Why the Matrix trilogy ultimately blows
Following a link from digg, I just finished reading a lengthy explanation of the Matrix trilogy, written by an engineer, who attempts to deconstruct the films on a purely logical level. That is, he looks at what The Architect and The Oracle are trying to do, and how Neo fits into the plan, without any philosophical or pseudo-religious explanations.
I was originally just going to put a link to this in the Off-Topic list, but figured that might be construed as a tacit endorsement of incoherent blockbusters.
Thus, this short rant.
I should preface this by saying the engineer’s last name isn’t Wachowski, so there’s no way of knowing how his speculation fits with the writers’ original intention. But reading his essay, one thing becomes crystal clear: narratively speaking, those movies are a clusterfuck.
I remember going into a pitch meeting with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura at Warner Bros. shortly before Go came out. Before getting down to business, he played me the Matrix trailer. “This movie’s going to blow yours away,” he said. (I’m just barely paraphrasing. The point is, he was kind of a dick about it, and was absolutely right.)
I saw The Matrix in the theater, then bought the DVD, like every third person in America. And loved it.
Sure, there were nits to pick. For one, the idea of “humans as batteries” feels very first-draft. But even beyond the special effects, there was a really interesting, compelling story. I especially liked the two worlds of it: scary, but you kind of wanted to be there. I even bought the animated Matrix mini-movie DVD, which was enjoyable (if uneven).
So I was psyched to see The Matrix Reloaded. And then disappointed. It felt sluggish and indulgent, with slo-mo dance orgies that didn’t feel like part of the world. But I was more than willing to accept one slow movie to build up for the exciting conclusion that would no doubt be The Matrix Revolutions.
And here’s how I knew that the final movie — and thus the trilogy — didn’t work: When it was over, I had no idea what had happened. Worse, I had no idea how to feel. Hopeful? Despondent? Unsettled? The Oracle and The Architect were having a conversation, and I couldn’t even process it.
Lord knows, I’m not pining for simplicity or tidy answers. I’m happy with some ambiguity. But “incomprehensible” is not a synonym for “clever.”
My friend Rawson has a good phrase for it: “Playing obscurity for depth.” It’s the tendency of a screenplay — or an actor — to make weird choices that the audience won’t understand. The audience, fearing that they just didn’t “get it,” will label the writing or performance brilliant.
But it’s a trap. Once you get away with it, you inevitably do it again. It leads to laziness, which ultimately leads to bad movies. The time, money and energy spent shooting those two movies back-to-back could have been vastly better channeled if the Wachowskis had buckled down and done a few more drafts.
However well-intentioned, I think the second and third Matrix movies were playing obscurity for depth. For whatever reason, I’ve been reluctant to call bullshit on them. Well, bullshit.
Articles
March 13th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
I couldn’t agree more. The first film felt tight, as if every second had been calculated to exact effect. The second two films lost that, thus loosing their appeal (for me anyway).
March 13th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
As an aspiring amateur screenwriter, I truly appreciate your blog. Thanks for putting your thoughts out there for the rest of us.
Like you, I was left wondering “WTF?!” after a great, entertaining franchise like “The Matrix” went the way it did in part 2 “Electric Boogaloo” and 3. They would have been better served stopping at one.
I use their example in my own writing. As I currently hash out the details of a sequel to an already finished spec screenplay I wrote, I am trying hard to keep it fresh, unambiguous, fast-paced, intelligent, entertaining and interesting. I don’t want to leave any potential audience with huge question marks… I want them to feel glad for having stepped into my imagination for two hours.
At least we have “The Matrix (1)�. Oh well.
March 13th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Definitely bullshit.
The Matrix Reloaded was a bit indulgent, but it left some interesting questions in my mind about what would happen next. I thought there were some really intriguing possibilites there.
But then, The Matrix Revolutions came out and it sucked. The questions posed in Reloaded were answered in the most mundane way possible. Truly a disappointment compared to what might have been.
March 13th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
I don’t disagree that the Matrix movies went astray and failed as popular narratives (a point I get into here). But: If you want to read an explanation of the movies that does get into “philosophical or pseudo-religious explanation,” you must read
http://wylfing.net/essays/matrix_reloaded.html
and
http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrix_revolutions.html
Yes, the Matrix movies play obscurity for depth, but Brian, the author of those essays, knows his stuff well enough to plumb those depths alongside the Wachowskis. He lays out all of the reference so plainly that the movies almost seem like adaptations of his essays rather than vice versa. Learning what Brian has to communicate doesn’t make them better movies, but it does fairly definitively answer the question “What were they thinking?”
March 13th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
I couldn’t agree more, a few more drafts for Reloaded/Revolutions (I deem them a single movie, with a wee wee break in the middle). But I honestly think calling bullshit on them is being a bit rash. Reloaded/Revolutions have more great, if not fantastic moments in them than most blockbusters that have come out since then. Minute by minute they deliver more bang for the buck, coherence or no.
So yeah they’d lost the elegance of the first movie, no doubt. But there was some damn fine moviemaking in those movies nonetheless.
Drew, You said “The questions posed in Reloaded were answered in the most mundane way possible.”
