Matrix Overloaded?

[Anonymous]

Is there going to be too much Matrix this year?

Three new movies and a cross-platform video game in the same year?

Might people's need for new Matrix product get over-filled, leading to a backlash?

I guess a big part of this will depend on the quality of the products delivered. If they all rule, then perhaps no one will object.

Just wonderin'. Anyone sick of it in advance?

[Qwijybo]

Funny. I am trying to get the new animatrix movie from http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/index_anime.html right now, and my work's proxy isn't liking it too much. So, right now at least, I am not getting enough Matrix.

[Jason McMaster]

Well, not being a huge fan of the movie in the first place, I'm not particularly thrilled about the aspect of being matrix butt-rammed this year.

[Desslock]

Three new movies and a cross-platform video game in the same year?

Only two movies.

[Qwijybo]

Three new movies and a cross-platform video game in the same year?

Only two movies.

I'm guessing he's including the AniMatrix DVD coming this summer.

[Miramon]

Well I thought it was just a so-so movie to begin with, so I am not anticipating any kind of disappointment with the sequels.

The plot of the first movie made no sense to me at all, even once you swallow a whole series of post-hoc assumptions you have to make mid-way through. The stuff about using humans for energy was as idiotic as midicloreans, if not moreso, and the oracle and prophecy business was just out of left field in a completely inane way.... The logic of the Matrix world just doesn't compute. Conceivably they will try to patch some explanation for some of the sillier things into the sequels, but the first movie was so evidently not intended to make sense that I really doubt that will happen anyway.

Coolness of the special effects and martial arts choreography aside, there really wasn't a whole heck of a lot to this movie when you get right down to it.

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing he's including the AniMatrix DVD coming this summer.

Yup. I guess it might more technically be referred to as a feature-length collection of short films, but I wasn't trying to be tchnical.

[Kevin Perry]

Coolness of the special effects and martial arts choreography aside, there really wasn't a whole heck of a lot to this movie when you get right down to it.

Don't forget incredible production design as well. Some of the sets were amazing.

But yeah, otherwise.

[Anonymous]

I enjoyed The Matrix, because I didn't approach it as an intellectual exercise, but as a cathartic release of frustration with the limits of modern society.

It shows Neo, a computer geek who's stuck in a depressing, conformist day job, turning into a hero who gets to wear leather, do kung fu, dodge bullets, and shoot everyone. He doesn't have to put up with annoying security checkpoints (an increasingly common, necessary yet boring feature of our lives); he shoots his way through. He doesn't have to work his dull job anymore. He doesn't have to take orders anymore. He fights city hall and wins and gets the girl and discovers his inner power through rebelling against authority and the common conception of normality, which the film posits as an arbitrary fascistic construct.

As an intellectual statement, it's not profound. But it feels damn good to watch someone do some of the things you might wish you could do, especially after a boring day at work at an office similar to the one Neo escapes in the film. That's why I enjoyed the movie.

[Gundaliro]

I enjoyed The Matrix, because I didn't approach it as an intellectual exercise, but as a cathartic release of frustration with the limits of modern society.

Office Space, Fight Club... The Matrix?

[DennyA]

The thing that got me about The Matrix was... Why would they want to be free of the Matrix?

In the Matrix, you're living an idyllic life, one where I'd assume you're free of disease, premature death, or real danger (since your real body is safely encased in a plastic tube). As far as you know, the world around you is real, and you're living in a society with free choice, love, and all the stuff we come to expect every day. Your physical body may not have "freedom," but in the Matrix virtual world, you're as "free" as you are in our real world.

So, you destroy the Matrix and free everyone from their stasis chambers. Welcome to a world that's been demolished by its conquerors. Welcome to disease, lack of industry and infrastructure, and a struggle every day just to find food and stay alive.

Yeah, thanks for letting us out, Neo. Thanks a lot.

And yes, I realize this opens up bigger philosophical questions about a comfortable but merely perceived freedom vs. a more difficult, true freedom, but that wasn't a topic addressed in the first movie.

[Ben Sones]

In the Matrix, you're living an idyllic life, one where I'd assume you're free of disease, premature death, or real danger (since your real body is safely encased in a plastic tube).

