Matrix Revolutions - just watched it again

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Now, there were good parts. The cloud flythrough is a nice moment.

Now, I don't agree with your opinion of the movie, but that's alright. I'm not in the mood to debate something that's so horribly opinion based that its pointless.

However, I will say that that cloud flythrough where they see the sky was probably one of the best(IMO) moments in the movie.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I see all three as a trilogy that tells a complete story. Saying you don't think that the second or third film should have been made is like saying that its a good idea to start telling a story but never finish it. My bias is that I liked it better than 1 or 2 because more of tha action took place in the real world. It delivered on the promise of a butt kicking war that was made in the first movie.

 

[milotha]

I loved the first film. I was OK with the second film. I was willing to see where the story would go. They had some interesting ideas and sub plots that they had hinted at. The third film destroyed the whole series to me. WhY?

My summary of the movie.

Let's have some pointless opening train station scene. It will take up a good portion of the movie and allow the brothers to get their latex/bondage fest desires on the screen. Let's face it. It was just an excuse to have people wearing tight latex. The whole train station scene did nothing. Yeah there were some neat ideas about the programs, but lets not use any of them in the rest of the movie. Oh, and let's have some pointless little girl that does nothing to further the plot. But it will seem deep.

The big fight scene between Neo and Agent Smith. Besides being the token MATRIX scene, we didn't care. There was no tension. It was just FX. This is the classic case of the GM not realizing that the Agent Smith encounter is no longer challenging. Hello, Neo had leveled, bring on a new encounter.

They took the main characters from the first movie, and threw them by the wayside. The threw out the MATRIX.

Let's reduce a really cool character - Morpheus - to being a passenger with a few comments. Not much else. No character growth. Hey, he had started taking on agents in the last movie. This one. Passenger in a ship.

Trinity. Most pointless death. I felt absolutely nothing during her death scene. She did alsmot nothing too, except help kill Agent Smith in the real world. Her death didn't further the story. Why did she even go along at the end?

Neo. Did he save humanity? No! Almost everyone was still enslaved. Where was the promise at the end of the first movie to wake everyone up? If you were going to go to god like powers why not completely rip dune of and say he is the messiah and the clouds part and it rains and the machines return to solar power and free the humans and Arakis is free. Wait that was Dune, wrong movie.

I didn't buy the ending for one minute. Why were the machines honorable. Why didn't they just wipe out humanity after Neo took out Agent Smith. All Neo did was create Agent Smith and then kill him. I didn't even get the feeling that the free humans were inspired by Neo.

It was just apparent that they needed to take a break between the second and thrid film and actually get a script before production. Or maybe the first on was a fluke.

I could go on, but I'm ending it here.

 

[takyris]

I see all three as a trilogy that tells a complete story. Saying you don't think that the second or third film should have been made is like saying that its a good idea to start telling a story but never finish it. My bias is that I liked it better than 1 or 2 because more of tha action took place in the real world. It delivered on the promise of a butt kicking war that was made in the first movie.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this to be factually inaccurate. The creators might want it to look that way now, but the original movie was not "first of three" -- the original movie was supposed to stand alone, and then they made a ton of money and said, "Uh, sure, we can do sequels."

As I said, please correct me if I'm wrong. That was my understanding of it. If you can find me a source that predates the directors signing on for sequels in which they say, "Yeah, this is just the first one, we hope we'll make enough money to do three," please fire away.

Note that I'm differentiating between an "as they're shooting the sequels" interview that has them saying, "Er, yes, we'd always intended it to be a trilogy, sure, that's the ticket" and a "before they knew the sequels were gonna happen" interview that has them saying, "Ideally, we want this to be a trilogy".

 

[gariig]

Other problems of the series was having the story be told in other works of media. Enter The Matrix and The Animatrix filled in some of the holes that were left in the films. I thought it was a neat idea to try the mixed media approach, but it was just too hard to match everything up into one coherent story.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The whole train station scene did nothing. Yeah there were some neat ideas about the programs, but lets not use any of them in the rest of the movie. Oh, and let's have some pointless little girl that does nothing to further the plot. But it will seem deep.

I disagree. This scene showed that there were programs within the Matrix that weren't under the controll of it and that they wanted to continue to exist just as the humans did. It changed the nature of the entire conflict.

The big fight scene between Neo and Agent Smith. Besides being the token MATRIX scene, we didn't care. There was no tension. It was just FX. This is the classic case of the GM not realizing that the Agent Smith encounter is no longer challenging. Hello, Neo had leveled, bring on a new encounter.