I don’t think that’s quite true. And to be honest I think this is one of the greatest ballsy moves by the Wachowski’s, namely to leave so many things unanswered. The value lies just as much in what’s not there as in what’s there.
And yes, I’d love to list some moments I thought were boss in case you’re wondering whether I actually watched the same movies as you guys
March 13th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
I actually enjoyed the Matrix sequels. In fact, I liked Reloaded better than the original, and I believe history will bear me out (c.f. Empire Strikes Back, T2: Judgement Day).
If you want to read a much better explanation about the Matrix sequels that doesn’t hinge on the “The Machines Lied!” argument, check out these two links: http://wylfing.net/essays/matrixreloaded.html http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrixrevolutions.html
I warn you, they are quite long, but fascinating. However, they don’t make up for the fact the Revolutions seemed to be over at after the invasion of Zion, yet lasted another 30 minutes.
March 13th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Not to be snide Matt, but I think you proved John’s point. If I have to read an article to understand why your movie is great, or to understand it at all, your movie isn’t great. You had 2 hours in the theatre to tell me how great it is, nothing after the fact should change my mind.
March 13th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
I agree with your sentiments, John. The dire thing about these films is that they are not just bad movies, they are bad “Matrix” movies. “Terminator 3″ was an ok action flick. But as a terminator sequel it was the biggest piece of junk. The tragedy lies in the failed potential, the ruin of a great story.
March 13th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
For me, the problem with the Matrix sequels is simple: the first movie, The Matrix, was a better movie before they came out. It’s the risk filmmakers take in deciding to make a sequel (or sequels), when one wasn’t planned from the get go.
At the end of the Matrix, there is a universe worth of possibilities for that main character, Neo, and for the whole of the Matrix world (by Matrix there, I mean the movie, not the matrix WITHIN the movie). For a film goer, it’s exciting, exhilarating even, to have all of those possibilities to bounce around in one’s head. To tell the rest of the story yourself, so to speak. When a filmmaker (or filmmakers, in this case) decides to make follow-up films, he or she is deciding to answer the questions the audience has, to tell the story the audience has hopefully been telling itself. That can be exciting for the audience as well, but the answers, the story had better live up to what the audience had imagined. And that’s invariably a high bar to reach.
I would contend that the Matrix sequels fall far short of that bar. And the problem is that once those sequels exist, you can’t take them back. When I see The Matrix now, it doesn’t end full of possibilities and interesting questions to ponder. It ends with me knowing that the events of The Matrix Reloaded are to follow. What a drag.
It’s much like the Star Wars prequels. While I didn’t hate every minute of them as some people did, I know that the world was a better place before they were made. While I agree that the last hour of Episode III is compelling and exciting and almost breathtaking at times, I know that I enjoyed Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi MORE when I got to imagine the events of their prehistory on my own.
P.S. Hey, Michael. Interesting to run into you here. I basically just went from the updates on your site to this update on this site, and there you were. Cheers.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I don’t suggest that the first ‘Matrix’ film is in the same league as ‘2001′ but there’s a parallel. Kubrick’s film stated things without punctuation. Audiences were asked to find the commas and the ellipses; in doing so, the audience got involved in telling the story to themselves. It’s an elegant and compelling way to ask large canvas questions and stay away from imposing a narrow answer to any of it.
And then there was ‘2010′, a film that is the equivalent to stomping in to the Louvre and smushing a wad of gum on the Mona Lisa. Or rather, adding a brass plaque under her to explain to the world that she’s only half-smiling because she’s missing a front tooth.
The “Matrix” went from chess to checkers. The more I learned about the universe and purpose of the films - the less I liked it - the less I felt the need to pay attention. I know the Wachowskis are certainly intelligent and gifted enough to have come up with a clever and sound resolution but it seemed that they opted for a quick trompe-l’oeil rather than actual structure.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
John and Johnny, you’ve both nailed it.
The original asked some interesting questions, and answered most of them, leaving you wondering about just a few. Reloaded asked lots of questions, and answered almost none. Everyone was expection Revolutions to answer them, but it only raised more again.
In the end, it was clear the Wachowskis didn’t understand the whole thing themselves, or at least didn’t communicate it in their scripts. Like Episodes I-III, one of the great wasted opportunities in filmmaking history.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
That’s a great quote. Unfortunately, that’s a trend we see all over the place. In a lot of writing, be it legalese or a company’s mission statement, writers tend to use obscure language and complicated writing to appear smarter. To explain writing like this, you could tweak “playing obscurity for depth” and say a lot of writers tend to think “complicated equals intelligent.”
I applaud you for calling them out…
March 13th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Reloaded made me reach for a remote to fastforward through those cheeseball fight sequences. It’s amazing how people create something special and crackling, then feel the way to outdo it is to make the same exact thing five times longer and with fifty guys to fight instead of just one.
I agree, a total waste. Too bad, for the first was truly groundbreaking.
I am, however, pysched to give V a gander!
March 13th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
The most ironic part is that the basic logic of the first film is pretty flawless. The narrative was tight, as far as I could tell. It fell into moments of psycho-babble bullshit, but still made sense. I find the problem with the sequels was the idea of naming everyone “significantly” and going on twelve page rants about shit that no one cares about. Okay, choice is important, that’s great. Hey look, the Architect likes the dictionary.
