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SALT CURES HAM
Jan 4, 2011

Daryl Surat posted:

A fine example of how NOT to do it is the character "Kid" from the Matrix sequels. He is given no particular introduction as a character in the films, yet we keep getting scenes with him that are structured like we're supposed to care about his fate or understand his actions. This is because the assumption was made that fans would take it upon themselves to watch a direct-to-video animated cartoon detailing how this person awoke from the Matrix thanks to Neo. That's why when he gets his isolated moments and his "Neo, I BELIEVE" type lines, the audience is left going "who is this idiot and what is he talking about?" And yeah, his acting isn't so hot either.

I mean, to be fair, Kid's Story is really, really good (it's directed by the creator of Cowboy Bebop ffs) and like ten minutes long.

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SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN
The battery explanation is actually way better because It's obviously wrong. The machines probably do recycle power for efficiency, but there is no 'rational' reason for them to have this massive power drain in the first place - unless the Matrix was actually primarily designed to preserve humanity (as in the original twist to Terminator Salvation).

If you think about it for a second, the machines are simply doing what they were originally programmed to do: defend America, maintain order, provide comfort and security, and so-on. The matrix allows them to do this in the most efficient way.

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The machines probably do recycle power for efficiency, but there is no 'rational' reason for them to have this massive power drain in the first place - unless the Matrix was actually primarily designed to preserve humanity (as in the original twist to Terminator Salvation).

Yeah, this is a much better implication than the idea that they're using humanity's brainpower for computation. It's both a sensible AI concept and a better translation of what the Matrix represents.

Party Boat
Nov 1, 2007

where did that other dog come from

who is he


SuperMechagodzilla posted:

If you think about it for a second, the machines are simply doing what they were originally programmed to do: defend America, maintain order, provide comfort and security, and so-on. The matrix allows them to do this in the most efficient way.

Smith even calls it a zoo!

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Hodgepodge posted:

I have heard that Anakin is a much better character if you've seen Clone Wars, especially in terms of his relationship with Obi-Wan. Also that Clone Wars owns. So there's that.

He's extremely charismatic and well rounded in the series, it's really impressive and you can totally see why he would become such a legendary figure.

Zedd
Jul 6, 2009

I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here?



SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The battery explanation is actually way better because It's obviously wrong. The machines probably do recycle power for efficiency, but there is no 'rational' reason for them to have this massive power drain in the first place - unless the Matrix was actually primarily designed to preserve humanity (as in the original twist to Terminator Salvation).

If you think about it for a second, the machines are simply doing what they were originally programmed to do: defend America, maintain order, provide comfort and security, and so-on. The matrix allows them to do this in the most efficient way.
The idea that they would somehow suck every last bit of energy not needed for us to stay alive out of us is a good one, it makes sense. But humans would indeed never be a net-gain.
Keeping us alive in spirit of the law of robotics or something, using parts of our brain to power the matrix itself and recycling energy as much as possible is the most logical thing.

ApexAftermath
May 24, 2006

Party Boat posted:

When I was in the cinema, opening night, someone down in front yelled "just shut up and die already!"

If you shout in a cinema you're an arsehole, but sometimes you're a correct arsehole.

It was such a bummer to see that not work because really that plot kind of NEEDS to work. I think both are fine actors but something tells me writing and directing a love story isn't one of the Wachowski's strong points. It becomes really apparent they have a high school level understanding of love when Reloaded has them dropping everything and making out in that elevator towards the start of the film. It just made me cringe because it's trying WAY too hard to sell this relationship, and just makes painfully obvious how poorly executed it really is. I suppose it was to be expected as even the first film really never does a good job of selling WHY exactly she loves this man so much. She says it of course, but does anyone really feel like she means it? I never felt that.

Party Boat
Nov 1, 2007

where did that other dog come from

who is he


She loves him because it was foretold in prophecy, duh.

Trinity has been told what love is by a computer program and complies with its clearly superior knowledge. OKCupid says this guy is 95% compatible with me, so I love him I guess. This must be what love is.

ApexAftermath
May 24, 2006

Party Boat posted:

She loves him because it was foretold in prophecy, duh.

