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What Is The Matrix?


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4 minutes ago, Craig H said:

FWIW, and again, this is relying on the Matrix Online as cannon, but RSI can be saved and used for someone else. I think.

However - if you are saying the Matrix Online is cannon - then Morpheus is dead which isn't true for Matrix 4

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1 minute ago, RIPPA said:

However - if you are saying the Matrix Online is cannon - then Morpheus is dead which isn't true for Matrix 4

And this is where I go crosseyed because it's also a young Morpheus so that kind of brings me back to someone recycling an RSI for Morpheus for someone else or using cloned bodies.

Oh man, the last time stuff needed this much analysis and explanation we wound up with the Architect scene.

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8 hours ago, Matt D said:

If I was part of the marketing team for this, I'd avoid the Blue/Red pill stuff altogether and just pretend that wasn't a part of the franchise (maybe find some other creative way to get at that), as it's such a toxic thing in society now.

Eh, I think that Lana should go full bore with the Blue/Red pill stuff and reclaim it for use in its intended context.

 

 

Edited by J.T.
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Re-watching the trailer again - I didn't realize this was coming to HBO Max the same day as theaters, and now I'll for sure be watching this. I'm not about to go to a crowded public space in Tennessee (1st in the country for daily COVID cases, good job guys) so this is my only option. I doubt things will get better here by December at this rate.

Now I'll spend the rest of tonight watching the Matrix trilogy, I guess.

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I can’t wait for this!

Watching the first Matrix film in-person way back when was an incredible experience, not only for the quality of the movie itself, but also because the local movie theater was well-known to have lively audiences that talked/shouted out loud during movies. They came absolutely unglued during The Matrix, frantically mimicking the on-screen fights as they occurred, or shouting things like “That’s the shit I’m talking about right there!” - it was like performance art. Greatest movie experience ever.

My only ask for this new film is that they somehow show the death of the annoying Kid from the second/third movies, in as excruciating a manner as possible.

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I’ve never had a problem with the sequels.  So you can imagine I’m pretty stoked for this.  
 

I never got to play Matrix Online but I did follow as much of the story as it happened.  So It’ll be quite the treat if I find a few Easter eggs about the Morpheus deal or The General.  

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the Matrix was the first movie i ever watched on DVD. At a friend's house, who had a large screen TV and excellent sound system. i was used to VHS movies taped off TV, so this was quite the experience.

i just rewatched all 3 Matrix movies in the last week (just because it seemed like a thing to do. when i started, i didn't even know they were making a #4). The first one is as awesome as ever. It really struck me how society has changed since that movie, where online avatars and clans and stuff like WoW has really brought to life what living an artificial life would be like.  M2&3 i probably haven't seen since their original release. At the time, i was less than impressed with them. the fight scenes didn't look real enough (too choreographed, it looked like a sparring session instead of a battle to the death), plus the storyline goes in a direction i didn't appreciate. On this rewatch, i enjoyed them quite a bit. I was invested in the story and the choreography didn't bother me at all. I'm glad i checked them out.

that being said, i don't really feel anything from this new trailer. it looks like more or less a reboot. I'm gonna have to wait for plot details and reviews before i decide to check it out.

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I re-watched the Matrix with my 11 year old daughter. Man, that movie fucking holds up. She liked it too. I did mention to her that 2 and 3 are pretty meh, but I still kinda like them? I think some of my issues with the sequels have to do with where 1 ended and everything that was happening in the beginning of 2. It felt like a narrative was abandoned for some other shit instead. 1 had this grungy, dirty, and almost raw look to it too, while 2 and 3 tried to replicate that same look except with a glossy fresh coat of paint on everything. 2 and 3 introduced way too many extra things that just never got explored enough too. Character choices and actors bugged the shit out of me as well. Michael from Lost replacing Tank kinda sucked, that annoying nerdy kid really sucked, I'm not a fan of Jada Pinkett, her character was also shit, the whole Morpheus speech was cringey...Basically, if you're the good guys and you weren't Neo or Trinity, you kinda annoyed me. Switch and, uh, I forget his name, didn't have a ton of lines, but they still seemed cool up until they died. There's no one that cool to replace them.

Then there's the dialogue, which is the one problem I had watching the Matrix. Everyone talks in hushed tones, everyone is so over the top philosophical, everyone is too fucking serious. At least in the first one you had these little human moments to Neo, like when they're driving along and he's like, "hey, I used to eat there! They have good noodles...Heh, kinda weird none of it actually happened." In that scene there is a quite moment of empathy from Trinity where she looks at Neo with a look of, "yeah buddy, I know, it's weird and tough, I get you." There is just nothing quite that human in the sequels.

And I think that's my biggest problem with the sequels is that in some kind of ironic way, in this movie series about humans vs machines, rarely do people act like humans. You had more of that in the first one and just none of it in the second. Felt and reminded me a lot of George Lucas' directing in the prequel trilogy.

Despite all of that, I still like those sequels more than I probably should. Nerding out on talking about what the Matrix was, how many levels to the Matrix there could be, etc. was so much fun. For those in college at the time, and I doubt it was just IU, but remember when there would be talks at colleges about the Matrix and what it could mean and all of that? What a fucking weird time. I went to at least one of those because what else are you going to do on campus if you're not drinking or anything. So when we got to that scene with the Architect, even though it wasn't executed well, I still dug the hell out of it.

