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'Pirates' Outsells 'Matrix' in High-Def Showdown
An anonymous reader writes "As Slashdot recently reported, last week saw the latest showdown between HD DVD and Blu-ray, with both formats bringing out the big guns in terms of high profile format-exclusive disc releases. In one corner were the Blu-ray exclusive releases of the first two 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films on Blu-ray — in the other, the HD DVD exclusive releases of 'The Matrix' Trilogy. So who won the sales battle? According to preliminary estimates, this one goes to 'Pirates' in a big way. The two 'Pirates' flicks sold an estimated 47,000 units, while the 'Matrix' sets sold just about 13,900 units. Is this an indication of movie quality, or another notch in the belt for the Blu-ray format?"
Please raise your hand if you give a shit about this.
In this hand, I hold an apple. In the other, an orange.
Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
/yawn
Perhaps it's because there's an episode of the Pirates franchise in theaters now and we're being bombarded with its associated marketing campaigns, while nobody's thought much about The Matrix in the past few years.
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
There are all those people out there with PS3s that they have nothing better to do with than watch blu ray videos. There are significantly less hd-dvd players out there. Who do you think will sell more movies?
It's been many years since Matrix was released. Hype has long since died over that franchise. Especially with the help of its weak sequels. Pirates has all kinds of current advertising and marketing hype surrounding it. No surprise people bought more of that hi-def title.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Where's the "whocares" tag? Seriously...
A Disney release with broad appeal, versus a niche movie that sucked almost since it started....and you're surprised? My 4 year old wants to watch Pirates, but has 0 interest in Matrix. Does that mean my 4 yr old snubs my HD DVD XBox and wants a PlayStation3? LOL....please
We'll really see which format people prefer when the Matrix trilogy is released on Blu-Ray later this year.
Matrix Trilogy HD-DVD: $79.99
Pirates of the Caribbean: $29.99
At those prices, even though Pirates of the Caribbean sold many more units, it only brought in a roughly $200K more than the Matrix Trilogy.
This is ridiculous comparison, the movies appeal to different fan bases, and are in completely different formats (trilogy box set versus individual movies sold separately). If this was a comparison of, say, the Matrix Trilogy released on both formats at the same price point, it would far more realistic.
No, its an indication that the Matrix was just a release of a movie that quite a few people already had (and had a long time to obtain bargain-bin priced copies) where as Pirates were relatively new movies that I haven't seen drop below $14 yet.
http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/
Pirates movie on Blu-Ray = $24
Matrix set on HD-DVD = $75
Declaring victory based on fuzzy math = Priceless
Well Both Pirates Movies are priced around 27.99CDN
The Matrix Set is priced at 89.99CDN
I could see myself buying The First Matrix in HD for 27.99, but i'm not up for spending 90$ on 3 movies.
Also if you check the numbers again - they are comparing the sale of 2 movies to 3? - Huh?
It has to do with how recent the movie is. Ever wonder why it costs you $1 to rent the DVD of The Sting from Blockbuster while War of the Worlds will cost you $5.89? It's not because War of the Worlds is a different movie, it's just more recent.
Aside from the fact that the original Matrix came out in 1999 & the original Pirates movie came out in 2003, there's also the rating of the movies. All three Matrices were rated R, all three Pirates movies were rated PG-13. That's a big difference. Most parents will buy the Pirates movie and park their 10+ year old kid in front of them and consider it a babysitter.
Never underestimate how much an R rating will detract from your profits. America is full of parents who believe that their children will turn into a foaming nutcase if they catch a glimpse of an adult situation, nudity or violence.
My last point, Pirates is Disney. Never underestimate what the power of the mouse will do to promote a film no matter how crappy it is.
My work here is dung.
Has anyone considered that everyone and their fricken mom has seen the Matrix several times. That was a long time ago. Pirates of the C. are a whole new set of movies. Plus, its Reeves vs Depp, ha!
I'd say it's an unfair comparison. Pirates II is new enough that some residual excitement exists. Matirx is so 90's at this point.
