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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.
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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.
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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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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...
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.
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