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The Matrix Re-Reloaded
derGoldstein writes "According to Keanu Reeves: ' Matrix 4 and 5 are coming.' At an event that took place at the London International School of Performing Arts, 'Reeves revealed that he met with the Wachowskis around Christmas. They told him that they completed script treatments for two more Matrix installments. They are planning to make the films in 3D and have already met with James Cameron to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the technology. Reeves added that he's excited to return as Neo and promised that the treatments will truly revolutionize the action genre like the first Matrix film did.'"
XKCD says it all. I'm in the rare minority that didn't see the second two movies, but I bet a lot more won't see the next two movies.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Computers were not exactly "new" a decade ago. Even as far as movie CG, it was about 25 years old. It was the use of new camera and filming technology and techniques that really set the first Matrix apart - aside from a really great story. What Matrix accomplished was doing something amazing in a post-Jurassic-Park time period, when special effects had finally reached the point where it could realistically accomplish anything and we should have otherwise not have been impressed by anything that we saw, anywhere.
I could go for more Keanu. I could go for more cyber-punk type of stuff. I just don't see the need to make it more Matrix stuff. Do two or three whole new movies independent of the franchise. They don't need to have anything to do with it. Sometimes it's good enough to just have one singular great self-contained story. Not sequels. Not game DLC. Not prequels. Just more good stories.
Also, I really just wanted to reply to this whole story with a single post that just said "Whoa....".
Mr. Reeves is a sequel whore committed to leaching money off of success or even moderate success
If he was really doing anything to "leech money", why would he give millions to charity, take millions in pay cuts to allow other big budget actors to be cast when he thinks they'd really suit a certain part? What about when he gave £50,000,000 to the cast and crew of the Matrix movies. Give the guy some credit where it's due. If he's making a movie, it's most likely for other reasons than money.
Read up on the actual story of Sad Keanu and maybe you'll think differently of him. I only read all that last week. I've never thought of him as a douche, but now I think he's one of the nicest guys in show business, perhaps even the nicest guy.
which is totally what she said
I don't see the sequels as bad or stupid.
;).
The idea that the machines want humans as batteries is just what Morpheus claimed. It may be true in the inner Matrix world, but may not be for the outer matrix worlds. Remember even in the first movie the question was asked: "What if when you woke up, you didn't know the difference between the dream world, and the real world?"
So my interpretation is the Oracle is trying to upgrade herself- she believes humans have something the machines don't. Think of the whole thing as a "hybrid/breeding program".
Neo is likely at least partly a machine[1] (and a special one). The Oracle gives Neo cookies to add features/upgrades at critical moments.
After each world iteration (you can see the previous Neos try and fail etc), Neo has a chance of becoming more human but crucially retaining the abilities of machines. Smith goes about merging with all the humans and other machines, including the Oracle (who still _somehow_ retains enough of herself to prompt Neo), and Neo merges with Smith.
If things go fine, the Oracle gets her upgrade... If things go wrong, as the Architect said, the Oracle is playing a dangerous game.
As you can see, there's still plenty of room for reasonable interpretations.
Of course the upcoming sequels could prove that it really was stupid
[1] FWIW, in the first movie the humans themselves mention "he's a machine" they weren't serious of course, but the film writers might be dropping hints.
The thing is that as action movies in their own right, the 2nd and 3rd movies were fine. They just didn't have the epic mindblowing nature of the first. After a few years of not watching them and the whole Matrix hype dying down, I don't mind them so much. I'd definitely give the Matrix 4 and 5 a chance, maybe the Wachowskis have learned something from 2 and 3. Then again, maybe they're just the next George Lucas.
which is totally what she said
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Yes, but the machines never gave his body back to the humans. This was somewhat explored in the short-lived MMO, I get the feeling if there are more movies they will build on this fact.
You know why studios love 3D? Because it is impossible to pirate while it is in the theatre. It gives them a larger window of exclusivity. It is an incidental form of DRM.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
a lot of you are disliking the sequels, and bashing them, because at that point the movie had had become popular in mainstream and everyone was talking about it.
... start bashing something when it becomes popular ..
they WERE good movies. compare those two to the other movies from the last 80 years of moviemaking, and they will come up better than a lot of the movies you would vouch for, because they havent been so popular.
this is one vice of geek crowd
nothing changed in between the franchise being popular, and you starting bashing it. its promise was the same, its storyline was the same, it even seeded the chain of events properly in the first one quite straightly that one could easily guess what would have to happen based on that chain of events. and they did.
holy crap. give those people a break. had there been less baseless bashing, there would have been more quality content.
Read radical news here
Recall that _Highlander_3_ opened with our hero sitting in an ornate chair, looking straight at the audience, and flatly stating (in so many words) that the previous movie* didn't exist and they were starting this sequel about 10 minutes before the original film ended.
(* - aka _Highlander_2:_The_Sickening_)
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Dude, I thought at the end of 2 that they were going to go with a "you idiot, they're still in the matrix, the solution to people not being able to handle it was just to fool them into thinking they had escaped so they'd stop fighting it" approach.
