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the MATRIX had you but then it lost you

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Post icon  Posted 22 April 2004 - 08:51 PM

this is for vwing...

don't get me wrong... the Matrix Sequels were worth watching for the Kung Fu, but the first movie was cool and dark, it came out at the same time as dark city, and i figured it would end up in my DVD collection between the Crow and DC. it had a soundtrack that included Ministry and Meat Beat Manifesto, and Rage Against The Machine, the film tasted like rebellion, taking literally a metaphore that describes life on earth today, It was no movie it was a documentary!!!

but 2 & 3 was all shiney and mainstream looking, with a big fat RNB clip (the caves dance PS nice tits though), the morpheus speach that said nothing, clean cut overproduced music, the head of zion who goes on to talk about man needing machines and vice versa - a point clearly outlined in the first movie!!! Morpheus: "but fate it seems is not without a sense of irony"

but by being all clean and mainstream it alienated the people who could relate to the premise suggested in the first one... now it's made to apeal to the people who are the systme the crew of the NEb. were fighting!!!

there are other points but i'll let you defend those...
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#2 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 22 April 2004 - 09:08 PM

First of all, let me say I liked Revolutions much more than Reloaded. I will not defend the rave scene in Reloaded, because that was the most pointless 10 minutes (or however the hell long it was) of my life. I didn't think the sequels were clean and mainstream at all however. I do think that Reloaded's CGI was not as realistic as it should have been, and there were many points during the Burly Brawl (100 Smiths vs Neo) where you could tell it was CGI. However, I thought Reloaded was actually a very dark film, with flawless CGI, and the premise of the sequels was very much not mainstream. A symbiosis between man and machine mainstream? The Architect scene half of people who saw the movie couldn't understand it, I wouldn't exactly call that mainstream. Hell, half of the people who saw the sequels didn't understand the plot. I wouldn't call that mainstream at all. If anything, the original was more mainstream than them. That doesn't mean it's worse, but using that as an argument is not good. The original has the typical farmboy (well hacker, but really the same thing in essence) to savior premise. It's also got a plot that is a mix of Total Recall and Terminator, as well as symbolism to certain religions. The 2nd and 3rd ones were much less mainstream, they took many more chances than the original. Hell, the reason people hated the ending of Revolutions was because it wasn't a mainstream ending, and they couldn't understand it.

Actually, let me ask you. Did you understand the ending? Don't take this as an insult or anything, a lot of people I know who thought they understood it and thought it sucked didn't truly understand it. Did you understand how Neo was able to stop the sentinels? Did you understand the yellow glow he "saw" after he was blinded?

And as for getting us to root for the machines, that is another example of it being non-mainstream. The Morpheus quote from the original doesn't show that man needed machine. It showed (if my memory is correct, since I haven't watched the original in a while) that it was ironic that man was the master of the world and his greatest creation was the thing that wound up overthrowing him. Had nothing to do with a man-machine pairing. However, in the 2nd and 3rd one, that is the plot they chose, they showed that AI ha gained a sense of consciousness and does not deserve to be wiped out, though at the same time humans shouldn't be imprisoned in the Matrix. The only way either can survive is if they have the other. The logical ending is a symbiosis of sorts between man and machine/AI. Also, notice how the sunrise at the end is very colorful and REAL, not like any of the images we've seen in the matrix before, which have all been green tinted and very machine-like. Now, the sunrise is very human, and the matrix is more earth-like, showing how machines and man complement one another.
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Posted 23 April 2004 - 06:31 PM

I found Reloaded to be a relatively enjoyable, somewhat unique action flick with some rather stunning fight sequences. I have yet to see Revolutions simply because I don't have time. Aside from that, I have very little positive or negative to say about the Matrix sequels. I can, however, vouch for the fact that Enter The Matrix was an atrocity that should have never seen the light of day.
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Posted 26 April 2004 - 07:21 AM

QUOTE (Vwing @ Apr 22 2004, 09:08 PM)
  Did you understand how Neo was able to stop the sentinels?  Did you understand the yellow glow he "saw" after he was blinded?