Besides that if your anything like me then Matrix III ruined them all for you, I just thought it sucked. Pirates II was pretty
good but it would suprise me none-at-all if Pirates III sucks too. Something about pushing an idea to far seems to make most III's
suck in general, especially in comparison to the first in a series.
Possible exceptions (IMHO) are LOTR III, which was a natural as the books were a trilogy and to a lesser extent Star Wars III which
was the only one even remotely worth watching as far as I'm concerned.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
One night in Paris or some other movie will outsell them both. Sounds funny or trollish but its likely true. Now if they could only make a LC||BSD||SCILF series ... (Linux,BSD,Solaris)
Infiltrated dot Net
"Our only weapon against the machines is the EMP..."
Oh, and guns. Turns out that guns work just as well.
No one wants to buy the third Matrix flick since they ruined the franchise by abandoning the entire premise in the third installment. So I'm not surprised that their box set isn't a top seller.
Maybe if they'd went with their better options instead of insisting that humans expand more energy than they consume they would still be raking in the mind boggling profits they were enjoying when I first read that story on their site, but they had to cheapen it all.
You can't take the sky from me...
So does this mean that Pirates > Ninjas after all?
More Twoson than Cupertino
I love sci-fi. A new sci-fi flick is one of the few things that will get me out to the theaters.
I liked the Matrix movies when they first came out, but they have not aged well. Looking back I see most of the initial success being in the films' visual appeal, not the execution of a well charted, multi-installment story line.
Pirates aspires to less, and therefore its failings are more palatable IMO... even though it lacks the high-minded 'message' content that the Matrix attempted. I own Pirates for those random days where I want some swashbuckling noise in the background while I type away on my computer. I have no plans to buy the Matrix.
The failings of the Matrix are more frustrating for me. I can't deny that the Matrix broke ground visually. That is just not enough to get any more views from a viewer like me.
Regards.
I think part of this is that everyone with a DVD player owns the Matrix, while they skipped Pirates. Giving Pirates the HD treatment is somewhat compelling for people who don't already own it. Upgrading your more than adequate Matrix DVDs...not so much. The masters of both formats should just throw a trillion dollars at George Lucas to release the unmolested original trilogy on their format. That, a winner would make.
I vote this stupidest comparison of the day. Make that most stupidest.
Only 47k units moved? Yikes! From those numbers, neither player appears to be really selling at this point - even combined, the sales are not even close to 'old and busted' DVD media. I've got a 1080p monitor, but went with an upscaling DVD player (Oppo dv-981hd) until the format wars sort themselves out. From my 'customer' perspective, both formats are way over priced at this point and quite a risk. Might go with a dual mode player when they get to the $250 mark, but forget about it for now.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Don't know about you, but I don't see either of those sales figures setting the world on fire. Not with 1.2 Billion DVD's being sold in 2004, and Finding Nemo selling 28 million DVDs alone in 2003.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The world where these sales figures came from is just a construct.
The real world is a post-apocolyptic wasteland run by robots, where only VHS cassettes are available.
A better comparison would be the same move released both formats. Then the issue isn't the movie but rather the formats.
More Blu-ray discs are sold than HD-DVD discs are sold.
Not selling more than your competitor has never helped anyone.
Clearly these evil pirates must be stopped.
Planet Earth is available on HDDVD & Blu-ray. The HDDVD version outsold the Blu-ray version.
Today the HDDVD version is ranked #6 while the Blu-ray version is ranked #20 on Amazon for Disk sales.
Given how the Matrix trilogy lost its fanbase after Reloaded, I wouldn't be surprised that Pirates outsold the trilogy. I mean...COME ON...Johnny Depp just stole all the girls.
People didn't buy one movie over the other because it was on a certain format. They bought one movie over another because they enjoy it more.
Box office receipts should have been enough to show you that. Sheesh.
Living With a Nerd
No kidding. I'd be willing to bet that quite a few individual WalMarts sell more than 13,900 regular DVDs in a month.
