posted
So I saw it. That was the most plot-heavy action movie I've ever seen, which is a very good thing. Even though there are $$$ in the thread title, maybe spoiler space is in order...
S P O I L E R S
R
U S
Okay. We get all sorts of good exposition about the Matrix and the machines/programs. Some reviewers are saying they don't get all of the Architect's speech. Let me see if I've got it straight. Those who have seen the movie can confirm or dispute.
***
So the machines essentially won the war the first time. They capture everyone and plug them into the power grid, and the Architect writes the first Matrix program. However, things go wrong because the humans see through the too-perfect reality. So they scrap the first Matrix and build another based on human history.
This one fails, too. The Oracle is written to analyze human behavior and figure out why. She figures that humans need free will, so another Matrix is written. This time, they let the humans have the subconscious ability to detect the Matrix. A minority figures it out, and try to escape. The Agents are designed to scare most of these back in line, so they don't spread the freedom meme.
However, as a result of the free-will clause, there is an anomaly that eventually manifests itself as the One. The Oracle propheces to insure that this will happen, because when the One returns to the Source, the program is recompiled or something and starts over. At the same time, the machines destroy Zion.
After Zion is destroyed and the Matrix resets itself, the whole thing starts over. A few humans escape, rebuild Zion, and so on, the One comes, returns to the Source, five times. The sixth time, however, Neo chose to save Trinity rather than humanity at large. This is the first time the One has done so. The machines, having gone through this before, are confident they can destroy Zion. Without the One, they will have to scrap the Matrix and kill all the humans in it, but they can survive.
***
Thoughts and questions...
1.) This has happened five times before. Apparently, Zion was destroyed every time, and rebuilt to the same elaborate splendor. Was Morpheus off in his date estimate from the first Matrix? He said they weren't sure what year it was... it seems to me that rather than 2199, it might be closer to 2999 or even 3999. Furthermore, how many Matrices did it take before the whole One thing came up? It could literally be millennia in the future...
2.) The Architect said that Neo could choose the founders of the next Zion. Do they get false memories, or do they just wake up in a cave and start building?
3.) This is an obvious question that will be answered in Revolutions, but what exactly did Neo do to the sentinels? I'm guessing the other guy that survived did the same thing... Christ/Antichrist set-up.
4.) Sweet merciful crap, Neo's saving of both Morpheus/keymaker and Trinity was the most bad-ass special-effects work I've ever seen!
5.) Jason, I see what you meant about the Burly Brawl effects. It seems that for the first stage of the fight, it is Reeves versus Weaving-mapped doubles with digital Weavings in background, and after he picks up the pole, we go to full CGI until the end of the fight. Sound about right?
I guess that'll do for now. Boy, I'd hate to see this movie having never seen the first one... I'd even hate to have seen it having not watched the first DVD the night before!
posted
One more thing: do the agents know the whole story? They seeme surprised when Neo manifested powers in the first film. Additionally, the idea of the One being crucial to the Matrix would suggest that they shouldn't really care if people escape. That's why I'm figuring they're really written to keep the populace in line while this minor One/Zion thing plays out...
posted
Looks like you got everything right Ryan but they're one thing that dawned on me after seeing the movie I wanna run by you: * S P O I L E R S * The Architect says that Neo can choose three men and four women to re-build Zion. I'd imagine that they are seven that are already awake and know what's going on. So, that's one leader and seven founders of a new Zion. Exactly like the Council of Elders that governs Zion! The Council's leader was probably the previous "One". The architect said the loop was speeding up. It also explains Neo's line about "so that's why there's no young people on the Council?"
Agent Smith is something totally new. He was altered by Neo killing him and became a virus to the system and will eventually destroy or corrupt everything by making doubles of himself. The Trailer for Revolutions seems to bear this idea out: Neo and Smith fighting in the rain is very apocalypitic. Remember: if the Matrix crashes, all the people inside it die.
Sound right to you?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Yeah, I think you're right. My girlfriend says she remembers a larger number mentioned, though... like seven men and fourteen women or something like that. I definitely seem to remember a number in the teens, too. This doesn't mean you're wrong, but maybe either the Council is larger or not everyone survived until the present. You're definitely right on about the "no young people" line. There's a connection, without a doubt.
One more thing, for anyone keeping up with the Animatrix: might the idea of multiple matrices over time (each one lasting, perhaps, a century) explain the weird setting of "Detective Story?"
posted
The detective story version might have been something made in between Matrix versions to keep things going.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote: 3.) This is an obvious question that will be answered in Revolutions, but what exactly did Neo do to the sentinels? I'm guessing the other guy that survived did the same thing... Christ/Antichrist set-up.
I was under the impression that the guy next to Neo in a coma, is the same guy that was using a knife to cut himself while attempting to ambush Neo in Zion, which was the guy that got "Smithesized" in Neo's dream about the two guys that got the message from the Oracle. While I don't know what Neo did, I suppose we're supposed to think that when Agent Smith copied himself to the guy in Neo's dream, he took over the guy's body in the real world. Somehow the sentinels picked up on this and ignored him, or were influenced by the "real" Agent Smith in the Matrix. Presumably, he was also the guy that set off the EMP blast early, dooming the surprise attack.
