posted
I saw the movie last night. I liked it, but maybe on a superficial, emotional level rather than on an intellecutal level. I thought it improved on the main problem of Reloaded, which was basically 2 hours of utterly pointless fight scenes with a few minutes of exposition at the end. I never thought they were really fighting for anything in Reloaded. In Reloaded, Neo fights with the crowd of Smiths for no reason and just flies off; they have this big highway chase after which Neo just flies in and grabs the Keymaker. More pointless fighting, the Keymaker dies, Neo opens the glowing door, and we finally get to the whole point of the movie, that little bit of exposition from the Architect. Everything up to that point was just running around. In this movie, everyone was fighting for survival and dying to save others, mostly in the real world. Perhaps it didn't answer all the questions of the second movie, but I felt a greater emotional connection with this one.
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
I thought the fight scene with the group o' Smiths was too long... I thought that in the theater the first time I saw it. I also thought the dance orgy was too long. BUt the rest of it felt like it had purpose to me. They were trying to get Neo to the source and had to do a bunch of stuff to accomplish that. It was a quest.
And the highway scene was just really, really cool.
It was in Rev. that I felt like nothing they did really added to anything. The real world parts did... definitely. But the bit with the Oracle and the freak club could've been done better, IMHO.
posted
The Freak Club sequence should have featured a showdown between Merv's ex-henchman Seraph and his new henchmen the Twins (with some help from Trinity and Morpheus of course). The way they left it we are left to believe the Twins were destroyed in the explosion in Reloaded but how would that kill them when they were shown to revert to ghost form? I really wanted to see them again.
Ditto all your points about Reloaded Aban Rune. It was a much more task driven tightly wound exciting movie. It was almost like a video game in a way... You must complete the given task within the alotted time. But the format works in Reloaded's case.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
Registered: Sep 2003
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can I just say... and I can't believe I'm saying it - but that movie was... SHIT! Absolute Shite!
I so loved the first movie - but the third movie has just made a mockery of everything the Matrix was.
The Animatrix as everyone here knows... I LOVED. It was only released at the cinemas in Australia in New Zealand for the length of 4 days... I saw it twice.
The second movie wasn't what I hoped for but was still exciting.
The third was just BAD.
I mean it had a few 'cool' momemnts - but overall it lacked everything that made the first movie special.
posted
I too was confused as to how the hell Neo actually destroyed Smith. I myself have two theories, one being the mentioned above, of the Machines zapping Smith once he had taken over Neo. However, there is a flaw in that theory. If Smith was taking over humans, humans which were still plugged into the Matrix and hence the machines, why couldn't they just zap him there?
Second, what had been said throughout the film. Neo and Smith are unbalanced equations, exact opposites. I think that joining Neo and Smith caused them to cancel each other out, which would in effect destroy Smith and Neo, meaning Neo is dead at the end of the film.
Other then that, the jury is still out on my opinion of the two sequels.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
^^^ Dead on in that review. Interesting theory about the Machines "allowing" some of the more troublesome members of society to leave so they won't reveal the secrets to the more compliant population at large. I hadn't thought of them allowing the people to leave on purpose but making it look like their trying to stop them.
Few other tidbits, pardon me if they've been brought up before:
* When Seraph approaches the two henchmen at the S&M Clubs front door they say "he's wingless". Punishment by the Merovingian for leaving him perhaps (though you'd think the henchmen would know about it if it was)? A way of disguising himself? The idea of him being programmed as an Angel (or Archangel) in his past life is intriguing and fits in with Merv's other supernatural henchmen.
* The Architect is watching Neo in the interrogation room in "The Matrix". Just before Smith and the other Agents walk in you see the camera pan through a bank of TV screens and into the room.
* Mentioned this in the other topic but I'll point it out here also, when you see the Machine City of 01 from high up in the atmosphere the city follows a fractal pattern.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
So... let me make sure I understand this. There are a few chosen people that live apart from the rest of the world. They're waiting for The One to come save them and defeat the machines that hold the rest of the world in their grip. The One comes, but instead of defeating the machines as expected, he defeats Smith, an enemy within everyone in the world that nobody expected, and then (apparently) dies. Because of this, anyone in the Matrix who wishes to can leave and join the chosen few in Zion.
Could we possibly be any more needlessly messianic? Next thing you know, Neo will return to the Matrix with trumpetsound and tell them all that those who wish to leave may join him in the place he has prepared for them...
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Sure they could be more needlessly messianic, they could have Neo die with his arms held out like Jesus on the cross... oh wait, they did that too.
They did sort of beat you over the head with the Judeo-Christian parallels: The Holy TRINITY, Seraph(im) who was an angel with 4 faces (they tried to make it be like he's two-faced because he used to work for Merv but close enough), The Architect as God (Masonic beliefs refer to God as The Great Architect), Zion being the "Promised Land", the Resurrection, betrayal by a member of Jesus / Neo's own posse ala' Judas (Cypher), and many more that I can't remember off the top of my head.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
In relation to the point above, my primary complaint with "Revolutions" was that it altered the premise of the first two movies in regards to the supernatural.
In "The Matrix", it was stated that Deja Vu is a glitch in the Matrix that happens when they change something. It could be said that reincarnation is possible in the Matrix because Cypher was going to be put back in as someone else.