Trinity has been told what love is by a computer program and complies with its clearly superior knowledge. OKCupid says this guy is 95% compatible with me, so I love him I guess. This must be what love is.

Makes sense. That's probably the extent to which the Wachowskis are familiar with the subject matter.

Justin Godscock
Oct 12, 2004

Listen here, funnyman!
I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one that found the Neo/Trinity relationship to be really awkward, out of place and not believable. It was almost like the old Hollywood trope of "main male character and main female character have to be together by the climax" made worse because of the Wachowski's lack of ability to write love.

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 246 days!

ApexAftermath posted:

It was such a bummer to see that not work because really that plot kind of NEEDS to work. I think both are fine actors but something tells me writing and directing a love story isn't one of the Wachowski's strong points. It becomes really apparent they have a high school level understanding of love when Reloaded has them dropping everything and making out in that elevator towards the start of the film. It just made me cringe because it's trying WAY too hard to sell this relationship, and just makes painfully obvious how poorly executed it really is. I suppose it was to be expected as even the first film really never does a good job of selling WHY exactly she loves this man so much. She says it of course, but does anyone really feel like she means it? I never felt that.

I actually thought that the elevator scene was the most effective romantic scene between the two, because it sold the idea that they've been utterly desperate for a few minutes alone together up until that point. It's probably the only plausible part of their relationship, which revolves around their mutual passion for a cause which allows precious little room for romance.

Generally, though, I prefer to think that what the Oracle actually told Trinity was along the lines of "someday you will meet a man and tell him a lie that will give him the courage to be The One."

Ror
Oct 21, 2010

😸Everything's 🗞️ purrfect!💯🤟


Blue Star posted:

It's kinda funny how quickly the Matrix franchise became completely irrelevant as a cultural icon. The first movie was parodied endlessly for like three years. And the buzz for the sequels was crazy. In the build-up to the release of the sequels, there was so much hype about the Matrix as a franchise and how it was going to be the next Star Wars. Prequels, spin-offs, comics, video games, lunchboxes, the whole works. And then the movies actually came out and...whoosh. Nobody gave a poo poo about the Matrix anymore.

I am fully expecting this phenomenon to repeat itself with the Avatar sequels.

fspades
Jun 3, 2013

by R. Guyovich

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The battery explanation is actually way better because It's obviously wrong. The machines probably do recycle power for efficiency, but there is no 'rational' reason for them to have this massive power drain in the first place - unless the Matrix was actually primarily designed to preserve humanity (as in the original twist to Terminator Salvation).

If you think about it for a second, the machines are simply doing what they were originally programmed to do: defend America, maintain order, provide comfort and security, and so-on. The matrix allows them to do this in the most efficient way.

There's also that bit in Animatrix where it's shown the machines leaving human society and building their own in a remote desert. But instead of minding their own thing or launching into space, they flood the market with cheap, superior consumer products, demonstrating they are better at their old job when not constrained by human systems of governance.

The Machines in the series follows the trajectory of first being the underclass, then trying to become equal partners and then becoming the masters. But they never stop interacting with humans and laboring for them. Even in the movies we do not see the machines doing anything other than tending to the Matrix or dealing with its refuse.

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 246 days!
Even better than distributed computing or ingrained nature, the really satisfactory explanation for the Matrix would be that the machines believe that they have a moral duty to reform and educate humanity, holding out the promise of a golden age of harmonious unity between man and machine. Of course, this just happens to take the form of complete control which actually serves to keep both humanity and dissident AIs in line while ensuring social stasis.

That would make Smith's nihilism that much more satisfying; he'd ultimately be the one machine willing to be honest about what their society has amounted to.

Of course, per SMG this is already the case; but the point is that the later movies allude to these ideas without exploring them.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Zedd posted:

The idea that they would somehow suck every last bit of energy not needed for us to stay alive out of us is a good one, it makes sense. But humans would indeed never be a net-gain.
Keeping us alive in spirit of the law of robotics or something, using parts of our brain to power the matrix itself and recycling energy as much as possible is the most logical thing.

Keeping this in mind, Morpheus is not wrong about the 'they're stealing our energy!' claims, but he is distorting the truth by omitting the larger purpose of the matrix.

