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Deep Magic: Matrix, Menace and Virtual Reality
Matrix or Matrices: "That in which anything originates, develops, takes shape or is contained."
Battles rage all over the Net about what a geek is or isn't and who is or isn't one.
Here's a new, cheap and reliable litmus test: geeks will almost certainly love the "Matrix".
Like technology, movies are unpredictable. They rarely do what's expected of them. Despite market research, focus groups and surveys, people often don't react to them the way they're supposed to. Maybe that's why movies about technology are so interesting.
But when techies, nerds, Webheads and normal people look back on l999, I bet they won't be remembering "Phantom Menace", the first movie to ever make a profit before it appeared in a single theater, but "Matrix," an amazing movie about virtual reality that came from nowhere. Pizza Hut doesn't any "Neo" action figures and there are no "Morpheus" dolls at Toys "R" Us. This movie had to make it at the box office, not the toy store or fast-food franchise, and it did.
In several ways, both of these movies cover the same ground. Both are based on the same time-honored myth: young man leaves home when duty calls, setting out to save his world, confronting the demons within as well those from without.
Both movies are stuffed with mythic references and symbols and religious imagery: the Chosen One is sought and found, so that the world (a/k/a Force) can be saved and we can all ascend to a better place. The "Matrix" takes this language even further, with references to Zion and other Biblical places.
In both movies, the hero is opposed by overwhelming technological superiority, but, despite fancy guns and light swords, he ultimately has to put the machines down and look deep within himself for the weapons he really needs to win. The late mythologist Joseph Campbell, who inspired much of the Star Wars mythology, thought that Star Wars was about two of the oldest and most potent myths in the world: the inherent conflict between man and his machines, and the humanity (or lack) it behind the masks.
Since our culture has few remaining rituals, he wrote, the young have no way of learning how to live in civilization, apart from the stories they see and tell to one another (in our time this would be TV, movies, music, the Net and Web).
As Campbell suggested, both movies present technology as a central drama for the world. Is the spirit stronger than the machine, or the science that creates the machines? Can we control the things we make?
George Lucas and the Wachowski brothers aren't the first to take on this question. Mary Shelley did it in "Frankenstein", Bram Stoker did it in "Dracula," and so did Bob Kane, creator of Batman. It's no accident that these are some of the most popular and successful stories in the world.
Both "The Matrix" and "Star Wars" are suffused with technological imagery, computer animation and an acute digital consciousness. Both present the future as technologically centered, dangerous and unstable.
One difference: "The Matrix" is much more of a hacker movie than "Phantom Menace." In "Matrix" good guys are - uncharacteristically for Hollywood -- hackers, and they fight the forces of evil by hacking into the system.
In my mind, both movies (and the Star Wars series) have a powerful and timely political theme: the individual against bigness, battling the growing corporatism that is the dominating economic, and perhaps political, reality of the late 20th century.
The Empire and the Matrix are both none-too-subtle stand-ins for the mass-marketed bigness that is making work a nightmare, making money the only possible corporate goal, squelching individual expression and creativity and making Hype an oppressive social reality.
Both movies recognize this bigness as evil, without explicitly saying so. But since both hackers and geeks are fiercely individualistic and distrust bigness, both movies strike a chord. In George Lucas's movies, evil is never really vanquished, only unmasked. The end result of almost all of his movies is: No Matter What You Do To Them, They Will Be Back. He's right. They always are. The Matrix is comparatively more hopeful.
But despite the similiarities between the two, the movie that cries out to be seen more than once is "Matrix, " which soundly thumps Lucas on his own much hyped turf. (There isn't much need to go back and ponder the neurotic Jar Jar's mystic references.)
"Matrix" was the first Hollywood movie that's come close to capturing the sometimes bizarre - even spiritual - quality of virtual reality, the uniquely cyber-sense of existing in two different dimensions or zones, the digital plane increasingly life-like, colorful, realistic and captivating.
For most people, the experience of going online is routinized and commercial, involving research, work, shopping, auctioning, e-mailing , trawling for information.
But for some people, at least some of the time, there is the sense of living on the border between two different worlds, and even sometimes of losing track of which is real and which virtual. Gamers and MUD'ers say that this sometimes happen to them when they've played with the same character long enough (or too long), and know the trials, pitfalls and tracks of a game so well they feel as if they live there. Or when they've found themselves drawn too deeply into the life of a character they've created.
Sometimes coming back to the real world is sad and disorienting. Sometimes they feel more like their character than their physical self.
I have close online friends I've never spoken with, met or seen. Once in awhile, I wonder if they're real, or if they're precisely who they say they are.
Programmers transfixed on the paintaking, sometimes joyous experience of writing code that works or solves problems also talk about living in two realities, and once in awhile, losing a precise grip on which is which. Many hate the pressures of the real day-to-day world, feeling most alive writing code.
"Sometimes you get in 'The Zone'," one programmer tells me. " I don't think it's another dimension like you're thinking, but I think any virtuoso has that-- a guitarist putting out a kick ass solo or a hacker kicking out hundreds of lines of golden code. It's not other worldly, but its an odd sensation. You operate on instinct and sometimes don't realize it. And the next day you look at what you did and kinda go 'wow'." I have a hard time classifying it as another place. Its just a matter of being hyperfocused on a task. I'm not going anywhere, I'm just performing really well and you get lost in it."
But to me, that is another place, one never experienced by the vast majority of people, and cyberspace is, increasingly a different reality, a virtual one, as the Matrix suggested. The virtual world is very much a place where things originate, develop and take shape -- continuously.
Some people have always seen programs and code as having a "golden" or mystical edge. In the New Hacker's Dictionary, Eric Raymond writes about "deep magic," which he defines as: "An awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one neither generally published nor available to hackers at large (compare black art); one that could only have been composed by a true wizard. Compiler optimization techniques and many aspects of OS design used to be deep magic; many techniques in cryptography, signal processing, graphics, and AI still are.
"Deep magic" is something only a handful of people can really do. That makes it an alternate reality all of its own, something that sets them far apart.
The Net is a powefully representational medium. Anything that can be listened to, written or whose image can be captured, can be represented online. So increasingly, the world out there can be replicated in here.
For me, this experience of crossing the boundary between literal and virtual reality is most often apt to happen when I'm trawling on some mailing list somebody has suggested I subscribed to, or lately, on some weblogs.
Working on a column about weblogs, I was going from one to another, surprised at the graphic quality, good writing and smart thought. They were crammed with ideas, links and non-hostile conversations.
I spent several hours going from one to another, returning late at night for several nights. I was trawling through one of the last around midnight one night, tired and not really focusing, and I came across a lengthy and impassioned essay accusing a writer of self-interest and other short-comings and arguing that he didn't belong on a particular website. The piece struck me as angry, almost bitter, and I didn't like the writer being described either.
It wasn't until I looked at the piece more closely that I realized that the website was Slashdot and the writer was me. The sensation was disorienting as I came across quote after quote of my own words in this completely unexpected place, and in a completely different -- and hostile -- context than I'd written them. For a second, I couldn't quite grasp how I could be reading such a thing while researching a piece for the very site I shouldn't be writing for. Or why I didn't recognize my own words. Other times - rare - I might write something that just works, for reasons I never understand, and which sparks all sorts of discussion, comment and response. In this cases, I sometimes make new friends, and start conversations that might go on for months, even years.
This experience is so different from traditional journalism, and so powerful -- and in some ways, so complicated and internal -- that it's not possible to share with people in the real world, including my own family. Even if I could, I'm not sure I'd want to. It would take too long, and isn't really possible to recreate, much like the programmer writing his "golden" code above.
