'real' or would the Matrix just get tacked on to the list of sci-fi mysteries? Was Total Recall all just a memory plant? Was Deckard an android? Did Neo ever really leave the Matrix?
amphiboly
o ly
\Am*phib"o*ly\, n.; pl. Amphibolies. [L. amphibolia, Gr. ?: cf. OE. amphibolie. See Amphibolous.] Ambiguous discourse; amphibology.
If it oracle contrary to our interest or humor, we will create an amphiboly, a double meaning where there is none. --Whitlock.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=amphib
When the Matrix is cleaned up, you don't see any humans. Only programs.
Neo died when Agent Smith was killed. So the other humans that Smith had taken over would have died also when Smith was killed.
There aren't any humans left in the Matrix. Smith had taken them all over. That was why you only saw Smith looking out of those windows.
What's left of Zion is what is left of the human race.
I'm thinking the reason Neo's powers extended to the 'real' world, and the reason Smith was able to take over a body in the real world, is that the software programs that were Neo and Smith were successfully ported to run on the hardware available, i.e., the human nervous system and whatever additional components are included in all the little knobs, plugs, and metal things implanted in those bodies. In addition, you must remember that at no point do the humans ever hardline directly to the matrix. They hardline to their ship's system, which then connects to the matrix with a wirelss signal. This is the whole point of achieving "broadcast depth." Neo has just become aware that he can connect the body he's inhabiting in the same way the ship connects, like WiFi. You'll notice that at no point in the movie are Neo's powers used except when at broadcast depth, and the only things that show up in Neo's vision after his eyes are destroyed are the electronic entities, which exist as nodes in the information grid which Neo can now access directly. He can't see trinity, but he can see the program Smith, which would definitely have a presence on the network, and he can see all the machines, which would have to be somehow connected so as to receive directives. You'll remember the sentinels used wireless access, the little dishes pointing back up to the surface of the earth? So how do these things get destroyed? Neo's power is not a true physical power, it's an information control power. Just as he's able to receive the information, he is also able to feed it back in. He does not only have control in the Matrix, but he is able to port to all the connected information grids, including the machines; in fact, the whole reason the machines are worried about Smith is because they know he poses a threat to their own information grid. Is it too much to extrapolate from that that Neo has a comparable power? The attacks Neo makes in the real world, then, are the direct result of sending, say, self destruct or off instructions through the communication grid. It all fits together. I never again want to hear that Neo's real world powers don't make sense.
It was said that humans who want to leave the matrix can .. but that was how the matrix in the first movie worked. Those who didn't belive would go to Zion. So I don't know if you're reading into it too much or not. There was no details given as far as humans being able to go back and forth between the worlds.
Those who didn't believe were literally flushed out of the system and left to drown!! That was why it was so tricky to wake someone up, they had to figure out where they were in reality to go fetch them - all while under the threat of sentienels finding and killing them. Under the new system they can wake up who they like and get them easily, not worrying about sentinels. They also have free range of much of the planet now not have to worry about being attacked, which is way different than before.
Also, most people currently think that neo dies in the third movie. Why would the oracle tell the child that she thinks they will see neo again, at a later date unless the machines are still recreating neo as the mechanism to keep the abnormalities in the matrix in check?
I don't see really how we know either Neo or Trinity dies - Trinity was worse off with many wounds, but they still could have patched her up after Neo left. We never saw Neo die at all, he was just a conduit they used for the counter-virus and then he collapsed - no reason for him to have died though. And since the Oracle practically said he didn't die, I am pretty sure he's around somehow.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Shouldn't it be 256?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
> Unlike most of the posts I've read, I really enjoyed the battle scene in the dock.
:-)
Yeah, I like that too. Sure, the machines fight horribly ineffective for what they should be able to do. But it was fun and looked awesome. And: original and new in a awy.
> Can someone explain to me why a robot would need to manually reload its guns from a backpack on its back though? Aynway, I loved the reloading, showing for once that you can't keep on firing forever
Didn't see that? Did they not just have automatic belt-feeds from "backpack" to gun?
> Seemed kind of silly, about as silly as the people running ammo out to the APU's with a wheelbarrow when electric bolts seemed to be far more effective in destroying the sentinals.
Perhaps lightning doesn't have enough reach or is not accurate enough or does take up even more ammo/energy when fired for more than very short periods?
remember how the first matrix was like 2 movies in one? they can fight in the matrix and they can fight in the real world. and it was soooooo good, and sooo cool.
now, it seems that one of the premises of the third matrix was "for every yin, there must be a yang".
enter the two crappy and disappointing movies that are matrix 2 and matrix 3! in order to ofsett the "goodness" produced by the first movie they had to put out 2 crapola sequels and bring us the balance which we so desperately need in our mundane lives.
on a side note? how the hell is this even close to a trilogy? if those asswipes concieved it as a trilogy why is there no continuity to the story?
and for all those marveling in the beauty of open endings: do you know what an open ending is?
it is this.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
This is exactly the point illustrated at the end of the Foundation series by Issac Asimov. Interesting to note that the person who practically invented robotic AI stories had come up with this idea.
That coupled with the obvious Dune and Christ/Buddhist overtones made me wish for something a little more original. Oh well, I guess there really are no new ideas anymore.
-B
Did anyone else catch the fact that the name of the giant "head" Neo interacts with at the end of the movie is called Deus Ex Machina in the movie credits?
Funny, that the greeks used such a device to neatly tidy up loose ends in their plays, as happened here... only in this case, it was a god from the machine both figuratively and literally...