You can muse on religious ideas and still make a logically coherent film. The problem is that the Bros. wrote “The Matrix” over the course of like four years. They wrote 2 and 3 over the course of, it seems like, two weeks. Plenty of musing. No plot and “significant” names. They introduced useless characters, split up their ideas, and never paid off their own established mythology.
I mean Morpheus was delegated to the Scotty role by the third film. He was one of the most reverent film characters of the 90’s, and then he turns into the “Forward aft to third degree.” guy. They even had colored rags, similar to Star Trek. Whatever it was, it just wasn’t what it should be. The ideas were there, the writing just flat out wasn’t.
Undercooked. Overproduced. The product of the most of Hollywood’s trouble.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
The funny thing about the Matrix Trilogy is that I was only right about one of the movies in the series.
When I first heard about The Matrix, I was convinced it was going to be horrible. It was starring Keanu Reeves (woo, boy) and it was being directed by the guys who did the lesbian crime thriller, Bound.
How was this going to be good?
I was wrong.
We all know how excellent the first movie was. I’m talking bug eyes, discussing it for weeks, seeing it 3 times in the theatre excellent. I was convinced the second part was going to be just as good if not better. The theatrical trailer was one of the best trailers I had ever seen. Well, the second one came out.
And it stank.
Everything that made the first movie good was inexplicably absent in the sequel. The storyline was muddled, the martial arts were boring–even the foley effects for the punching and kicking was different. I wasn’t even sure what I was watching half the time. And nothing made me come right out of the story more as when Roy Jones Jr. appeared on screen. What the hell?
But I was totally right about the last one. I thought it was gonna be bad and it was. Score one for me.
The most amazing thing about the whole experience definitely came when watching the second one. When the movie was over, the audience kind of looked at each other; no one wanting to admit that the movie was really bad. But then some kid in the back row screamed out, “I rate the movie a C for crap!”
Everyone laughed.
But for all different reasons…
March 13th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Not that I want to play the smartass but I did not go to see Opus II and III since I thought the bullshit had already started with the original Matrix. I thought this one movie was really kicking asses for the first 15 minutes, ok let’s say for the first 30 minutes… well I don’t mind saying the first hour was very good. You see, it’s exactly the problem with The Matrix: everything goes slowly downhill after the opening sequence which was excellent. The big piece of exposition with Morpheus giving a lecture on the Matrix is dull (had not the original Matrix atmosphere been built up then everybody would be shouting bullshit already). The training was a cheap episode stuck in the middle. I know people loved it, cheap tricks pay off… the first time as John points out: as we say in French “Le premier qui compara la femme à une rose était un poète, le second un imbécile” (”the first man who likened a woman to roses was a poet, the second one was a halfwit” - Gerard de Nerval). Eventually the final shootout was already self-indulging in tell-tale sfx followed by an heavy-handed messianic ending. I know I made a reputation of being real tough on movies, but I think it’s pretty valuable in the industry to have a sharp eye, hu?
March 13th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Who cares man! Shit blows up! People fly! And times slows down to reveal more detail in singular punches & kicks to peoples’ skulls!
What more could one ask!?
March 13th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
In continuing with the academic theme, here are some more essays on the sci-fi of the Matrix:
http://www.ursasoft.com/matrix/
He came up with some great scenarios in which the whole setup is plausible. (I think the 3rd movie blew his logic out of the water.)
I loved MATRIX, and actually liked RELOADED. It introduced a whole slew of things that I thought would be wonderfully resolved in REVOLUTIONS, in the same exact manner that the question “What is the Matrix?” was so well resolved in the first movie.
Instead, I got a bucketful of crap and self-referencing answers like “The power of the One comes from the Source” (roughly paraphrased), with no further explanation. Interesting new elements like the French Guy and Monica Belluci were tossed aside without explanation. What I thought would be genuine depth turned out to be obscurity after all.
I can still watch the first movie and enjoy it for its own sake, because it is a complete story in itself. Hey, maybe in 3 years there will be a market for alternative Matrix spec scripts?
Worst of all, I’m not sure why it was so easy for Trinity and Neo to fly above the clouds into direct light in REVOLUTIONS. If they could fly there, doesn’t that nullify the whole “machines need humans as batteries” thing? Is anyone with me on this?
March 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
“Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling — the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration. Possibly this trend results from a mistaken belief that using a somewhat mysterious device confers an aura of power on the user.”
March 13th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
I wonder what Sophia Stewart thinks.
March 13th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Hey, welcome to 2003!!
March 13th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
The author of “Too Many Words about The Matrix” is not just an engineer, he is Steven Den Beste of USS Clueless fame. To the dismay of his fans, he retired from serious bloging over a year ago. Now he just keeps his hand in with an anime blog, Chizumatic. The Matrix piece reads like the old, much missed, Den Beste.
Smart guy.
March 13th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Do you think Kubrick understood all the implications of 2001? Or that Lynch has a step-by-step to his own movies?
The Wachowski’s would be great indeed if they had provided answers to the philosophical questions that have remained unanswered for thousands of years. But that is not the place of these movies, which despite the fact that they are labelled ‘blockbusters’, really are nothing more than The Waking Life with Cool on top.