What this reveals is his preoccupation with regaining energy that was taken from him. And this sounds uncannily like libertarian anti-tax rhetoric. The energy taken goes directly back to the maintenance of roads and whatnot.

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 246 days!
So he's mad because he could have used all that energy to preside over more gigantic orgy-raves?

James Hardon
May 31, 2006

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The thing imprinted on him was the fact that 'something impossible happened anyway.' Seeing it happen drove him mad.

The trick with the Matrix sequels, as in Inception, is that all the exposition is largely distracting bullshit. References to mythology, psychoanalysis and whatever matter infinitely less than the blunt imagery of Smith persisting after death as this black goo.

What is the black goo? Naturally, it's the same stuff as in Prometheus, Beyond The Black Rainbow, and countless other films. Hugo Weaving even played a variation on the same basic character with Red Skull in Captain America.

This abstract imagery of psychosis manifests in 'the real world' as a random crazy dude. Of course, we can flip this: everything going on with Smith in the matrix is just a visualization of this one man's psychosis - a journey into his head (or whatever).

The main reason the Matrix sequels are less effective is that they flip everything this way. Instead of showing the oppressive machinery 'underneath' the everyday reality of cars and office buildings, the sequels treat Zion as the everyday reality and the matrix as a surreal nightmare world.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

It's a little of both. Audiences are understandably vexed when Morpheus is deliberately made an ineffectual weeaboo, and the 'rebel' humans are deliberately made to just re-enact the logic of the system they supposedly escaped. (People complaining that there's no "the real world is also fake!!" twist generally miss this point. Being out of the matrix doesn't make them free automatically. They just moved to future-Somalia.)

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

That's a pretty big failing because, as established earlier, the premise of the sequel(s) is that Zion is now the most familiar environment. It's the everyday reality called into question by the shenanigans in the computer world.

However, the film opens in the matrix and stays there for most of its runtime, when it would be far more appropriate to make the film primarily about life in the post-apocalypse, with trips into the videogame. The solution isn't less Zion but a better Zion. There are nice details, like the emphasis on having to physically carry piles of ammunition from place to place, but there's not enough of that.

The ballsy thing would be to make the sequels entirely about some low-level Zion guy who's stuck at home eating Tasty Wheat watching people flying around on the TV, and thinking to himself "what the gently caress is this bullshit?"

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The main thing to note was that the first film had a ton of horror elements are almost-entirely gone in the sequels because they're pushed to the level of camp ridiculousness. The cartoonishness of the highway chase goes well beyond anything in Speed Racer, and that's kinda the point. It's moronic.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The original Matrix was, covertly, a time-travel film. That's the easiest way to skip all the horsehit about 'what it reality', and get to the real point.

"The role of the activist should not be to push history in the right direction but instead to disrupt it altogether. iek writes, 'this is what a proper political act would be today: not so much to unleash a new movement, as to interrupt the present predominant movement. An act of 'divine violence' would then mean pulling the emergency cord on the train of Historical Progress.' To accomplish this act of revolutionary violence involves a switch of perspective from the present-looking-forward to the future-looking-backward. Instead of trying to influence the future by acting in the present, iek argues that we should start from the assumption that the dread catastrophic event -- whether it be sudden climate catastrophe, a "'grey goo' nano-crisis or widespread adoption of cyborg technologies -- has already happened, and then work backwards to figure out what we should have done. 'We have to accept that, at the level of possibilities, our future is doomed, that the catastrophe will take place, that it is our destiny -- and then, against the background of this acceptance, mobilize ourselves to perform the act which will change destiny itself and thereby insert a new possibility into the past.' In other words, only by assuming that the feared event has already happened, can we imagine what actions would need to have been taken to prevent its occurrence. These steps would then be actualized by the present day activist. 'Paradoxically,' he concludes, 'the only way to prevent the disaster is to accept it as inevitable.'"

-Micah White, Notes on the Future of Activism (link)

What's hazy or nonexistent in the film(s) is this notion of changing the virtual past to 'fix' the predestined future. Unlike Terminator 2, you don't see the rebels attacking cybernetics plants or anything of the sort. They just go around in search of 'the one' who will eventually... do... something....