Actually, this was the big moment where Revolutions lost me. I though "OMG, It's Paul Atreides - Deja vu all over again ..." and failed to pay attention any further. Are you trying to say there is actually a plot-driven reason for the blind / yellow glow thingie, and not just a reason for some extra-coolish-CGI?

I'm not saying that's what it is, I'm simply asking if you've seen a deeper meaning into it... (as it would seem you kinda did) ...cause I'm still wondering if Neo was The One or not... and you can't really tell for sure

First matrix was a genious ideea turned into a good plot put into a decent movie. I feel the rest (2nd and 3rd) was kinda bloating (what was otherwise a good story) out of proportions.... but maybe that's just me.
I know that you believe you understood what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you read is not what I meant.
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#5 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 26 April 2004 - 01:49 PM

Neo is able to stop the sentinels because he has touched the Source, and is able to sense, kind of like how I imagine the Force would be, all of the machines, which are connected to the Source. He sees, in essence, the souls of the machines, represented by the yellow glow. He sees their life-forces. This is the explanation for the scene where Trinity says "Gotcha!" after the Sentinel appears to go through Neo. What really happened there was that the Sentinel crashed into the windshield and was destroyed, and the stuff that went through Neo was its essence, or its soul (watch it again, it is similar to when Smith dies, his lifeforce fades away as the Sentinel's does it that scene). It basically shows how machines too have souls i guess you could say, and this shows the fact that it would be wrong to destroy all the machines, and furthers the necessity for a peace.

So yes, there is a huge reason for it. It first of all shows us what Neo "sees" because he is now able to sense the machines, and second of all, it furthers the theme of the story that the machines have souls and deserve to live as well as us.

And what exactly do you mean, whether or not Neo is the One? Yes he is, that was explained beyond a reasonable doubt in Reloaded. He is the anomoly in the 6th Matrix. The difference is that he is a "better" One than the others (notice when the architect says "Interesting. That was quicker than the others", and is able, with the help of the Oracle who had made the decision that the war had gone on long enough, to bring about a peace. He made the prophecy really come true, even though it was only meant as a system of control.
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#6 User is offline   Radu094 Icon

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Posted 27 April 2004 - 03:10 AM

QUOTE (Vwing @ Apr 26 2004, 01:49 PM)
And what exactly do you mean, whether or not Neo is the One?  Yes he is, that was explained beyond a reasonable doubt in Reloaded.  He is the anomoly in the 6th Matrix. 


Ok, I'll buy into this and accept your point. But the way Neo gets "intouch" with the machines suggests a diferent type of ending is needed ... and a diferent type of ending is delivered .. (ie. peace)

The (big and) only problem I have with this type of ending is that never, in the entire trilogy is this ever remotelly foreshadowed... it's war-war-war all over it's 7 hours then 5 mins before closure it's war-war-blink-peace.

I'm not saying unexpected is bad. Unexpected endings are OK, out-of-the-blue endings can be a problem. Imagine for comparison that at the end of (say) ROTJ just before SW2 blows up a new armada of starships comes out of hyperspace, led by Jar Jar Binks (who unknown to us, has turned to evil) and kills everyone on site: Empire and Rebels. Everyone dies and Jar Jar gets to run the galaxy.. see ?, it's unexpected, but it's bad...

As for being The One.. wouldn't this be making him The 6th One ? I guess I'm still having a problem understading the profecy here..
I know that you believe you understood what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you read is not what I meant.
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Posted 27 April 2004 - 03:41 AM

The problem I had with the ending of the MATRIX series is that they actually had these huge loose ends they didn't even try to tie up. Sure, life is messy, and not everything ties up. Hell, the best American film of a couple years back, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, (up your ass, GLADIATOR) argues essentially that. But a series following the first MATRIX, where not a single shot wasn't completely stylized and planned, not ending in a nice resolution, kinda hurt my feelings.