“Hey it was expensive and widely sold, thus it must be relatively easy to understand! w00t!”…
The problem with Reloaded/Revolutions wasn’t their obscurity, it was the pacing and lack of impact from many of the scenes. IMHO.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:11 am
As for 2001 Kubrick and Clarke had discuss all the scientific matter at length so the director could plant visionnary images on a rational canvas. If you read Clarke’s novelisation of 2001 you’ll see that everything is way too obvious, down to earth (well good SF is rarely good litterature) whereas the movie’s images are pure poetry.
Lynch? The problem with him is that he just stops cleaning the mess in his brain at one point to start shooting. Fortunately it’s enough for us to get Lost Highway and the first 2/3 of Mulholland Dr. which are wonderful.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:11 am
As for 2001 Kubrick and Clarke had discussed all the scientific matter at length so the director could plant visionnary images on a rational canvas. If you read Clarke’s novelisation of 2001 you’ll see that everything is way too obvious, down to earth (well good SF is rarely good litterature) whereas the movie’s images are pure poetry.
Lynch? The problem with him is that he just stops cleaning the mess in his brain at one point to start shooting. Fortunately it’s enough for us to get Lost Highway and the first 2/3 of Mulholland Dr. which are wonderful.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:30 am
I agree with many other comments here, parts 2 and 3 wasted a lot of possibilities. The best thing about Reloaded was the suggestion of other layers of reality. The whole Architect-thing could have been handled better, but the simplicity of Neo suddenly having superpowers in the “real” world was for me the only intriguing moments in the sequels. I would love to see Fassbinders “Welt Am Draht” which deals with multiple realities but in a more naturalistic way. I also would like to remember the Matrix-inspired dream I had the other night, it seemed much better than anything in the movies.
March 14th, 2006 at 2:06 am
Almost everything I wanted to say has already been said in the comments above, and it’s been said perfectly. So the only thing I have to add is that the fight scene in the sky between Neo and Smith…
I’m not a fan of Dragonball Z and that was pure Dragonball Z.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:26 am
Hey, now. I’ll give you the Keanu Reeves thing, but Bound is a very good movie. In the end, I probably like it better than The Matrix.
March 14th, 2006 at 4:06 am
I loved the first film, the second won made me a bit doubtful. But I was willing to give the third a chance, after all the middle film is the part of a story with no real middle, and no real end.
But the final film was boring. And for that to be the end of The Matrix was a huge let-down.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:22 am
“The Matrix� was such a huge hit, of course studios (and the creators) were eager to cash in! I think they simply fell into the age-old trap of greed versus good. They knew whatever crap they fed us would ultimately be an assured payday for them. Rather than leaving a legacy of three masterpieces (which STILL would have given them the $$ they so desperately wanted, as well as winning the admiration of movie-goers for years to come), they cashed out and laughed all the way to the bank.
The allure of money is enough to make most great artists sell-out. We’re all only human. It’s a shame… the first Matrix was brilliant.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:29 am
What bothered me is that at the end of the first one, Neo promises to free all the people in bondage to the Matrix.
Over the course of the next two movies, he basically ignores the folks in bondage in order to save the hot looking club dancers living down below.
The folks in bondage to the Matrix are basically never mentioned again, in a way.
So I call bullshit on that.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:57 am
I have to admit, I’m the only person in the world who didn’t like the first film. I thought it was tedious beyond belief. It might, might have made a good one hour program on something like the old Outer Limits. At nine hours (or whatever the running time was) it just overstayed its welcome.
Consequently, I didn’t see the other two. More fool me, eh.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:13 am
I’m going to take a step back and call it entertainment — good old-fashioned, popcorn-munching escapism. Through the first film, I was transported away from my problems and felt gratified for having spent my hard-earned money on it. Movies, like “The Matrixâ€? are not really meant to be deeply introspective social commentaries… they are simply created to thrill and for the merchandising afterwards (games, action figures, books, spin-off TV shows, DVDs…). They are hugely successful to this day… bravo to the creators for hitting a nice vein of gold while prospecting the Hollywood hills!
I’m guilty of buying tickets and becoming a sucker with Matrix 2 & 3 (although with “3â€?, I rented it on DVD… having learned not to see it in a theater after “2â€?).
Another franchise which blew the donkey was “Alienâ€?. James Cameron struck gold with “Aliensâ€?, a brilliant sequel which elevated the genre and existed quite separate from the original – loved it! What followed were a lackluster chain of real stinkers. I actually walked out of the theater in “Alien 4â€? in disgust… pissed off at wasting money on it (I felt robbed). And now, they are merging with “Predatorâ€?. At least we have the first two to go back to on rainy days to remember how good it once was.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:19 am
Eh, I have no problem with the storyline or understanding the plot and I think the movies were each enjoyable in their own right. I think the problem most moviegoers had, myself included, was that the first Matrix failed to set up the rules of the Matrix universe, completely. So after we saw the first movie, we built the rest of the universe in our heads with these limited rules, then we see the next movies and all these new things hit us and we’re like, “Wait a second, sounds like some of that midichlorian crap to me!” But whatever, I can dig it.
