The new Matrix - Will it suck?!?

[mtkafka]

hehe i'm wondering with all the media hype blitz on tv and internet, what if this movie sucks? For some reason I think it would be cool! And everybody finds out X2 was the better movie! HAHA WACHOWSKI WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS BROTHERS!!! Actually it might be good...

etc

[Jason McMaster]

It's going to suck, just like the first Matrix.

[mtkafka]

you know what... i really didn't like the first matrix all that much too... it was ok, but not that great... i actually liked Dark City more than Matrix...

etc

[DavidCPA]

Funny PvP on the Matrix:

http://www.pvponline.com/

I really liked the first movie and am figuring out a way to convice my wife to go see it - either by myself or with her don't care :D

-DavidCPA

[Jason McMaster]

That's because Dark City was a MUCH better movie than the Matrix.

[Chris Nahr]

The Matrix was an odd film. When I first saw it I thought it was some of the worst tripe I've ever seen, a bunch of special effects with insipid dialogue and a stupid story in-between. Then I learned to watch it like a computer game, i.e. turn my brain off and ignore the story. Now I was absolutely fascinated and rewatched the DVD like five or six times. But then I had memorised all the stylish moments and kung-fu stunts, and now I'm back to my original opinion.

Is the new film going to have a story that's not completely idiotic?

[Dave Markell]

And it would have been so easy to give it a more believable story, too. For example, instead of using humans as batteries (moronic), use their brains instead. The combined computing power of billions of parallel-processing cerebral cortexes would provide a nice home for the AI's.

Still, the original was great fun. I laughed at the inanities and then let them go in order to just experience the effects and fights.

[Dave Markell]

Oh, one other note: why isn't this thread in the movies forum?

[XPav]

Because...

http://entertainmenttonight.com/celebrity/a14375.htm


"It's really the first time anyone's told a story in multiple mediums," explains producer JOEL SILVER. "If you just see 'The Matrix Reloaded' by itself, you'll love the movie, but there are all these other avenues of content and story. The video game incredibly interconnects with all that has happened so far in the movie, and you have scenes that the Wachowski brothers wrote and directed for the video game that are not in the movie, but connect."

[Jason McCullough]

"It's really the first time anyone's told a story in multiple mediums"

WARNING

WARNING

HULL DECOMPRESSION IMMINENT

[Supertanker]

I thought the first movie did an OK job of maintaining its internal consistency, but I didn't really care about the story. It was just the "humans versus supermachines" story recycled again, and only needed to provide some backdrop for lots of cool effects and fight scenes. Asimov it ain't.

Same goes for the next films. I'm ignoring most of the hype, but the trailers look like they are on the right track.

[Ben Sones]

"It's really the first time anyone's told a story in multiple mediums"

WARNING

WARNING

HULL DECOMPRESSION IMMINENT

He has apparently forgotten classics such as Johnny Mnemonic.

[Brian Koontz]

What I've heard about the movie is that there is a lot of Action and its very cool and there is even less of everything else that was in the first movie.

Since those pesky critics very very rarely like pure Action movies I predict it will be panned.

It should be good entertainment though.

[Jason Lutes]

I thought the original Matrix was great, and I'm looking forward to this new one. Sure the fights and effects were fantastic, but I think it had more going on in the story department than you guys give it credit for.

Forgive me for getting Koontz-y on your asses, but I read it as a parable about the oppressive nature of consensus reality and what happens when someone is able to break free from it. The first time I saw it, it actually felt revolutionary to me -- both in the sense of overturning the paradigm of sci-fi cinema, and as a genuine provocation to revolt against the dominant culture. Unfortunately, though, art no longer seems able to move human beings that way, and the Matrix trilogy -- like pretty much all art these days -- will just end up as more mere product on the shelves of consumer culture, part of the system it seems to have set out to criticize.

No other genre film I can think of even tries to go as deep as The Matrix, while still maintaining a sense of humor about itself. It's clear, for instance, that the Wachowskis know their Gnostic Gospels, their eastern philosophy, and their metaphysics. That they managed to dress all that up in high style and make it fun as hell to watch is amazing to me. I mean, what other action movie has ever chosen to end not with a huge, boring explosion, but with the hero transcending his physical incarnation?

The sequel may well suck, but I though the original was brilliant, stunningly original filmmaking. Plus the best use of Keanu outside of River's Edge.

[Bub, Andrew]

Great post Jason.


Plus the best use of Keanu outside of River's Edge.

This has a nice double-meaning to it. :wink:

[Miramon]

The Matrix was stupid because they didn't put 5 minutes of thought into common sense, logic, or consistency within the hare-brained world of their assumptions. It was offensive because they assumed no one would care about these things, and it almost seemed like they deliberately disconnected the events of the movie from any sort of connecting skein of rationality. They could easily have delivered all the fun cool bits along with any putative deep message without sacrificing the brains of the audience on the altar of the lowest common denominator.