There's no accounting for tastes. Also, people who like to blow their money on HDTVs don't mind that the cheapest bluray player is $600. I guess there is a rumor that this particular model can play video games, but I don't believe it. Meanwhile $300 HDDVD players are nearly here. The only reason bluray has any market share at all is pure consumer stupidity and a distinct disinterest in saving any money whatsoever.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
The two 'Pirates' flicks sold an estimated 47,000 units, while the 'Matrix' sets sold just about 13,900 units. Is this an indication of movie quality, or another notch in the belt for the Blu-ray format?"
The Pirates series has a hot new movie that just opened up. The Matrix trilogy finished back in 2003. There is more hype around the 'Pirates' movies, as the latest is in the theater now. More hype means more sales.
People have had more time to acquire the Matrix on DVD, which isn't the case for the Pirates flicks. People are probably less likely to purchase a movie in a new format if they have it on DVD. More people probably have the Matrix on DVD equals less purchases of the HD-DVD.
Note: I don't own an XBox 360, and HD-DVD player, or a Blu Ray player, and don't plan to get either in the foreseeable future.
Pirates pirate 'Pirates' more than pirates pirate 'Matrix'... discuss.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
You hit it right on the head there:
It's the age demographic. Parents of preteen kids can feel safe with Pirates, but the Matrix is a much different thing with its adult themes.
Ditto on the Matrix ep 2,3 sucking ass and not being worthy of the materials they were made from.
How many versions of the Matrix have been released on DVD now? Maybe the double dip factor has something to do with this.
don't forget, the second Matrix movie (Matrix Reloaded) has Keannu's well..."bareness".
it's too bad we don't have access to the "birdie" device from MIB to erase that part of our memories.
That is so stupid.
With the third installment of the pirates of the caribbean that just came out, of course its gonna beat the matrix. Give a fourth movie to the matrix to re-ignite the same fire and you've got a whole new ball game.
can't believe someone out there thought this would even be a fair comparison.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Pirates has arguably gotten better with subsiquent releases. Or at least, the sequels haven't STRAIGHT SUCKED in comparision to the original.
I sure as heck am not paying $75 for one HD movie I would watch and a pair of drink coasters. I am sure there are many like me who would have bough the first movie on the day of release if it wasn't burdened with the 2 sequels. Like Highlander, there should be only one.
I like those numbers: 47,000 vs 13,900. But thats 47000 * 1 movie (they did say combined) vs 13900 * 3 movies, so its actually 47000 vs. 41700. Worded like that it doesn't sound like much of a 'big win'. Maybe my math is wonky.
Those are some pretty pathetic sales figures for both.
that the matrix story is a little to heavy for a lot of people while the Pirates movies are more light hearted and appeal to a broader audience?
that the original Matrix was done in by lackluster sequels. There was blowback, and the sequels were so poor lowered the value of the original because they were all supposed to be tied in together into some humongous puzzle. The fans felt a lot of betrayal for the extended wait for what turned out to be crap.
The original Pirates was much better than the two sequel, each of declining quality. But the sequels were "good enough" not to get fan blowback on the original.
Also, each Matrix felt slightly incomplete while the original Pirates could stand by itself even with the loose ends not tied up.
Lately, I've been avoiding any movies with 3 explicitly or implicity in the title. Sadly, that has been a boatload of movies lately.
And we all remember how DVD sold 50 jillion kabillion in its first year.
This is an unfair comparison. I think people should compare apples to apples.
The real reason more people bought Pirates of the Carribean is because the 3rd movie just came out and it's still in the theatres. Many people want to watch the first two before they go see the third. Matrix, on the other hand, has been out for quite a while, and most people who want to own the DVD probably already have the DVD before this sales battle began. It's just natural to get more sales of a movie that has a sequel that just released a week ago.
Lower Price + Movie In Theaters = More Sales
Duh.
Why is this even "news?"
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Bad statistics == another desperate grab for attention and approval by the blu-ray crowd.
It's nothing more than that. Call me back when you sell blu-ray Pirates vs HDDVD Pirates.
Until then, the stats in this are so bad, even George W. could tell they were useless and misleading.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
..in this hand I hold arsenic, in the other one strychnine. Pick your poison.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Jeez can they make it anymore obvious?