R
March 14th, 2006 at 7:53 am
Movies like the first Matrix don’t come along very often. An original idea, executed well enough to leave an impression on an audience.
For the most part, Hollywood studios are more interested in following formulaic, derivative, uninspired “paint-by-numbers� scripts. In fact, I just saw a commercial for one of the most overused ideas out there – a high school girl masquerades as a boy, becoming hugely popular, only to be exposed in the end after falling for another boy which creates comedy through its homosexual lampooning. I think it is called “The Boy Next Door�, or something. Films today can be grouped into a few categories: sequels, remakes, or rehashed and overused concepts. Whatever studios think will make them easy money is what counts (and it is what has always counted when millions of dollars are at stake). There was a time, though, when art and quality also factored into the mix. Now they want you to buy a single ticket, be made the fool for having bought it while they laugh their way to the bank. Sucker!
March 14th, 2006 at 8:48 am
My main problem with the second movie was that Neo was such a badass there was nowhere for him to go. Then came that ridiculous sex orgie that ended up being an entire chapter all by itself on the DVD. I was very confused. But the third movie actually helped me make sense of the second, oddly enough. Neither movie is incredibly awesome, but I think I understand them, and I like what they were supposed ot be about, even if it didn’t quite come off right.
But by far the best Matrix film is the MTV movie awards parody on the Reloaded special features. I watch that on a regular basis. Makes me laugh every time. “Wet willy, Mr. Timberlake.”
March 14th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Following up on Webs (#20):
Sophia Stewart, for those who don’t know, claims that The Matrix was her idea. So was The Terminator.
Also, she invented writing.
Her whole court case is kind of fascinating-slash-annoying. You can see her site here. It sort of parallels the Dan Brown/Da Vinci Code case currently in the courts, except in the Dan Brown case the source material really was source material.
March 14th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Well, I don’t know anyhing about Sophia Stewart, but I made the mistake to visit that website and click on one of the articles. It’s offtopic, but I would like to share this wonderful quote.
Quote: “These defendants are being sued for the recreation, redevelopment, promotion, reproduction, proliferation, distribution, and disbursement throughout the United States of America and abroad to third world countries, for the movie the “Matrix”.”
I think I just judged the whole case for myself.
March 14th, 2006 at 11:48 am
I completely agree that the narrative for the last two movies felt really lazy and undeveloped. My question would be, why did it turn out this way? Since the first Matrix was a risky, unknown property, did the Wachowski Bros. work that much harder to make sure it was a gleaming diamond? And then, when they basically had a blank check for the sequels, they realized that they could do whatever they wanted and indulge in every over-the-top sci-fi scene they’d ever wanted to shoot? Did they have people with them, massaging their egos and avoiding criticism of the story because everyone knew it was going to make money hand over fist, so the quality didn’t matter?
To me, that feels about right. The sequels felt like one big sell-out, with story and theme taking a backseat to just making it look cool. And honestly, all the fancy effects and fight choreography bored the hell out of me. The Burly Brawl was meaningless, pointless, and weak. The highway chase scene went on for far too long and was overloaded with mindless effects. I really can’t name a single thing that I enjoyed about the sequels. And that’s a damn shame.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Sequels, with few exceptions, suck. If a sequel doesn’t improve on the original idea, why bother? The answer is $$! The Wachowski Bros. cashed in and sold out (most of us would probably be whores and do exactly the same thing, given the chance).
March 14th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
As seen by the above comments, one could go on and on with the reasons why the sequels sucked compared to the first Matrix. I have a lot of beefs but my primary one is the narrative ingenuity of the first film is essentially absent from the second two. When I first saw Reloaded, I remember thinking the fight/chase scenes were overlong and overdone (except for the fight on the stairs in the palace, which I felt hit just the right note), but it was the ending scenes, where everything got flipped around, that got me excited. What made (and makes) the first film so great is the story is told in such a way that you get sucked in to trying to understand what is going on, only to have everything flipped on you. Narratively, you experience what Neo experiences, and it works brilliantly. Not only that, but they pull the “twist” on you 1/3 of the way into the film, so you get to experience the ramifications (not to say the second two thirds of the movie are great, but they are definitely enjoyable).
Since the sequels were made at the same time, I thought that similar narrative trickery was going to be played. I went into Reloaded expecting (perhaps wanting?–too much?) it, and I thought it delivered it. I remember talking/theorizing with people about where the story was going to go, what it was trying to say, etc - it was all very exciting. Then the debacle that was Revolutions came out and I realized I was giving the Bros. too much credit. They weren’t probing interesting thematic or narrative territory. They weren’t playing games with us. They were giving us a well produced popcorn flick with cheap philosophy interspersed throughout. It was quite a dissapointment and changed my (positive) opinion about the second film greatly.