Of course, this has pretty nasty implications. This might mean that when Agent Smith copies himself over people in the Matrix itself, he takes over their bodies too. Even if the humans win and unplug everyone, they might have hundreds of "real" agent smiths running around.
This might also explain why Neo simply doesn't dive into all his enemies and destroy them as in the end of the first movie. He'd just create the possibility of more rogue self-replicating programs.
quote: This has happened five times before. Apparently, Zion was destroyed every time, and rebuilt to the same elaborate splendor.
Sweet, so the whole story of the Matrix and Reloaded, is that of an advanced Bugzilla. The One shows up as an anomaly, the Source takes his code, finds out what causes the problem, recompiles the Matrix and starts again. Pretty nifty.
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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posted
$$$
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$$$
Don't say I didn't warn ya...
Now that my mind has had a chance to properly digest Reloaded (it leans heavily on pseudo-philosophical elements, messes with your head like Existenz did [which sucked, btw]), here's my take on the plot: Zion is a second matrix within The Matrix! WHAT YOU SAY!! Well, think about it: Neo is "the one" in the Matrix, but in the "real world" he can do & feel more, too... leading me to believe Zion is a submatrix to keep people satisfied and subdued, and that Neo is a program, sought out by everyone, a goal in peoples' lifes. Key figures like the Oracle and the Keymaker exist to help them fulfill their "quest".
Except *this* Neo, v6.0, is unlike the others (we're apparently in the sixth cycle of Escape --> construction of Zion --> liberation of Humanity --> its Destruction --> reboot of the Matrix)... he's smarter, faster, in love with Trinity, makes different choices along the way, and begins to figure out that even Zion isn't reality, but a popsicle stick for insurgents. Revolutions will likely deal with mankind's total victory over the machines (as the loop could keep repeating itself indefinitely) and Neo's ultimate sacrifice, Messiah-style.
Action: kickass, if overdone Story: so-so (been there, done that), the teensiest bit long-winded Dialogue: cheesy and over-the-top in some scenes, otherwise bearable
Overall:
[ May 16, 2003, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: Cartmaniac ]
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posted
I cannot make direct links to posts on my weblog, but if one were to seek it out, they might find some things I said when I was very sleepy, about the film.
I was not so impressed by various attempts to explain things philosophically or computationally. But then Trinity drove in the wrong direction on the freeway!! and all was forgiven.
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posted
For the people that Neo is told to save it was something like 32 total with a 2 to 1 ratio for the girls to the boys...
And the year thing is weird. I remember morphous (sp?) saying that the war has been on for 100 years so if it takes 100 years for the 1 to arrive then the year is around the 27th century maybe?
Such a cool movie... On the second time I saw it you can really start to piece stuff together, and add up the reasons that everybody says stuff.
Its cool how the Oracle was turned into a bad guy (girl) by just leading the one the its doom. HAHAHA! And Smith was just too Evil...!
Smith: Me... Me. Me. Me. Smith+1: Me too.
-------------------- "That's the problem with nature. Something is always stinging you or oozing mucous on you. lets go watch tv." - Calvin & Hobbes
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Quiggie
Ex-Member
posted
It was a totally of 23, 7 men and 16 women.
Did anyone else notice that all the cars were GM's?
Also, I thought the techno/rave/dance scene was WAY too long.
quote:Morpheus gives a speech to the masses in which he describes an impending attack by the machines. He urges people to shed their fears. Perhaps the sound system isn't top notch, or maybe some people at the back just mishear him, but in short order all of Zion is shedding its clothes and engaging in what can only be described as an eve-of-destruction rave-a-thon. Or, possibly, the futuristic re-enactment of a Smirnoff Ice commercial. The grinding and caressing and sweat-soaked rump humping goes on for, like, at least four booty-quaking minutes, and it has to rank as one of the more embarrassingly awful scenes I have ever glimpsed. Besides, it removes an important element of dramatic tension from the plot: If the machines don't get these people, syphilis surely will.
That said, while it was indeed waaay too long and probably the worst scene in the film, I can't say I completely endorse the degree of his polemicy. (word, right?)
And yeah, I noticed the GM cars. I'm a dork like that. And that the Oracle was eating candies that looked so much like red pills that it couldn't have been a coincidence.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
I noticeed the redpills too: Neo ate one did he not? mabye that's what allowed him to acess the higher matrix levels with the Keymaker and Architect...
The big threat is that Agent Smith is now a kind of super virus and could concievably reproduce himself into all the humans still in captivity. This brings up a question: The new agents can take over a person (seen in the chase seen). What happens to those humans? They are humans partiipating in the Martix are'nt they? That also means that NEO and company have killed dozens of humans between the two movies.
I imagine that the Councilman will sacrifice himself at the end to re-boot the system and people will have to fund some kind of balance with the AI's rather than them just destroying all the machines somehow.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I was thinking of the red candies as more of a cute joke than anything with plot relevance, mind you.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
That also means that NEO and company have killed dozens of humans between the two movies.
Well, yeah, that was kind of a given. Morpheus pointed out to him that these people will fight to defend the system, and are thus the enemy, even though they're the same people the Resistance is trying to free. It's a lesser evil sort of thing, like Neo and Trinity killing all those soldiers and cops while rescuing Morpheus in the first movie.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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