Nobody wants to buy the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies, they're waiting for the first to be released on its own. Also, Pirates is fresher in most people's minds.
Wait a minute. The MAtrix Trilogy was distributed by Revolution Studios. Revolution is part of Sony. Sony backs BluRay. How on earth is the Matrix Trilogy a HD-DVD exclusive?
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
Even though currently you can only get The Matrix on HD-DVD, Warner is a dual-format studio, and later this year we should see The Matrix for Blu-Ray as well - and with any luck, an option to buy individual movies instead of the box set.
The interesting thing to see going forward is how stable sales remain week to week - HD-DVD sales figures have tended to be rather bursty, getting OK sales for a short time then dropping off rapidly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I agree with you (and the other named poster who replied)...the sequels sucked (which is why I said, "almost," since it started, vice, "Always sucked"). Honestly, if it weren't for the sci-fi appeal and (at the time) cutting edge animation and camera sequencing, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be just another Nicholas Cage movie with little play.
Oh, and no. Only 4 yr old Pirates play Xbox
Movie piracy is at an all time high! Even in the theatres, piracy has increased by orders of magnitude over the last couple weeks!
Most women that I know (my wife and 3 daughters included) just LOVE bad-boy Johnny Depp. Matrix is way over their heads, IMHO.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
.... _The Big Lebowski_ is slated to be an HDDVD exclusive.
/abide
That just made my mind up for me.
People are already broke from buying the various Matrix reissues...just like the LOTR one. Besides, the Matrix is even more boring in HiDef.
...in regards to the battle of competing consumer media formats, with HD-DVD on one side and Blu-Ray on the other, almost everyone agrees that the submitter is a dumbass.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
Yet still
Pirates are pirates.
If they were released viceversa, still pirates would win
This article is the kind of FUD I wouldn't expect from /. Lets look at the facts. According to buy.com, Pirates I or Pirates II on BluRay is 25.99, Matrix Trilogy on HD DVD is $63.94. Using the amount sold above that tells us that gross for two separate products (one of which is in theatres now and has games, tons of other merch and all the other trappings of a hype juggernaught behind it) was about $1,221,530. Matrix, which is now about 4 years old and overhyped itself to death, was $888,766. This gives us not too much difference ($332,764) between Column A (Two different products of pirate genre with fresh hype in BR) and Column B (1 product of.. Matrix(?) genre with 4 year old hype in HD at about 250% the investment).
Congrats. We've managed to prove new releases sell better than re-releases of old titles. This comparison is SOO far out of whack, I can't believe it made the front page. I mean, have we all forgotten stat's class? or scientific method?
That which is not dead may eternal lie,and in strange aeons even death may die
If anyone has noticed, Best Buy has begun to scale back their Blu-Ray section. HD-DVD offerings outnumber it significantly now. Not sure if this is any indication on the "format wars", but I am going to guess the whole UMD fiasco is probably making retailers pulling out quicker than normal this time around.
I've been there often int he last few weeks looking for movies. I have not noticed this. Future shop/Best buy have exactly the same shelf space for each.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
They aren't comparable, that much everyone seems to agree on, but not becuase the new Pirates movie is in the theaters. Rather because The Matrix trilogy has not only all been out of the theaters but MORE IMPORTANTLY all have been released on all prior media formats individually and as sets. Heck the matrix was availible on home media before the second pirates movie even hit the theaters.
many people knowing there would be more, like myself, didn't buy them individually as they were released and instead waited for the set to come out and to get the set of all three with the bonus materials. It's what I did with the new star wars trilogy and the matrix, what I will do with pirates possibly if I even decide to buy it, and i find i do with most trilogies i really like.
more over because the entire set has been available much longer it already achieved relative saturation. On the other hand Pirates 2 just came to DVD around December, so it hasn't been around nearly as long. A better comparison especially considering the viewing audience would probably be one of the harry potter dvds although those have been pretty darn slow coming as of late.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
Wow. 47,000 sales. Truly amazing. Clearly Blu-Ray has won.
