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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.'"
Just...no. Stop it right now. Stop before something bad happens.
For the love of the great fire cactus.
Sad thing is, even though most people equate the two existing sequels to the experience of having a lightly chilled olive fork rammed into your eye this movie will get its audience. The first matrix was just that damn good that they can keep cranking out shitty sequels and people will watch them, knowing full well that they are going to suck.
I've been waiting for two more Matrix movies ever since the last one came out in 1999!
Surprise, asshole! I bet you never saw this coming, did ya?
Matrix 4: Scene: City streets
Neo and gang fight and shoot up the place.
Hot chick with pushup bra kisses Neo, Trinity looks disgusted.
More fighting and shooting.
Matrix 5: Scene: City streets
Neo and gang fight and shoot up the place.
Hot chick with pushup bra kisses Neo, Trinity looks disgusted.
More fighting and shooting.
Matrix 1 was a revolution. Bullet time was new and exciting, the whole "green rayban tint" throughout the movie gave it an eerie air (seriously, put on Raybans in the night, presto Matrix feeling), mix in hacker and kung-fu elements and presto instant geek movie.
The second was a weak copy (seriously, the alleged original script was better). The third was ... let's not talk about it, ok?
If they want to be revolutionary again, it has to offer more than "IN THREE DEE". This feature got very stale very fast, being too overused already after not even two years of existence.
Also, how do you want to continue this story? The rise of the machines again? Or are we going to get a moral story about how humans and machines should coexist, even more of a snorer than the third?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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 not a sequel whore; far from it. While he did Matrix 2 and 3 (as it was part of an intended trilogy). I actually can't think of a sequel he's done *except* for the Matrix series. He's notably turned down Constantine 2, Speed 2, a 3rd Bill & Ted movie... he's actually more brave with movie selections than many A list movie stars.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
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
....George Lucas is adopting the Wachowski brothers.
It can't come soon enough.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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.
I thought they only ever made 1 movie, and it was good.
Wouldn't this technically qualify as a second? I sure hope they don't dirty the concept with some crazy machine war, or an oddly pointless death of Neo's love interest.
-Matt
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
IMO, the second two were better than the first.
I don't know what people were expecting and didn't get from them. I find it as puzzling as the people who complained about Transformers 2. What did they expect from that? It was two hours of robots kicking the crap out of each other.
Matrix 2 and 3 were what you expected -- special effects, Keanu saying "woah" and pop-philosophy.
I think the problem is people read way too much into the first one.
I'm rooting for Pastafarian.
Matrix 4: Spaghetti Code.
Mr. Reeves is a sequel whore committed to leaching money off of success or even moderate success
Keanu Reeves has been in 49 movies in his career so far and the only sequels I see that he's been in are Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and the Matrix sequels. I think that hardly qualifies him as a "sequel whore".
If you want to talk sequel whores there are others that are worse such as Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop 1-3. Dr. Doolitle 1&2, The Nutty Professor 1&2, 48 Hours 1&2), Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon 1-4, Mad Max 1-3), Sylvester Stallone (Rocky 1-6, Rambo 1-4) the main cast of Harry Potter and most of the cast of the Police Academy movies (#8 is in development, even Guttenberg stopped after 4).
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
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?
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
I wouldn't count the Harry potter kids since it's a series of books. It would be like saying Elijah Wood was a sequel whore because of LotR.
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.
peope forget at the end the little girl asked the oracle if they would see neo again, and she said maybe or something like that. There always the possibility his body died, but his conscious went back into the matrix.
PLEASE erase this post before someone from Hollywood reads it. PLEASE.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
I hated the first movie because it tried to present some sort of metaphysical philosophy to it, which was nothing new compared to Dark City, Bladerunner, Ghost in the Shell, etc.. (in fact, it was originally inspired by Ghost in the shell). Nice special FX, but no new ideas.
When the second and third installments came out, i figured out that it WASN'T meant to be a preachy philosophical rant, and that it was only meant to lightly touch on the various ideas, as if you were going through a Philosophy 101 class, or shopping at a mall of Philosophy. Instead, it used anime inspiration as a vehicle for creating a just plain kick-ass action trilogy - a bit of existential philosophy from Ghost in the Shell, futuristic motorcycle racing like Akira, giant drilling machines attacking underground cities like Neon Genesis, high-flying fighting like Dragonball Z, and so much more.
It wasn't meant to be taken as seriously as all the nerds took it. It was a light-hearted anime series in 3 movies. That is all.
That's why the whole series was so brilliant.
If you wanted a single philosophical narrative, there are plenty of other traditional, non-edgy sci-fi movies for that.