In a way, the "Matrix" brilliantly captured this sensation of dual realities that comes from working and exploring the Net and Web but actually living in a completely different plane, or "zone." We always know who are and where we live - the reality of our lives - yet we can enter a special place.
We have one language for the people we know online, even a different, sometimes freer way of speaking. There are different procedures, protocols, politics, sensibilities here. We know names and places people offline don't know. Programmers have a completely unique language that can only be understood by other programmers. After awhile, the gap widens.
We (even non-programmers like me) increasingly live in one dimension, they live in another. The distance becomes so great it really can't be articulated, and the virtual reality is as powerful as any other.
The "Matrix" did several other memorable things. It raised martial arts to a cinematic art form. It had a sense of humor about itself (remember the only time Neo smiled? When a martial arts program was being downloaded into his head.) It captured the edgy, bristly, unpredictable, geeky deep magic of the Net and the Web in a way that has completely eluded Lucas, or that he decided to ignore.
It portrayed the sensation not only of creating a software program, but of living in a software program, a feeling not unfamiliar to hard-core hackers, geeks and programmers. In one scene in "Matrix," Mouse the programmer creates a training program for Neo in which the hacker encounters a beautiful woman, put in the program to distract him from the bad guys. Later, Mouse asks him if he liked the woman, and if so, if he'd like to meet her. In Neo's world, and in the Matrix, it's not a fantasy but a real possibility.
One test of a movie is how long it stays behind, how much if it is imprinted on the moviegoer. In that sense, the "Matrix" is triumphant, leaving"Phantom Menace" in the dust. That makes it the geek movie of the year.
All of the AI as god movies, such as the Matrix, bring to mind the manga Grey. It was released in the US in an english translation by Viz comics some ten years ago. Fascinating story of the machines suddenly waking up one day and deciding that the human race should be extinct.
/. thread...
One point about the Matrix that bugs me endlessly is that the goal of the rebel hacker group is to "free humanity"... free us from what? We wake up one morning and find ourselves floating in a tub of purple goo? No thanks. The notion of freedom is warped by the world of the Matrix. Once you're out of the matrix... once you take the pill, you're catapulted into the real world that you've always been curious about. And it sucks.
In the "Grey" series, 99 per cent of humanity lives in squalor of the ruined cities. They are slaves and they have no hope of attaining anything better unless they join the military. The soldiers fight in an endless war against each other. Everytime a human destroys a tank or kills an enemy soldier, he or she gets credits. Credits are traded in for a bump up one level in the society. The ideal to be obtained is "citizenship". When certain humans do well enough in the army, they get to live in the city. Grey, the hero of the story, fights his way into the city only to find that the citizens are all robots, their human bodies long destroyed, and the computer, named "big mama", is running the whole planet, organizing the war, and laughing all the way.
It's the ultimate tale of alienation and the futility of war. I was watching the Matrix and thinking of all of the AI as God stories... how all of them are so alike and yet they all still bring something new to the conversation. Almost like a
I thought recall did a better job than matrix of portraying the concept of a virtual reality as real... But of course Recall had Paul "what does 'subtle' mean" Verhoeven's directing style. Still, matrix took a lot of key plot elements from Recall. (the pill, deterministic future) The dialogue was more brilliant in Recall: the thought of an "ego trip", the pill as a symbol of escape, wanting to go to mars, memories as existence (from bladerunner/philip k dick.), etc..... But Matrix had the much cooler stop motion special effects & kung fu action.
And the concept of presenting machine has human was done very well with Star War's R2-D2, since R2 was so abstract yet lovable, unlike 2001's hal, which was abstract yet had no charismatic personality... And I thought star wars kicked ass in the action department as well.
Of course the ultimate Human/Machine movie was bladerunner. The alien series also did it pretty well. I wasnt alive before 1974 so i wouldnt know anything about movies before then.
-bobby
I hear Katz, and what he feels about the Matrix. It is a golden movie with more intelligence and depth written into its pretty exterior than any movie to date.
To write off the Matrix's plot as "bad" probably means you went to the movie and purposely left your mind in the car (as I need to do for so many movies these days). The Matrix is dealing with subjects that have kept the worlds greatest minds pondering for centuries. Existenstialism, reality and perceptions. The tendancy for mankind to accept blindly that what he percieves is real.
I think anyone who quickly dismisses the Matrix, either doesn't contemplate on these levels, or finds the subject too overwhelming to be worth thinking about.
IMHO, IANAL, FWIW, and all the other acros needed to absolve me from preaching, the Matrix is all that and a bag of chips!
BTW: Good article Katz
I think the writer of the previous post missed the entire point. The idea of the "chosen one" in Matrix was learning to think outside of your boundries. Most people today build arbitrary walls around themselves saying "I can't do that" or "I'm not good at that". That "magic Powers" he acquired were in him all the time. He acquired them we he finally stepped outside of those walls, in this case the limits of the dream reality of the Matrix. It wasn't even sudden at that.. he was breaking down that wall for the last hour of the movie.. starting on the rooftop he was beginning to exceed what any other "freed" minds had believed possible when he dodged the bullets, culminating in the end where he realizes that the dream is only as real as he allows it to be. I thought this was an incredible movie but not for reasons i've seen mentioned here. Inside all the technology, the "bad" plot as some feel it was, the movie was about stepping outside that wall... that the only limits we face are the ones we impose on ourselves.
.02$
yup, i sound preachy but that's my
What do you mean he had to do nothing for it???
He had to get 8 virtual bullet holes into him, go into physio-VR death AND THEN come back to life before he got the "magical" powers! (Trust me, I won't bitch about you having magical powers after you take a gun, stick 8 bullet holes into your heart, and then come back to life...)
Damn, somehow I get the feeling you geeks REALLY did not get the film... (I find that a disturbing concept for a movie that I think can only be genuinely appreciated by geeks...)
The ability to do things that doesn't correspond to Matrix reality is not "magical powers"! Its Neo's ability to manipulate his interactive universe after somehow uniquely developing the VISCERAL realization the Matrix was not the "real" world. And then being able to mentally manipulate the Matrix virtual "reality".
Do you have magical powers because you can run a computer game where you're a 20th level mage? No, a computer game is not "reality". Well, the Matrix is not "reality" either. Its just so damn convincing, that it can convince you mentally to the point your body functions shutdown after a virtual bullet gets popped into your vital organs.
(There are many apocryphal instances in our "reality" (?), where the body will take physiologic manifestations based on psychological belief without physical explanation. Ex. - Christian stigmata phenomena. (It a really rough analogy, I know...))
Well, the protagonists have been violating "physical laws" in the Matrix throughout the movie. (Unless you really think you can jump from one building top to another 1/4 of a mile away...)
But apparently, they couldn't get around the VR phenomenon of death, and it limited their ability to manipulate EVERYTHING.
Well, once Neo was able to VISCERALLY reject death in the Matrix, he became able to manipulate every aspect of that virtual world. (Think of him as being "TRON", the protagonist able to manipulate the MCP computer reality because he was a programmer...) If you're Neo, and in the Matrix, and you're thirsty, and you feel like quenching the thirst, why dork around interacting through sequences of getting the virtual drink when you can *poof* a drink into your hand? Remember, there is no spoon. (Just look at what you can do with the spoon once you realize it isn't there...)
I found the ending amusing, and a reasonable way to end the movie. (Obviously, it was setting itself up for sequel. After all, Neo decides that is better to choose ugly reality to the Matrix, but how is he going to convince 5 billion people (and an neurotic, change-fearing AI)?)
The plot was a rehash of 20 years of SciFi themes. But just because the plot has been done over and over doesn't mean it can't be exquisitely redone in an entertaining manner. So the good guy triumphs in the end. Geez, I guess you don't like ANY movies.
