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The Matrix Trailers, Reloaded and Re-Encoded
dark_lotus writes "The fine folks at The Matrix website, have re-encoded all 9 trailers from the original Matrix, bumped up the resolution and uploaded them for us to enjoy, including a never before released trailer. Also included, all the missing Reloaded and Revolutions Trailers and TV Spots - all now available to download."
Doesn't this lose a little meaning when not only have the movies come out, but 2/3 of them are on DVD?
--trb
Thank you for actually doing something nice for fans for once Hollywood.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
they're in CYA mode trying to 'reload' any interest in their franchise while they try to cobble together the Revolutions dvd.
the interest in their films fell way off, and so they're trying to generate some positive press and keep the core fanbase interested.
This is anything but selfless. They still have a dvd to sell that, judging by the attendance, not so many people care to buy at the moment.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I did that last night to the actual movies, which are now availiable (sic) to download from a P2P client near you.
*Spoiler warning*
The second and third movies are shit.
Moderated -1, Troll?! Who was the humorless geek who moderated this down? It's funny, dammit... even the second bit.
More importantly, it seems every post in this thread that dares criticise the Matrix sequels is getting marked down, troll or not.
The third Matrix movie sucked (not the second IMHO)- you're entitled to disagree, but it's what a lot of people honestly think, like it or not.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
So it's kind of interesting.
As of late, there's been a resurgence in so-called "franchise" movies, where the funding for and expectation of a sequel is a foregone conclusion during the production process. Recently, we've seen three variants of this:
A) Lord Of The Rings, which filmed all three episodes in one monster shoot, then spent a year between each tweaking for maximum quality.
B) The Matrix Trilogy, which filmed the second and third episode in a less-monstrous shoot, and originally planned to unveil the conclusion a mere three months after the return. Tweaking was not originally planned for.
C) Harry Potter, which does not appear to begin production of the next chapter until the previous movie has finished its theatrical run.
Given these three case studies, it's worth noting that two of them (LOTR and HP) have their plotlines and characters fully fleshed out from day one, far in advance of movie production. Meanwhile, The Matrix sequels were written in response to the success of the original, meaning the third one got a screenplay before the second saw any public scrutiny.
I think this was the problem.
Unlike LOTR and HP, which had a healthy community of readers who could be tapped to determine which parts were most interesting and which parts could be sacrificed to the cutting room floor, the Wachowski's flew blind when concluding their series. They tried to show everything they could do, rather than explore the dimensions people were most interested in. When they realized their conclusion answered none of the new questions people couldn't help but ask -- they had no opportunity to recover their loss, save to push a worldwide release.
It's sad, too. Matrix Revolutions should have been a revolution inside the Matrix; the humans taking over their own virtual world, perhaps saving their own, perhaps abandoning it to the machines. Fundamentally, it should have been about the many within, not the grungy escapees. And so many interesting opportunities were abandoned...the spoon from the Matrix showing up in Zion, for instance. E
I don't know what happened. But I do know -- the serial format has brought some astonishing successes, and alot of money -- but when it fails, it seems to fail big.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
We're looking for a cohesive plot, believable characters, and (on the geeky side) well-integrated special effects that don't distract us from the story, not an excuse for the movie-makers to bludgeon us over the heads with their cleverness.
I see in the Reloaded and Revolutions the same problems I see in Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones: A big idea, executed poorly.
In the first Matrix, parallels with mythical/historical figures were obvious. Neo was a Christ-like figure, Morpheus a prophet, and Cypher a Judas. But Neo was also a conflicted hacker, Morpheus had a personality containing something besides bombast, and Cypher was an interesting villain in his own right. In other words, the characters were certainly analogues for other characters, but they were also themselves. They had senses of humour, they could love and hate, they had weaknesses and strengths, and were, for lack of a better word, human.
Then came Reloaded, and all of that was lost. The parallels between the characters and figures went from subtle to painfully transparent, and the characters stopped being themselves. They were cardboard representations of the archetypes they were meant to represent.
What made the first Matrix so compelling was the human element, which was lost in the sequels. Instead, we got Link and his wife as sort of an afterthought, and they are utterly forgettable. We have the guy I can only think of as "Spoon-boy," whose dialogue was so painful to watch I almost asked for my money back. We have Morpheus going from desperate searcher to religious zealot, while the commander who doesn't believe him (the only person in Zion with an ounce of common sense) portrayed as a one-dimensional obstacle to truth and light and all that crap.
These movies were bad. I mean BAD. But the worst thing about them was that the story concept was still good.
My suspicion is that the Wachowski brothers suffer from the same problem George Lucas does now. No one will tell them "uhh, guys, this dialogue sucks!" Or better yet "why don't you guys stick to directing and coming up with plotline, and let other people do the writing." Or even "for the love of god, guys, let an editor have a crack at this tripe!"