Rebooting and re-invigorating this franchise shouldn't be that difficult. 3 ends with the Matrix being rebooted again. 4 mirroring present day where everyone is so attached to their devices and machines is going to be very, very interesting. Add in a story where Neo and Trinity as either clones or programs or whatever inside the Matrix discovering who they are and remembering what happened sounds really interesting. I want to see that. I want to see what is up with Morpheus and how that all works. I'm just ready to go back down the rabbit hole again because like I said, it shouldn't be hard to right the ship after the missteps of 2 and 3.

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19 minutes ago, Craig H said:

And I think that's my biggest problem with the sequels is that in some kind of ironic way, in this movie series about humans vs machines, rarely do people act like humans. You had more of that in the first one and just none of it in the second. Felt and reminded me a lot of George Lucas' directing in the prequel trilogy.

I totally agree.  Nearly all of the human moments in the sequels felt forced and cringy.  They didn't have the natural quality of moments like the Tasty Wheat discussion, the zen in a bottle moment when Neo breaks the Oracle's vase, or when the entire crew rushes to the sim to watch Morpheus fight Neo for the first time and were dumbfounded when Neo did not make his first jump.

Somewhere along the line, the Matrix movies decided to be dry philosophical treatises and forgot that it was better when it was a parable.

Edited by J.T.
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7 minutes ago, J.T. said:

I totally agree.  Nearly all of the human moments in the sequels felt forced and cringy.  They didn't have the natural quality of moments like the Tasty Wheat discussion, the zen in a bottle moment when Neo breaks the Oracle's vase, or when the entire crew rushes to the sim to watch Morpheus fight Neo for the first time and were dumbfounded when Neo did not make his first jump.

Somewhere along the line, the Matrix movies decided to be dry philosophical treatises and forgot that it was better when it was a parable.

Thank you for those other examples. Yeah, re-watching that Oracle scene with the vase put such an easy smile on my face. 

I wanted to laugh when my daughter was puzzled as to why everyone would rush to watch Morpheus and Neo fight. I was like, girl, when I was your age, we'd ride our bikes down to 7-11 and everyone would huddle around Street Fighter 2 and do this exact same thing. I had to put it into current terms and explain that this would now be like when she watches Twitch or YouTube.

And then I got bummed thinking about when 7-11s removed their arcade rooms back in the early 90s.

At the same time, it really made me want to go to the barcade in town.

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We’re Matrix 2 & 3 already planned or were they made after the first one did so well?  I ask because I keep assuming 2 & 3 were so heavily philosophical and highfalutin’ because the Wachowskis got really far up their own asses believing too much of their own hype after the first became such a phenomenon, but that’s not such a nice thing to just assume so I’d like to know what the deal was.  There was just such a shift between what the first one was (a fun sci-if Kung fu action movie with an interesting gimmick) and the other two, where the action was secondary to the high minded, convoluted philosophy stuff.

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On 9/13/2021 at 7:13 PM, Technico Support said:

We’re Matrix 2 & 3 already planned or were they made after the first one did so well?  I ask because I keep assuming 2 & 3 were so heavily philosophical and highfalutin’ because the Wachowskis got really far up their own asses believing too much of their own hype after the first became such a phenomenon, but that’s not such a nice thing to just assume so I’d like to know what the deal was.  There was just such a shift between what the first one was (a fun sci-if Kung fu action movie with an interesting gimmick) and the other two, where the action was secondary to the high minded, convoluted philosophy stuff.

2 and 3 weren't planned until 1 was the biggest shit ever at the time. 

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They probably should have made the second one, let it come out, seen how people reacted, and then decided how to proceed with the third one. Doing them back to back was a creative miscalculation.

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30 minutes ago, AxB said:

They probably should have made the second one, let it come out, seen how people reacted, and then decided how to proceed with the third one. Doing them back to back was a creative miscalculation.

Yeah.  Making them back to back and ending the middle installment on a cliffhanger committed them to seeing everything through to the end, good or bad.

I think it would've been better if they'd done the Empire Strikes Back thing and ended the middle film on a sour yet decisive note.  You'd still leave room for a final installment but at least you'd have a clean break for the middle film.

Edited by J.T.
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7 hours ago, AxB said:

They probably should have made the second one, let it come out, seen how people reacted, and then decided how to proceed with the third one. Doing them back to back was a creative miscalculation.

That was a huge thought at the time because when you go into the third one, you can tell that the sisters didn't count on how much people would like the Merovingian, Persephone, the Ghosts, and want to know more about the Architect. Merovingian has maybe 1 minute of screen time in the 3rd one. That annoying kid is still in the 3rd one just as much as the second and the sisters clearly thought he wouldn't have been as bothersome as he was.

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7 hours ago, The Natural said:

My answer to the thread topic. I've never seen any of The Matrix films. Reading here, watch the first and miss the next two or watch the trilogy.

I'd go ahead and watch the trilogy. The second and third movies could have been better, but they're not awful; they just didn't tell the story I wanted to see with the end of the first one, and that's on me.

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