I thought "Neo" meant "new", as in the new guy on the team, the new recruit, the new way to see the world, the second coming of whatever...
"Morpheus" is a the Greek god of dreams
My understanding of ancient gods is very rusty, but I heard something about Morpheus being associated with entering the underworld. Anyone know anything about that?
How's this for depth: If you have it on DVD, go to the scene where Neo gets the data storage device out of a hollow book. Near the beginning, right before he follows the white rabbit. Pause and zoom. Read the hollow book's title. Something about simulations...
Of course the plot wasn't original. It's one of the world's oldest stories!
They followed the Standard Hero Myth (tm) almost to the letter: A normal person is taken to a dark realm of magic and mystery, engages in special training and preparation, and goes through many struggles. Things look really bad, then suddenly it's all better. Hero returns to the normal daylight world with unusual powers and wisdom.
There are many other details that I left out, but the Matrix included most of them. I suspect that someone involved in writing the script has read Joseph Campbell's books.
For what it's worth, the Star Wars trilogy followed exactly the same pattern. I heard that it was intentional. Lucas meant it that way.
The Matrix is an awesome show. I'm curious how they're going to make a decent sequel...
I have a dedicated home theater with a 10' projector and 5 speakers. I chose to build a PC from spare parts, a cheap DVD-ROM drive and a hardware decoder. This is showing me a progressive scan image that is worlds better than the 3:2 pull-down, interlaced junk that every stand-alone player puts out. I honestly would not have a dedicated player in my theater.
Gee, and how much did you pay for all that?
You missed my point. By forking out the dough for a projector and REAL speakers, you crossed over into home theater turf. You simply used a PC for the "dedicated" player box.
I was reacting to the idea that someone can buy a generic PC with DVD-ROM, play the movie on a 17" monitor with cheesy PC speakers, and then pretend it's anywhere near the Perfect Theater Experience. Like vast hordes of uninformed consumers are doing right now. Uh... No. Sure, you might get a progressive scan image. But what's the point, if you don't have full surround sound and you can't just kick back and watch it on a reasonably large screen with a couch, a few friends, and a bucket of popcorn?
Good point about defeating region codes and macrovision. They shouldn't have bothered with that in the first place.
Also note that I'd like to have DVD playback in a notebook computer. It would be awesome for traveling. Expensive hotel pay-per-view channels? Who needs them?:-)
Okay, guys, I know that not everyone can afford a real DVD player, a Dolby Digital (and maybe DTS) receiver, and five *good* speakers. Not everyone who can afford it has the time, desire, or physical space. But some of us do.
If I want to watch a movie on DVD, I take it to my nice home theater. Computer playback is great for impoverished students, space-challenged homes, and travelers with notebooks. But there's no way a general purpose computer could ever have better picture size and sound quality than a dedicated player can, given the same price.
I'm far more interested in DVD for plain data storage. Imagine having *one* DVD-ROM filled with your favorite Linux distribution, both in source code form and pre-compiled for several different architectures. Directly bootable for x86, indirectly bootable for PPC/SPARC/etc. Easy enough.
Or use it to store a huge number of high-quality standard image files. Clip art? Porn? We'll have to let the market decide.
The PC I'm using now has a DVD-ROM drive, but Linux sees it as CD-ROM only. I wonder when that will change.
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I thought "Neo" meant "new", as in the new guy on the team, the new recruit, the new way to see the world, the second coming of whatever...
"Morpheus" is a the Greek god of dreams
My understanding of ancient gods is very rusty, but I heard something about Morpheus being associated with entering the underworld. Anyone know anything about that?
How's this for depth: If you have it on DVD, go to the scene where Neo gets the data storage device out of a hollow book. Near the beginning, right before he follows the white rabbit. Pause and zoom. Read the hollow book's title. Something about simulations...
They followed the Standard Hero Myth (tm) almost to the letter: A normal person is taken to a dark realm of magic and mystery, engages in special training and preparation, and goes through many struggles. Things look really bad, then suddenly it's all better. Hero returns to the normal daylight world with unusual powers and wisdom.
There are many other details that I left out, but the Matrix included most of them. I suspect that someone involved in writing the script has read Joseph Campbell's books.
For what it's worth, the Star Wars trilogy followed exactly the same pattern. I heard that it was intentional. Lucas meant it that way.
The Matrix is an awesome show. I'm curious how they're going to make a decent sequel...
Gee, and how much did you pay for all that?
You missed my point. By forking out the dough for a projector and REAL speakers, you crossed over into home theater turf. You simply used a PC for the "dedicated" player box.
I was reacting to the idea that someone can buy a generic PC with DVD-ROM, play the movie on a 17" monitor with cheesy PC speakers, and then pretend it's anywhere near the Perfect Theater Experience. Like vast hordes of uninformed consumers are doing right now. Uh... No. Sure, you might get a progressive scan image. But what's the point, if you don't have full surround sound and you can't just kick back and watch it on a reasonably large screen with a couch, a few friends, and a bucket of popcorn?
Good point about defeating region codes and macrovision. They shouldn't have bothered with that in the first place.
Also note that I'd like to have DVD playback in a notebook computer. It would be awesome for traveling. Expensive hotel pay-per-view channels? Who needs them? :-)
If I want to watch a movie on DVD, I take it to my nice home theater. Computer playback is great for impoverished students, space-challenged homes, and travelers with notebooks. But there's no way a general purpose computer could ever have better picture size and sound quality than a dedicated player can, given the same price.
I'm far more interested in DVD for plain data storage. Imagine having *one* DVD-ROM filled with your favorite Linux distribution, both in source code form and pre-compiled for several different architectures. Directly bootable for x86, indirectly bootable for PPC/SPARC/etc. Easy enough.
Or use it to store a huge number of high-quality standard image files. Clip art? Porn? We'll have to let the market decide.
The PC I'm using now has a DVD-ROM drive, but Linux sees it as CD-ROM only. I wonder when that will change.