Of course, Cars sold 5,000,000 DVDs in 2 days . The direct-to-DVD movie American Pie Presents: Band Camp sold over 1,000,000 copies in its initial week. (Sorry I can't find anything newer; studios seem pretty secretive about these numbers.)
Conclusion: If you're looking for a "winner", DVD continues to crush both Blu-Ray and HD DVD without even noticing. The Blu-Ray and HD DVD numbers are minor and insignificant. Nothing useful can be deduced from these numbers. Declaring one a "winner" over another based on this sort of data is foolish. When one or the other starts selling a million of copies of a movie in a week, I'll pay more attention.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
For me, the biggest problem is that they got the ending wrong. (SPOILER) It basically turned into a boring Superman-like fight where it was one-on-one and they just kept coming back for more until Neo just got tired (pretended to be tired?) and let Smith absorb him so that somehow that infected Smith.
I ended up just doing my best to pretend that it really ended the way I wanted it to. I wanted Neo to discover Smith's trick. Instead of a one-on-one, Neo would start absorbing Smiths right and left. The camera would jump from fight to fight, showing a 3 second snippet of a fight where Smith successfully absorbed a Neo (by getting a hand to his chest) and then jumping to another shot where Smith cratered into the ground or smashed through a building and then got absorbed as Neo got a hand on Smith's chest.
I imagine a wonderful frenetic sequence where you zoom in and out, sometimes seeing a one-on-one battle, sometimes seeing multiple on multiple, sometimes dozens against one, sometimes seeing a high level ants-from-the-sky view where colors blended back and forth. The battle would eventually end as we see Smith being overwhelmed more quickly than he can handle.
Eventually we end with a quiet scene much like the initial scene where we see multitudes of Smiths. Except, this time they are all Neos.
At this point, Neo simply kills himself. Every single Neo kills himself. Millions upon millions of simultaneous suicides result in every single person tied to the matrix being dead. The machines would suddenly be deprived of power. The humans in the real world would just have to hold out until the machines all just stopped moving. (The entire premise of the series is that the humans are needed for power, so being deprived of the humans means that they have no power.)
To me, that is an incredibly satisfying ending to the series. It doesn't depend on the machines just agreeing to be nice.
Cow Cube
Considering even the lamest movie released on normal DVD outsells that by a factor of much more than 10, it makes you realize that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are technologies in search of a market that does not yet exist in sufficient quantity to justify it's buzz.
... proud owner of an RCA VHS VCR when all my friends bought Beta ...
Wake me when 2009 rolls around, then you'll see the real competition.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
CD and DVD sales are dropping like turds in a toilet bowl.
Who wants to pay a lot more money for DRM-handicapped content that, for the average Joe, does not add much to the entertainment value.
For now, DVD quality is good enough.
By the time the movie houses decide to offer HD content that is not hobbled, everyone will be downloading content to hard drives over the 'net.
My prognostication is that neither Blue-Ray or HD-DVD ever reach critical mass.
If i am reading things right....
:/
VHS outsells them by at least a factor of 30 !!!
Pirates of the caribbean ONLY:
Video Rentals: $20,780,000
DVD Rentals: $42,730,000
Video Sales (to January, 2004): $24,400,000 --- around a million 1st month or two (dec 2,2003 release i think)
DVD Sales (to January, 2004): $235,300,000
Sorry link was a two-line monster that included referal and browser name
I only assumed the second sold half as many as 1st, feel free to look em all up and get hard numbers you math freaks out there.
So the 'winner' had under 50k, probably 25k
VHS sold 1-2 million
DVD sold like 10 million
Sounds like the winner is quite a loser to me...........
It could also be an indication that Keira Knightley is way hotter than Carrie Ann Moss...
(by the way, not safe for work if you work for Pat Robertson...)
Yup...
Argh. You and the rest of the Matrix haters DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE STORY.
I'm sure you folks are real smart and all, so why can't you understand it?
I'll give you a hint: The machines are not the bad guys.