Agent Smith was no longer the same program that he was in the first movie. When faced with destruction at the end of the first movie he had found a way to become something far more powerful than his original programming. He had transformed into a virus that was competing with the powers within for control of the Matrix. They could have used a different bad guy for his, but why bother when Agent Smith was a villain that was well-respected by the audience?

They took the main characters from the first movie, and threw them by the wayside. The threw out the MATRIX.

Let's reduce a really cool character - Morpheus - to being a passenger with a few comments. Not much else. No character growth.

Morpheus' role in this story is to act as the prophet. His job was to find Neo and train Neo. The only way that he is different than other teachers is that he didn't die. His importance was over once the hero he discovered came into his own.

Trinity. Most pointless death. I felt absolutely nothing during her death scene. She did alsmot nothing too, except help kill Agent Smith in the real world. Her death didn't further the story. Why did she even go along at the end?

Does every death in a war have to be at the hands of the enemy? She died in an accident. It sucks, but it also put Neo in a position where he had nothing left to lose and nothing left to come back to.

Neo. Did he save humanity? No! Almost everyone was still enslaved. Where was the promise at the end of the first movie to wake everyone up? If you were going to go to god like powers why not completely rip dune of and say he is the messiah and the clouds part and it rains and the machines return to solar power and free the humans and Arakis is free. Wait that was Dune, wrong movie.

Why bother waking everybody up when the world outside would not be able to support them? Why destroy the Matrix when there are living programs within it that have just as much of a right to exist (remember the girl at the trin station?). What Neo does is first inform people of the truth and then gives them a choice of living in it or outside of it. If you chose to live within it then you help to provide power for the Matrix and you get to live in the world you have always known. If you chose to live outside of it you get to help rebuild the world. It makes sense.

I didn't buy the ending for one minute. Why were the machines honorable. Why didn't they just wipe out humanity after Neo took out Agent Smith. All Neo did was create Agent Smith and then kill him. I didn't even get the feeling that the free humans were inspired by Neo.

At the end it looked like Neo's body had been destroyed completely and he had become a part of the Matrix - a powerful part. The Matrix still existed as it always had, but he stands as the one faction that holds the ultimate power within. If he could take out Smith after Smith had seized control over the Matrix then he could most likely eliminate anyone within, including the architect if need be. They had no choice but to cooperate with him.

 

[Thanee]

And I still hate it.

It was one of the most disappointing movies of the last year IMHO.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darrin Drader]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this to be factually inaccurate. The creators might want it to look that way now, but the original movie was not "first of three" -- the original movie was supposed to stand alone, and then they made a ton of money and said, "Uh, sure, we can do sequels."

There's no need to correct you because that's just the way Hollywood normally works. Star Wars could have stood alone without Empire and Jedi, but the next two parts were allowed to be made because the movie generated enough money and George Lucas made it clear that there was a much bigger story to be told. The Matrix is the same deal and in many ways tells a similar story. It was clear that the story was not over at the end of the first Matrix movie. I know of very few movie series where they began with the stated intention of delivering 3 or more (The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films are the most notable recent exceptions that spring to mind). Star Trek III and IV were not foregone conclusions when they made Star Trek II.

The main difference between the Matrix and Star Wars is that in Star Wars Luke was allowed to continue on his road to becoming a hero throughout the second and third parts whereas Neo achieved heroic status in part 1. Dramatically becoming is usually more interesting than being, which is why I think this movie falls flat with a lot of people. Nevertheless, that doesn't diminish my enjoyment of them.

 

[Thanee]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this to be factually inaccurate. The creators might want it to look that way now, but the original movie was not "first of three" -- the original movie was supposed to stand alone, and then they made a ton of money and said, "Uh, sure, we can do sequels."

As I said, please correct me if I'm wrong. That was my understanding of it. If you can find me a source that predates the directors signing on for sequels in which they say, "Yeah, this is just the first one, we hope we'll make enough money to do three," please fire away.

The oracle? It had absolutely no point in the first movie.
There was no explanation, why it was there. It was wrong.

But whatever it is, Matrix is a stand-alone movie, like Highlander.

There can be only one.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darrin Drader]

The oracle? It had absolutely no point in the first movie.
There was no explanation, why it was there. It was wrong.

Exactly. The Oracle only makes sense within the context of a larger story.