Nope, utterly great movie. Perhaps on some level a bit too simplistic. But great.
Jon, articles like this one are the reason so many people dislike you so strongly.
There is no defining authority on what people must/must not do to be a geek. And if one were to be appointed, there are a whole lot of people who'd be higher on the list of nominations than you are. So stop trying to tell us what we're supposed to think, what we must do to be official, authorized geeks. Try observing and recording rather than defining, and I expect you'll find that geeks like you better. Though your status in our peculiar gift-exchange culture may be low enough now that nothing'll help...
Oh, and when a programmer tells you that "the Zone" he gets into isn't a place, you might want to try believing him, instead of making up wild hypotheses about what he's really thinking that he didn't tell you about. You're mixing up two concepts without understanding either one.
The first is "Deep Hack Mode", that state a programmer gets into where the code flows like water, and every compile is error-free. It's a state of mind, not a place, and may be the thing hackers value above all else. It's not, in fact, unique to hacking... I've experienced it when swinging a broadsword, too (a different kind of hacking, you might say)... there, it's a state of mind where everything starts to slow down, you can see where your opponent is going and react before he starts to move, and your blade goes exactly where it needs to be without conscious guidance. You don't *go* anywhere, though, you aren't in some other world... it's the same old world, it's just running a little slow.
The other concept is that of cyberspace, a completely immersive virtual reality, which *is* another world (for sufficiently small values of "world"), that may or may not exist in the same space as this one. Gibson's matrix did... there was a one-to-one correspondence between real space and virtual space. Stephenson's didn't, and is a more accurate reflection of where I personally think we're headed. The point is, though, that cyberspace and deep hack mode are _not_ the same thing.
Posted by spidermind:
Perhaps one reason why geekdom responds so positively- is that we can actually build it. The Matrix I mean. If there was ever a project to take mankind to the moon again- it would take that level of effort and commitment but it could be done.
are involved with today, but I definitely would
not go as far as saying that all geeks like
the Matrix, or that anyone that likes the
Matrix is a geek.
I'd even suggest that there is yet to be what
one can call the defining geek movie, because,
as pointed out before, geeks are not the same
as techno-nerds. It's nearly impossible to
isolate the single aspect that defines geekdom.
However, in terms of movies, geeks tend to rave
more about movies that *aren't* blockbusters
or award winning, but instead movies that are
unique and different and break from the acceptible
norm (just like geeks themselves). While none
of the movies I list below I'd consider to be
*the* geek movie, these are the types of films
that you hear mentioned in their circles often.
- Any Stalney Kubrick film, specifically
clockwork Orange, 2001, and Dr. Stangelove.
Kubrick broke the mold of movie making with these
films, *and* incorporated a number of mind-opening
ideas into them. He will be sorely missed.
- Bladerunner. A very very grim vision of the
future, and if this was enough to scare William
Gibson, it's enough to scare me. (*still waiting
for the rumors of a Neuromancer film with much
more Gibson control over the final output*)
- Heathers, or Clerks. Both were sleepers, and
both were very very dark comedy. For some
reason, these movies seem to be popular with
geeks, maybe because we are sufficient away
from the norm of sensitizing to be able to avoid
the typical feelings associated with death or
other morbid topics.
- Army of Darkness, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Clue, and others - Written to be
campy but with humor, these movies knew how to
make fun for themselves. Something about how
geeks know how to make fun of themselves as well.
(And what probably makes MST3K a prime canditate
for *the* geek show).
Also note that geeks do love the very popular
films (Pulp Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc
etc), but these truely don't belong to the geek;
they are directed towards the audience at large,
and lack the elements that some of the films
above have.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Haven't the evil computers heard of nuclear or geothermal power? Why exactly do they need to be at a _virtual_ telephone to leave or enter VR? Why won't a virtual cell phone work? Or a virtual banana, really? Why does the computer program feel the need to make its agents human-like? Why not just crush them with 2000-ton weights?
I can go on, but the point is the movie didn't really CARE about technology beyond being a way to 1) make people say "woah that's so weird and deep" and 2) have an excuse to have special effects to make people say "woah, that's so cool and pretty".
Which is fine for a hollywood blockbuster, but hardly makes it geek art.
--
Dear troll,
Please create an account with the following link:
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where you can remove this author that does not inspire your soul. Doing this may make you more productive and others too! Its a win-win situation!
THe second Idea, that the world around you is fake, Has also been done a few times in sci-fi, though not as often as the AI thing. However it is based (stolen) on one of Socrates thought experiments, and for the geeks of the world, it is also not a new concept. But for all the non-geeks, and proto-geeks out there, this is world-shattering strangeness.
I don't think you can assume that all geeks have read Socrates. I haven't (although I am familiar with the Cave of Shadows bit), and I bet that many geeks still in HS haven't read it either. (I may be biased, since my HS sucked. Perhaps most people do have exposure in HS.)
Ok, I just read the Allegory of the Cave. It doesn't really seem to address the concept of reality being based only on perceptions so much as persecution of those who have seen beyond the shadows. So, I don't think it's really all that applicable to the Matrix. Although it does kind of touch on the question of the true nature of reality, that's not the main point.
Anyway, I don't think you should assume that all geeks would be familiar with the allegory. And, the Matrix made the fact that all you have are your perceptions much more tangible. It clearly demonstrated that reality (for you) is really only what you percieve.
In my opinion, the mythological aspect of Matrix was just tacked-on. I find it hard to believe that there are people who are awestruck at the revelation that Neo is an anagram for One, or that there are parallels to be made with the Judaic concept of the Messiah or various mind-over-matter philosophies. The movie may never have said these things explicitly, but it might as well have put them on the screen in big block letters. And maybe I'm too skeptical for my own good, but to me, it seemed this papier-mache theology was just an attempt to add depth to a movie that couldn't provide it by way of, say, characterization or plotline.
For my money, the VR movie of the summer is Cronenberg's ExistenZ. It's not big budget (in the wake of Matrix, Ep.1, et al, it looks practically no-budget), but it deals with VR in a fashion that dispenses with sci-fi pseudomythic conceits and deals with the very human consequences of manufacturable reality. There are touches any hardcore gamer will love, like characters that loop their dialogue until somebody says the right thing to them. More importantly, there are characters who are complex enigmas, not cardboard cutouts, there are conflicts which are complex and multifaceted, not cartoonish good guys vs. bad, and the emphasis is on what the actors say and do, not what they wear. And, for all Matrix's dizzying camera angles and CG tricks, one of the most effective effects I've seen this year was ExistenZ's seamless pan-and-dissolve when the characters move from reality to the game world.
Having said all that, I might as well confess that actually, my favorite movie of the summer so far has been The Mummy. Campy horror movie, big scary bugs -- that and a bag of popcorn and I'm happy for hours.
$_="06fde129ae54c1b4c8152374c00"; s/(.)/printf "%c",(10,32,65,67,69,72, (74..76),(78..80),(82..85))[hex $1]/eg;
The Zone is a place where the Task has completly enveloped your every thought. Your consciousness is focused to amazing intensity; your neural net is resonating with ferver; adrenaline starts to slip into the blodstream. This is when it is You and the Task in the Zone. All other distractions, discomforts, meaningless stimuli are far far away.
Sometimes the Zone will not come when when you seek it. Sometimes it will come when you do not seek it. For some it may come easy, for other with much effort. But always with practice, it will be easier. There are also different depths to the Zone. Perhaps you do not enter fully into to the Zone, but manage to get into the Groove. The Groove is close to the Zone, but still a different animal. When in the Groove the Task is still fully within your understanding. It is clear and and precise. Your actions are straightforward. There is no struggle to perform the Task, yet there are still distractions, you are still aware of time passing, your thoughts may wander and then return.
