New Matrix trailer

:eek: Holy Crap that was awesome! I had to watch it three times in a row.:) I originally thought the twins were stupid looking characters, but now that I know they have that cool looking intangibility power. Sweetness.
My only worry is that there aren't going to be any really cool mindblowing plot elements like the first one had. They have already spilled the beans on all the stuff about the machines. Even if it doesn't have any of those moments it is still going to be an awesome action flick.:cool:
 

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Hmm. The new trailer looks good, but I've just downgraded the movie from "sneak out of the house for the midnight show" to "go see it in the theatre, sometime." If the 1000-Agent-Smith fight looks completely fake only three inches wide on my PC monitor, what's it going to look like thirty feet high in a theatre?

Still didn't stop me from watching it twice in a row, though. :) As was mentioned above, good effects do not a movie make, and this still looks like a good movie. We're lucky to have so many good genre films coming out this year!
 

Eridanis said:
Hmm. The new trailer looks good, but I've just downgraded the movie from "sneak out of the house for the midnight show" to "go see it in the theatre, sometime." If the 1000-Agent-Smith fight looks completely fake only three inches wide on my PC monitor, what's it going to look like thirty feet high in a theatre?

No offense, but there's something wrong with your monitor... ;) It looked great on my screen, even at full-screen format. You did take the best quality version?
 

Numion said:
You did take the best quality version?
Sure did. Glories of cable modem into the home. :) Looking at it again, I think it's the textures that are just too smooth in that section. (I was reading an article recently about how they were working so hard to get the textures right, that they sent swaths of cloth from the costumes to be scanned and used as source data for the number-crunching of the scene.)

No disrespect at all to the filmmakers - this film will be a huge leap forward technology-wise - but it's not perfect yet. :) Just wait a few years, though, when they have powerful enough computers that can integrate some aspects of chaotic dynamical systems theory into the CGI generation. Then we won't know who's real or who's not. And probably won't much care, if the film has artistic merit.

And when I say I'm still going to see it in the theatre, take it as excitement from someone who only gets to see about one film a year in the theatre - and the last two years, that's been LotR. :)
 

"?"

No, seriously, "?"

I mean, I knew the first film was popular and all, but...

There must be a Matrix gene that my parents never passed on to me. I have seen few films that I thought were worse than the original Matrix. I thought it assumed I was stupid and would willing sit and watch slow-motion bullet hits for minutes at a time.

You know, when Sam Peckinpah did the The Wild Bunch he knew that slow-motion bullet hits only look cool if you have some sort of emotional investment in what they're hitting or missing. That was thirty years ago, and slow-motion bullet hits haven't gotten any cooler, nor has that requirement changed.

I know, I know. Ooh, pretty colours. Shiny. People making important-sounding delarations while special effects distract you from how banal it all is.

I have a theory (it's not a demon) that explains the popularity of The Matrix: I call it the Power Without Effort theory.

The Matrix is a power fantasy, an extreme power fantasy in which a faceless, personality-free figure (I don't think it's fair to use the word character for this film) is gifted with absolute power -- at no cost to himself and without the slightest effort on his part. The fact that this character has no personality is kind of the point since he's not meant to engage our sympathy -- he's meant to provide a trouble-free point of identification. Keanu's role is more akin to the faceless killer of the Quake games than a story character -- he is meant to be us, and so is devoid of personality in order to keep him from possessing qualities that might distance him from us. Identification, not sympathy, is the goal. By watching these movies, we get to feel ourselves as powerful, absolutely powerful, and we get to dominate others at will.

The Without Effort portion is likewise crucial. Neo never does anything to acquire his power, it's just gifted to him. Suddenly he can control the laws of physics. Again, this is simplistic wish-fulfillment and nothing more. Why work hard to acquire skill when you can just plug in and learn kung-fu? After all, you might fail. Better not to try, just wait and hope it happens to you, too.

Both these qualities explain the massive popularity of these films -- the world is full of people who desire to feel powerful but are afraid to work for it. I don't mind it, and wish-fulfillment is a part of all sorts of stories, but I do wish people would stop pretending these movies possess some sort of intellectual content or artistic significance.

I get especially tired of people touting the special effects. I don't see anything in these films I haven't seen in dozens of television commercials. "Bullet-Time" was used in Gap ads before it was used in The Matrix. And better, frankly, or at least with a sense of fun. Ooh, they scanned textures from clothing. Well, of course they did. That's how it's done. I work for a 3D rendering company and that's how it's done. When you're making your models, you scan the source materials to produce your textures. SOP. There's nothing special about any of this.

I like plenty of bad movies myself, and I don't begrudge anyone a little popcorn fun however they get it. I just get tired of these films getting pimped for what they patently aren't -- smart, innovative and significant.
 

Cool trailer!

If they want to really impress me, though, they'll have to find a way to get the whole "humans as batteries" basic concept make some vague sort of sense. As it stands now, I can't help thinking about why they didn't use cattle instead.

"Moo-trix". Heh. I hope we'll find out that Morpheus was wrong and the reason is something rational instead.
 
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Raistlin Majere said:
BLASPHEMY!
What? You don't think the colours are pretty?

;)

Now, the Kill Bill trailer -- THERE'S what I call cool.

Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu squaring off with katana trumps anything Keanu Reeves can throw at me. And the dialogue's actually funny.

And holy cow, that last cut, where she runs up the railing? That is quite possibly the best one-handed katana stroke under the most difficult conditions I've ever seen in a movie. Beautiful, is what that is. I mean, yeah, Mifune's final blow in Sanjuro was awesome, but that was two-handed, strictly speaking. But that run, that spinning jump, and that cut? Holy cow.

Just gotta say.
 

barsoomcore - I can't really disagree with you. Matrix certainly is not a profound movie - but it's one with a definite style in an era where most movies seem to go out of their way to get as far away from style as possible. (Thankfully, I think we're starting to see a rebound from that, and maybe the first Matrix was a hint of that.) That's what I like about it - even though there are many, many ways the world it portrays is not logical, I still find it to be a fun ride. Nothing more, nothing less.

And thanks for your insight on 3D rendering. Not a topic I know a lot about, and the article I read seemed to think that that technique was a new one. Learn something new every day.
 


To throw in some more comments: I had a similar experience to barsoomcore after seeing The Matrix for the first time. I was greatly entertained by the visuals and the plot twist in the first half of the movie was cool, but by no means new. I won't say that it was a bad movie or one of the worst I've ever seen because the effects were well-done and entertaining. Someone else mentioned style, I did like the style of the movie as well.

However the finale left me really cold compared to the rest of the film. I was really digging it until they used combat to solve all their problems. I didn't like the love angle (I thought it was a cheep loophole) and I had similar feelings to the points you mentioned. But all that said, I am looking forward to seeing the sequels simply for the action, fighting scenes and effects. I'll be there opening night because I really like that stuff. It is a popcorn movie that does not transcend its visual accomplishments but hides behind them. But it should be a fun ride. :)
 

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