Read that over a few times. Somehow understand that this is not the same old lame, cliche plot of bad vs good, where good overcomes all.
Finally you get a well made saga that has layers, twists, paradoxes...you know, things for people who like to think.
The last scene is a truce...duh, how else could it really end? Let me guess, the Isreal/Palestine conflict is only resolvable by one side completely destroying the other? And then you find that this is, in fact, not the first time such a truce has occurred, and each time it's the humans that were the aggressors.
It's the humans that are genocidal. All the machines ever wanted is to live in peace, but will defend themselves and negotiate if possible. It's genius, and relevant, and classic.
Really, how could you all have missed this? Compared to the childish binary of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc, what other saga compared at this level?
Fools...
How many versions of Matrix has come out so far? We got the Matrix, the super matrix, the trilogy edition, the complete edition, the trilogy HD-DVD, and the complete HD-DVD. (hell it should be required ownership)
Some people don't actually have pirates so there's a higher chance of even getting the DVD. But from what I've seen most people are seeing the facts. DVD is still pretty high resolution (not the same as HD-DVD but higher then what most dvd players are putting out, an upscaling dvd player works perfectly fine for most of us).
Personally even if I had a Blu-ray player I'd only be playing the dvds I had on my upscaler and only consider blu-ray for the newest releases (and then skip it after realizing it's around 10 bucks more per disc).
Do you want to revise your opinion since they already have a faster take-up than DVD?
Just wait until the players are $199 at Wal-Mart. Talk to me again after they reach $99.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Neo would start absorbing Smiths right and left.
... or something. I'm not a writer.
That is a much, much better ending. Except I wouldn't have Neo killing himself and the millions of people (after all, they need to be rescued). Now that he's "wedged" in he could launch some sort of denial of service attack against the Architect, leaving the Matrix intact, but under human control, so it could be shut down cleanly. Morpheus, Trinity, and crew would attack the machine city and prevent the machines from re-launching the Architect program, or reloading from backup...
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I'm sure that the fact that Pirates 3 is out in theaters has no effect on sales.
A useful analysis would compare sales for titles released in both formats. Anything else is Apples to Oranges....
Evolution: love it or leave it
...the fact that the matrix is an older film than pirates has nothing to do with the sales figures
So now the story is fine, just too similar to some ancient texts. If only someone would invent a plot line that has never been done before!
And you don't like the actors...any of them. Worst actors ever, huh?
Too much action and special effects makes the movie boring...oh yeah, that's what everyone says.
Sounds like you are one of those contrarian jerks that shits on everything you come across, makes you feel better. I hate watching movies with people like you.
It's not a perfect series (though the first was mostly flawless). But taken as a whole, against the rest of the PG13 garbage out there (crap wars) it stands the test of time. The politics are still incredibly relevant. Special effects are still impeccable, and shattered the industry norm at the time. It speaks to and inspires a generation of disaffected youth, computer geeks, and hip old-timers. It projects an intriguing and complex possible future and ponders the notion of a dual reality right under our noses. It outright confuses all (to a fault) with too many layers to be fully appreciated the first time. And it took the time to tell the story as part of a epic saga.
Not to mention, all the other good. What other movie in the genre has more color in the cast? You'd swear that all humans were white judging by Star Wars or LotR. Strong female roles as well. They didn't stretch out the sequels FOREVER like Lucas and Jackson did, either. I could go on...
Don't shit in a vacuum. Put it up to something you think is better. What better sci-fi saga has been produced in our time? But mostly, stop being a dick.
It doesn't matter to the consumer as long as they can play it on whatever player they have. So if I'm in the market, a dual format players will win the battle. I'm sure the quality is more than acceptable on either one.
I was just really really amused when they said, basically, that Neo's a bug. He's an off-by-one error. Non-programmers wouldn't understand all the stuff about the little girl being unnecessary software and Neo being a bug, but it's kind of funny to see a face on those things.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
Pirates only came out last year in the theaters, Matrix trilogy is showing it's age.
No doubt if you have a brand new HD player you're not that interested in buying 5 year old movies for it, even if they are high definition. Last year's releases are a bit more intriguing.