The Task really does not matter. It can be coding, gaming, martial arts or even sex. But it must be something you enjoy thouroughly or at least find intersting and captivating. Something that can grab hold of your mind and pull you deep into the Zone. Something that no matter how focused you become, you still wish for more, to exceed any limits and operate at full capacity.
Just about everyone has found the Zone at sometime or another. For some it comes easily; for other with much struggle. But is is always worth the effort. It is a sensation unlike any other. It is your mind in a whirlwind of thought. The productivity of a mind in the Zone is amazing, even to the one who experiences it. It is the Zone.
So find the Zone. It will come if you seek it.
The most fascinating thing I find about both Star Wars and The Matrix is the constant references to the battle between our spiritual and our logical sides.
As we become more "civilized", we desire greater and greater mastery of our environment. The feeling that programming brings us is complete mastery over this one part of our environment. (Linux anyone?) Programming is a art derived from the depths of Aristotlian logic. Everything is completely deterministic and non-random in programming.
Contrast that to the world outside of the computer, which operates in a continous relm, which we cannot fully grasp or comprehend. It may be deterministic, but unless we know the complete state of the universe, we will never know what exactly will happen next. We have intuitions, ideas, and worries about the real world, but are they always 100% correct? Our emotions and our feelings are still there, whether we acknowledge them or not.
This is why these movies touch us so. Not because of the heros and the villians, but because of the mastery of the human soul over the unknowable. It is a parable that is thousands of years old. It is the same story, told in many different ways. But it always touches us.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Sheesh. He never said Geeks were a uniform grop.
Katz is just saying, on average, people who classified themselves as 'geeks' liked that movie. It's true too. Look at this thread. In general 'geeks' liked this movie. Everyone seems to like to find minor flaws with Katz's statements and twist them WAYYY out of proportion, on the pretense of sounding more intelligent. Maybe because they are bitter THEY don't get to write these huge articles for slashdot (even though I suppose anyone could).
I've seen half a dozen people complain about what Katz said now. Some were good. Some were, "I randomly disagree, because you are John Katz."
On The Matrix. It was an ok Moive. It was a great Geek Movie. Why was it a great geek movie? Because on average, geeks liked it. I'm sure theres a hardcore coder out there who HATES the matrix. So what? Oh well.
As for a geek litmus test, I'm not sure you can go quite that far, but there are certainly worse indicators.
- Paradox
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
If you love movies (and you're a geek), you probably didn't love The Matrix. You might have liked it (hell, I even liked it), but I don't think you could love it.
You had to see the parts that were obvious homages either to John Woo or to HK action flicks in general, and seen how woefully short they fell in comparison to the best of those they imitated.
You had to see The Battery Scene, and probed the swiss-cheese holes in the premise of the movie. The silliness of the final battle. The melodrama of it all.
You had to have seen that the acting was...occasionally...sub-par.
As a matter of fact, The Matrix is a movie you'd love to hate. But you can't. You have to give it credit for the execution of the shared hallucination concept. Plus, bits of it actually achieved the kewlness that the rest aspired to. Part poseur, part thrasher.
Maybe you don't have to have done any of these things. Maybe you did love the movie. Maybe you're just the sort of person who'd show up on
Keep up the good work, mistah katz.
-k. ^-^ ^D
I doubt anybody here has seen the excellent Italian film "Nirvana", directed (I think) by Gabriele Salvatores. The main character is a game designer who suddenly realises one of his characters is alive. The character has worked out that he is inside a game and asks the protagonist to kill him. Of course the megacorp would rather the game were released...
My point is that while Matrix may well be a good and insightful film, it is hardly unique in discussing these particular questions. Frankly I much preferred Nirvana's baroque, complex atmosphere, reminiscent of Blade Runner in a Neapolitan slum - one that was unaccountably littered with Macs! Maybe the future isn't all bad...
" There is a rational explanation for everything. There is also an irrational one. "
I am a self-professed geek, and I _loved_ "The Matrix". So did all my geek friends. However, despite the incredible CG special effects and sci-fi aspects, this movie has more of a following than just the "geek crowd". My non-programmer, non-techie friends who have seen the movie have raved about it. The characters and the story are accessible to all, even if you do not have a technical background or inclination.
...
I also found it interesting to see a thread on the "alt.yoga" newsgroup talking about "The Matrix". Many people in this rather un-techie ng were moved by the ideas in the film dealing with "What is reality?". This movie has more to it than what first meets the eye, too
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
You really don't know what you're talking about...
There is no sun, in the Matrix world, so that source of energy and entropy cannot be harvested.
Geothermal is about the only source one could concievably tap, and I think in the movie, the earth's core is like lukewarm. People live there, for example =)
So yeah, it does violate a whole bunch of 2nd law or thermodynamic principles.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
It was particularly telling the Louis Cypher would be willing to betray his friends and people in order to get back into this reality that was created by this monstrous demon, into the Matrix.
He even goes as far as to acknowledge that all of it is illusory, the steak, the wine, the restaurant, but that is what he wants and prefers. He can accept living in an illusory world, but is not himself strong enough to create his illusory world, even so far as it being all in his head.
Neo, however, can create his illusory world. He can 'bend himself', rather than bending the spoon.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Well, the problem would be that the Littleton shooters copied the Matrix.
This could be argued, as the Littleton boys were planning this for a whole year, way before the Matrix came out.
It is more likely that the Matrix and the Littleton boys both *copied* the same source for inspiration, the cool cliche that is black trenchcoat, sunglasses, and guns.
Black trenchcoats aren't a new thing, introduced by the Matrix. T2 had a guy with a shotgun and trenchcoat. Western myth has for years had gunslingers in trenchcoats, though the sunglasses are new.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
You need a (simulated, virtual) landline to get in or out of virtual space but cellphones work for talking to/from virtualspace? Who wrote that into the program? A city at the center of the Earth? A "hovercraft" built like a battleship?
Why is it people think all this is inconsistent?
I grant that the battery is ill thought out, and more likely a mistake on Morpheus's part, unable to comprehend why the machines would need humans.
As for hardlines, their need is unmistakeable. One needs a port into/out of the Matrix. Their appearance as phones is also in the nature of consistency:this is how the Resistence sees it, not how the Matrix programmed it. Half the movie is about the illusory nature of reality, in and out of the Matrix, and how the human is capable of manipulating reality and bending it or yourself to suit it.
Cellphones are ports which can be accessed, but not entered/left through. Cellphones are *brought* into the Matrix by the good guys, so they are essentially virtual access ports =)
As for the city at the center of the Earth, that is far fetched. More likely it's resting somewhere on the mantle(close enough), especially with the hypothesis that so much time has passed that the Earth's core is cool, that the half life of many nuclear materials is way over, and that there is no energy/entropy source called Sol.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
But he was taught the physics and reality of his reality, and not ours =)
Likewise, we don't know that he even took physics in HS. Physics was optional in our school =)
And we don't even know if he's particularly science oriented. He could just be a particularly good hacker and programmer.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I can see what you're saying, but what alternative is there to a hardline?
Just unplugging them kills them, as their mind/consciousness is in the Matrix but not in their bodies.
My argument would be that once in the Matrix, the individual has no way of navigating out of the Matrix, that once you are surrounded by illusion one cannot just ignore and step out of the illusion. Neo might be the only one who can, but the again, he's the Chosen One.