Your real body is, but your perceived life is full of perceived disease, danger and hardship. Remember that whole speech in which Agent Smith tells Morpheus about how they made the first Matrix a paradise and it didn't work? Nobody believed it. So the current Matrix creates the illusion of a world which, while probably less severe than the real world, is no utopia.

[Rywill]

The Matrix was not a good story movie. People didn't watch it for the story. It had an interesting (but not original) premise--that we are actually "brains in a jar" and our lives are fictional constructs--but the details were nonsensical and the story went pretty much nowhere. How can Neo reprogram the matrix through force of will? Why are the agents bound by the rules of the matrix world? How is it that the free humans can break or bend some rules, but not others, and why only so much? Why can't the matrix immediately detect intruders? Why the hell do you have to use a phone to get out? And why only CERTAIN phones, and what determines which phones are exits versus which ones are "dummies," and why can't the matrix figure that out and demolish them all? Since when do humans put out more energy than they take in? To think of all the time people spent searching for perpetual motion, and here it was right under their nose! What's up with that non-sequitur mysitcism with the Oracle?

Anyway, I could go on and on. But like I said, the story was not the point of the movie. The point of the movie was 1) the special effects, which were amazing; and 2) the sense of style--sets, costumes, even a lot of the dialog. It was great. Oh, and 3) that creepy Hugo Weaving. Good stuff. I'm psyched for the other two movies. I hope they manage to keep the same elements that made the first one work so well.

[Rywill]

In the Matrix, you're living an idyllic life, one where I'd assume you're free of disease, premature death, or real danger (since your real body is safely encased in a plastic tube).

Your real body is, but your perceived life is full of perceived disease, danger and hardship. Remember that whole speech in which Agent Smith tells Morpheus about how they made the first Matrix a paradise and it didn't work? Nobody believed it. So the current Matrix creates the illusion of a world which, while probably less severe than the real world, is no utopia.

Okay, maybe Denny overstated the case, but still--isn't it true that the Matrix life, even with all the disease and death, is a LOT better than "real" life? If it were me, I'd rather be in real life, but that's just because I place a high value on that sort of thing. Many people may not (see: Cipher). I think one of the (again, unexplained) premises of the movie was that once out, you can't really go back in (right? Or am I getting this wrong?). If so, what is Neo's justification for freeing a bunch of people who might rather live as (comparatively) blissful slaves?

[Sparky]

Keanu hasn't done anything good since Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

[Matthew Gallant]

Keanu hasn't done anything good since Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
I thought he was good in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, too. At the very least, he had a nice jacket.

[Bub, Andrew]

And yes, I realize this opens up bigger philosophical questions about a comfortable but merely perceived freedom vs. a more difficult, true freedom, but that wasn't a topic addressed in the first movie.

Sure it was, it's the reason why Judas, um, Joey Pants betrays them and the foundation of the scene where he eats yummy fake steak with Agent Smith and asks for a guarantee that when he kisses Morpheus... um... drops the cell phone in the garbage, he "won't remember any of it."

It's also what Morpheus means by "the rabbit hole."

[Jason Becker]

I'm a fan of the first movie. Its production values were great. Technically a very well executed movie. That whole fist scene with Trinity was just cool IMO and set the tone well. The story was cheesy but so what? :D

I also enjoyed it more so because I had about zero knowlage about the movie going in. I am not a Keanu Reeves fan(he can really be annoying sometimes), and I just remember seeing that poster with the three of them in the leather outfits and the guns. I just rolled my eyes and thought of that lame movie Johnny Mneumonic(of whatever its called) movie he made. The movie surprised me.

The movie also helped push forward the idea of having the actors do as much of the action stuff as possible. They made Fishburne, Reeves and the others look pretty good in the fight scenes.

[Jaysun]

Boy this thread is sticky with intellectual masturbation. Sheesh....

Anyway, I just stepped in to say that I think Keanu did a great job as a redneck in The Gift. Much better then Bill & Ted's blah blah blah.

[Anonymous]

Good point. And The Gift is a great movie, too. Plus: boobs!

[voltaic]

Be prepared for my fanboy explanations for all your questions, Rywill. :wink:


How can Neo reprogram the matrix through force of will?
Remember that he is plugged in, he isn't sending ESP thought waves through the aether. So I think of it as he has access to hook an exposed API and writes modules (albeit very quickly) loading them up on the fly.