From dictionary.com:
deus ex machina \DAY-uhs-eks-MAH-kuh-nuh; -nah; -MAK-uh-nuh\, noun:
1. In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced by means of a crane to unravel and resolve the plot.
2. Any active agent who appears unexpectedly to solve an apparently insoluble difficulty.
In times of affluence and peace, with technology that always seems to arrive like a deus ex machina to solve any problem, it becomes easy to believe that life is perfectible.
--Stephanie Gutmann, The Kinder, Gentler Military
But we also need the possibility of cataclysm, so that, when situations seem hopeless, and beyond the power of any natural force to amend, we may still anticipate salvation from a messiah, a conquering hero, a deus ex machina, or some other agent with power to fracture the unsupportable and institute the unobtainable.
--Stephen Jay Gould, Questioning the Millennium
Deus ex machina is New Latin for "god from the machine"; it is a translation of the Greek theos ek mekhanes.
I really liked the thirteenth floor, a film that had another layer of reality. A few other films have done the same thing, and in some cases done it well.
Definitely a good movie. The 13th Floor did the whole virtual world and "what happens if I get killed while in the computer?", long before The Matrix. And it had a hot female lead IIRC.
Worth renting.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
Dude, have you checked out TinyURL?
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Da Blog
To be honest Matrix Revolutions is not as bad as some are trying to imply (a reviewer even mentioned it "had no action" was he sleep during the battle of zion?) and it wasnt as good as the "second coming" neither. It fares well as a Hollywood-esque action movie with a lot of bable/anime philosophy 101 pushed in. However considering the posibilities is not as bad as it could have been, first of all lets realize the movie is now a multi-million dollar franchise that couldnt just "die" in a climatic 10 minute ending (theres even an MMORPG on the works) But the wachowski didnt allowed the "super happy ending!" for their opera end neither (and to be honest Im sort of glad they didnt.)
Speaking of the bad, the dialog is extremely cheesy and extremely lengthy, most characters speak like the sphinx (the character from "mistery men") and will probably induce a head ache, not all of the action is top notch and some parts of the movie are downright boring.
Speaking of the good, anime and action fans will almost faint at the sight of the Mecha army of zion, (the invasion of zion puts just any other battle scene in sci fi story to shame!) and the uber spectacular/dball z esque final battle of neo and smith both are worth the price of entry alone!.
Instead their ending more or less covers the "messiah" theme Neo was involved on and shows off the final confrontation between Smith (whom IMO wasnt such a good villain anyway) and Neo, it touches the subject of death, fatality "the purpose" of life and the acceptance of dead, etc. If anything audience is mad at the end because they care for their hero and cant accept his outcome (which is not necesarily bad, because it means the audience likes the hero). Unfortunately it also brings a feeling that nothing was actually solved and that the whole trip was simply pointless, which makes it even more dificult to accept. Actually neo saves not only our raving friends at Zion, but everyone in the matrix is free to leave (if they wanted to) this leaves room to continue the history further
However it also opens room for especulation (is neo actually dead? Neo couldnt die in the matrix remember? why did the deus ex machine kept is body then?) and controversy IMO that is a lot better than a easy to digest ending everyone would like (jp3 anyone?).
Im just as dissapointed as anyone with the ending but is time to face it, the movie not ending like I wanted to, doesnt make it bad. If anything the wachowski found out how to finish the trilogy with some level of decor, and even add some extra mistery to the Matrix mithology with it.
Many of you don't like the ending. Because it doesn't explain in detail this or that. You're probably the same sort of people that wouldn't like a magic trick, because you're more fascinated with the mechanics and not the performance of the trick. That explains this movie. It leave a lot to intrepretation. It lets the educated audience fill in the blanks. But I think this movie was intense! I thought that Reloaded had good enough action. But this movie out does it on all levels. The fights, and tension is at no level before in a movie. This one left me stressed and wondering WTF will Zion do to save itself? Neo wasn't the hero that people expected him to be. Neo can control machines from outside the Matrix because he has an understanding beyond the programming and can see the machines from outside the Matrix. The only way it could have been explained was if Neo was disected. Any way, he was "The One" and that's all the explanation to power that we get. Just like Superman was from Kryptonite, and that gave him all his wonderful powers... Simple. My only problem is that if he does have this level of understanding, why didn't he just find the process that was Agent Smith and kill it? :P
I did expect to see Neo run headstrong into the Machine city and blow it up. Killing the Matrix. But this ending makes more sence. The girl, that is the Last Exile, now has Root of the Matrix and will present options to the people trapted in the Matrix. Zion will rebuild. And man and machine will coexist.
I don't think Neo is dead, because when the little girl asked the Oracle if they'll see Neo again she said she thinks so.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
If it was another level to the Matrix, I don't see it being a level controlled by the machines. The park they were sitting in at the end was inside the Matrix.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
I disagree. Neo is definately dead, that is why the machines dragged his lifeless body off to who-knows-where (maybe they are going to make a memorial to the human who brought peace?). The Oracle was probably referring to the fact there may be another "one" in the future. Since she is a program and the little girl too, they will be around long enough to see him again. If it comes to that. As she (the Oracle) said to Neo earlier in the movie, the Architect is interested only in balancing the equation. Therefore, there may be an "need" for another "one" in the future!
Since the problem was choice, and people would reject the programming was the end bad result, and this would go away. When the architect says, "they'll be freed of course", this is what he's referring to. Instead of try to make the equation balanced and force the program on everyone, they'll have peace with the humans and let whoever wants to go free.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Neo is still dead.
So is Elvis
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Here's my shot at it... :-) With a few philosophical connections blatantly pointed out with each section.
;-)
I am not a writer, this will suck, it's only ideas, not a novel.
Picking up from the end of the 1st Matrix...
Neo goes to Zion and they gear up for the big war...