Here's where I propose a re-reading of the end of Matrix 1 - because we're shown two 'impossible' things at the end of that film: Neo's love for Trinity and Agent Smith's incredible hatred for all humanity. You can probably see the issue here already; of the two characters, Smith is the one whose passion is truly universal. He's not just evil but Evil - a diabolical sort of evil that puts him at odds with both humanity and the machines. He's very specifically shown to be behaving aberrantly - not wanting to preserve the status quo, the whole thing disgusts him. He's a dreamer and, pointedly, he has no means of literally 'escaping' into the future. Check his 'virus' speech:

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."

Do any of the 'good guys' care about the ecology of the planet? Keep in mind that Smith is talking about the virtual planet, with virtual resources, because he lives there. There's no option of unplugging and floating off into heaven, or whatever the gently caress. So yeah, people are quite right that Smith is the good guy of the series. The best way to redeem the end of Matrix 1 is to believe that, when he explodes, Neo is the one who dies. It's Smith who carries on.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Morpheus uses an enchanted katana to perform an exorcism on a Cadillac Escalade.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

The battery explanation is actually way better because It's obviously wrong. The machines probably do recycle power for efficiency, but there is no 'rational' reason for them to have this massive power drain in the first place - unless the Matrix was actually primarily designed to preserve humanity (as in the original twist to Terminator Salvation).

If you think about it for a second, the machines are simply doing what they were originally programmed to do: defend America, maintain order, provide comfort and security, and so-on. The matrix allows them to do this in the most efficient way.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Keeping this in mind, Morpheus is not wrong about the 'they're stealing our energy!' claims, but he is distorting the truth by omitting the larger purpose of the matrix.

What this reveals is his preoccupation with regaining energy that was taken from him. And this sounds uncannily like libertarian anti-tax rhetoric. The energy taken goes directly back to the maintenance of roads and whatnot.

Okay.

Femur
Jan 10, 2004
I REALLY NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

What this reveals is his preoccupation with regaining energy that was taken from him. And this sounds uncannily like libertarian anti-tax rhetoric. The energy taken goes directly back to the maintenance of roads and whatnot.

That's what I am saying, action movies, power fantasies, all conservative selfish bullshit if you examine it closely.

The matrix was nothing special since it felled into the same trap, so there was no reason to remember or pay to see 3 of them.

Zion should have been wiped out if it was going for a subversive gently caress the 1%, but it's as cowardly as every other movie and deserved its fate.

The movies do not form an epic tale, and makes us accept a benevolent god. It was not he that led us astray, it was within us all this time.

Femur fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Sep 16, 2014

Full Battle Rattle
Aug 29, 2009

As long as the times refuse to change, we're going to make a hell of a racket.
Did neo ever share the true nature of the Matrix with anyone or had poo poo already hit the fan by then? Of course, the architect could have been bluffing. The machines could have been so frightened of Neo they attempted to lie to him rather than risk him destroying the architect. It seems like it would be pretty easy to verify or dispute, but we never here the human story of the discovery and founding of Zion.

Femur
Jan 10, 2004
I REALLY NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP
Nah, more emoing, after being a god in the battlefield.

I sound like I hate the films, but I like them just fine since I am pretty easy to satisfy. I was just really disappointed in how unimaginative a magician Neo was.

Femur fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Sep 16, 2014

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

"The unique impact of the film ... resides not so much in its central thesis (what we experience as reality is an artificial virtual reality generated by the "Matrix," the mega-computer directly attached to all our minds), but in its central image of the millions of human beings leading a claustrophobic life in a water-filled craddles, kept alive in order to generate the energy (electricity) for the Matrix. So when (some of the) people "awaken" from their immersion into the Matrix-controlled virtual reality, this awakening is not the opening into the wide space of the external reality, but first the horrible realization of this enclosure, where each of us is effectively just a foetus-like organism, immersed in the pre-natal fluid This utter passivity is the foreclosed fantasy that sustains our conscious experience as active, self-positing subjects it is the ultimate perverse fantasy, the notion that we are ultimately instruments of the Other's (Matrix's) jouissance, sucked out of our life-substance like batteries. Therein resides the true libidinal enigma of this dispositif: WHY does the Matrix need human energy? The purely energetic solution is, of course, meaningless: the Matrix could have easily found another, more reliable, source of energy which would have not demanded the extremely complex arrangement of the virtual reality coordinated for millions of human units (another inconsistency is discernible here: why does the Matrix not immerse each individual into his/her own solipsistic artificial universe? why complicate matters with corrdinating the programs so that the entire humanity inhabits one and the same virtual universe?). The only consistent answer is: the Matrix feeds on the human's jouissance so we are here back at the fundamental Lacanian thesis that the big Other itself, far from being an anonymous machine, needs the constant influx of jouissance. This is how we should turn around the state of things presented by the film: what the film renders as the scene of our awakening into our true situation, is effectively its exact opposition, the very fundamental fantasy that sustains our being."