Let me ask you(or anyone else even =)
You are currently residing in a virtual reality. You believe it. How do you leave? How can someone else, inside or outside this reality, make you ignore all of existence and just leave?
The hardline is the only process known, probably a combination of protocols, messages, and correct handshakes, to disconnect one from the Matrix. The machines obviously know how to disconnect someone from the Matrix, and maybe even the red pill has something to do with it.
But stuck inside a reality, one doesn't obviously know how to leave it. Short of dying, that is.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
As best exhibited by Louis Cypher (Lucifer? =).
He lives in the real world, but longs desperately for the luxuries and comforts of illusion. He *knows* it's illusion, that the steak is imaginary, but to his brain, it is juicy, and tasty, and wonderful.
The real question then is, how can Cypher so willingly accept illusion? It is, after all, all in his head, all a function of his will and imagination. Counterpoint is the scene in which 'There is no spoon,' because Neo has come to be able to bend himself, to alter his own reality.
But again, one could argue that is the function of the Chosen One, and that someone like Cypher is just incapable of sustaining himself, of *creating* his own illusions, and must return and live within that created by the Matrix.
Of course, I'm not a philosophy major, so I probably really screwed up something =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
What kind of education do they give you in 4th grade?
My education didn't touch the second law of thermodynamics until 11th grade, junior year of HS.
It may be intuitively obvious that one can't get more energy out of a system than exists in the system... But blindly, naively, one can point at gasoline as an example of a system that releases more energy than one puts in(a spark creates a huge explosive combustion)...
So for Morpheus, untrained in any classical physics, it is entirely plausible *for him* that humans are used as batteries.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I think Mr Katz has a little to much time on his hands. The Matrix though a ok movie fell short of a lot of expectations from those that saw it. It may have been a box office hit on it own merits and didn't have the hype of TPM but the only people who will remember it will be the geeks who will compare its special effects to that of the next great "hacker" style movie.
The Phantom Menace will be remembered one for all the hype it produced, and two because its the beginning of the end for Star Wars. Two more movies and then we will have to be content with watching them over and over on DVD, VHS , or what ever media evolves that the place it on. No more to a spectacular saga that has had the world imagination in its grasp for so long.
Comparing TPM and Matrix is also a horrible lapse in judgement on your part for movie most remembered by geeks because we are just now hitting the peak movie season. Who is to say movies like the 13th Floor, or even Austin Powers don't leave a better impression or influence on us and make us remember the Matrix as a movie with sup par acting but some interesting special effects done on an open software system.
TPM will live long after the hype due to its place in the Star Wars family. The Matrix may become a cult classic for wannabe hackers or even theorist to ponder over but that is the extent of it.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein
I personally loved the Matrix. I just thought that it ended a little bit to soon.
However, I have read articles dated recently (within the past 2 weeks) that say that the writers actually intended the Matrix to be a Trilogy, and that plans are definitely in the works for at least a sequel. The only problem is that Reeves and Fishbourne are not under contract for a potential sequel.
Aside from that, I still think it was a great movie, even though I am never impressed with Keanu's acting. However, I think he did a better job in this movie that he had previously (i.e. Speed).
The special effects were great, but I admit, the plot may have needed a bit more development. Sure, this theme that we all live in a dream world has been used before, but so what? I don't think that anything else using this theme has portrayed it to the level that The Matrix has.
I am really hoping that they produce a sequel, because it will be interesting to see how they can warp the plot line further. For instance, will The Matrix evolve and be able to fight Neo? or will everyone be freed? Will the earth in the 22nd century start to thrive again?
I guess we will just wait, and until that point, I will be waiting in anticipation.
In my opinion, a geek movie would be one that got the tech right. In this sense, Hackers was not a geek movie because while it had some realistic characters (Joey, trying to come up with a psuedo was the most realistic) it bulloxed everything else. Not to say that Hackers or The Matrix were bad movies, they weren't, but that they are generic action flicks with a techno premise.
The Matrix had a whole list of flaws. Some are provably wrong, and some just ring untrue.
The first flaw was the power source. This is just plain wrong in so many ways. The easiest way to pick this apart is to look at efficiency. No system has 100% efficiency. If you put energy into something, you get less out the other end. Humans were being fed. If the AIs had just used this food directly to generate heat, they'd have gotten more out of it. Not only are humans inneficient engines, but we 'waste' energy on things irrelevant to producing heat. We grow large bodies, etc. This is a waste from the machines point of view. The whole matrix exists only to keep people alive, so chopping out humans would only make it more sense because this big matrix wouldn't be needed.
The second flaw was about the date chosen for the sim. We're told it's because that's when the world supported the highest population. Sure, maybe. But, why not simulate a million seperate desert islands with barely-sentient cavemen on them? Then we're told that a utopian sim was first created, but people didn't believe it. So, don't create a utopia, but why recreate all the flaws in our society, especially if every needless death robs the machine of power? They could have introduced cars with pedestrian-avoidance fields, better medical, etc. If this makes people 'not believe the reality' then they're telling us people will suddenly start going insane because airbags save too many lives in collisions in the real world.
The other flaws just 'sound' wrong.
There's the big one, of the AIs not being in complete control of the sim. They wrote it. It's like playing a MUD and expecting to change the game through the force of your will.
Then there's the thing about the AIs needing to combat the humans via agents. If being unplugged is fatal, all they have to do is stop sending data updates to 'bad humans' and they'll die. Data is being sent over a network that they control, so all they need to do is stop it at any hop, and that's easy. Thus no more agents. No need for them to play-by-the-rules, sort-of... If agents can jump fifty feet across roofs, dodge bullets, etc, then why can't they shoot lasers from their eyes, or anything slightly more useful? After all, the AIs control the reality.
Third, why is being uplugged fatal? This would only happen through bad design. And I mean sub-microsoft design. If brains still work the same way they do now, then 'you' are always there. The only way to immerse you in a VR is to tap into your senses and pass in the virtual world. So why do you connect directly, without so much as a fuse between you, to the evil computer? Why not have a simple computer between you that you control? If the shock of switching worlds suddenly is fatal, then have the simple computer watch for a shutdown, then it freezes the world in the last state it got, and slowly fades you back into reality in a non-fatal way?
Honestly, if anyone would plug themselves into something where a winnuke would not only punt you from IRC, but kill you... Yeesh. Better hope a script kiddie in 2150 never gets your IP...
A techno movie with flaws doesn't honestly strike me as a geek movie. It was a kick-ass (literally) action movie, and as such, with the cool shoot-out and kung-fu scenes, was great fun to watch, and I'm not suprised that many geeks liked it, but it WASN'T a hacker movie. The most realistic 'hacker' scene it had was Neo, fallen asleep, getting a keyboard imprint on his face.
The Matrix has the _least_ influence on actual card carrying geeks and hackers, because we've read the literature, we've seen the prototypes, The only true GEE-WIZ factor left is that the movie was pretty.
It breaks down into two basic plot lines:
1) AI rebelion/war (ala Terminator)
2) "The Caverns of Socrates" the idea that the world you see is an illusion.
Now, The first idea is so old, it has hair on it, and any geek has seen/read so many books/movies about it that it is now rather boring, but non-geeks have avoided that "sci-fi trash" and the Matrix (with its pretty special effects) has lured many of them into the fold, and the Idea is new to them.
THe second Idea, that the world around you is fake, Has also been done a few times in sci-fi, though not as often as the AI thing. However it is based (stolen) on one of Socrates thought experiments, and for the geeks of the world, it is also not a new concept. But for all the non-geeks, and proto-geeks out there, this is world-shattering strangeness.
The *Real* Matrix test of Geeknees, is whether a person was annoyed at the innacuracys of the film, not if they were impressed. A true geek would only be impressed by the film's special effects, because the ideas the film puts forth are old hat.