After all, THAT would at least have explained better why Neo was able to sense the damn squidbots and blow them up.
yeah, I had egg on my face after convincing people about this. It also explained the "cyclical" pattern that was described. My personal theory was that the machines won a long time ago, felt bad about killing all the humans, so created a bunch of programs to mimic them for study.
You are an idiot. The stuff he's doing obviously hasn't been publicised much, or everyone would know about it and eldavojohn wouldn't have been being such a dick.
He gives away lots of money to cancer charities as his sister has leukemia. You could make the case that that's vaguely self serving, but it's still a good thing to do.
From the Sad Keanu page:
In his career, Keanu turns down big roles if he believes the character he would portray is too violent. He took a 90 percent pay cut on The Replacements just so Gene Hackman could be cast. Previously, he had deferred 2 million of his salary so that Al Pacino could be cast on The Devil’s Advocate. Even then, he gives most of his earnings to charity and the backstage crew/people who help on the set.
Emphasis mine. He consistently gives away his earnings despite no need to do so, and no need for more publicity. The guy is nothing like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, he is not about the limelight and appearances. As others have said, he turned down big movies like Speed 2 and Constantine 2 (that would have made him a metric fuck-ton of money and publicity), just so he could work on smaller movies that he thought were more worth making.
In TFA he also says he's doing The Matrix 4 and 5 "to give the fans the sequels he feels they deserve", so hopefully they'll be a lot more like the first movie. Likewise I doubt he'd be doing B&T 3 unless it's going to be a great movie. From what I've read he often used to wish that people would forget he was in Bill & Ted and take note of his more serious work!
You can continue being cynical if you wish, but from all the stuff I read last week and today, he sounds like a very humble, admirable and down to earth (as much as it's possible to be when you're that famous) guy.
which is totally what she said
The matrix left high concept Sci Fi and became more comic gothic and set piece action oriented as it went along. The reason people hated it was because people who like physics based sci-fi are not comfortable with meta-physics and fantasy sci-fi or at least don't like it when expecting one and get served the other.
The original compelling mystery and challenge were exposed so new meta physical plots and myth had to be injected. Perhaps the problem was they invented these in a way that tried to hold the patinia of hard core physical sci-fi but was utterly transparent and ill fitting. For example I like Larry Niven and I liked watching Lord of the RIngs. But I'd not like both in the same soup.
People had similar complaints about the evolution of Battelstar gallactica, though there it the conversion was not so complete.
But if you stand back and just look at these gloriously filmed movies all you can say is Wow. No matter how the story morphed the results were just screen filling action mayhem. And I want to see more for sure. I'll still complain the Reeves is a wooden pole of an actor, though to be fair he's hamstrung now by the deification. We all liked him better when he was less of a god and more of a confused apprentice. But he's just a prop. I don't have to like him to like the movie.
These will be fantastic in 3D.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
That's what I thought too. They were still in the matrix. How else could Smith move from one to the other? HE'S A FUCKING COMPUTER PROGRAM.
And it only makes sense. The mystery guy they refer to in the first Matrix who "freed the first of us" and could "reshape the matrix to how he wished". Remember him? When he freed the first of the resistance fighters, who was piloting a ship to catch them and keep them from drowning??? You've got a chicken-and-the-egg problem there. I thought it was a given that they were still in the matrix.
My third movie would have had Neo be the first guy to figure that out - the "outside world" is still the matrix. The matrix does nothing but generate realities to keep you from questioning where you are. And the reason why the matrix is doing this? What's the point?
Earth was destroyed in a war with the machines and the machines won. But they're not the bad guys. We got scared and fired first, nuked them and made the world inhospitable to humans. The machines hold no animosity towards us. The situation saddened them, they understand how we could be scared and do such a thing, and they don't hold it against us. In a way they think of us as parents and believe we are worth saving. So they made a colony ship to send the surviving humans to another habitable world. They don't want us to die, but they realize we can't live together because of human nature. But unfortunately it will take eons to make the trip. So they made a people farm, and a matrix to keep us from going bonkers on the long trip to our new home.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Ever since the end of Reloaded, I had hoped that's where the story would go. Neo had powers "outside" of the Matrix? His powers just branched out into the "real world" layer of the Matrix, where all who thought they were free were still enslaved. He has to re-learn his skills in this second layer, which was built just to contain "the anomaly" of the one and all the destruction he could inflict. The prophecy, the real world et all are a bunch of programs created to guide and distract the anomaly and in part to study it, to learn how best to keep it under control.
In the moment that Neo died, he finally saw through the Matrix, and he awoke in the real world. Now the prophecy is all bunk and Neo is in control of his own destiny, but he is finally able to do what Morpheus said he would do, free us all. Morpheus was still enslaved, and perhaps deep down inside he knew it. Neo is more than the prophecy ever foretold and the path before him now is new and fresh.