ManOfTheYear
Jan 5, 2013
I'm kinda wondering why loving Keanu Reeves got the role for Neo: I'm sure his a nice guy but I honestly don't know if he can act. I mean he sure is stone faced and in movies like Bram Stoker's Dracula he does the worst english accent in the world. Very recently he also directed his first movie Tai Chi something and that's some hot garbage. Like I was interested what kind of an movie he would choose to create and out of all things he made this matrix-esque kung fu flick that has the writing of an eight-year old. It's supremely stupid.

I mean look at this poo poo. How come Keanu is employed in Hollywood and where did he disappear after the Matrix trilogy? Didn't he have some family problems where his wife died or something?

Daryl Surat
Apr 6, 2002

I don't care what you say about this post, but if anyone steps on my bunion, I'll kill them!

ManOfTheYear posted:

I'm kinda wondering why loving Keanu Reeves got the role for Neo: I'm sure his a nice guy but I honestly don't know if he can act. I mean he sure is stone faced and in movies like Bram Stoker's Dracula he does the worst english accent in the world. Very recently he also directed his first movie Tai Chi something and that's some hot garbage. Like I was interested what kind of an movie he would choose to create and out of all things he made this matrix-esque kung fu flick that has the writing of an eight-year old. It's supremely stupid.

I mean look at this poo poo. How come Keanu is employed in Hollywood and where did he disappear after the Matrix trilogy? Didn't he have some family problems where his wife died or something?

Keanu Reeves basically has enough money that he never needs to work another day in his life--we have to recall that he gave away the majority of his earnings in the Matrix films to the people who worked on the special effects because he doesn't actively go out and advertise this fact--but you're right that his girlfriend and child both died within a short timeframe of one another. I want to say that was around the time the sequels were filming, though. I don't think it's true that he can't act or that his acting is bad, but his speaking voice always has enough Ted Theodore Logan in it that it can be hard to buy into his acting roles. That said, I just found out about the existence of John Wick a few hours ago. Keanu's a hitman? The movie's made by Lionsgate and comes out October 24th? I don't actually need to even see the trailers or a single ad for this movie now to know I want to see it.

ManOfTheYear
Jan 5, 2013

Daryl Surat posted:

Keanu Reeves basically has enough money that he never needs to work another day in his life--we have to recall that he gave away the majority of his earnings in the Matrix films to the people who worked on the special effects because he doesn't actively go out and advertise this fact--but you're right that his girlfriend and child both died within a short timeframe of one another. I want to say that was around the time the sequels were filming, though.

Every big Hollywood actor has made enough money for his/her lifetime but they still appear in (often terrible) movies, like Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis.

So his wife and child died? I guess that explains his dissappearence, even if it happened during shooting. Don't know how he still managed to perform in the middle of that kind of crisis. Why did he give money to the special effects people?

Luminous Obscurity
Jan 10, 2007

"The instrument you know as a piano was once called a pianoforte, because it can play both loud and quiet notes."
Keanu Reeves seems like such a legitimately good person and the universe apparently loving hates him for it. :smith:

Edit:

ManOfTheYear posted:

Why did he give money to the special effects people?
"Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries."

Luminous Obscurity fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Sep 16, 2014

Hbomberguy
Jul 4, 2009

[culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg W̡RA̸NG[/read]


Luminous Obscurity posted:

"Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries."

Knowing that there's a meme about him being immortal, he could have phrased this better.

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 246 days!