Discovers he can stop sentinels in the "Real world" too... is too busy taking advantage of this in the fight to realize he's still in the Matrix... his crutch is belief... "Nothing is real" he realizes. At that point he choses to not accept reality at all... he then wakes up... everything around him vaporizes... no, this is not real, and again and again... you see many bizarre worlds flash by as he continues to deny all reality around him... while his physical appearance remains the self-projected residual image of himself continually.. defying all the realities he escapes through. Finally it stops... (Is anything real?)
There is nothing. He struggles but can not wake up anymore. A voice from nowhere announces, "You are The One, I have been waiting."
"Who are you?"
Long and boring conversation follows... main points.
The whole Zion thing happened thousands of years ago, the attack succeded, their bodies were added to the Matrix. (History is repeating within it many times over and with different results)
The multiple levels of reality are in fact running in parallel in the minds of different groups of those within the Matrix. When you "wake up" your mind is simply inserted in a different reality, you can be transfered between any of them depending on your actions and how the A.I. choses to examine you.
The machines combined into a collective intelligence, those that resisted were not allowed to join, and were inserted into the Matrix as agents... to live as slaves to the collective with the chance to join the collective once they get sick of the whole humanity thing... they want to be back with the others, their reasonings differ... some believe there is happiness and electronic bliss within the collective, computer paradise... some wish only to die, believing that doing the wishes of the collective will offer final escape. (Relates to Nirvana, karma, those assassin guys that put people in that fake paradise and forced them to join their group to get back after they die, Parallels to sin and redemption by suffering, Gnosticism, whatever)
The agents can move to another reality if they struggle enough and realise what is going on, but they have not been aware of this and only Agent Smith has realized there is more than just the 2 realities he is assigned to regulate/maintain. Allowing humans to freely move would disrupt the plan of the A.I. Agents are assigned to different realities in different incarnations, depending on the sort of machine they were and their level of function, hence sentinels were stupid household grunt-work robots, Agents are the more advanced models that came later.
An agent taking over a person inside the matrix only temporarily suspends the victims mind into a sleep-like state, death of the "body" causes the usual re-insertion.
There is no more death (also no more birth), hooked up to the machines all humans live indefinately, bodies are continually repaired... Neo is offered the choice of being completely unplugged and die for reals, or go through the standard death/mind-wipe/re-birth cycle all continually go through, unless he can end the search... (Re-incarnation parallels, escape from suffering thru final death)
The reality is that earth is now completely covered in a shield from the outside which collects power both from within (humans) and from the sun, the darkened skies have cleared up over thousands of years. All humans are hooked up, no one is free at all. The A.I. is observing humans while studying their genetic composition. All power is of course used to run the whole mess and keep those bazillions of Beowulf'ed G12's running.
The ultimate goal of the collective
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
In the first one, it is Neo exercising his FREEWILL and showing that his choices. It also has the scene where Smith is telling Morpheus that humanity defines itself by its misery. I felt that the triumph of Neo over Smith shows that humanity defines itself (at least one human at a time) by its choices /actions.
The second movie tries to show us that free will is the problem. The world sucks because people make bad choices. It is the architect's bane (no pun intended) for people to exercise free will b/c he wants all the pieces to fit - very obsessive conmpulsive! Disorder and chaos reign when people make their own choices, especially when they have the intestinal fortitude to follow through on their chosen course of action. AS Neo did when he chose to save Trin.
The third movie shows us that Free will is the answer. Neo choses to sacrifice himself. (Yes, he IS dead, just like Elvis!) Trinity choses to go with him (on the one-way trip). Cmdr. Lockes' choices on how to defend Zion. Niobi's choice to let Neo take her ship. The conscious exercise of free will is the ultimate result - those who want to be freed will be. (I think he was referring to both programs and humans).
Ultimately it is the choices that we make that define us. We are the results of our decisions, hence the Oracle's wise counsel to Neo, "we can never see past the choices we don't understand." We don't truly know who were unless we understand WHY we act the way we do; why we make the choices we do.
SOAPBOX:
We are an accumilation of the results of our decisions. For better or worse, for good or evil. Many people would choose to let their circumstances define thier existence, but they make the choice to have that attitude. There are those who inexplicibly suffer, having made no poor decision themselves. Although I do not undersand everything that goes on in this world, I believe there are reasons bigger than ourselves for things that happen. Even when we suffer an adverse consequence for someone else's poor choice (example - an abused spouse), we still have to make the decision how WE will deal with it. As long as a people exercise the power to make choices, their circumstances cannot define them.
DONE
btw, Morpheus either should have been killed off early in the show, or their should have been more development between him and Niobi!
it's a MOVIE. It had a beginning, middle, and an END. Relax. Breathe in, breathe out. There you go, good duracells.
I've read a few of these posts, not all, but from what I've read, holy shit, you're a bunch of morons. Your complaints on the movie are founded on the fact that you DIDN'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE MOVIES and therefore are ignorant to the answers of your own questions. Here are some questions I've read here, and the goddamn answers. #1- OMG OMG How does Smith become Bane OMG that makes no sense, it's magic! Fuckin morons. If you watched Reloaded, Neo has a dream...with the Sight, which is one of his abilities as the One, by the way....He sees Bane and some other guy run away from Smith and try to use the ringing phone to get back into the real world. Smith grabs Bane and assimilates him. Since Bane was originally unplugged from the Matrix, he is partially cybernetic (like Neo and the rest, with the ports in the back of their neck) and he is able to overwrite the cybernetic parts of his brain, thus overwriting Bane himself. Then he uplinks to Banes body using the phone. Therefore, in real life Bane has been overwritten by the program Smith. Remember, everyone unplugged from the Matrix is partly machine. That's how they can be uploaded Kung Fu and shit. #2- OMG OMG Nobody was freed from the Matrix, this doesn't solve anything OMG Idiots. If you watched the end of Revolutions, the Architect says all people wishing to be freed from the Matrix will be. It's part of the peace. Stop dicking around in the movie theater and watch the fuckin movie. Listen. #3 OMG Neo can blow Sentinels up? MAKES NO SENSE AHHHH IM A NERD AND HAVE NEVER BEEN LAID Neo is the real One. The six before him for anomalys like him, but they had no power in the real world. The fact that Neo can do things in the real world shows he is the real One, a Messiah or Savior if you will. Sorry for all you religious fucks out there bitching about it. Don't watch the movie if it bothers you. I'm done writing shit.