As for the Star Wars referance, WTF? The movies are not meant to be competitors, this nonsense about cyberspace, there wasn't any in episodes 3,4,5 why expect it in episode 1?
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
I loved the movie. There are no holes anywhere that cannot be easily reasoned away - for instance, there is no violation of the second law. They feed the humans bodies of other humans AS WELL AS leftover hostess snack products mined from old 7-11's, a source of energy obviosuly more vast than our sun and nuclear and geothermal energy combined.
The machines cannot directly use the energy from Twinkies not having developed the technology to do so - thus the Matrix serves the dual purpose of having humans convert ding-dongs into usable heat form, while ALSO using the mental powers of humanity to search for a way to directly extract the energy from Ho-Ho's (which in our world are actually mapped to subatomic particles, thus our search for a workable fusion power source).
Think, people! Think!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Jon does a good job in describing his perception of the distinctions
between reality and virtual reality. However, his usual disclaimer applies:
Jon Katz is not a programmer. Despite his brief reference to "deep magic",
his appreciation of the 'net is primarily of high-level constructs (weblogs,
MUDs, chat rooms, etc.) and their impact on humans. Thus, his view of the
'net is as an alternate world, whose rules are different from those
governing the real, "stub-your-toe" reality.
He misses two key facts. First, if you picture the Internet as reality, then
programmers really are wizards, since we can not only understand the basic
nature of reality by delving into tomes, grimoires, and RFCs; but also change
the very fabric of reality. (Granted, changing the definition of an IP
packet on your machine might not be such a great idea--but you can do it if
you really want to.) Being able to find out exactly what makes your reality
operate at the very lowest level is pretty cool--think of it as being able
to look at a person and see all of the organs and tissues working and
interoperating, the cells growing and dying, the mitochondria metabolizing
sugar molecules, the medichloreans interacting with the Force (OK, not really),
the protein molecules being built from amino acids, and so on, all the way
down to the quantum waveform of each electron.
The other fact he misses is that the Internet isn't really about MUDs, or
chat rooms, or 3D interactive worlds. The Internet is purely a means of
sending information from one place to another. The reason this is important
is that the protocols defining the Internet do not place restrictions on
what networked applications can use them for. This means that the emergence
of a global, universal computer network isn't simply a revolution, as Mr. Katz
styles it. It is also a boundary condition for a nearly infinite number
of future revolutions that we can't even imagine yet. Here's another
analogy: before the Earth had accreted from the primordial gas cloud,
there was no chance for life to develop; soon after the Earth had cooled
enough to form a solid crust, primitive forms of life appeared. The primitive
forms of Internet life are already widespread (applications, that is). The
future of the Internet should be interesting.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
The premise of this movie was good. The special effects and fight scenes were good. But it was a bad movie - bad plot, bad ending, bad acting. In all your talk about "geek profiling", dear Mr. Katz, have you possibly forgotten that geeks can have interests and opinions on things other than technology? Shame on you. How much different is "all geeks will love a movie with virtual reality in it" from "all geeks in trenchcoats are anti-social psychopaths"?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Plus, looking for any kind of meaning in contemporary Hollywood movies is silly. I liked The Matrix, but to pretend that it's any kind of science fiction watershed is silly. In fact, after watching some scenes from a 2001 DVD last night, it's obvious that no SF movie since then has come close to treating SF seriously. Perhaps that's because I can't think of any movie since which had the active involvement of a real SF writer. Everything now is just an effects movie, and the purpose of the effects is to look cool on screen, not to show any realistic version of speculative fiction. That's fine, but if you're looking for meaning, read a book.
He's talking about a flaw in the movie "The Matrix", not about anything related to the real world or creationism. In the movie the sky is all blocked off so there's no solar power and no plants grow. Where does the energy needed by the machines come from? It's generated from human body heat. Where does the humans' food come from? From the bodies of the dead humans...
Obviously, this is no way to generate energy. You'd always get less useful energy out than you put in, in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics. However, the only reason the machines keep the humans around (at least as it is explained in the movie) is as power generators.
It's a clear absurdity in the movie, unless you assume that the humans really had no idea what they were being used for, and didn't understand thermodynamics. Some of the web comics explained the humans variously as a kind of cheap memory chip or hard drive, IT workers, and soldiers.
So, you want to talk about stuff that morons are spouting? There's only one here...
It was a fun movie. I spent money on it twice (admittedly the second time was because I had nothing to do on a Friday evening and a couple of friends wanted to see it). But, the ultimate geek film Katz portrays it as it is not.
The concept is neat, but not exactly original. Pick up 5 random compilations of sci-fi short stories/novellas, and I can guarantee that you'll find at least one wake-up-from-a-virtual-world story. Keanu Reeve's futile attempts at acting really hurt the movie badly. Not to mention the various plot holes that are too numerous to go into here.
It was a visually stunning movie, although the special effects seemed forced at times. I could almost hear the director saying, "Let's see...how can we work in another slow-mo negligible gravity shot with those cool bullet-path effects?" At least it wasn't as bad on this point as Lost in Space...god what a horrible movie.
Overall, Phantom Menace was a much better geek film in my opinion. At least the Star Wars universe is a world of amazing imaginational creativity. The Matrix was mostly refried old conceptual beans.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Matrix was in the ballpark, Dune was in a different part of the ballpark. Star Wars is really myth/fantasy - canonical space opera.
Hollywood rarely makes real speculative Fiction movies. They make either Space Opera Star Wars/Trek, Babylon 5). Or they just make standard format action movies and set them in the future to be kewl. The ones I mentioned are *good* space opera as opposed to bad (remember Battlestar Gallactica?) but they don't have the respect for the science/tech that good Science Fiction has.
The Matrix Had a lot of the components. A lot of the plot structure was recycled from stuff we've read before, but it hasn't been put before the mass market that dosen't read books in a sense that can touch on Matrix.
What hollywood notices is that Matrix made a lot of $$. Maybe they will take a clue and fund some other good movies. More likely they will take the wrong clue and we will see lots of films with stop action martial arts and bullet effect CGI.
If they wanted to make the 1st real geek movie I've got the project for them. Take The Diamond Age, get Strazinsky(sp?) to direct and make *2* parallel long running series a la Babylon 5 (pre TNT). The main line story is one project and the other would be segregating out the Illustrated Primer and use it as a series that actually *would* draw in little girls and teach them to think/survive/lead. The world would be a better place with a few million more Geek Grrls in it. Ok, it's not a movie per se, but still.
Babylon 5 was the first to take a Science Fiction ideas and take the time to tell the story properly. A movie can't really do that. A movie can't properly tell a story larger than a novellete. Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner) is really a *very* short story and nothing has yet done a better job since. The Matrix is close but has the look of something novel length that had too much detail dropped out in order to run in the allotted time. At least,I credit it with that to explain the many seemingly gaping plot holes. Dune and 2001 have equally gaping plot holes that are largely resolved in the books - but get dropped out in the movies or replaced with bizzare contrivances to skip over "the boring stuff"(think of those stupid "wierding modules" in the Dune movie).
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Most of my friends who I have recommended the Matrix to saw it and their first reaction after leaving was "I want to see it again". Not only are the visuals sometimes too much to handle, but the underlying concepts are so much deeper than the vast majority of mass media, the viewing public is not geared to have to _think_ to understand a movie.
Star Wars is about as mass media as they come, understandable and appealing to 8 or 80 year olds. Thus diluting the message and lowering the overall impact of the film. If given the choice at this point there is not question which movie I would want to see again....Matrix.
...........