In "Reloaded" they take the idea even further. The Oracle can see the future not because she is some mystic, but because she is a program who was involved in the creation of the Matrix and has seen what happens over and over again, so she sort of knows what's going to happen but can still be surprised by minor changes in each repeat performance. She points out that ghosts, vampires, aliens, wherewolves, whatever are programs in the Matrix not doing what their supposed to do. Indeed, we later get to see some vampire and ghostlike henchmen of the Merovingian. And what is the Architec if not an allegory for God? The whole point is leading us to believe that all supernatural things are a creation of the Matrix. At the end of Reloaded Neo is able to use his powers in the real world somehow. This indicated to me based on the prior caviate in the movies of the supernatural being a result of programming in the Matrix, that Neo must have been trapped in another layer of the Matrix, indeed the Architect must have placed him there to keep him from saving the real Zion. Or, even more Machiavellian, there never was a "real" world, it's all just layer upon layer of the Matrix, with no hope of escape.
Which brings us to "Revolutions". In the beginning, we have Neo trapped between the real world and the Matrix. OK, so far so good, that's what I expected based on the cliffhanger. Then we learn it was the Merovingian who trapped him there and not the Architect. Huh? When did the Merovingian have a chance to do this exactly? The Architect could have done it easily by fooling Neo into believing he could save Trinity by going through the right door when in reality he was entering another layer of the Matrix. This may have been how they got him to re-insert his code into a new Matrix to beging with, just send him in there by lying to him about saving Trinity.
But as it left we are meant to believe that after they leave the train station Neo has returned to the real "real world". And here is where the problem compounds itself. "The powers of the One extend beyond the Matrix into the real world". What the Hell? So, now, after two other movies make it completely obvious that the supernatural is not real, but just a glitch in the Matrix or purposeful programming, we are supposed to just believe that Neo has magical powers in the real world. They basically took the premise of the first two films (a premise that I loved) and flushed it down the toilet. Magic and the supernatural are possible apparently, it's not just programming.
That's my main problem with Revolutions.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Regarding the supernatural, Neo didn't exactly have the power to turn water to root beer or make the dead dance. He didn't even have the super-karateka skills in the real world. He only displayed one type of "supernatural" power, that over the Machines' minions. Which isn't all that supernatural in the end.
All it really tells us is that a man/machine connection can exist even when there isn't a big cable shoved into the man's midbrain. Neo is still stocked with more plumbing and wiring than your average Borg - his "miracle" is just the fact that he can go wireless, presumably thanks to the built-in hardware and some Neo-specific software. And that across that wireless connection, he can send the Machine minions the polite request to "drop dead" or "blow up in a fireball".
All in all, not much of a movie. Could have worked better if they'd left out the plot and the characters. What I found amusing was the lack of product placement. What happened? We didn't even get mobile phones.
posted
With regards to Bond's point about rogue programs being the only ones with "supernatural powers"....that's really doesnt fit. Anyone with enough underdatnding of the matrix and the fallacy of it's existance can have powers. Or did you think didging bullets and running up walls was natural?
In a real way, Neo IS one of those "rogue programs" you're talking about....he just has a human shell. If he was grown in a pod, it's possible his program ws downloaded into the physical human body just as Smith did to Bane.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Well... I liked it the first time i saw it - and liked it more the second time ...
I think that the entire Matrix movie series is one that you have to see more than once to fully appreciate it. There is simply too much information being shot our way - that the first time you see it, you must just go there to take it all in. The second - go and get some questions answered ..
I found that the second time i saw this movie - i was able to see subtle things that I had missed the first time.
As far as how Neo kills Smith: He doesn't. He makes the Smith *virus* available to the Architect to detroy.
Remember that when Smith assimilates another program, he takes with him a piece of that individual... and if that person is jacked into the matrix - and leaves - then the Smith ID becomes part of that Human Individual - as we learned with Bane (Is that his name?). Smith wanted to kill Neo - and if he couldn't do it in the Matrix - he'd try in the Machine world..
When the Smith *virus* told Neo the token Oracle anacdote: "Everything that has a beginning has an end!" - Neo realizes that the Smith Virus had assimilated the Oracle - but in fact, the Oracle allowed herself to be taken - so that she could pass that message on to Neo. Neo let himself be assimilated because, he new that in the Machine world, the Smith ID would become visible and the Architect could make short-change of him!
All this re-enforced another theory to me - and you can agree or disagree- but i don't think they were EVER outside the Matrix.. I believe that even tho' human's thought they were out of the Matrix (unplugged as it were) they really weren't!
Why do i think this? Because if Zi'on was destroyed 6 other times... there wouldn't be any humans left alive! And that Neo was never human - he's a program just like the Oracle, Architect and Smith... This would explain his sight after being blinded. Why he could feel the sentinels and destroy them - even if he wasn't jacked in... which is why the doctor at the beginning saw Neo's neuro-patterns as one being already jacked in -- he was part of the matrix - of course his patterns would be like that Matrix... Which is why we see him being recycled at the end... it's just starting right over again - we pretty much saw the Matrix "Reboot" at the end... and it will start all over again - which is why the movie doesn't really.. END.. ONly this time - the choices of the ONE prevented the destruction of Zi'on .. and if things continue - eventually Humans will win!
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
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