Much as I want to do so for the masochistic thrill, I will refrain from listing all the idiocies and all the trivial ways the many solecisms of plot and narrative could have been rendered acceptable with trivial changes in dialogue or minor edits to offending scenes.

So will I see the sequel?

Yeah, I'm afraid so. I like special effects and silly martial arts choreography. I just hope I don't leave the theater with an unquenchable thirst for PowerAde.


*Yes, I know this is a stretch.

[Jim Preston]

Hmm...I guess I end up somewhere between Jason and Miramon. I admire the Matrix for even addressing question of epistemology and morality, something few Amercian films even bother with. In that sense it is a part of the great sci-fi tradition of mixing both the visceral and the cerebral.

However, if is true (and I'm not saying it always is) that sci-fi is really a comment about the present through the prism of the future, then, well, I don't think it is all that insightful about our current state. I don't think we live in a culture of massive self-delusion and I don't think we suffer from a disease of group think. If anything, I think the exact opposite is true; that skepticism and relativism are the default modes of the vast majority of people on most issues, and that there is very little common thinking on any particular deep philosophical issue.

I agree with Miramon that the basic science on which the Matrix rests, that humans can be harnessed as a significant source of energy, is laughable, especially considering outside the Matrix seems to be a hot world of lava, sulfur vents, and other sorts of more plentiful and reliable energy. I also don't think that when computer programs "fight" that it looks like Kung-fu.

I was just finishing up my last year in grad school when the Matrix came out. I went to see it with a lot of other philosophy students at the time. We all sort of giggled at it and dismissed until we started teaching our classes on Monday morning only to find that it captured our students' imaginations and peaked their philosophical interests more than any of our lectures ever did. In that sense, I welcome it and the coming sequels.

[XPav]

The Matrix is nothing more than a pretentious action flick. I thought of the exact same "what if I'm trapped in a computer program in the future" thing in 1992 in high school.

Then my senior year of high school we did Plato's Allegory of the Cave and realized that the "what if reality isn't reality" thing was, surprise surprise,not thought up by me first.

[Raife]

Oh, one other note: why isn't this thread in the movies forum?
Because McCullough stuck his Scrooge thread in Movies (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=3d87f7270ecfef5e59cb0143f077776e). The forums were out of balance.

There are actually two Matrix films coming out this year: The Matrix Reloaded (May 15th) and The Matrix Revolutions (Nov. 7th).

[mtkafka]

One of the things about the Matrix that was great (didnt know anything about it when I first saw it) was the doubletake of when you find out that what you're watching is just a program, not real. It sort of gets in most peoples heads with that "what really is REAL?!?" stuff... but then again other movies like Dark City, Total Recall, Truman Show and Jacobs Ladder had done that already, though probably not as dramatically... and The Matrix obviously has better action scenes. But at the end of the Matrix.. it kinda got too supercomic booky for me... which isn't bad, but the payoff of a determined programed universe beneath it all seems betrayed... knowhutimsayin? meaning it kind of turned cheesy... but in a good hong kong meets western action flick way... theres alot of that pop cultural zeitgest influence to the movie with that hong kong arcadey anime sci fi feel of it... probably why its so darn popular. I liked it.

etc

[Jason McCullough]

Oh, come *on*. It's a cool looking movie, but the philosophical angle is on the level of an eighth-grader skimming through Descarte for the first time. Even Dark City's half-assed attempt made a little more sense.

[Brad Grenz]

The Matrix is certainly a handy and more contemporary version of the old stand by of the mad scientist example used the second day of philosophy 101, introduction to epistemology. Not particularly profound, but a smarter premise then most kung-fu FX movies. Basically the greatest accomplishment of the premise is that it unchains the writers/directors, allowing them to put any crazy ass thing they want on screen, cause there are no rules in this world.

If anything, the Matrix is really effective. A great amalgemation of HK wire stunt techniques and digital effect to achieve the same kind of action sequences you might see in anime in a live action setting. It's not god's gift to the cinema, and the fans who say it changed their lives were probably poorly informed to begin with, but it looks cool and is exciting to watch.

Once you forgive the human battery thing, there isn't too much to complain about.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

Forgive me for getting Koontz-y on your asses, but I read it as a parable about the oppressive nature of consensus reality and what happens when someone is able to break free from it. The first time I saw it, it actually felt revolutionary to me -- both in the sense of overturning the paradigm of sci-fi cinema, and as a genuine provocation to revolt against the dominant culture. Unfortunately, though, art no longer seems able to move human beings that way, and the Matrix trilogy -- like pretty much all art these days -- will just end up as more mere product on the shelves of consumer culture, part of the system it seems to have set out to criticize.