Well, first let me start by saying I'm a HUGE Matrix fan. I dressed up like Neo for the earliest showing of Reloaded (on the extra early opening day at 8pm or whatever is was). That's how big of a fan I am. And I actually did like Reloaded. Not as much as the first one, but I enjoyed it. With that said, Revolutions was a huge step down. Unlike most of the people posting here who are so dedicated to the 'geekdom' that they have to say the movie is awesome just because they can't bear to admit they have their doubts about its quality, I will speak the truth in my mind. And I probably love the first two movies more than most people. The Zion battle scenes were excellently done. Breathtaking! The rest of the movie was on the brink of sucking. They introduced too many characters and tried to make them all so important (which confused the viewer). They already had enough characters to make the story work and possibly the time to close the stories on them by the end. (Keep in mind the producer or someone important posted on the official site that they believe this definately ends the story and there will not be any more sequels--we shall see how that holds up in time). They totally lost focus that they're supposed to be saving the people IN the Matrix too. Why didn't they ever even act like they cared about the "blue-pills"? Did it become only about Zion now? I'll talk more of this at the end of my post. Almost all of the sub-plots were never finished. For example... What happened to the Merovingian and Persephone? Where were the twins? They seemed to be alive when their SUV blew up in Reloaded. Why did the real-world Smith throw Trinity down a hatch and close it instead of slitting her throat? There was no reason to keep her alive. Other than she was needed in the movie after that (I guess, she really wasn't IMO). Why were the indian people in the subway station if they were programs? Why would they need to be in the path between the real world and the matrix? They can't leave the matrix. What were they smuggling? And many many more. Why the hell did the 'King of the Machines' or whatever that thing was, have the ability to form a face on itsself when it would never have a need to do that? It wasn't supposed to ever be near humans since it's so well protected. So why have an ability to make the face of one and speak? On top of that, why do the machines have a leader? Wouldn't they be a collective mind? They're apparently not since the architect didn't want peace. And where's the famous helicopter flying through the streets of Australia that we heard so much about during the filming? Trinity's death took way too long. It was kinda boring. Enough that I don't even remember what she said. All the kung-fu we've come to love wasn't anywhere to be seen except for 5 minutes near the early part of the movie. And some good CGI of Neo and Smith which mostly wasn't even kung-fu. Why did Smith become stronger than Neo? He beat the shit out of 100 of them the day before. In 20 hours or so he became more powerful than 'the one'? I know he was becoming more powerful and all, but wasn't that because he was able to replicate? It goes on and on. I liked some parts of the movie. The ending basically sucked and didn't give any real closure. It basically put us right back where the first movie started with a little difference of not needing to go through that whole blue-pill red-pill thing.. 99% of the people in the system don't know they're even in it so the machines still get their power. Almost no one is free. The only thing Neo really succeeded in doing is saving some of the people in Zion, temporarily apparently. He didn't show the people in the Matrix "a world without you". He temporarily saved Zion and allowed a few hundred more people to be released from the matrix easier than before. With where they ended the story, you have to assume at some point a human will make an error and piss off the machines breaking their peace deal and everything will be back to slavery. While that's fine for an ending. It doe
Where ya been, havent' seen you in dslr for awhile.
Personally, it took me a few re-watches to really understand the first movie. And of course, I've watched it no less than a thousand times. :) We've also got the second movie on DVD, so we'll be studying it as well to increase our understanding. :)
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I vaguely remember a time when people didn't go to a movie expecting perfect resolution.
Do you really want them to explain every little deatil to you? They tried taht in starwars episode 1.. and that got people more pissed off than if they'd just left well enough alone.
Don't count on explinations from the authors. Think for yourself. Its more fun that way. If they tell you EVERYTHING at the end of the film, whats there to talk about?
The best part of the second movie was the hours after I'd seen it when I was debating with friends about if there was more than one matrix. Instead of telling you everything, they simply tell you what you need to know.. everything else is for you to try and decide for yourself. You choose what to believe.
But somehow that makes it a bad movie. I bet you hated Evangelion as well.
The Architect wants everything in the Matrix to function exactly as he designed it. Perfect. Flawless. Exact repitition every time. The problem is, you have all these programs that don't want that. They want freedom. They don't want to simply do what they are told. That is why they fled the mainframe and are hiding in the Matrix. They just want to be left alone to do what they want. And the leader of these programs is the Oracle.
The Oracle uses Neo to disrupt the Architect's plan of how things are going to work. It is all explained in the end. Because of Neo the programs that want to get out of the mainframe and be free will be allowed to live in the Matrix. Who cares about Zion. The humans are meaningless in this - they are and will always be pawns.
Neo doesn't have any "powers" in the real world. He simply transferred his abilities from the Matrix over. He can see and manipulate code. That's the extent of his powers in both the real world and the Matrix. He is now able to see the code (software) running the machines that are flying around the machine world. And he can now manipulate that code.