Ok: So NEO is the ONE. Cute. A prophecied character pre-destined to greatness. This has the novelty of never having been done well in a movie ever, so we're on ambitious ground here. So programs are sentient as well as machines. Beautiful. Cyberpunk at its peak. So everything is buried in quasi-spiritual metaphors, with cyclical death and rebirth pretty much straight out of the Bhagavad-Gita. er .. ok. So we have characters who may actually be religious figures of Eastern mysticism, with Neo's Christ to Mprpheus's John the Baptist. Maybe the Source is God, and Neo must sacrifice himself for all mankind, with the help of Trinity, who by name alone, I guess is the Holy Spirit? Is this too much? Then there are the random references, like the ship Nubuchadnezzar, MOBIL ave (LIMBO, ha ha), and the Merovingian (the line referred to in "Holy Blood Holy Grail" as having descended from Christ himself). There is The Oracle, a reference to Greek mythology, and hell, there is a lot of religious posturing going on. I won't catalog it. It's not even interesting, like it almost was in WHAT DREAMS MAY COME (an almost good movie). It's all so spattered about that you have to just forget about it and watch the effects.

Who is the Merovingian? Why does he let Neo out of that place? Will we ever know? Does it matter? I don't know. the effects in the third film are so amazing that you really can't piss on them. It's just that these films ask you to swallow an awful lot. The first time around, I think we all agree, that pill went down without a drink. It was fun to swallow. The second, it felt like a horse pill. the third, well for all the good it did me, you might as well have shoved it up my ass!
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#8 User is offline   Radu094 Icon

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Posted 27 April 2004 - 03:54 AM

If you are trying to say the third part makes "a mess", then I'm with you. Usually you'd expect the ending of a trilogy to conclude the story, not to raise even more questions than the previously two combined.

There is nothing wrong with a little bit of mess (ie. loose ends) since, like you pointed out, life can be a bit of a mess, and not everything ties up nicely to a climatic ending.. but too much mess and the story looses coherence. Plus you endup with confused viewers (like me).
I know that you believe you understood what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you read is not what I meant.
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Posted 27 April 2004 - 08:56 AM

Reloaded and revolutions, were like use your illusion 1&2

-barley enough material for one release stretched out to 2!!!

filler baby, filler!!! some great points by all though...

however... what else sucked...
for starters: the line: "I believe Neo" delivered by the trilogys Jar Jar! and cheep excuse for a mouse suppliment.
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#10 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 27 April 2004 - 02:06 PM

I still don't understand how you could compare the Kid to Jar-Jar, especially since he has ALMOST NO LINES IN RELOADED!! And in Revolutions he has no annoying lines. "Neo, I believe," yeah it's corny, but it was also a powerful line at the same time, and I think it also has something to do with the animatrix, which I didn't see, that would have made it better. I can't believe how people find him so annoying, after all, he isn't in it enough to be annoying.

Radu, the ending is suggested time and time again in Reloaded and Revolutions (and again, in the Animatrix, but you don't need to watch it to know this). The speach that the priest guy Hamman has with Neo in Reloaded about us needing the machines really suggests a symbiosis. Showing all of the rogue programs, that they are sentient, suggests this. Finally, showing that programs can love, and can even conceive in the matrix makes the machines seem human, and it makes us (or was supposed to make us) realize that, hey, the matrix really can't be destroyed because then all these nice programs are destroyed too, the best thing would be a peace. And there was.

Secondly, Civ, I understand what you're saying, but I don't think there were that many loose ends. The Merovingian is a crime boss in the Matrix, a rogue program who desires power. And why did he let Neo go? Because Trinity had a gun pointed at his face. It was a tradeoff. He gives up Neo, she doesn't kill him. I'm trying to think what else wasn't answered, and the only thing I can really think of that was really left open was the ending. Give me examples, please, of something that needed to be explained but wasn't. I'll even attempt to answer them. I just really wasn't confused at all after the movie, and I'm surprsied at how many people are.