What they should do is release Star Wars and a bunch of new content on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (that's both) and see which one people pick to play it on.
8 years ago, when I bought it because is was "the" title to have to show off your new DVD player with its funky features like follow the white rabbit commentary linky thing and ofc it being a pretty good scifi film.
8 years on you cannot expect it be the new "must have" title, especially when you remember parts 2 & 3. I would assume that most people who are rushing out now to buy the new format players will be the same people who were early DVD adopters so they just might have the matrix for the same reasons I do.
On the other hand, Pirates as a much newer title will be more appealing and it has PIRATES!!! and its not been available for 8 FRICKING YEARS!!!
Of course all that is just speculation, and if I can come up with even a part sensible reason why this is false, I'm dam sure the BluRay camp will be coming up with reasons that is a perfectly reasonable argument to show they are winning.
Put simply, you can prove anything with statistics.
Forget how many players are sold, or how many of X movie sold, all I want to see is total number of titles sold by each camp with each movie or tv series season counting as one title. In the end I really don't give a crap who wins, I'm just waiting for a player and use will whatever format Blockbuster online sends me.
Anyone else skipping this format entirely? DVD hasn't been out that long compared to VHS's long life. If they are going to rush out new formats every 5-10 years I can afford to skip this one. Especially with how small of an upgrade it is this generation (compared with others)
Hardly a fair comparison since there is only one Matrix movie.
.evom ton seod gis eht
For me, the biggest problems with the sequels is that they brought back the main villian after destroying him in the first movie. How lazy and cliche is that?
Pirates ARE way cooler then ninjas!
I'm guessing that 'Pirates' is seen as a fun, frivolous entertainment by most people. Nothing controversial...
Matrix, OTOH, may disturb some religious Americans who suspect that there is a subversive message entwined in the movie that their pastor, mullah, priest, guru, master or pope wouldn't approve of.
Likewise, political and social conservatives may well believe that there is an underlying anti-establishment tone that makes them uncomfortable.
The fact that these large subsections of our population are incapable of understanding the Matrix puts the final nail in the coffin. The dark, confusing Matrix movie can never reach the masses as well as the nonsense Pirate movie.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
...omphaloskepsis often...
Yes, the backstory for the series involves the humans being pricks toward he machines. But for everything that actually occurs in the movies, it's the machines that are doing everything bad.
Of course, genocide of the machines isn't exactly a nice thing either.
In any case, I liked the series except for the ending. In my ending the humans utterly destroy the machines. I might be happy with some other ending too, but I just really did not like the boring way that it ended. It was not imaginative. Neo basically just pulled a thorn from the lion's paw in the hopes that the lion would be nice afterward. In fact, it wasn't even that. I just didn't buy how he won against Smith. It made no sense to me that Smith could be infected by absorbing Neo. If it was possible to do that then the machines could have simply infected any other person in the matrix and waited for Smith to get around to them.
Cow Cube
Watching the Animatrix shed much light on the story for me...
Both lose. Everyone alive has already been burned. Wasted cash on thousands of millions of VHS tapes,Beta tapes,8MM film, Polaroid cameras,CD's,DVD's,cassette tapes,8 Tracks,Reel to reel,Phono records,45s,78's. But the biggest issue is the tech crowd,early adopters, the ones who drive and influence family and friends, are already on HDD systems,have multiple player/gadgets, iPods, XBMC, Media Centers,Myth setups,NAS gadgets, TiVo, on and on. They are too little, too late, for too much.
i bet some ninjas are pretty pissed right now....
the matrix is older than pirates, its been available longer on dvd, and all 3 have been on tv a few times now. everybody is sick of it. i wonder why pirates sold better.
portfolio
"Someone must have told them all about my little manoeuvre at the battle of Taanab."
"That blast came from the Death Star! That thing's operational!"
Billy Dee Williams begs to differ.
Godless heathen.
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
They call him "Token" on Southpark. Seriously, I'm not impressed. They had more gonzo alien humanoids than people of color.