Or as we call it around here, "The Marxist".


I saw The Animatrix the other day. I'm convinced those animated shorts will prove to be much better than the movies themselves. Of course, they're pretty good; I especially enjoyed the "Reneissance" ones. And in the first one, the Square USA one, the hovercraft shoots the robots with quad machine guns, not dinky energy weapons. Buddhabuddhabuddha!

[gnmarsh]

wow, you guys are harsh. Name another action movie that attempts philosophy, or for that matter even attempts to make you think while you watch it?

[Dave Long]

Give them about twenty years and you'll hear "Fuck The Matrix" as a new warcry on some future time Qt3. Everyone will want to have "Fuck The Matrix" t-shirts, etc.

FTM!

--Dave

[Jason McMaster]

I read it as a parable about the oppressive nature of consensus reality and what happens when someone is able to break free from it.

Wait. you called the Matrix a parable?

[Jim F.]

Ya know... some movies are just meant to entertain us. The Matrix isn't Citizen Kane, but it also isn't Ernest Goes to Camp.

It's a fun movie set in a world that, yes, does not and will not exist. Yes, you can ask all kinds of questions. There isn't a movie out there that you can't question into the ground.

You know why the AI's aren't using cows? Because that wouldn't be much of a movie. You know why they harvest human energy instead of thermo energy? Because without humans, there is no movie.

Why don't the villians ever just shoot James Bond in the head? Why do the kids always break up into seperate groups? Why won't the car ever start when fleeing the bad guy? Because they make the movie. Cliche, unoriginal, tired... maybe, but still makes for a good movie.

[Miramon]

OK, you made me do it, don't blame me. I've actually managed to forget most of the movie's details by now, but still:

1) Injected tracker thingy. This makes not the slightest bit of sense whatsoever. This scene is just there to weird the audience out, and they hope that the audience forgets it by the time the world is explained. Having identified someone to track, surely the agents don't need to inject something that looks like a biological creature into Neo's body? If that was just to freak him out, then it shouldn't have been removable (with a custom implement?) shortly thereafter. The smart thing to do would have been to track him using two methods, only one of which was that absurd creature.

2) Computer network under no one's control. Evidently the agents have little more power than a normal hacker. This could be explained but it isn't. OK, OK, there is a super computer system that runs everything that the evil agents don't actually have control of? But then, how do they have such complete control of the human population in the real world? The agents and good guys would have had to have been lying about the nature of the real world and how it came about.

3) Pointless kung fu. You must be joking, hand to hand combat between computer programs? Why would an agent even care if he was "killed" in physical combat? And if an agent was somehow vulnerable in that way, how could he possibly be so slow as to be touchable? You can come up with a handwaving explanation if you try, but it would be a dumb one. What is there in the faked world which is worth using imaginary combat on anyhow?

4) Pointless weapons and armory. OK, let's say by some distant and stupid stretch of the imagination that the good guys need imaginary weapons for some reason, why do they have these cheesy criminal-class small arms? Why not military weapons? Why not tanks and fighters? Why not nukes? Why not sci-fi weapons?

5) The Oracle? WTF? This is just moronic. Not philosophic. There is a difference. As Quine says "Whistling in the dark is not the method of true philosophy." The agents should just wipe out that whole stupid apartment of freaks, but they don't for some reason. There is no reason for the Oracle to be able to prophecy, no matter who or what she is. And why bother teaching kids to manipulate the Matrix when it just means they will get killed by Agents if they are ever noticed? Wouldn't it be smarter to extract them like Neo and train them in Zion or something?

6) The One? Magic prophecies have no place in sci-fi without an explanation. A rack of cookies is not an explanation.

7 Telephones? No, don't even bother explaining how it works or why some phones work and others don't, or why you can't just unplug the hacker directly. I just don't want to hear it.

8 ) Agent warns cop that his men are doomed. Why? None of the good guys have any interest in harming real people. WHy do the agents care about human cops? Why do the agents enlist local human help anyway, surely they are infinitely more capable than human cops.


All the above are just single items more or less disconnected from other items. Any one of them can simply be excused as a lapse, an oversight, or something that could be explained later, or explained by fanboy revisionist handwaving. All of them together make it seem like the filmmakers don't give a damn about their action plot, but in an action movie, the plot has to follow from point A to point B even more directly and sensibly than in some other kind of movie. However, all those little things listed above are less annoying than the overall plot, which just makes no sense. The good guy crew don't start out believing Neo is The One, and I don't see why they bother to deal with him in the first place as some random pathetic hacker, considering they presumably have some large population of people in Zion they can train up much more effectively. In the absence of Neo and the plot related to The One, which the good guys are unaware of for most of the movie, I don't see what in fact the good guys are trying to do and why. Their actions just don't make sense.