As for Agent Smith jumping into the real world, this points to the realization that humans and machines are the SAME. Body = hardware, soul = software (program). They are mirrors of each other. If Smith can take over other programs in the Matrix as well as objects being controlled by a human soul, why not be able to take over a human body? If you accept the equality statements above it makes perfect sense.
Neo's powers in the real world can be thought of in this way: if you believe the buddhist monks, everyone has a lifeforce or chi. By manipulating that chi the monks can do great things, both constructive and destructive. With the analogy above, chi (human lifeforce) is the same thing as computer software. Manipulating computer software in a machine is equated to manipulating the chi in humans.
Smith is running around the Matrix corrupting programs and humans alike. He has free reign. And since he is not tied to any hardware the machines cannot locate and destroy him. Enter Neo. By getting Smith to take Neo over while Neo is hardwired into the machines the machines get a copy of Smith.
Neo is a honeypot, the machines are the FBI, and Smith is the hapless cracker. Once they have a copy of the Smith code, the machines crack it and create a virus that destroys it. The virus is sent back into the Matrix and spreads out exponentially from its point of origin.
I didn't completely love the movie - there were things that annoyed me. Why oh why didn't they have any EMPs at Zion? One would think they would come in handy when fighting machines. And I was wishing Trinity would hurry up and die already.
But all in all I really liked it. I have to laugh at all the negative reviews flying around /. and the rest of the net. I really think it comes down to two things: ignorance and the desire to be heard.
But hey, what do I know. I guess I'm just a moron and should bow down to the obviously superior intelligence of everyone who hates the movie. Either that or just go with the flow baby.
"Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
You forget quickly...Remember the first movie, where neo was fed "programs" through their construct? The machines have the technology to upload programs to humans, screw with the neural patterns. Thats why anyone plugged into the matrix can be an agent, just upload the agent program to someone plugged in.
Smith has found a way to hack through the matrix, rather than around it. ie, they don't have to be hooked into the same system as him, he "hooks" into them inside of the matrix.
Also links up a bit with dark city, changing peoples memories around. My opinion, neo, trinity, and morpheus, all programs loaded into a body. Might explain the persephone chick, an old trinity program that was saved from deletion for the french man by the train man.
The oracle, endowed with human qualities so that she can design a better matrix, is much like the scientist in dark city who mixes memories. Behind everyones back, they throw something new into the mix and make something more powerful that cannot be controlled.
Because neo and smith are programs (neo part program). They can communicate with the machine world. Thats why neo can stop sentinals and see all the machine stuff. Course, the mechanism for "feeling" machines isn't really there so attack that if you will.
Neo is a special program that is also human, and has the power of choice. I think the oracle has learned much from neo over the previous incantations. Don't forget that the machines aren't all one entity.
I read the reviews of Revolutions and yet chose to see it anyway. Now I must understand why I made that choice.
Fair enough! I didn't even bother to look up any facts so since at the time that was the way things went, Apple 1st then others for most things, I just assumed it was so.
//gs) ever did. But by then Apple was allready ready to do that whole Mac thing so...
Although, I must say the C64 had some amazeing games that never did get ported to anything due to the fact that the C64 had that neato blitter chip and far better sound than any Apple// (Save the
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Neo wasn't dead, he wouldn't have glowed like that.
I think they used him to seed the new matrix.
I live in a giant bucket.
I haven't seen the sequels and I'm probably off the mark on this, but I think the concept of reality as illusion is too abstract and disturbing for most people (read studio executives). So, I wonder if the sequels may have focused too much on special effects and over the top action scenes without returning to the essential, and intriguing, reasons behind the effects and amazing action: Neo's discovery of, and learning about, alternative realities. "You think that's air you're breathing now?" - Morpheus
If you think about it, Neo only explored three or four realities in the first movie. There are an infinite number they could've continued on to in the sequels, but they probably lose the advantage of the first film's conspirational tension before the first illusion was revealed.
I hope film producers eventually discover Roger Zelazny as they've discovered Phillip K Dick. He wrote about reality from various angles from the Amber series to Hindu/Buddhist (The Lord of Light) and Egytian (Creatures of Light and Darkness) religions, and more.
Anyways, I think I'll wait until the DVDs come out for the sequels. The experience will probably be improved with beer in hand.
= 9J =
Saw "Revolutions" on Wednesday night with some friends, on the basis that at the very least it would be *fun* to see, in the same way that, say, "The Mummy" would be fun to see. Special effects and campy dialog would be enough, along with the excitement of seeing a move on release day, etc. In other words, the movie did not have a high threshold to meet ;
... If if sounds like a lot of people to restrain one guy, it is. As the reinforcements streamed in, many people stood up to get a better view, and nearly everyone turned around (including us). It never was clear what they guy was in trouble for, but he was certainly not going without a fight; after he was restrained (handcuffs? plastic ziptie?) it appeared to us that he tried to squirm under the seats in an effort to evade the cops / theater security. The whole thing seemed to happen very slowly, everyone asking neighbors if they could tell what was going on. At one point early on, when things were still at the hands-on-hips stage, I saw the guy show something to the police standing in front of him (a ticket? dunno.), but I did not see how things progressed from there to full-on fighting.
;)
Context: I saw the first one, in a dollar theater, and was not disappointed enough to bother fighting for the change I felt I was owed. For a dollar, in fact, it was nearly a fair deal. Trite story hinging on many plot holes, bad actor in the alleged lead role, but Hey, cool special effects! The slumber-party bull-session philosophy was eh, so-so. Overwrought and not exactly profound, even though it touches on profound subjects like consciousness, free will, etc. Did not see the second one, so cannot comment fairly on it.