Why are the agents bound by the rules of the matrix world?
They are programs. If you view the matrix as an OS, they are programs run inside of it. They can only do what the OS lets them do. This is probably short-sightedness on the part of the creators of the matrix in that their agents couldn't be more flexible (analogy: run at a higher ring level?)


How is it that the free humans can break or bend some rules, but not others, and why only so much?
Anyone can bend the rules as long as they believe it is possible. Witness the "jumping between buildings" at the beginning where the cop stops and says "that's impossible!" The "only so much" I would chalk up to bounds on the error checking in those functions, for instance in gravity. It could also be related to what Douglas Adams discusses in his modern physics essay trilogy entitled "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" wherein the hero stops falling at one point because he is distracted and forgets to fall.


Why can't the matrix immediately detect intruders?
The matrix has billions of basically open entry points. Someone plugging in could be an intruder or just a new batch of batteries. Like a server's intrusion detection system in Our World (tm), you can out-clever it into thinking you are ok.


Why the hell do you have to use a phone to get out? And why only CERTAIN phones, and what determines which phones are exits versus which ones are "dummies," and why can't the matrix figure that out and demolish them all?
The resistance hacks into the Matrix through certain exposed radio circuits in the movie's "real world". These circuits somehow lead to the phone system in the matrix. The only problem is they can only go to phone which have a "hard line", that is are completely land-line based from the phone (an avatar through which they enter and exit) and the central phone switches, which is where they hack in. Presumably the matrix doesn't know this is how they enter (although Cypher may have told them, we will find out in the next movies I suppose).


Since when do humans put out more energy than they take in?
And I quote: "...using a form of fusion..." They may just as well have gotten all Star Trek on us and talked about detecting plot contrivance particles off the port-bow. Anyways, that's the writers' escape from the question in my view.


To think of all the time people spent searching for perpetual motion, and here it was right under their nose!
Now now, fusion is based on atomic forces, motion is on a much larger scale than that.


What's up with that non-sequitur mysitcism with the Oracle?
Analogy: view her as a cypherpunk who has access to an encryption algorithm AND to the seed for the random number generator. Since she has these, she knows given any input what the cyphertext will be. So I see her as somehow having access to the algorithms that govern the matrix as well as the current seed, thus she can make exceptionally good probabilistic guesses on what generalities will happen in the near future. But since she isn't outside the matrix, she can't shape it to her will, i.e. code add-on modules.


Anyway, I could go on and on. But like I said, the story was not the point of the movie. The point of the movie was 1) the special effects, which were amazing; and 2) the sense of style--sets, costumes, even a lot of the dialog. It was great. Oh, and 3) that creepy Hugo Weaving. Good stuff. I'm psyched for the other two movies. I hope they manage to keep the same elements that made the first one work so well.
I too could go on, but here I agree with you. I went to see (and bought) the movie for explosions and shit, not explorations into human existence.

[Anonymous]

[b]Neo Sporin[/i]: your nick is cool :D

[wumpus]

I hope you aren't paid to code HTML at work.

[Captain Cookiepants]

I hope you aren't paid to code HTML at work.
Ha!

Voltaic: Since you're so good at answering 'Matrix' questions: If the Matrix could instantly brick up the windows in the building they were in (deja vu) why couldn't it instantly brick up ALL the entrances and exits and/or collapse the building on them?

Also: If nothing in the Matrix is real and every experience is only what you perceive it to be, how can you be hurt by something you don't see? You wouldn't know you're supposed to be hurt and thus your brain wouldn't be able to react to the stimuli.

[Anonymous]

'Avalon' is a polish matrix-esque movie. Kindof an anti-matrix -- why live in the crappy real world, when you can live in the hyper-real virtual world?

Although it has the most excruitationgly long orchestra scene ever. Jesus.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Also: If nothing in the Matrix is real and every experience is only what you perceive it to be, how can you be hurt by something you don't see? You wouldn't know you're supposed to be hurt and thus your brain wouldn't be able to react to the stimuli. Your sense of sight isn't the only sense "fooled" by the Matrix. Your Matrix self is still going to feel a Matrix bullet whether you know you're being shot at or not.