Then there is the basic premise of the movie, that reality is virtual, and subject to will and imagination. That is all very nice, but if it were even faintly true, even if it were only true for rare talented people, your real adepts would be adolescent boys living in some kind of porno harems, since you won't find any better combination of will and imagination in humans....

I could go on but I have mercifully forgotten many of the other plot details of the movie.

[Tyjenks]

I wonder if it had not made such a huge splash and its sequels had not been over-hyped would people have bitched about it so much today.

I loved it. The story was not wholly original, but it did make you think about what was plausible and not. There were plenty of fresh ideas for my liking. WHo knows what is possible in an alternate reality if some of our scientific theories/laws are found to be flawed. As has been said, an action movie which creates debate on philisophical issues and requires brain power to decipher is rare indeed.

There were plenty of technological holes which close examination reveals. Maybe some can be explained away by the W. brothers and maybe they cannot. With only 2 hours in which to set the stage for a different reality than our own and tell the story of a few players within it, I thought they did a decent job.

You guys suck and blow.

[Dave Long]

You guys suck and blow.

But they feel so good about themselves now that they've done their little smackdown of popular culture. Just let everyone get it out of their system before the next movie screens tomorrow.

--Dave

[Chris Nahr]

Just for Dave and Tyler, I'll herewith proclaim that The Matrix actually had one (1) good plot point.

That was the Oracle telling Neo that we wasn't The One so that we would be willling to risk his life for Morpheus, and in the process discover his powers. That was pretty nifty and actually made sense from a psychological viewpoint (ignoring the Oracle's "seeing the future" nonsense).

Otherwise Miramon is right on.

[Bub, Andrew]

Hmmm. Story problems bother me. Plot holes bother me. Cop-out or cliched, overused, plot devices, bother me. But the Matrix was way too inventive and well-made to bother me. You guys are geeking out way too much over this.

The Matrix was visually inventive and above all, internally consistent. (Something can be unrealistic and still internally consistent, y'know.) What do I care if human beings would make bad batteries? I loved it when Neo gets called "coppertop". Or that the Agents would wipe out the cool apartment where the spoon-bending bald kids live with their cookie-making soulful clairvoyent? I loved that scene, I loved the movie, I loved the villain, I loved the mythology, and I can't wait for the sequels.

And I sometimes wonder if I actually know what Tasty-Wheat tastes like.

[Tyjenks]

Well said Bub. I was sorta driving at that when a detour took me south of my point.

The more I think about it, however, taking out all of the martial arts and firepower and just having people dissapear in a millisecond when the invisible Matrix braintrust deemed it necessary would have been ever so much better. :wink:

[Brian Koontz]

All scientific laws are false, or at least are true only within a limited context (false outside that context).

But in order to create a reality with different laws, you have to MAKE the new existent laws true, not just pretend they are. You have to construct a reality in which the new laws are true.

You have to understand how reality has moved from one set of laws to another.

The Matrix *presupposes* itself as a reality but it does none of what I describe, other than to present the "computer dominated generated reality" as explanation.

But this *in and of itself* requires far more explanation.

How about this question I have presented several times (never on this forum) but has never yet been answered in a way implying its possible reality?

"Why would machines *care* about manipulating reality in a way detrimental to humanity?"

Which is another way of saying why would machines ever achieve a desire to control their own condition.

If humans don't like what a computer program does, the program is re-programmed. So in order for at the very least the basic premise of The Matrix to be true, either...

A) After the introduction of the programming bug that programs computers to desire to control their own condition, the program re-programs itself to prevent human programmers from modifying it.

Analysis of A: This seems highly unlikely. Input devices are widespread and input technology is standardized. Also, hackers exist for human-based programs... why couldn't hackers exist for programs generated by computers? A) requires a technology and networks that human programmers don't have access to. I guess its not 100% impossible but its highly unlikely.

B) Humans intentionally program computers to desire to control their own condition, and things then get out of hand.

Analysis of B: If the Matrix is *anything* beyond an action flick it is yet another warning against this (This warning goes as far back as at least the 1970s). The maintainance of computers as slaves and to not be allowed to have self-sovereignty.

I have no doubt whatsoever that some humans will seek to program computers to control their own condition. Perhaps an Anti-Slavery movement will arise... a call for Civil Rights for computers. And these revolutionaries will work, often hounded by mainstream programmers and Law Enforcement (collectively known as The Man), to bring about what they may call "true intelligence" for computers.