Also, what's funny is, I love these movies without even looking at the religious metaphors (mostly because I don't like religious metaphors). Yeah I understand, Neo is Christ, Ramakandra (the Indian guy in the train station) is the 7th incarnation of Vishnu, suggesting a 7th incarnation fo the Matrix, Merovingian is like the devil, Persephone is the wife of the Merovingian or the wife of Hades, the ruler of the underworld. But I just loved it as a story. I loved the insinuation of an eventual symbiosis between man and machine, started by the peace. I just thought that the story, without any religious metaphors, was great.
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Posted 27 April 2004 - 08:43 PM

hey, there's some great little concepts in there, and i enjoy that, but watching neo go from a shit kicker to a superhero was cool, everything after that was watching him go, look how good i am, i'm the chosen one... it was a little better when he was still unsure of himself... I don't know why... but it's mostly just the shiney clean ultra mainstreme interpretation of cool going on there i really didn't like!

not to mention the erroneous death(?) of the twins...

note: not to mention, but i just did! that's the english language for you...

as for the dialogue that lost people, I thought that was funny... because for most people, the people who liked it didn't understand it were like: "wow, this is cool, but what is everyone talking about, and what's going on?" (i'm not saying your one of those BTW smile.gif) and those who did understand it were like:"this sucks, cool fight, interesting point, hmmm..."

amusing, is it not?

they're not that that bad, it's just... I expected a little more after the first one... you know? they tried to change their audience and succeeded, I guess I feel a little betrayed... M1 was like old Metallica and M2&3 is like new Metallica...
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#12 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 28 April 2004 - 05:45 AM

The dialogue really isn't that hard. I think to many people it seemed so when they first watched it (I'm talking of the Architect scene here), but it's just the fact that he talks so fast and effortlessly that it seems like it should be hard. Really, I think the biggest words he uses are systematic anomoly, or erroneous, or concordantly, which really aren't too hard words. But I think the way he uses them, speaking so confidently, quickly, and efficiently (as a machine would, may I point out) really threw off a couple of people.
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Posted 28 April 2004 - 09:11 PM

QUOTE (Vwing @ Apr 27 2004, 02:06 PM)
Secondly, Civ, I understand what you're saying, but I don't think there were that many loose ends. The Merovingian is a crime boss in the Matrix, a rogue program who desires power. And why did he let Neo go? Because Trinity had a gun pointed at his face. It was a tradeoff. He gives up Neo, she doesn't kill him. I'm trying to think what else wasn't answered, and the only thing I can really think of that was really left open was the ending. Give me examples, please, of something that needed to be explained but wasn't. I'll even attempt to answer them. I just really wasn't confused at all after the movie, and I'm surprsied at how many people are.

I'm not going to go into a llist of things I thought weren't tied up, or were tied up loosely; I mean the point of the ending is they've established a new world, and the rules and premises of an entire world ought not to e easily summarized.

My beef with the Merovingian is how unnecessary he is in the third film. Neo gets hit by something and goes into a coma. he ends up in limbo. He talks to a living program ... ok, nat, then Trinity points a gun at the Merovingian in his own place and all's well. I remember the first tme they had to scrap the guy, they had Neo with them, and they hit the ground running. this time I could actualy see the the Wachowskis in the room: "Ok now they need to spring neo. How long is this movie? Ok, I have an idea .... " It's one of those gaffes that amteurs make all the time. There is simply no point in trying to make a big deal out of what a mess your character is in if with a laugh and a wave he is free again in the very next scene. And the worst part of it is that they used this as a cliffhanger! One film ends, Neo is in his coma; the next begins, he's out after a confrontation that actually loked like one of those editing strips you see sometimes in works in progress: "gun fight here."

The MATRIX sequels had gaffes that needed a lot more swallowing to make work: in the first MATRIX, we estalish that not only can the agents pop up whereever they wih (so long as there is already a "person" there, but they can alter reality at will (hence the way they alter architecture of the building in the scene where they capture Morpheus. So in the second, the heroes are headed out on the freeway, and we are to understand that this is suicide. Why? Surely not because they can just turn up in any driver they like! Surely it's because in addition to that, they can just make you car stop working, or cause the freeway to end! ... no, it's just that other thing. Watch the car chase. Shut up.