But to me, that is another place, one never experienced by the vast majority of people, and cyberspace is, increasingly a different reality, a virtual one, as the Matrix suggested. The virtual world is very much a place where things originate, develop and take shape -- continuously.
Feeling the groove, getting in the Zone, becoming One with whatever you do. This feeling is present and achievable in nearly any environment. You can get there coding,writing, reading, or playing hoops. That point where you cease to think and just move with the moment often without realizing it, it just is. Saying that the vast majority of people don't feel it is silly. I've had the same sense of "zoneness" playing Quake as I have playing football, and I would assume it can be attained knitting or kayaking or whatever.
Jon, decent article, try not to be so coy I spent several hours going from one to another, returning late at night for several nights. I was trawling through one of the last around midnight one night, tired and not really focusing, and I came across a lengthy and impassioned essay accusing a writer of self-interest and other short-comings and arguing that he didn't belong on a particular website. The piece struck me as angry, almost bitter, and I didn't like the writer being described either.....It wasn't until I looked at the piece more closely that I realized that the website was Slashdot and the writer was me.
if it's the same article you mentioned before, which I've read, you must have been smoking something particularly nice because the name of the article is "The Katzdot Effect".
+&x
The moment an article becomes though provoking and requires intelligent feedback some slashdotters run and hide.
Why? Because we are used to being spoon-fed cute little articles that don't require much intellectual input. Sure knowledge is needed to experience regular stories to their potential, but then again any moron can memorize a text book. Some here are missing the point.
I would propose that some who do not like Katz have never felt "Deep Magic" or have been in the "Zone" because it's too hard to think as it's much easier to memorize things. (notice I said SOME not ALL).
I generally like Katz's articles, but I have an issue today. This:
I spent several hours going from one to another, returning late at night for several nights. I was trawling
through one of the last around midnight one night, tired and not really focusing, and I came across a lengthy
and impassioned essay accusing a writer of self-interest and other short-comings and arguing that he didn't
belong on a particular website. The piece struck me as angry, almost bitter, and I didn't like the writer being
described either.
is off topic. It is a blatent attempt to slip a personal agenda into an otherwise interesting article.
Mr. Katz, you are a talented writer; whether or not they like your works most people will admit that. Please do not insult the intelligence of slashdot readers with such obvious use of this space to assuage your damaged ego.
I want to read your writing, not your diary.
-- First post (by a female living in a state that begins with M and does not end in a vowel with a birthday that falls
According to scifi.com, the Wachowski brothers have written a four-part sequel to the Matrix that will be put in comic book form upon their web site. It will be illustrated by Geoff Darrow--an artist whose attention to detail will undoubtedly do the creative vision justice (or more than that).
9 -04/13/16.23.net
h tml
The scifi.com news story:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-net.html?199
The Matrix web site comix section:
http://www.whatisthematrix.com/cmp/comic_index.
(Look under "comics news"...)
BTW, I agree w/ Katz--The Matrix was a fun, geeky movie.
The premise of this movie was good. The special effects and fight scenes were good. But it was a bad movie - bad plot, bad ending, bad acting. In all your talk about "geek profiling", dear Mr. Katz, have you possibly forgotten that geeks can have interests and opinions on things other than technology? Shame on you. How much different is "all geeks will love a movie with virtual reality in it" from "all geeks in trenchcoats are anti-social psychopaths"?
I have to disagree. While generally, geeks do have interests other than technology (Music for one, good music at that. How many of you have listened to one of the classical masters this week?) We also love art, and many of the other things that outsiders deem normal. However, of all my geek friends, there isn't one that didnt see the matrix, and few of those that only saw it once. For the most part, we love "bad plot, bad ending, bad acting" (MST3k, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Dr. Who, ST), as long as they appear to be true from the heart, (and at times, it seems, made by a fellow geek?)
Two weeks ago, a few of my geek friends and I caught a double feature at the the local movie theater (being geeks on a budget) we saw Entrapment (an excellent movie of a sneaky bastard Sean Conner - but a little too "cute" at the end) and the Matrix.
The one thing about the Matrix, that I first noticed was the use of hackers as the protagonists and the heroes of the plot, which is, of course, not the first time that this has occured. Secondly, as the audience watched as this onion of a plot was peeled away, layer by layer, I was very impressed at the immagination of the writers of this story. To take "reality" and twist it so that what was up is now down and
But to create that kind of setting, and work with it almost perfectly (*BaronCarlos DID notice a few inconsintences in the plot, but only a few, so he is not going to complain (this isn't Batman and Robin the Movie, or Armaggeddon).
After the movie, as always, my geek squad and I talked about the thrilling series of stimmulation of senses that we just witness together.
Of the three of us, we all agreed, it was a "Geek Movie" - There are two male opinions and one female opinion. Two Scientist Opinions and one Engineer Opinion.
We all agreed that it was made either by some very imaginative geeks, or a couple of guys on an acid trip (but looking at the "Techinical twist" that was put on things in this movie, they were either geeks or had a really goood geek techinical advisor.)
To say that the movie was enjoied by the entire parent population of geeks, I cannot personally say. I do know that the sample population enjoied it, for more reasons then that of Geek.
Maybe we're trying to define ourselve so enthusiasticly, that we cannot see that there isn't an adequate definition out there?
Just like science, nothing is definable, there will always be error.
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
I was dissappointed to see that the initial responses to Mr. Katz's article were directed solely at his comments on the movies he mentioned, rather than on the larger topics he's asking us to think about. Even if you don't agree that the Matrix is a good "litmus test" for geekness, or that the Matrix and The Phantom Menace are comparable in any context, his thoughts are an extremely well-formed attempt to discover and name some of what defines the "geek" and online culture.
This is no small task, mind you. The culture and the lifestyle that Katz discusses and that we participate in is incredibly young, underdeveloped, and misunderstood, even by its own members. If any of you have ever attempted to explain to "an outsider" what it is that causes you to sit in front of your computer for hours on end, searching, reading, programming, exploring, letting the life of the net flow through you, then you know that it can be very difficult from all approaches. Partly this is due to terminology and lack of common reference points between "us" and "them", but partly it's because we ourselves don't necessarily understand what it is that makes us do these things. We can easily place emotional, social, and academic labels on the reasons for our activities, but at the point we realize (as Mr. Katz and many others have) that we're living an almost self-sustaining and self-completing life in this new world, we must strive to understand it at at deeper level than what these labels can offer.
No matter how much you disagree with Mr. Katz or dislike his tone, realize that he his only making his best attempt at achieving this understanding, as we all are in our day-to-day "online" lives. It's not just about what movies we all like and relate to - it's about the deeper reasons that a movie or a thought or a piece of code puts us in "the Zone" together to sort out how we got there. I applaud *any* attempt at achieving such understanding.
Thanks for telling me who I am, Jon, I just love it when you decide to define me... I hate to tell you this, but geeks are no more a homogenous group than any other. Personally, I love the Matrix, but there's plenty of "real geeks" out there who probably don't, whose geek status you have just shot down in flames on the basis of your own definition of geekdom. While I find your essays provoke more discussion than anybody else's on Slashdot, the reason seems to be that you polarize people by making sweeping generalizations that half the people think are totally idiotic and inane, and the other half think are self evident. You might be doing us a service by stirring up the pot, but I'm still trying to decide if you're just doing it for the sake of making people think, or if you really do believe these naive generalizations. I realize that in effect, I have just flamed you, but please don't take it personally. My issues are with your writing style, not you as a human being.
To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
Plot aside, the special effect shots in the Matrix were extremely well done. Using multiple camera's to interpolate a still image which could be traversed in 3-d.