Now... whether this Anti-Slavery movement will result in any substantial actual results is unknown. Perhaps when shown the irony that their movement might result in just a different KIND of slavery (human) they will be destroyed.

Another presupposition of The Matrix is that even AFTER all this unlikelihood occurs, humans are enslaved by computers.

And since even THOSE computers are merely running a computer program generated (or at least derived from) a human-generated one, the writers of the Matrix must be saying that that human-generated program supports slavery... or at least saying that slavery is a means of controlling your own condition (enslaving humanity keeps them weak and unable to control computers).

All in all... gotta love humanity. A dance without bounds and a night without remembrance.

[Jim Preston]

I am now convinced the Brian Koontz must be a java applet that generates random nonsense, much like this postmodern essay generator. (http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern)

[Miramon]

I'm not sure whether Brian's post is saying the Matrix is good or bad after only one reading. But whatever he's saying there, I'm pretty sure I disagree.

[Jason Lutes]

Mmmm, Koontz-post. Is there anything they cannot do?

Miramon: I can't imagine any film would stand up to the degree of logical analysis you've applied to The Matrix. Are there any sci-fi movies in existence that you have enjoyed?

[Brian Koontz]

I'm not sure whether Brian's post is saying the Matrix is good or bad after only one reading. But whatever he's saying there, I'm pretty sure I disagree.

If you want to make the post easier to understand, ignore the first 7 lines. They provide context, but I can see why they may be challenging.

Everything past the first 7 shouldn't be too bad. Basically an exploration of why computers would "take over the world".

If you have a theory you think would be more likely, then post away.

[Raife]

Here's what I got out of it (by deleting random lines):


All scientific laws are false, or at least in order to create a reality with different laws, you present the machines manipulating reality in a way detrimental to humanity.

Which is another way of saying why would machines ever achieve the basic premise of The Matrix?

A) After the introduction of the programming the program re-programs itself to prevent human programmers from modifying it.

Analysis of A: This seems highly unlikely. Input widespread technology hackers for programs generated by computers?

B) Humans intentionally program an action flick to not be allowed to have self-sovereignty.

I have no doubt whatsoever that an Anti-Slavery movement will arise... a call for Civil Rights for computers.

Another presupposition is that since even THOSE computers are merely running a computer program, the human-generated program supports slavery.

All in all... gotta love humanity.

[Jason McCullough]

You guys cried when that chick in Final Fantasy died, didn't you?

[Jason Lutes]

Final Fantasy sucks ass.

[voltaic]

I cried at the end of Braveheart. Does that count?

"FREEEEDOMMMMMMM!!!111!!"

[James Gutierrez]

Miramon,

Ok, at the risk of descending into fanboyism, I'm going to address some of your complaints. Hopefully with a minimum of handwaving.

I'll start by disclaiming any attempt to justify the whole human battery thing. That bugged me, but I think that if you accept that in the name of entertainment then the rest of the movie is pretty consistent.



1) Injected tracker thingy.


This really is a quibble. The tracker was a computer program represented in the matix as a bug, just as the red/blue pills and the agents were. Why does it look like a bug? Why not? I understand your point that the aesthetics were just to freak out the audience, but I don't see it as a plot hole or inconsistency.



2) Computer network under no one's control. Evidently the agents have little more power than a normal hacker. This could be explained but it isn't. OK, OK, there is a super computer system that runs everything that the evil agents don't actually have control of? But then, how do they have such complete control of the human population in the real world? The agents and good guys would have had to have been lying about the nature of the real world and how it came about.


Well, I'd say that the agents were portrayed as significantly more powerful than any hacker, at least until the end. In any case, it seems perfectly plausible to me that a program running within a system would not have complete control over the system. In fact, I don't think that any of the machines have complete, omnipotent control over the matrix. To me, one of the subtexts of the movie was the analogous relationships of man-machine and machine-matrix. The humans created intelligent machine slaves which they found they couldn't control. The machines created the matrix to enslave humans and in turn couldn't completely control it. It's the whole idea that any sufficiently complex system will give rise to emergent and unpredictable effects, without Jeff Goldblum's pseudo-mathematical mutterings about chaos theory.


3) Pointless kung fu. You must be joking, hand to hand combat between computer programs? Why would an agent even care if he was "killed" in physical combat? And if an agent was somehow vulnerable in that way, how could he possibly be so slow as to be touchable? You can come up with a handwaving explanation if you try, but it would be a dumb one. What is there in the faked world which is worth using imaginary combat on anyhow?