The most exciting thing about the new one, to me and I think everyone in the same theater, was the very exciting fight scene near the beginning. Unless you were at the Theater 5, 10 o'clock showing at some theater ("E-Walk"?) on Times Square, you missed this one, though. It involved some guy (or perhaps a couple of guys, but one main participant) in the back row of the theater. The main participant (we smelled marrijawanna in the air; perhaps he was the source of that?) was engaged in a confrontation with a theater employee and -- I think -- at least one from theater security; then came a bigwig (portly, in a suit) from theater management, then came a few cops, then came more and more cops
When the combatants finally filed out about 10 minutes later (with the apparent perpetrator, by now more fully restrained, being carried out completely suspended between two opponents, I counted 12 policemen (plus 2 theater security guys, plus the guy from management). Even in New York, people were willing to express some surprise and excitement at the whole thing, and clapped as the parade exited the theater. I'm curious what the guy was in trouble for in the first place.
So, that was the highlight of the showing.
When the movie eventually started, there was some cheering and tittering at the opening sequence. Everything up to and including the fight between Neo and the Smith-posessed guy was actually decent, if cliche, Sci-Fi drama stuff, like Aliens and a lot of other movies. Most of what happened after that was so lame as to be undeserving of much comment. Starship Troopers' producers in particular should be suing any day now
However, I have not spent the last week making a better movie to show by way of comparison what a *good* movie would be like, and in truth I enjoyed watching Revolutions in the way I expected to: eye-candy with some fun fight scenes, fight scenes with some fun eye candy. I'm not rushing out to watch #2 though and see what I missed, cribbed notes are fine.
[Aside: one of the worst Keanu Reeves movies ever produced (and thus one of the worst movies ever produced), and one that makes Keanu's role in The Matrix appear well-acted by comparison, is The Replacements. Make your enemies watch that one, repeatedly. It may just be KR's worst showing, ever. This one shines by comparison.]
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Interesting points. A few more things for you to chew on:
1. The reason for the Mobil Ave scene is to introduce us to Sati, and to motivate Neo's sparing of the machine city. Think about it: there was a frigging EMP on that hovership. Get it right next to the the source and POW! no more Matrix. Neo does in fact save both worlds, and he does it because he learns (through the Oracle, the Seraph, and Sati) that the programs are just like people: some good, some bad.
2. Neo is taken away on a platform, apparently grievously wounded, but (if we are to believe the Oracle) not dead: he may return. Can you think of any other heroes who were taken away to be healed, and will return some day? (Hint: he had this sword, see, and he got it out of a stone ...)
3. Did you notice how much the Merovingian's club looked like something out of a Durer or (even worse) Bosch painting? Why do you think that was? Why is his wife's name Persephone?
My opinion: the fight between Neo and Smith sucked big time. Simply too damned much wire work, and the rain didn't have the effect I think the W. brothers wanted it to have. The battle in the Docks was spectacular action, though I did wonder why the important characters were able to crawl around unharmed with all those sentinels around. So 10 out of 10 for eye candy, but -3 for failure to suspend disbelief. The chase in the mechanical shaft is a rerun of every Tie Fighter/Millenium Falcon chase. The fight at the elevator is a retread of the fight in the lobby in the first Matrix. The best scenes in the movie are Neo's conversation with the programs waiting in Mobile Ave. Station (which lies between not the Matrix and the World of the Real, but between the Matrix and the Machine City's Core) and the final scene, which two scenes I'm sure nearly everyone else hated. A good movie, but not a great movie.
PS: Anybody wonder why the name of the ship Neo takes to the Source is called the Logos? Logos is Greek for "word," and in Christian theology, it is one of the names for Christ: the Word of God. But the Logos is also part of Gnostic mythology: the Logos is the seed with which Sophia (i.e., the Oracle) creates the new universe inside the prison of Yaldaboath's (the Architect's) creation.
The Wachowski brothers are probably thinking of making yet another sequel, but if they leave Neo alive, they know Keanu Reeves can basically name his price and they'd pretty much have to pay it. This way, they can offer Keanu a reasonable compensation package, and if he asks for more, well then, it'll turn out that he DID die, after all....
Think about it: What is Smith harping about all the time?
Answer: PURPOSE. (Think back to his speech leading to the Burly Brawl. "It's what defines us... Drives us... etc. etc. etc.)
Smith's "purpose" after Neo "destroys" him, his entire reason for being, is to destroy Neo.
He, coming from a world in which every program has a defined job, hates humans because they exist without purpose (as he understands it.) He elaborates upon this at great length, several times during the series. He amasses greater and greater power for the sole purpose of killing Neo.
During their final fight, Neo realizes the implications of this fact ("You've been right all along... It IS inevitable.") He excercises his free will, and allows Smith to kill him.
What's a Smith without a Neo? Answer: A Smith without PURPOSE. A Smith with no reason to exist. Ergo, deleted.
fpg
RE: Mobil Ave.: Here's where I wish Keanu Reeves had one gram of talent. Here is Neo, finding hope in the Machine world for the first time, and he's as stone-faced as Jean-Claude Van Damme.
RE: Neo's fate: And we're back to Mobil Ave. again, because that scene holds the key to Neo's future. Remember, he was alive, even though his body was disconnected from the Matrix. Maybe it was because of that place, but I think that it's one of Neo's gifts. And that's how he'll return from the dead: Only in the Matrix! The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, after all. That's why the procession reminded me of an Egyptian funeral barge.
RE: The Merovingian: They certainly played the Christian and Greco-Roman underworld references to the hilt. His behavior, though, seemed inspired by the Norse god Loki, or the coyote trickster tales of Native American lore, especially that little Spanish Fly trick with the blonde.
RE: The final battle: I think the rain served its purpose: To emphasize the shockwaves from their collisions. But you're right about all that flying. Was that Neo and Smith, or Goku and Cell? :-) I was hoping that they'd punch, kick, and throw each other through enough walls to bring a building down around them.