[voltaic]

Voltaic: Since you're so good at answering 'Matrix' questions: If the Matrix could instantly brick up the windows in the building they were in (deja vu) why couldn't it instantly brick up ALL the entrances and exits and/or collapse the building on them?
Key thing to remember: the Matrix is just an OS. It doesn't "do" anything on its own, its operators "do" things. And they did instantly brick up the entrances. What the didn't do was fill in all spaces between the walls. Operator error. Garbage in, garbage out.

They didn't collapse the building because 1) their informant (potentially useful in the future) was in there and 2) the guy they wanted to capture alive was in there.


Also: If nothing in the Matrix is real and every experience is only what you perceive it to be, how can you be hurt by something you don't see? You wouldn't know you're supposed to be hurt and thus your brain wouldn't be able to react to the stimuli.
Auto-suggestion coupled with advanced neurosurgery. When Neo was shot, no, a sucking chest wound did not spontaneously rip up from his "real life" chest. But his brain said "shit, well fuck it" and stopped sending "beat" messages to his heart. Remember the brain does control things like heartbeat and such, just not with you consciously having to think it. The implants were able to influence those parts of the body as well, in a sense the implant ordered the brain to stop telling the heart to beat.

Although this does beg the question, why would they do that? Why not have a bunch of comatose zombified bodies still generating power without living in the simulation? My guess: not as interesting of a movie.

[Brad Grenz]

I give you Voltaic, the Matrix apologist.

[NI]

Also: If nothing in the Matrix is real and every experience is only what you perceive it to be, how can you be hurt by something you don't see? You wouldn't know you're supposed to be hurt and thus your brain wouldn't be able to react to the stimuli.
Neo asks pretty much the same question in the film.
The answer: "Your brain makes it real".

To me, the quality of the story is what separates The Matrix from other action films. YMMV, I guess.

[voltaic]

I give you Voltaic, the Matrix apologist.

Great. Fucking. Movie. :wink:

[GMicek]

I give you Voltaic, the Matrix apologist.

Great. Fucking. Movie. :wink:

Your poo head!

[Anonymous]

The thing that got me about The Matrix was... Why would they want to be free of the Matrix?


If they'd have addressed the issues you mention here The Matrix would have been a great movie... hell, it would have been a Bergman movie.

Seriously, without even delving into the realm of art movies, the story of a guy who -- when he realizes that his life was nothing but a software simulation -- wants desperately to get back inside that simulation is significantly more interesting, dramatic, and even, maybe, funny, than what was put down on film.

[Jason McCullough]

From the configuration files for Alpha Centauri:


##Bioenhancement Center
#FAC30
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^ -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^ Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^ TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

[Anonymous]

Seriously, without even delving into the realm of art movies, the story of a guy who -- when he realizes that his life was nothing but a software simulation -- wants desperately to get back inside that simulation is significantly more interesting, dramatic, and even, maybe, funny, than what was put down on film.

Have to disagree with you there. We're already living in that movie. Watch enough TV and play enough video games and you might as well be in the Matrix. You've effectively removed yourself from reality.

The makers of this film are trying (in however goofy a way) to inspire people to rebel against authority, to rebel against false comfort, not to seek comfort in its warm embrace.

[Bub, Andrew]

From the configuration files for Alpha Centauri:


##Bioenhancement Center
#FAC30
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^ -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^ Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^ TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

Will there ever be a game this smart again?

[Jonathan Blow]

What's up with that non-sequitur mysitcism with the Oracle?
Analogy: view her as a cypherpunk who has access to an encryption algorithm AND to the seed for the random number generator. Since she has these, she knows given any input what the cyphertext will be. So I see her as somehow having access to the algorithms that govern the matrix as well as the current seed, thus she can make exceptionally good probabilistic guesses on what generalities will happen in the near future. But since she isn't outside the matrix, she can't shape it to her will, i.e. code add-on modules.

Insufficient explanation.

The Oracle was one of the more interesting teasers about the future movies. If you think about it even for a minute, you know that her prophetic ability implies one of two things: (a) the real world really is "real" and she has some kind of magical prophet powers valid in the real world; (b) the real world is just another simulation layered outside the current one, and she has knowledge of the whole simulation system (all the layers), what it's there for, etc. {or [c]: there's no difference between (a) and (b)}.

[Anonymous]

The Oracle was one of the more interesting teasers about the future movies.

Too bad the actress died...