It absolutely killed me to see those fight scenes in the Matrix, however. This is *exactly* what I have always imagined a light-saber duel between two jedi masters to be.
Each jedi uses the force to anticipate and to, effectively, slow down time. To an outside observer they are going very fast, a la Menace's special effects, but to the jedi, the rest of the world has slowed down, a la Matrix.
It would have been a spectacular sequence to have gone from from a Matrix style frozen image or slow-mo swaths of the sabers, to an incredibly fast paced fight, which Lucas did provide.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Why Matrix over Phantom Menace? Look at the climatic scenes: hacker gets the (goth) girl and then Sees the Code -- Finds the Zone where he can code no wrong. And the Phantom Menace? Annoying child gets lucky; cool Zen master gets butchered by a freak with two speaking lines.
:)
/with/. And you look up at the stars and ask, What I have done today? And the north wind answers: you didn't see the sunrise for the glare it made on your monitor; you didn't watch the sun set or the birds fly or the flowers bloom because you were busy typing; you didn't notice that the man across the street from you celebrated his 80th birthday by gardening, because that's what he likes to do, and damn it, he won the second world war, so it's his by rights. And the east wind says: another couple thousands Kosovans got shoved out of their homes today, looking at the sky and wondering, America, what's the point of planes? People don't live in the sky. And the south wind replies, the point of planes is to /fly/, to live the dream, and what do you do with the dream made real? You sit in the aisle seat for the legroom, so that it looks like just like a train to you -- and you plug your laptop in and continue to write dry sentences about budgets and forecasts, and the future, when you could be dreaming the present. Why? And the west wind says, Why? Because you have no soul, no art, no craft; your job is tell the computers which numbers to crunch; your only product is a viewgraph that's used once to project a poorly-focused picture in a dark and stuffy briefing room, after which it will recycled, because you'd like to think you're doing something for the enviroment. And at the end of the day you're sitting there with the chicken that Purdue roasted for you hanging off the end your fork, realizing: I did nothing today. Nobody will remember; nobody will care. And you /know/ that the old man across the street could have used some help moving the mulch bags around, and you /know/ that you needed the excercise. And even if that were it, his thanks and then taking a nice shower after sweating for an hour, putting on a clean shirt -- it would have made you feel better and happier than anything else you spend time on the whole day. Think about tommorow -- not alot! -- think about driving down with a handful of flowers to your girlfriend's office and spending her lunch hour in the park tossing a frisbee around and then eating a picnic lunch, just to enjoy her company. And whenever she asks why, just smile; because today is a good day to fly.
Which sounds like it Could Happen To You?
One question, before I move on to the larger issue: why does it seem to suprise so many people that there's a strong spiritual aspect to geekhood? Given the "Voices from the Hellmouth" series of articles -- and my own experience -- I would be suprised if geeks weren't more spiritual than the average population. Where else do geeks have to turn? Other geeks -- the online community? The online community isn't sufficient in the same way that actors prefer stage: there's a personal connection in being there. That's why so many people talk about 'telepresence.' A full-immersement sim (VR 5) is a way around the problem of teleportation -- it they can't if you're 'really there' does it really matter if you are 'really there' or not? The way things are going, it looks like we'll find out just after I die of old age
The same principle of the subjective applies to films like Wag the Dog and The Truman Show: what is 'real'? Think about it: you get up on Monday morning, logon, get your work for the week in an e-mail from your boss -- work which you complain about in a reply to co-worker; their contributions showing up from the `cvs update` you just asked for; you get your news from cnn.com.
At the end of the day, go outside and take a look around. What have you done? It's a nice night, so you decide eat outside. But (like the majority of Americans) you're either single or divorced, and you don't have anyone to eat
Go to sleep tonight and dream of the things that make your life worth living.
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
The late mythologist Joseph Campbell, who inspired much of the Star Wars mythology . . .
Did Campbell inspire Star Wars, or simply write of it's ubiquitous mythological influences? He wrote of the parallels between myths in The Hero with A Thousand Faces
For example, Anakin Skywalker's failure and Luke's success with the Force parallels Uther Pendragon's failure and Arthur's success in uniting England. It echoes (or more appropriately cycles) with Lancelot's failure and Galahad's success in finding the Holy Grail.
What Lucas and the Wachowski Bros have really tapped into are the archetypal stories that influence us--from the Last (or Only) Son of Krypton, to the Chosen Slayer.
Campbell documented these parallels, and may have influenced works following the publication of Hero, but AFAIK, Lucas' vision was borne from straight myth and media.
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
For me the Matrix was impressive in terms of it's
cinematogrophy and equally impressive in having
some incredibly bad writing in the script.
Sometimes when you put the two together, you get a
winner. Hong Kong Cinema is chock full of
examples of movies that served up "cheese" on a
golden platter with deadly intent to be cool, and
I think the Matrix tapped into that.
Reading this article what I find more interesting is
Katz's continued 'angst' at not being universally
accepted and heralded as the journalistic voice
of
article was a diversion that detracted from what
was (as another reader wrote) an interesting
article.
Katz, my man. I'll give you the advice Yoda gave
Luke Skywalker on Dagobah..
When it comes to being a geek: "No! Try not.
Do... or do not. There is no try."
-AutumnLeaf
- Star Wars: the Phantom Menace
was far better than the matrix, and that Star Wars is the film that we will all be remembering in a few years.The central reason why, I believe, is that Star Wars is all about the Force. The Force permeates all Living things, flows through us, and surrounds us. It is what binds the universe together.
The Matrix has nothing with which to compare, in this respect.
The Force is something that we can all relate to, I think. "The Path", "The Way", "The Tao", "Spirit", "Kalaam", "Logos", "The Word", "The Name", "The Force." Surely, it is something that we have all had some experience with, as sure as you are reading the words on this page.
The Force is something that we are receptive to. It's a flow, a beingness, an essence. Simultaneously incredibly gentle, flowing through all living things, and tremendously powerful, like the waves of the sea.
Yes, it listens to our commands, but one never gets the impression that the force is something that you can just kick around, like you can a program or a computer.
The Force is treated as something greater than us, it is not our "inner strength". Our "inner strength" may come and go; it can snap in two like a twig before incredible winds. The Force is always present, always with us.
This is not some sort of, "You should be humble and beat yourself on the head, better watch out because the Force will get you" message.It is just about making ourself receptive to the Force. It is gentle, and loving. Taking time to listen. Forgetting ouselves, ignoring the machine, clearing our thoughts, stilling our mind, and really taking the time to listen.
As we die, the Force will be with us, the same Force that has helped us live our life, the same Force which George Lucas describes with his movies. (The Force is with us now, we just are usually more receptive on our death beds.^=^_^=)
For these reasons,
Star Wars will be the movie remembered in the future as a transcendant series.
With Love,
Lion {:)}=
(This isn't to say I didn't have fun watching the Matrix, I just didn't think it was all that deep, and it was a bit on the predictable side. But I did enjoy watching it!)
Lion Kimbro: http://home.sprynet.com/~snowlion/
For starters, I'd say it's the best live action comic/Anime film yet. Second, I can't think of another big budget Anerican film that's done the Hong Kong wire thing better. Additionally, it's undoubtedly the best implementation and filmic visualisation of cyberpunk yet.
Having said all this, did I love it? No.
It might be new and exciting for the mainstream, but the visual style and dramatic techniques I'm past being familiar with. And as for the "oh wow concepts" that annoyed me the most. Gibsonites around the world (like me) no doubt dosed through the most of it. The movie Johnny Mnemonic should have been?
Bring on Neuromancer: the movie, and let's get back to the bigger (yet more subtle) ideas that started it all. synd