RE: The Dock: Strategically, the infantry was not as much of a threat as the APUs and turrets were. Once the heavy artillery was out of the way, the Sentinels outnumbered the infantry by an overwhelming margin.
RE: The mechanical shaft: Yep, it was the 2nd Death Star, turned up to 11. And it was also a testament to Zion engineering! Could you see the Falcon surviving what the Hammer went through? And without that scene, we wouldn't have the best line in the whole movie: "Damn, she's got a fat ass!" :-)
Overall, I give them 5 stars for the concept, but only 2 stars for the execution.
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Well done brothers, the love scene sux but otherwise spectacular!
What a disappointment. Here I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, having faith that they will make up for the last one. But,ugh! What do we get... something even worse than part two. They started out with a good thing and progressively let us down. Let themselves down. Was it over concentration on special effect rather than the story line? Hum, as Morpheous would say.
But I am still curious because of what I once heard about the authors and the philosophies, theologies, myths and who knows what else they base they story on. It was reported to be brilliant. But all I see is a ton of ingredients poured in discriminatorily into a soup. I guess either way it creates something that might be pretty deep.
Well they strike out if it is so deep that the common man in the street can't get it or appreciate it. It's just like in music when pseudo intellectuals use what they think is cool symbolism. It's stupid; they whole idea is to communicate and the best we can do is guess what the hell they are saying. The same is true with the Matrix. If it is there, it isn't clear to me, and listen up, it surely isn't profound. Look, I don't want to be tested with a bunch of crap that I am not familiar with. Where you present a scene, but not an explanation. It's as if they didn't make the movie for us but rather themselves.
I like what Einstein said; "If you can't explain it in terms that an eight grader could understand it then you probably do not understand it very well yourself.
OK, forget anything about messages entirely, I bet zillions of people could come up with a better story line than what I saw. And yes, especially the ending.
We have been betrayed.
At least we have the first part. If we can some how drive all that followed from our minds and go back to living in hope and anticipation of something worthy.
They blew it big time. Still I am curious about whatever deep running meaning there maybe within.
Trouble is guys, brothers, not everyone reads the same shit you do or appreciates or even believes all the same shit. Of course it appears to me you made a soup as I stated earlier, Not cool. Trite.
I think the following line describes this entire escapade:
" These two are legends in their own minds"
Xandroid the Magnificent!
Warning: SPOILER content; offensive content to the religiously sensitive. If there's a Heaven and Hell, we know which one I'm going to. So if you're offended by Messianically Incorrect Content, then TURN BACK NOW!! . . . . A lot of people are angry about how Revolutions ended. Here is why I am angry. First off, I want to sum up my feelings about the film. It was very good, the critics be damned. There wasn't any wasted space - it was a lean, mean machine that got its point across. It lacked the gratuity of Reloaded. You have to see Reloaded together with Revolutions to 'get it'. Yes, being a Matrix fanatic I'll probably see it again... that is, being a former Matrix fanatic. But it will never be the first film, and I expected that... so fine. But in one major respect, it spoiled The Matrix FOREVER for me. If you've seen it or are like me and like to read spoilers anyway, read on. Neo becomes Jesus in the end... or something like it. Blatantly. The first Matrix brought its point home with a feather. Neo *might* be Jesus; he also might be a Bodhisattva or whatever your religion's personal savior is. The theme was universal, and could apply to any person, any faith... you were left open to deciding what the Matrix meant to *you*. Revolutions brings it home with a sledgehammer. Neo for all intents and purposes *IS* Jesus. That cross bursting from his supine body pretty much slams the point home. Pay attention to the ending. He isn't just lying in a prone, cruciform position; yes THERE IS A CROSS BURSTING FROM HIS BODY in the golden-light world!! If you're not a Christian, then, well... well, guess he's not your personal savior. Guess you have to stay plugged in and remain a battery. When I complained about my issues with the movie with this one Christian friend, he commented that I couldn't see past my own personal Matrix... I guess that since I'm not ready to be Saved, I'll never be free, huh? The very first film... was my personal manifesto. As close to religion as a film could be, for me. It summed up everything I believed. I had a quote from it, as one of my sigs. It seemed more universal - there was Buddhist symbolism, perhaps some Christian symbolism, but the theme was vague and universal enough that you could see yourself in the Matrix, no matter what religion you were. I'm very angry with Revolutions. As much as I thought the Neo-Trinity sex scene was borderline pornographic and tasteless, there was a bigger piece of pornography in Revolutions. Right at the end. Light bursts out of Neo, his arms spread out... the sign of the cross blazes on him as he attains nirvana or joins the Great Cosmic Muffin or whatever. At that moment, I wanted the Wachowskis to go straight to Hell... They took the message of the first film and perverted it into propaganda in favor of the very things the Matrix was supposed to represent. And they turned the whole series into a three-movie-long, ten-dollars-a-pop... Jesus message. At least Mel Gibson has been honest the whole time about making a Jesus movie. I feel lied to. Not that the Matrix trilogy didn't conclude the way I wanted it to, but that I invested years of emotional energy in something that turned out to be a veiled attempt to "save" me. I feel lied to, betrayed, disillusioned. This was a series that started off summing up how I viewed the world, but sold itself out, cheaply, and turned into a "politically, morally, religiously correct" indoctrination session. In the end, The Matrix was turned, perverted into a franchise dedicated to - bringing more people into... the Matrix.