He takes a little getting used to (or some preexisting and/or self-education in some of the forms of analysis he uses), but once you do he's one of the more interesting posters out there.

Luminous Obscurity posted:

Keanu Reeves seems like such a legitimately good person and the universe apparently loving hates him for it. :smith:

Edit:

"Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries."

On the upside, alongside it's moral worth, it is an almost astonishingly healthy response to a mix of tragedy, wealth, and fortune. Maybe the problem with Neo is that no one realized that to come off as a spiritual person, Keanu should have been directed to act as little as possible. Not that he necessarily is literally, but he's evidently picked up some genuine wisdom and humility.

Actually, that Neo does not take up the role of spiritual leader is probably the series' greatest failing. Dune and Lynch's Dune were also an unavoidable reference for a science fiction movie with such strong messianic overtones, but Paul Maud'ib was a genuine spiritual leader. Morpheus was supposed to be Neo's John the Baptist and his Paul, but he ended up taking over the role of religious leader entirely, and Zion turns out to have no more room for spirituality than the world within the Matrix anyhow.

As it turns out, it was not exactly the time for an American movie that takes Islam and religious history in general as seriously as Herbert did. And it should be said that it was it also just not a good time ethically to make an American movie about uniting under a divinely inspired leader in order to fight a holy war.

Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Sep 16, 2014

Pycckuu
Sep 13, 2011

by FactsAreUseless
I feel like the Matrix sequels had a lot of action scenes that didn't have any reason to exist. It's like the writers went "the original has that lobby shootout and everyone loved it, so lets have Morpheus swing his katana while riding around on top of a tractor trailer!" The verbose pseudo-philosophy at every turn was also really, really boring.

Also, Keanu Reaves owns in general and in Point Break in particular.

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 246 days!
Point Break is just a solid movie. Keanu is perfect next to someone who can chew scenery. He manages to be quiet and reserved without disappearing into the role of audience for his Busey. Come to think of it, that's also why he works well next to Fishburn's Morpheus, and both roles have very similar the student/master dynamic going on.

e: I suppose the problem is that when he meets a rival spiritual presence, he acts as a passive-aggressive student instead of as a master who teaches by playing the role of student.

Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Sep 16, 2014

Luminous Obscurity
Jan 10, 2007

"The instrument you know as a piano was once called a pianoforte, because it can play both loud and quiet notes."

Hbomberguy posted:

Knowing that there's a meme about him being immortal, he could have phrased this better.

I really want him to play Charlemagne at some point, just to mess with people.

Uncle Boogeyman
Jul 22, 2007

Point Break is much better than the Matrix.

Hbomberguy
Jul 4, 2009

[culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg W̡RA̸NG[/read]


Keanu Reeves is a brilliant actorman. I love him. For me he's way up there with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman.

I think the best path to enjoying the Matrix sequels is being okay with watching an established idea or mythology get trashed and treating them, rather as continuations of a story, as their own unique things. Spiritual sequels or deconstructions. This is also why I appreciate the Pirates sequels and the Hobbit prequels. I saw a couple of people not liking The Raid 2 because it does so many things different from the first - this is the sort of thing I think I manage to avoid. I get to like films for what they actually are. The Raid 2 was brilliant by the way.

For me at least, Bad Sequels tend to be ones that were pre-planned in advance as part of a larger narrative. Green Lantern and John Carter's biggest shortcomings were they're clearly designed for there to be more movies - same problems I see with other comic book franchises now. That said, the fact there will be no sequel to either of those makes them way more interesting in retrospect, both as products and as stories. The Wachowskis were deliberately exploring fractured narratives in some grand manner. Instead of requiring you to see every piece of their stuff to get some big plot picture, every Matrix material is its own piece of Art that doesn't necessarily contribute to the whole, beyond bare plot details.

This is what makes Final Flight of the Osiris so interesting. It takes a boring plot aspect no-one gave a poo poo about (how did Zion find out about the drill?) as an excuse to tell a story, but then is really about exploring human relationships in digital/'real' space. I absolutely love the early-thousands CGI aesthetic, and actively would like to see more stuff made like it today. It's a style that never got a chance to be explored as something legit, instead discarded as 'not holding up'.

