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The Matrix: Resolutions
Slappy White writes "For six months, Matrix message boards were aflame with speculation, theories, predictions and outright psychotic guessing about Revolutions. Now the film is here, and this article has a humorous roundup of some of the popular theories, both those that were close and others that were, shall we say, a little off the mark." I still haven't seen this film, so I'll refrain from passing judgment, but I'm ever so happy the matrix-within-a-matrix theories were unfounded. Update: 11/09 02:38 GMT by CN : Some folks who've never seen the Twilight Zone or even the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horrors thought that was a spoiler. If you're one of those people, I'm very sorry.
To me, Revolutions has come the closest to accomplishing what the first Matrix did. The plot was so much better, flowed nicely, and the dialog was easy to understand yet had those hidden philosophy messages which is what made the first movie so successful.
The special effects were amazing as well.
What got me was the amazing ending. It was unexpected in someways, but totally made sense when you consider everything that happened in the movie.
Also there still is enough unanswered questions that another trilogy could be created if they ever wanted to. They will probably wait 10-20 years before doing another trilogy if they ever wanted to.
I disagree. The matrix within a matrix theory was well founded, but it proved wrong. These are not the same thing. If I told you I have a ripe strawberry in my hand, you would have the well founded belief that it is red, because ripe strawberries are red. But if it were blue, it doesn't mean that your belief was unfounded, at least until you saw the strwbrry.
Logic, macros, and more
This is what the above website has to say on the subject:
Great. That says nothing. Absolutely nothing. As I say in my review, the Oracle's comment is an observation, not an explanation. It's like saying that the reason a car will not work is because it will not go. He has a connection with "the source" - and?Lest anyone think that this is a message backing the Twin Matrix theory, it isn't that either. I thought it was fairly obvious what Revolutions was trying to do: it was leaving all of these questions open. There's room in Revolutions for most of the explanations people came up with. Unfortunately so many people wanted a nice tidy ending with Neo and Trinity living happily ever after and everything "explained" that they've kind of missed it all.
I think it's a good sequel. But then I wanted something other than the usual Hollywood mindless happy endings. YMMV.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I can't figure out what people are complaining about. It was a great movie, particularly if you consider all three movies to be one story. Granted, you have to like that sort of movie and you have to actually have an attention span, but if you do you should enjoy it. Basically if you like anime movies like Akira or the Gundam Wing series or Marvel's X-men comics (lots of action and some heavy pontificating) it should be right up your alley. I really enjoyed it.
Maybe folks are complaining about the ending. (no I'm not going to give it away) It was surprising and very non-traditional but really good too. I thought it was a great close to the story arc. Leaves future sequels as a possibility too.
I was disappointed at first with Revolutions.
However, last night I watched Reloaded again.
You have to pay great attention during Reloaded to find your answers to the Matrix. They dont make sense if you've only seen movies 1 and 2, but they do if you've seen all 3. In particular, listen to what the architect says.
While some may say reloaded is about reloading the Matrix....note that the Matrix never did get reloaded....but something the architect says makes me think different. And it explains Neo's sudden ability to interact with the machine world outside of the Matrix.
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-the "Trainman" was the gyrocopter guy from Mad Max
-the face from Tron
-the "face ship" modelled after the ships from Buckaroo Banzai
-Robotech/Macross mecha
-in the club... "CYPHERMEN" from THE INVISIBLES
-Monica Bellucci is a fox.
-in the Matrix... the programmers are all from India
-the "Merovingians" were a line of kings in Southern France before the Middle Ages who believed themselves to be direct descendants of Jesus Christ. the Catholic Church wiped them out along with the Cathars, Gnostics and the Templars.
-everyone needs to read THE INVISIBLES
-there was more but I forgot it on the way home.
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The universe in which the robots and humans reside is a *simulation* (not another matrix, but a simulation). The robots are vaguely aware of this, and have developed methods which allow them to manipulate the *real* universe a little. This manipulation is how they are able to program "people" and how agent smith is able to download himself into that guy. There would have been a great sub-plot about how the robots discovered this -- through their disection of humans (in the animatrix) they discover the biological equivalent of DEBUGGING facilities in humans. They discover strange indecipherable messages in biological processess. Even a monkey for a directory could have made this a memorable scene.
In retrospect, the point of the second movie would have been to demonstrate that the robots could program humans -- with food. With cookies, with pills, etc etc.
And finally, Neo, while not aware that the "real" universe is also a simulation, is able to manipulate it slightly as well -- this is why he can make shit blow up, and see without eyes.
Hollywood, I am your messiah and I'm unemployed :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Anybody else see it as just straight biblical allegory? I'm not even a Christian, and it seemed rather blatent (even heavy-handed) to me.