Just a couple of other notes: 1) From everything I have read, the Wachowski Bros. had the whole Matrix trilogy outline completed before they made the first film. This isn’t to say that they didn’t botch them up in the screenwriting phase, but to imply that the first film was originally written without the others is incorrect. 2) When the first Matrix came out, I actually didn’t like it that much because I felt it relied to much on fighting and not enough “cerbral” stuff (this mainly pertains to the second half of the film). I much prefered Dark City as it, I felt, went for much more of a “thinking man’s” (and interesting) conclusion to a similar narrative tack. Having watched Dark City again the other day, I have to say I was perhaps a bit too forgiving to it, but I still prefer it to The Matrix.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
The way I always describe the Matrix Trilogy is, “A great story, poorly told.” There’s a great analysis site at http://wylfing.net/essays/index.html that examines all of the symbolism and other, er, “literary” elements of the movies (especially the second two). It’s easy to see that there really was a lot of work put into the creation of the world by the Wachowskis, but then they totally hamstrung themselves by writing crappy dialogue and focusing on the wrong parts of the story.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Unlike many folks, I found M:Reloaded to be more interesting than The Matrix. It wasn’t as visually exciting or thrilling as the first movie, but I really got engaged with the Architect’s description of the struggle between him, the Oracle, and the other sentient programs for control of the matrix and with the implication that Zion was just another part of the matrix. Unfortunately, little of that made it into M:Revolutions.
The big mistake with M:Revolutions, though, is that the Wachowskis lost sight of who the villain was. They focused on Smith and inflated the character far beyond his importance in the story. Smith was a wild card, a threat to the Architect and others. It was the Architect and the ones who would have destroyed Zion and rebooted the matrix again that were the real villains. As mentioned above, the fight between Neo and Smith was pure Dragonball Z, only less colorful.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
When I first heard about Sophia Stewart’s case it made sense to me why the Matrix sequels sucked– they weren’t originally part of the story (just like the Terminator sequels). Why else couldn’t the creative minds who thought up the story for The Matrix (or Terminator) be able to flesh it out? Because it wasn’t their story in the first place. Has anyone read “The Third Eye”?
March 14th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
This reminds me of my very first improv class. We were doing an exercise where each person contributes a word to a sentence. Obviously, in order to have a coherant sentence, each individual needs to make a choice that makes sense, even it if means something “boring” like a, and, or the. Well, it came to one guy who’s idea of improv was to think of the most crazy wild outrageous hilarious thing there ever was, which turned out to be some kind of purple creature or something that had nothing to do with the sentence.
Emotional truth people, emotional truth!
March 14th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I’m worried that DTS (#44) may be a Sophia Stewart troll, but I’m letting the comment through anyway. Don’t make me regret it.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Honestly, that wylfing.net site that’s been linked to several times now…isn’t very good. They’re making the exact same arguments and overanalyzing in the exact same way as a hundred Matrix fanboys across the Internet. I don’t think Brian has a really strong grasp on any of the mythological elements he leans on to support his arguments. He also seems to forget that just because a scene conveys basic thematic information doesn’t make it a good scene (e.g. Zion rave). I don’t care if that scene conveyed the answer to every mystery of the universe; it was boring, plodding, and made the overall movie (which is infinitely more important than any single scene) that much worse.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Had “The Matrix” been a flop, do you think this Sophia Stewart character would be attempting to glom onto it, claiming what she apparently does? Probably not.
March 14th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Sorry, John, maybe putting just my intials made it seem I wasn’t a real person. No, I’m not a troll, just someone who likes to question. I was following the Sophia Stewart story and found it interesting, and it kinda made sense in a weird way. It always boggled my mind why the Matrix sequels were lacking in the elements that made the first so damn enjoyable. And I always felt the same thing with the first Terminator. Didn’t the filmmakers see what made the originals so good? In believeing that Stewart created the “original” story that was the basis for the original Terminator and Matrix it explains why the crap sequels are mere Hollywood fluff. I’ve never read “The Third Eye”, but the whole concept of the John Connor character growing up to be Neo sounds intriguing. Regardless of her lawsuits, I wonder if “The Third Eye” is a good sci-fi read. I’m just not willing to pay out $100.00 for a signed copy from her site, which is all that seems to be available. Thanks for letting us rant, John. Truly appreciate your site!
March 14th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
And so it goes: The King (Star Wars) is dead. Long live the King (The Matrix).
Dark City is the best sci-fi movie of the last twenty-five years.
Boys like The Matrix because boys like shiny leather jacket gymnastics.
The Wachowski’s should do Grant Morrison’s laundry for a year.
If the Wachoski’s were as good as they think they are they would’ve started Reloaded at the beginning of the story, as if someone hit the reset button. Same with Revolutions. Open systems cannot be defeated. An open system absorbs abnormalities and incorporates them into making the system stronger. Like television. Said my brother.
Darren Aronofsky likes to drink Diet Pepsi while he edits.
Doom Patrols by Steven Shaviro.
March 15th, 2006 at 12:59 am
Greetings, All. Long time luker with a question:
Could the Brothers Wachowski really have taken the time to do more drafts? I’m curious since another writing team–I’m not sure if it’s kosher to name them here, especially since they have their own website–recently posted that they made the decision to go forward on their latest project with a director that has a different vision because this is the only way the movie will be made. Granted, this project isn’t a sequel. But on that front, how long as Indy 4 been in development now?
I’m just wondering if the Bros. W might’ve felt like it was now or never.
And as long as I’m posting, I’ve always felt that the main reason the first film resonates more than the sequels is because, in the first film, Mr. Anderson becomes Neo. But once he’s Neo, nothing much else happens; there’s not much of a character arc in the sequels.