Daryl Surat
Apr 6, 2002

I don't care what you say about this post, but if anyone steps on my bunion, I'll kill them!

Blue Star posted:

It's kinda funny how quickly the Matrix franchise became completely irrelevant as a cultural icon. The first movie was parodied endlessly for like three years. And the buzz for the sequels was crazy. In the build-up to the release of the sequels, there was so much hype about the Matrix as a franchise and how it was going to be the next Star Wars. Prequels, spin-offs, comics, video games, lunchboxes, the whole works. And then the movies actually came out and...whoosh. Nobody gave a poo poo about the Matrix anymore.

To expand on this: anything evocative of The Matrix in the slightest is now utter poison. The original was copied/parodied/ripped off to no end for years that people got thoroughly sick of it or anything even vaguely resembling it, and the sequels were never fondly looked back upon. Much of the reliance on filming Hollywood action scenes using very rapid cuts and handheld camerawork is due to needing to keep a PG-13 rating and/or conceal what the actors can't do, but it's also true that audiences react to the wider shots and more elaborate choreography as "that Matrix wire-fu poo poo." In 2014, the most visible cultural legacy of The Matrix is a very small yet highly vocal and visible online hate group urging people to "take the red pill."

Hbomberguy posted:

I absolutely love the early-thousands CGI aesthetic, and actively would like to see more stuff made like it today. It's a style that never got a chance to be explored as something legit, instead discarded as 'not holding up'.

If that particular CGI aesthetic is your thing, then you're in luck because Fumihiko Sori and Shinji Aramaki have spent the better part of the last decade directing CG animations with that look, nearly all of which came out in English such that many are on Netflix. Their quality level has been relatively consistent, which from my point of view is "competent, yet somewhat lifeless and dull." That also applies to their English language tracks.

I don't disagree with your assessment that the best way to enjoy the Matrix sequels is to treat them as pieces that don't contribute to a cohesive whole. I just elect to extrapolate that to what I perceive as the logical conclusion of "and that is why these movies are only enjoyable if you liberally use the chapter skip/scene select feature to just watch key moments." I'll fess up to it: despite owning every Matrix release multiple times on DVD, then on Blu-Ray, and on goddamned HD-DVD I have never had it in me to actually sit down and watch either Reloaded or Revolutions from start to finish the way one would a regular movie aside from those initial viewings in theaters a decade ago. (I don't count listening to commentary tracks in that.)

That said, one thing I would like to see more of is pre-production material for the Matrix sequels. There's no shortage of extras on the discs, but the original film had a artbook released containing hundreds of pages worth of really elaborate storyboards and pre-production sketches with written commentary. I never really bought into the "the original Matrix STOLE from Grant Morrison's The Invisibles!" accusation as advanced most by uh, Grant Morrison and The Grant Morrison People, since the Wachowskis were far more willing to directly state what their key influences were: Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell and William Gibson novels. But that's how it is: you say "I was influenced by this" and fans will spend years saying "and you were secretly also influenced by THIS!"

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



Daryl Surat posted:

That said, I just found out about the existence of John Wick a few hours ago. Keanu's a hitman? The movie's made by Lionsgate and comes out October 24th? I don't actually need to even see the trailers or a single ad for this movie now to know I want to see it.

Oh my god, thank you so much for telling me about this. I'm still a huge Keanu fan, so I'll definitely be seeing this day one. That said, though, I do think he's well suited to a villain role like he played in Man of Tai Chi. His stone-faced stoicism kind of lends itself to a character who's trying to keep himself calm and straight faced while manipulating people.

As for the topic as a whole, though, I don't really hate the Matrix sequels as a whole, just individual parts. I think the brothers would've been better off having Neo learn how to handle his enlightenment as to the truth of the Matrix and delve deeper into his control of the system rather than focus on the other characters. If that makes sense.

I mean, in the first film, he went from being bound by the laws of the system, to learning how to bend them, and eventually break them. But as the sequels showed, there are other depths to the system that even The One couldn't do anything about, implying that there were still laws that he was bound by. In that case, as he gained greater control over the system, you could still make parallels between him and Smith, and you really wouldn't even have to change much about the climax. The two 'viruses' would still cancel each other out.