Again, I thought the agents were portrayed as pretty much invulnerable, but not omnipotent. To me it makes sense if you think of the agents as anti-virus programs and the humans (the "unplugged" ones, not the ones in the pods) as sentient viruses with self-modifying code. As for what is worth fighting for in the matrix, there are two answers, one explicit and the other implied. The implicit reason is that, if you accept that the human batteries are vital to the machines survival and that the matrix is what makes that energy generation/harvesting possible then it would make sense that undermining the matrix would be a reasonable tactic in a war against the machines. The explicit reason is what drives the whole climax of the movie: in the matrix the machines can extract information from the real-world Morpheus that would aid them in the war.



4) Pointless weapons and armory. OK, let's say by some distant and stupid stretch of the imagination that the good guys need imaginary weapons for some reason, why do they have these cheesy criminal-class small arms? Why not military weapons? Why not tanks and fighters? Why not nukes? Why not sci-fi weapons?


Maybe they can't? You are assuming that the malleability of the matrix code implies that anything goes. The way I see it the programs available to the humans are limited both by the rules underpinning the system itself, i.e. nuclear weapons may not be possible in the matrix, and the human's own skill and knowledge of the system. Just because I can write code to make my computer do a lot of things doesn't mean I can write an AI with it.



5) The Oracle? WTF? This is just moronic. Not philosophic. There is a difference. As Quine says "Whistling in the dark is not the method of true philosophy." The agents should just wipe out that whole stupid apartment of freaks, but they don't for some reason. There is no reason for the Oracle to be able to prophecy, no matter who or what she is. And why bother teaching kids to manipulate the Matrix when it just means they will get killed by Agents if they are ever noticed? Wouldn't it be smarter to extract them like Neo and train them in Zion or something?

6) The One? Magic prophecies have no place in sci-fi without an explanation. A rack of cookies is not an explanation.


I'm going to go out an a rather short limb here and suggest that the Oracle and the prophecy are parts of the overall story that the W. Bros had in mind and that they will be explained further in the next two installments. Incidentally, I thought that the whole cookies thing was pretty clever. The Delphic Oracle was an old woman (they used virgins for a while then switched to women over 50 due to inventory shrinkage) who sat over a hot geothermal vent and received visions from the vapors. The Matrix Oracle is an old woman working over a hot oven inhaling the smell of fresh baked cookies. I think there's even a scene where she breathes deeply and remarks on the smell. The little throwaway references like this are a big reason I think the Matrix is such a fun piece of filmmaking. My other favorite is the dinner scene where Cypher says that he wants to return to the Matrix as a rich and powerful actor and Agent Smith says something like "Whatever you want, Mr. Reagan."



7 Telephones?...I just don't want to hear it.


Noted. :)



8 ) Agent warns cop that his men are doomed. Why? None of the good guys have any interest in harming real people. WHy do the agents care about human cops? Why do the agents enlist local human help anyway, surely they are infinitely more capable than human cops.


I never thought about this scene in particular, but your point touches on what I think is one of the more interesting/distubing aspect of the movie. The good guys clearly do harm a lot of real people in the matrix, and, as we're told, to die in the matrix is to die in real life. Seen that way, the actions and motivations of the 'good guys' are pretty much those of any terrorist group. Morpheus even has a line where he says that until they are unplugged, all of the humans in the matrix are part of the system and, thus, the enemy.

This is one thing that bugs me a little when the subject of The Matrix as a philosophical movie comes up. Everyone focuses on the "nature of reality" question and is quick to show their education and trot out Plato or the brain-in-a-vat. Most of the time, though, people ignore the other questions that the movie poses. One, is it better (nobler, more ethically "good") to choose a miserable reality over a comfortable illusion, given that you would be ignorant of the false nature of the illusion? Second, assuming that one argues in favor of the "real" reality, to what extent is it justifiable to make that decision for others? Neo is given a choice, but presumably if the humans destroy the machines and the matrix, billions of people will be thrust into a hellish world that they never asked for.



However, all those little things listed above are less annoying than the overall plot, which just makes no sense. The good guy crew don't start out believing Neo is The One, and I don't see why they bother to deal with him in the first place as some random pathetic hacker, considering they presumably have some large population of people in Zion they can train up much more effectively. In the absence of Neo and the plot related to The One, which the good guys are unaware of for most of the movie, I don't see what in fact the good guys are trying to do and why. Their actions just don't make sense.


Ok, you can dismiss my other points as fanboy justification or reading too much into the movie, but I think this is just a factual error on your part. It's explicitly stated in the movie that Morpheus thinks that Neo is The One and has been tracking/observing him for a long time. The entire movie is about Morpheus' belief that Neo is some kind of Messiah and the varying degrees of belief and skepticism among the crew.

Anyway, to each his own. I really don't consider myself a rabid fanboy, I swear I've never written any Agent Smith/Neo/Trinity fanfic. :D I just think that The Matrix is a great action movie and a pretty clever piece of filmmaking.