To continue with the Star Wars comparison others made above, both initial installments start with a farm boy (although in one case the farm is literal, while in the other, the farm is cubical) who saves the day once he learns to believe in himself, to trust his feelings. But in Empire, Luke’s world is turned upside down-”Luke, I am your father.” Reloaded doesn’t take a similar turn.
Interestingly, I think The Matrix had a similar moment built into its mythos, but they chose not to explore it. As was also noted above, in the first film, the goal is to free everyone, but this goal is abandoned the sequels. I would’ve liked to have seen this goal pursued in the sequels because it contains a conundrum: given that the planet is in the middle of a nuclear winter, if you free all these people from the Matrix, where do they go? How do they all survive?
In short, they don’t. Freeing everyone from the Matrix means death, not only for the humans, but also for the machines. They’ve evolved the perfect symbiotic relationship. Neither can survive without the other.
So now, much like Empire’s climactic showdown between Luke and dear old Dad, the climax of the second Matrix film is Neo’s showdown with The Architect. The Architect confronts Neo with this truth, and then, instead of “I am your father”, The Architect says, “I am you. I am your precursor; the Chosen One from the previous reboot.” (You could go one step further and make The Oracle the previous Trinity.)
In other words, Zion is just another level of the Matrix, created because–to borrow a quote from another SF franchise–”Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams.” It’s all a sham to give the humans hope, so they don’t upset the delicate balance needed for everyone’s survival. And it’s now Neo’s turn to take his place as The Architect and reboot the Matrix. To keep the cycle going until the planet recovers.
Then there would’ve been all kinds of possibilities for Revolutions - Mark
March 15th, 2006 at 1:48 am
Since seeing them at the cinemas (but not since) I always considered that the Matrix Reloaded was the thesis, and the Matrix Revolution was the proof.
Packing the sequel scripts full of symbolism and allusions to distract the audience from the (lack) of story isn’t good writing, its sleight of hand. I think Alan Bennett’s ‘The History Boys’ very clevery ridicules such notions… (and is worth seeing once it hits Broadway).
March 15th, 2006 at 2:46 am
I guess the problem was that everything, which had to be said, was said with the first movie.
the last two movies were just repeating the subtext of the first.
March 15th, 2006 at 3:22 am
Exactly (#49). I felt as though I was duped (in the Matrix sequels). I’m currently working out the details in a sequel to my first spec screenplay. Luckily for me, the ideas are flowing — it’s working itself out as I write it (and the sequel stands to improve upon the original concept… possibly overshadow it).
I’m new to writing, but I’m discovering why it is so rewarding (at least spiritually, so far). It’s quite an achievement to have an original concept, and to somehow stretch it into a viable three act play with a satisfying climax. I now appreciate good movies that much more! Behind every good, memorable movie is a brilliant scribe (or group of scribes) creating that world or those characters on paper. It’s an amazing, all-consuming process! It proved to be great stress relief for me personally (I wrote most of mine while my wedding day approached — much to the dismay of my future wife, who rightfully got on my case for not helping out as much as I could or should have). After she read the finished script, she understood why I had to write it (she loved it).
All that’s left to do now is find a way to have it read by the right people and see if it springs to life on its own merit (or if it becomes relegated to a dusty bookshelf in my own home — a forgotten curiosity).
It’s great to chat with you all (and to read all of your thoughts). Best of luck in all of your endeavors!
~Devin
March 15th, 2006 at 3:23 am
Why is “humans as batteries” a first-draft idea? I thought it was pretty fascinating.
Anyway, I think what happened is this: the Brothers wrote The Matrix, which is clearly intended to be a stand-alone, one-shot, this movie and no more movies kind of deal.
I mean, Neo becomes God at the end. He is The One.
Then the marketplace and the allure of limitless resources brought them back to make two sequels. The sequels are, frankly, unnecessary as films. They feel like extremely beautiful and lavish fan fiction.
Pity. The same fate befell Highlander. There can be only One.
Okay, two. Fine…four. And a series on cable.
I do, however, tip my hat to the Brothers for actually thinking some rather fascinating issues through. I think the sequels are deep and fascinating in many regards, but they should have been essays.
March 15th, 2006 at 4:17 am
Erm, because of, like, physics. You can’t get energy from nothing so that any energy extracted from ‘human batteries’ would have to be put into them beforehand (presumably by the machines) so why not just use that energy ? Even cursory thought marks it out as a daft idea though the first matrix was so well implemented and visually spectacular that it’s forgiveable.
(note I don’t say original since the ideas are fairly familiar sci-fi and philosophical tropes)
BTW, I think there’s actually another Highlander movie in the works which will bring the total to 4 (since 2 DOES NOT EXIST ;).
March 15th, 2006 at 6:11 am
I thought the first Matrix film was brilliant — one of the most original concepts I had seen in decades. It’s one of my inspirations when I decide to write… to come up with that one truly original concept and craft it into something amazing. Few film makers are successful at this. Most films out there are derivative and sloppy, or just plain stupid.