I liked the MATRIX sequels, but they don't stack up in the DVD collection the way the first does. They're fun, and occasionally exciting, and more ambitious than most action films. They just lack the repeat viewability of the original.
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Posted 28 April 2004 - 09:43 PM

yeah, they're rated AOSN (alot of skipping neccesary).

in truth the're not as horrible as alot of people make out, but they're definitley not as cool as alot of other people make out...

kind of like drugs.
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#15 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 28 April 2004 - 10:00 PM

Actually, it's funny, I think I was one of the only people who found the car chase so very boring. It just went on, and on, and on. A great metaphor for the entire car chase is the scene where Morpheus is fighting the agent on top of the truck. Ok, he leaps over the agent once, landing precariously on the edge of the truck. Cool. Then he does it again. And again. And then finally he falls off the truck, and I was almost hoping he would get run over by Niobe that's how bored I was at this point. This actually is a metaphor for the entire movie of Reloaded. It could have been cut down greatly. Think of all the stuff they could have cut out (and this is just off the top of my head). The 10-minute rave scene, a helluva lot of the Burly Brawl (Neo vs. 100 smiths), a lot of the car chase, and a lot of the Merovingian fight scene (again, if Neo is so powerful, then why does it take him so long to kill those assholes?). I thought that after the car chase, the movie started becoming paced much better. The fight with the Smiths in the white hallway was much more exciting than the Burly Brawl, and once Neo reaches the Architect,

I think everything is paced excellently in the final act of Reloaded, ending with a good cliffhanger, that I think we were thinking more about "How did Neo stop the sentinels"" than "How is Neo going to get out of the coma?" I mean, you knew he would get out of it, hell the preview for Revolutions at the end of Reloaded showed you that. Many more people wanted to know how he stopped the sentinels. Hell, they were making up all these stupid theories about a Matrix within a Matrix and Neo and the Zionites actually being robots themselves.

Revolutions was 10x better, in my opinion, than Reloaded, and was paced much better as well. However, I will agree with you on the beginning of it. The fight scene was a rehash of the Lobby in the original, and could have easily been cut, or cut down. Yeah, Neo isn't freed in the most dramatic fashion, but I think it was better for the plot of the movie if he is freed quickly. This leaves time for the greater plot of the attack on Zion and Smith taking over the Matrix, not to mention explanations by the Oracle for what is happening to Neo. Perhaps the fight scene could have been switched for getting OUT of Club Hell instead of in, or the Train Station or whatever, but I thought it was good to get that plot point out of the way early. Again, from the previews (which by the way I think ruined the movie for many by giving away way too much of the plot) we knew Neo would get out of the coma fairly early. Anyway, though, I'm rambling.

I agree that I do not think Reloaded stacks up to the original. It lacks emotion, and is only worth watching for a couple decent moments in the fight scenes before the boredom sets in, as well as the final 30-45 minutes, which are really good. Revolutions, however, I do think matches up with it, in terms of both the effects (which were the best ever in a movie, including LOTR) and the emotion. I felt emotion for Zee and Chara, I got goosebumps a little when the kid blew open the doors, I was (fairly) sad when Trinity died, though she did take a goddamn long time. And I loved the open ending. This was a very intense movie, and I do think stacks up to the original.

To be fair, one of the only problem I had after the beginning of Revolutions was the final fight between Smith and Neo. It was good, yeah, but they could have done more with it. It goes back to what you said about manipulating the Matrix. The one is supposed to be able to manipulate the matrix at will, right? Well they showed none of this in the sequels other than him flying. He should have been able to take down buildings just by thinking about it, make buildings and weapons and anything he wanted by thinking about it. This would have made for a hell of a final fight with smith. Manipulating the matrix at will. Maybe flinging cars at one another, collapsing buildings, creating guns and shields out of thin air. That was a bit disappointing for me. But other than that I really have no complaints.
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