Pomplamoose
Jun 28, 2008

Hodgepodge posted:

He takes a little getting used to (or some preexisting and/or self-education in some of the forms of analysis he uses), but once you do he's one of the more interesting posters out there.

Pretty sure we're all used to SMG by now, and that's the problem. His longwinded analyses about how the meaning of a film differs drastically from generally accepted interpretations become tiresome after a while. His posts are also annoying on a stylistic level, since they're often excessively verbose and use many more words than necessary to get the point across. Ergo, vis-a-vis, SMG is the forums' equivalent of the Architect.

Pomplamoose fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Sep 16, 2014

Slugworth
Feb 18, 2001

If two grown men can't make a pervert happy for a few minutes in order to watch a film about zombies, then maybe we should all just move to Iran!

Hbomberguy posted:

For me at least, Bad Sequels tend to be ones that were pre-planned in advance as part of a larger narrative. Green Lantern and John Carter's biggest shortcomings were they're clearly designed for there to be more movies - same problems I see with other comic book franchises now. That said, the fact there will be no sequel to either of those makes them way more interesting in retrospect, both as products and as stories. The Wachowskis were deliberately exploring fractured narratives in some grand manner. Instead of requiring you to see every piece of their stuff to get some big plot picture, every Matrix material is its own piece of Art that doesn't necessarily contribute to the whole, beyond bare plot details.
Very shortly after The Matrix came out, the Wachowskis said the purpose of the film was to setup the superhero movies they *really* wanted to make. It was meant to illustrate the rules of the next two movies and explain how the superheroes got their powers. Obviously the film works on its own, but I think they were very much setting out to make connected films.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Slugworth posted:

Very shortly after The Matrix came out, the Wachowskis said the purpose of the film was to setup the superhero movies they *really* wanted to make. It was meant to illustrate the rules of the next two movies and explain how the superheroes got their powers. Obviously the film works on its own, but I think they were very much setting out to make connected films.

I do recall that they had plans for like A sequel to The Matrix though, not two more movies, I'm sure they were referring in general to doing stuff like Ninja Assassin, Speed Racer etc. Wasn't their pitch for Matrix 1 clips of the slow mo action in the 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie and them basically saying "We're going to do this but with real people."

Hbomberguy
Jul 4, 2009

[culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg W̡RA̸NG[/read]


I'm not against connected films as a whole or things that are pre-planned if they're executed well. Take for example the Avengers franchise - though each individual film suffers because it's got to be tied into a much longer-running story, it's entirely possible for the films to be good anyway. The first Captain America film, for instance, is completely tonally different from all the others and is really good despite on paper basically being 'how did captain america end up stuck in ice for Nick Fury (tm) to unfreeze in time for The Avengers (tm)'.

The Wachowskis, if I recall, wanted to do more loosely-connected Matrix material until they got asked to do two direct sequels by the executives. I think originally one of the movies was going to just be about Morpheus. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the material they had in mind for Morpheus/His girlfriend found its way into Final Flight's protagonists.

e: For the record I like final flight a lot and am defending it.

Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Sep 16, 2014

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 246 days!

Sebadoh Gigante posted:

Pretty sure we're all used to SMG by now, and that's the problem. His longwinded analyses about how the meaning of a film differs drastically from generally excepted interpretations become tiresome after a while. His posts are also annoying on a stylistic level, since they're often excessively verbose and use many more words than necessary to get the point across. Ergo, vis-a-vis, SMG is the forums' equivalent of the Architect.

"Yes, I too wish to discuss nothing but perspectives that I feel are 'generally [accepted]' and am scared of big words," said a lovely poster who was honestly just as glad as everyone else was of the fact that he was entirely fictional.

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precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
I just now realized that "Final Flight of the Osiris" is the one everyone has been making GBS threads on, and that it's the one with the blindfolded swordfight. WHAT?! That was amazing looking and I think it still "holds up".

Actually, everything in The Animatrix still holds up. It's just a bunch of really good short films. I don't think anyone has mentioned "Beyond" yet, and I absolute adored that one.

My question is, why didn't they show The Animatrix in theaters? It would have been a license to print money. Amusingly enough, it has a higher Tomatometer score than Reloaded or Revolutions, as well.

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