Neo - Christ
Smith - Anti-christ
Machine ruler - God
So when Neo becomes able to do all that stuff in the real world, its like the miracles of Jesus. He can do it because he has "a connection to the source" --- in other words a connection to the divine. When he's fighting Agent Smith, Smith loses when he finally calls Neo "Neo" (instead of "Mr. Anderson" has he had been doing up to this point). That means he acknowledges Neo's status (accepts him as their savior) and is thus destroyed. Of course, Neo dies (sacrifices himself for his race) in a very cruxification-like scene (complete with cross-shaped light right before the end). All that stuff at the end about Neo potentially coming back is an allusion to the messiah.
Or it could be something else entirely. To tell the truth, I don't care. The last two movies are pretty crappy (though I loved the first). The dialogue was truely bad --- those writers need to be shot, and the plot seemed very strained --- a lot of going from A to B because C said to.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Or, hell, why bother to send robots there in the first place? Why not just drop a damn nuke down the hole? Or pump it full of nerve gas?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
It's because he's part of the source. It's understandable why you'd miss the two lines of dialog where he asks the question you asked and the oracle gives the answer I just gave you considering how every explaination was just a side note between action and reaction shots.
And since he's part of the source, the "real" world (where the escaped humans hang out) isn't really the real world since he can only control what the source controls. Point for "matrix in a matrix" theorists.
I think what's mildly ironic is that the reason people hated Vanilla Sky is because the last 15 minutes they pretended the audience was full of morons and explained everything.
Matrix: Revolutions didn't do that. They gave short stark answers which answered the questions but in a way that left it open for interpretation.
What did Agent Smith do the the Oracle? You get all of 3 seconds of seeing her lying on the ground where the Agent Smith that took on Neo used to be standing. Sure they could have gone into extensive dialog about why he needed her to defeat Neo OR they could leave it open.
They did that with everything. The answers are all there. They just don't spell it out for you. If they had they'd just be wasting time repeating Matrix 1 and 2.
Personally, my theory is that they knew all the neat questions and how to "show" them as is good story telling but couldn't "show" the answers even if they really knew them. That's the standard problem with philosophy. Most of the great writters have a brilliant ability to ask deep questions in interesting ways but they never give you an answer. They just send you back down the mountain to seek it out yourself.
I'll definitly be picking up the DVD when it comes out. I think people went in with a mindset that is was all action and "sucked" and so, like you, weren't paying attention when answers where offered.
Reloaded was the same way. I went in for the action and picked up much more detail when I got the DVD and watched it more closely.
Ben
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Yeah, subtle like a brick to the head.
Let's start out with Smith-in-hijacked-human-body refering to Neo as some kind of Messiah. Of course the term Messiah, combined with the facts that Neo had just been horibly blinded, if he was really blind he was going to get his ass-kicked, and although Neo dying was a possibility it was way too early for it to happen, immediatly led to the conclusion, "He's going to be able to see with his new and improved real-world mystic powers, just like Paul in Dune." Sure enough, when all seems lost, Neo suprises Smith-3749 with his ability to see, and proceeds to kick his ass.
Having already set up the messianic theme, it was pretty damn obvious when Neo assumes the crucified position during the final fight. Oh look, he's sacrificing himself to save humanity, just like christ! Oh my! Not only is he in a crucified pose, he's got a big glowing cross superimposed on him! And now he's got giant glowing angel wings! And now he's dead and being carried away by a god-like figure, and look! More glowingness and angel wings!
The only way they could have been any more obvious was if the Oracle had extended her final speech a little bit, from "I think we'll see him again someday," to, "I think we'll see him again someday, in three days when he rises again!" I started to groan about the point the blatantly obvious cross of fire was superimposed over Neo, and had a hard time paying serious attention to the rest of the movie while i gagged on the over the top christian imagery.
As for the rest of what you said, i mostly agree. The theme behind Neo's destruction of Smith was pretty clear, but i really would have liked to have known more details. Was it a fundamental incompatibility between the two "Ones," like a matter-anti-matter reaction? Was it Neo acting from within the Smith collective? Was it the Machine acting on the Smith collective with Neo as a conduit? (That last seems possible given the behavior of the machines in the real world when Neo was taken over, need to watch a few more times to be sure.)
The bit that annoyed me was that it wasn't apparent that Neo actually took any action once he sacrificed himself. Although someone else has pointed out that this is consistent with the passive nature of christ, it doesn't really fit with what i expected of Neo, christ figure or not. It was clear after the first half of the fight that Neo wasn't going to win by physically beating Smith, but it didn't have to be through total passivity, there was a lot of middle ground that could have been covered.
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