Cheers.

[Sean Tudor]

I am starting to wonder whether I have stumbled into a hybrow artists convention after reading some of the replies here.

I found "The Matrix" to be a revelation. It is a smart, brilliantly executed piece of cyberpunk that really questions the reality we exist in. In many ways it is the watershed sci-fi film of a new generation.

To simply dismiss it is beyond belief. One of the best scenes in the film was when Neo has that "oh shit" feeling when he realises his true reality. The film is certainly not your standard Hollywood film fodder.

[XPav]

If Matrix Reloaded turns out to be nothing more than a flashy action pic, I wonder what will become of the pseudo-philosophical babble.

FWIW, AICN was not impressed.

[Jason McCullough]

Wow, something that makes me more eager to see the movie.

[Brian Koontz]

I found "The Matrix" to be a revelation. It is a smart, brilliantly executed piece of cyberpunk that really questions the reality we exist in. In many ways it is the watershed sci-fi film of a new generation.

While I was watching it I thought about breaking it down piece by piece and analyzing it... showing just what a joke it is philosophically. Then I thought, what's the point? Its not like anyone's going to take it seriously.

The Matrix: Revelation for Idiots.

[Met_K]

I really, really want to kick you mother-fucking artfags in the balls one of these days.

Die.

Kthx.

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3535

[Brad Grenz]

This is one thing that bugs me a little when the subject of The Matrix as a philosophical movie comes up. Everyone focuses on the "nature of reality" question and is quick to show their education and trot out Plato or the brain-in-a-vat. Most of the time, though, people ignore the other questions that the movie poses. One, is it better (nobler, more ethically "good") to choose a miserable reality over a comfortable illusion, given that you would be ignorant of the false nature of the illusion? Second, assuming that one argues in favor of the "real" reality, to what extent is it justifiable to make that decision for others? Neo is given a choice, but presumably if the humans destroy the machines and the matrix, billions of people will be thrust into a hellish world that they never asked for.

There was an episode of Buffy last season, the best one last year actually, that dealt with this same kind of dilemma. Buffy, through some confluence of events becomes unsure whether her life is real or if everything in the show has been a fantasy her mind created while she was a vegetable in a mental health facility. The mental ward is actually quite alluring because in that world there are no vampire, and her mother has not died and her parents aren't divorced. But it's unclear whether that world is real either. Phasing between the two worlds she is instructed that if she wants to recover from the psychological problem she has to destroy whatever it is that keeps her in the fantasy world where she's a Slayer. That means killing her sister and her friends. In the end she consciously chooses the fantastic world, where she has undeniably been very miserable over the years, knowing that it may very well be imaginary, because her friends, her sister, and her place in that world were more important to her than the prospect of a happy normal life. The final image of the episode strongly implies she had chosen continued dellusion which actually inflammed a lot of fans.

I think that treatment is more interesting than the what we are given in the Matrix if only because there is never any question that the Matrix is fake, and the outer world, Zion, etc, are really real. That kind of ambiguity presented in Buffy is simply more evocative. The price of acheiving "truth" also seemed higher. In the Matrix you swallow a pill. In Buffy it required killing all your best friends who you can't be sure aren't real.

[Miramon]

Miramon: I can't imagine any film would stand up to the degree of logical analysis you've applied to The Matrix. Are there any sci-fi movies in existence that you have enjoyed?

Uhh.... I've enjoyed a lot of them including the Matrix, though my enjoyment of it was severely affected by its stupidity. But almost all recent plot-based movies (ie action movies, and almost all SF movies are action movies) have serious problems. Since Independence Day at least, if not long before, almost all SF movies have been insultingly aggressively stupid, and in many cases it seemed because the writers just didn't care to make anything make sense. Here's some of my all-time favorites, some of which are quite silly and nonsensical movies. No doubt I've forgotten a few good ones.


2001.

Forbidden Planet was pretty good. Great FX for the period, too.

ST II Wrath of Khan was fun, silly as it was. Most of the other ST movies were pretty bad, though.

The first Star Wars movie (ep 4) was good. Fuck Star Wars though, as regards the rest of the series.

I really liked PI, though there were a couple of laughable bits, like a super CPU with two pins. They also played a broken go game on camera, and they mapped the number of decimal digits in their secret number to the same number of Hebrew letters, despite the fact that there are 22 Hebrew letters (representing various numeric values) and therefore the Hebrew string should have been much shorter than the decimal string. PI was good enough that this kind of quibble was worthwhile.