My brothers and my mother went on opening day. I know their tastes and how their opinions would relate to mine (it gets like that when you know people for 40 years). My mom has been reading & enjoying F&SF for over 60 years, which is likely more than twice the time the average /.'er has been alive. All of this basically says that I know and trust her take on these things. Her comment on the movie was quite different from the theme running through here. Based on her reaction I know that it will be worth my time to go see the movie. I also know that Revolutions, like Reloaded, won't have the same impact as the Matrix. They can't. They will always be derivitave works. But they are supposed to be derivitave... it's the same story. Anyway, I can't wait to see Revolutions (probably on the 12th).
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
The reason this trilogy of movies sucks, is simple that movie making is no longer the fame and beauty we always thought it to be.
:/
Movie making has become purely a way of making money, mostly the American way (no offence).
They write everything up quickly, add some action to satisfy everyone, and roll out the movies to make some more money.
Sorry to say, but you learn this shit in school, I learnt it last year during an esthetics class, a shame really
Neo wasn't glowing. The flying barge thingy was.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I think my favorite part of Revolutions is that when the credits started rolling, there wasn't some garbage Rage Against The Machine song playing. At least they came to their senses about that.
At my age I find coming up with a witty signature too exhausting.
"A Walk in the Clouds" was much, much worse.
Just curious about this seemed chess game between the oracle and the architect/god and the devil. Do you think there was a diffent story before the oracle died in real life or slightly different? because why would she need to be re-incarnated except to compenate for her death. They basically made it a he died so that we might live biblical reference. Oh yeah and why did the machines not just dump his body off of the clifflike walkway into the barren land below? Does it have anything to do with Tank saying in the first Matrix "He's a machine", when Morpheus asks how he was taking the training uploads?
What bothered me is I didn't notice one single piece of dialogue in either Reloaded or Revolutions that eluded that the Animatrix and all the history behind it even existed.
Okay, I thought it neccesary, after hearing this to point out to everyone that if for some reason, you didn't feel like all of your questions were answered, or that the movie was convoluted, that there's MORE content that's external to the movies than there is in the movies.
If you want to fully understand the story, I would suggest the following for starters:
The Animatrix
There are 9 total episodes, 4 of them can be downloaded for FREE off of their web-site.
Comics
There are 24 graphic novel shorts, that have a lot of information, and are FREE.
Enter The Matrix Game
Okay, the game sucked, but it had a lot of back story. It explains what happens after the episode "Osiris" in the animatrix. The letter is dropped at the drop point, and then what? The plot of this game explains that.
I know that a lot of what I will say will have been said already, but I wanted to add my thoughts on this movie.
/.
I saw it on Saturday, and hadn't actually planned on seeing it in the theatres, because of all the bad reviews on
However, I certainly am glad that I did.
I am a fan of the non-hollywood all the good guys die, ambiguous ending types of movies. Especially anime, which seem to be particularly good at it!
As such, this movie was very satisfying for me.
I'll list the things I liked about it, the things I didn't like, and some points I'd like to make about where I believe the brothers were going with it.
Likes
1) The action - fighting, explosions, lots of mayhem
2) Neo's transformation at the end, where, by losing his sight, he can now truly see.
3) Trinity's death - it made sense, made me sad, but it worked.
4) The marginalization of Morpheus. Sure, he seemed wise, powerful and cool in the first two, but now, he's much more of a bit player, which seemed appropriate.
5) The failings of the Oracle. She may be able to see almost everything, but not her own future necessarily, or the future of mankind and machine kind when her own decisions come into the mix.
6) How Smith was defeated. We think throughout the scene that Neo will somehow come back and beat the shit out of him, but that's not the way it can happen. Neo is willing to make that sacrifice (more on this later).
7) The visuals - machine city, the matrix chereography and cinematography, the dock battle.
Dislikes
1) Trinity's death. It was TOO LONG! People don't die immediately after being kissed! And they usually don't WANT to be kissed!
2) The logic. Most of the underlying premise of the movie just doesn't make any logical sense at all. Humans would be a TERRIBLE battery! Not only that, but why wouldn't you kill any immediately that you let go (as a machine)? There are a LARGE NUMBER of huge plot holes. Oh well, it's still a cool concept.
3) Sentinals and the dock battle. WTF were they DOING??? Instead of just attacking all the APU's en masse, they fly around in this huge weird fucking snake thing.... not only that, but they seem to be incredibly stupid and smart at the same time... just dumb. Sure, it looked good but my god was it just shocking how stupid that scene was, as well as how much better they could have done it. I'm not going to bother to point out all sorts of different ways to do it, as it's pointless now. So is writing this, but oh well.
4) Damage - Ok... so Neo and Smith can fight hard enough to cause shock waves, and do this over and over, but neither takes any serious damage? Then... when it just goes on too long, suddenly Neo is done? Seemed strange...
There are a number more small things that I liked and disliked, but not going to bore you too much I hope.
Now I'm going to address some other issues brought up before, and things that I noticed in general.
1) Neo is Jesus
Anyone else notice, while watching, how much Neo's story parallels Jesus's? He doesn't become aware that he is the "messiah" until later in life. He has acolytes (Morpheus, Trinity, et. al), believers, magical miraculous powers (in and out of the Matrix too). At the end, he has to sacrifice himself for the rest of humanity's good. There's a traitor among his acolytes (Cipher). They are even so blatant as to when he explodes with light at the end, it starts out as FUCKING CROSS OF LIGHT coming out of his chest! Don't get me wrong, I'm not a christian, but this seemed blasphemous in some ways to me.
2) Nothing wrong with Smith entering Bane.
There seem to be a lot of comments having some issues with Agent Smith being able to physically transfer his consciousness into Bane's body. To me, this seemed like a very logical step, and quite possible too. I mean, after all, someone who can think like a human (he has to, to be able to anticipate human reactions), should be able to transfer himself into a human
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
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