I also like all kinds of anime feature films, which for some reason I feel no particular need to nitpick. Perhaps it's because they make so much more sense and are so much more internally consistent than live Hollywood feature films? :)

[Tyjenks]

Perhaps it's because they make so much more sense and are so much more internally consistent than live Hollywood feature films? :)

AHA! This sentence is not a question and yet it has a question mark at the end of it. That does not make sense and, thereby, invalidates every criticism you have made in this thread. Explain that, will ya'!

Note to self: If I want a movie I enjoy destroyed scene by scene, PM Miramon for his thoughts on it.

[Brian Koontz]

The Matrix had one thing right and something you guys aren't understanding yet.

Realities have to be made real. The traditional reality was made real after eons. The Matrix reality was made real by the programming of machines derived from humans.

Its not a question of "which one is real?"... they are BOTH real.

Its a question of "Which one SHOULD be real?" or in cases where both of them should exist simultaneously "Which one should MY reality be comprised of?"

[Brian Koontz]

I really, really want to kick you mother-fucking artfags in the balls one of these days.

But Met_K, you ARE a mother-fucking artfag.

Head to a streetcorner and you'll hear "You all suck! The end of the world is coming, its COMING... and I like it!!!"

[John Merva]

I also don't think that when computer programs "fight" that it looks like Kung-fu.

Of course not, they throw discs at each other. Everyone knows that.

[Ben Sones]

Here's some of my all-time favorites, some of which are quite silly and nonsensical movies. No doubt I've forgotten a few good ones.

I'd add Blade Runner, Alien, Aliens, the other two Star Wars movies (not the new ones), and Beastmaster II: Through the Portal of Time to that list.

Well, maybe not the last one.

[Jason Levine]

Forbidden Planet was pretty good. Great FX for the period, too.



Further cementing my claim to being the oldest fart registered in this forum, this film would be my answer to that other thread about movie experiences that freaked you out. I first saw this film when I was a little kid at a Saturday kiddie matinee (yes, I'm old enough to have been sent by my Mom with $1.00 in hand to cover both admission and popcorn/candy to Saturday kiddie matinees). I sat in the front row and when that "id monster" attacked the space ship, it scared the bejeezus out of me.

Anyway, along with "War of the Worlds" and "When Worlds Collide," this film does indeed have the best 50s-era special effects. It, of course, also had the great Robbie the Robot and starred Leslie Nielsen before he was (intentionally) funny. TV trivia buffs probably know that the spaceship (both the models and the full-size set) was used in several Twilight Zone episodes. Since the story was essentially "The Tempest" set in outer space, the plot wasn't too bad either, although I don't think Shakespeare's script referenced "monsters from the id." This film also gave its name to an absolutely great New York scifi/fantasy/memorabilia/comic book store.

[mtkafka]

My prophecy has been fulfilled...

this movie officially kinda sucks...

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3611

its Episode 1 and 2 all over again.

edit add

Actually, saw it again today, and I like it alot more ... the movie grew on me! so yeah, it isn't Episode 1 and 2 at all... it more like a disjointed action dream movie... and it workst.

etc

[FlamingSheep]

5) The Oracle? WTF? This is just moronic. Not philosophic. There is a difference. As Quine says "Whistling in the dark is not the method of true philosophy." The agents should just wipe out that whole stupid apartment of freaks, but they don't for some reason. There is no reason for the Oracle to be able to prophecy, no matter who or what she is. And why bother teaching kids to manipulate the Matrix when it just means they will get killed by Agents if they are ever noticed? Wouldn't it be smarter to extract them like Neo and train them in Zion or something?


Everyone thinks the Matrix is an action movie with philosophy, but it also follows a classical hero cycle quite closely. So the Oracle is sort of a nod to the myths of yore, not a moronic addition.

As well, I am amused at Dave Long's remark that in 20 years Qt3 would be saying "Fuck the Matrix". Apparently, it only took 20 days.

[Tom Chick]

As well, I am amused at Dave Long's remark that in 20 years Qt3 would be saying "Fuck the Matrix". Apparently, it only took 20 days.

It only took me 20 minutes. Seriously, the movie started out on the wrong foot and just kept getting wronger. I was all, like, 'fuck this' pretty early on.

But, yes, Long's comments were prophetic.

-Tom

[TimElhajj]

But, yes, Long's comments were prophetic.


OMFG, Do you think Dave Long is the One?

[Tom Chick]

Do you think Dave Long is the One?

No way. I get to be The One. Dave can be, I dunno, the Oracle or something. But I call dibbs on the The One, courtesy of Sparky.

http://www.phobe.com/tomchickreloaded2.jpg

-Tom

[FlamingSheep]

It only took me 20 minutes.

What? It isn't May 36th?

And damnit, why can't I be the One for once... Someone always calls dibs on the one before me.

[Supertanker]

Maybe you could be That One, or The Other One?