Originality is hard to come by. An idea jumped into my head back in 1996, and it took me nearly ten years to get it into script form. I wonder how long it took the writers of “The Matrix� to develop their concept. Was it quickly, or did it take years? Fascinating stuff, to be sure – BTW, is anyone interested in “V for Vendetta�? It looks interesting visually, but I don’t know much about the original graphic novels it is based on. I did hear that the original creator thinks the screenplay treatment of his graphic novel is rubbish. Most ‘based on the comic’ movies do blow chunks, although the “Spiderman� and “Batman� franchises have become entertaining once again.
March 15th, 2006 at 10:07 am
The biggest issue I had with the second two is the contradictory material. They have these fantastic weapons, but have to mix gun powder by hand. They have amazing ships, but wear rags. Hmmm…
Then there are the “good questions, bad answers.” Smith asks, “Why do you fight when you know it’s not real.” Impressive! Neo responds, “I fight because I choose to.” Hmmm…
March 15th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
I remember the sense of screeching tires and running over a speed bump when they got to the “humans as batteries” bit, but I kept going because I loved the rest. Later, though, I started to think how lazy an explanation that was. Why not something to do with the machines needing our subconscious to deal with the paradoxical nature of being? Okay, maybe not that, but something that showed we had some value that was actually worth the huge investment in “the plant”.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I enjoyed the bizarre reality they created (with the ‘human battery’ angle)… very clever and original. Not many writers come up with a high concept idea as sweet as that! I love it. I use it as a model for whatever ‘high concept’ ideas I try and develop. It’s hard to do, but not impossible. We’ll see if my concept is successful at generating interest.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
There is an interesting take on all this over at Rolling Stone’s site, which suggests that one of the Wachowski Bros. may have been a bit distracted from filmmaking. I don’t know if it’s true, but it sure makes for good gossip.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
“Erm, because of, like, physics. You can’t get energy from nothing so that any energy extracted from ‘human batteries’ would have to be put into them beforehand (presumably by the machines) so why not just use that energy ? Even cursory thought marks it out as a daft idea though the first matrix was so well implemented and visually spectacular that it’s forgiveable.”
Ah. Well, apparently didn’t exercise anything beyond cursory thought.
By the way, I’m not being sarcastic. I rarely slip into mental iterations of the Laws of Thermodynamics when I’m sitting in a movie theater. I tend to take a bit for granted, particular when I’m watching sci-fi. For instance, the human body can’t produce more energy than it takes in, but like plants, it is at least competent at converting one kind of energy to another. I know, that makes “battery” the wrong term and “energy conversion plant” the right term, but, ya know, like I said, I tend to go along with these things in scifi. Machines can’t covert organic material into heat. We can. I guess my mind subconsciously filled in the gaps. I bought it.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Hmmm…you know, I guess machines can convert organic material into heat.
By burning it.
Nevermind. I’m going to stick with my original position. It was good enough for me.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
This is the kind of thing really should be answered by a trackback, but as a comment:
a) The guy in the article John linked has it all wrong. But that’s what’s great about these movies - lots to think about. Is it a good thing that there are so many essays on Heart of Darkness or a bad thing?
b) Humans as Batteries: of course this is dumb. But not as dumb as you might think. If you assume that instead of using the humans as batteries, they’re instead being used as something like a giant organic beowulf cluster, perhaps to do the math necessary to maintain a safe fusion reactor that’s what’s really powering the machines, it would make sense to collect the heat generated by their bodies. BMW is developing a gasoline engine that also encompasses a steam engine to catch the energy released by the burning fuel. And suddenly you have a reason to keep the humans around (processing power), a reason to gather the heat (efficiency) and a reason that Morpheus has it so wrong: he’s only got part of the story.
c) So you didn’t understand the movie? So what? Watch a movie from Senegal without subtitles and you won’t get that either. But guess what? Watch a movie from Senegal WITH subtitles and you might not get it either. Why? Because you don’t have the cultural background or historical knowledge to get what a Senegalese movie is about. There’s nothing wrong with not understanding a movie, and nothing wrong with making a movie that’s difficult for some people to understand. The Matrix movies require a lot of background reading, and a lot of thinking. But does the fact that Harry Potter doesn’t make it a better movie than Death in Venice? (Well, it is, but never mind.)
d) The people who enjoyed the movies seem to fall on either side of the bell curve: those who really understood them and those who didn’t understand anything but liked the action scenes.
More later on my site. =-)
March 15th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Phoenix - Don’t get me wrong, I was gravely disappointed by Reloaded/Revolutions as well. The Wylfing essays, to me, aren’t trying to say that MR/MR are good movies — as he says, it’s “a comparative-literature-style exegesis of selected parts” of the movies. It’s certainly possible to analyze bad movies.
My main criticism of the essays is that many times, he’s reading analysis into it that is probably just (co-)incidental, ascribing specific meaning to certain elements of a scene that are most likely not intentional by the Wachowskis.
On the other hand, he does point out a lot of elements that are definitely intentional literary or cultural references, so… I dunno. The essays don’t redeem the movies, but they are, at least, interesting.
(Although that’ll teach me to post links without reading the prior comments. Damn you, instant gratification!)
March 15th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
“My main criticism of the essays is that many times, he’s reading analysis into it that is probably just (co-)incidental, ascribing specific meaning to certain elements of a scene that are most likely not intentional by the Wachowskis.”
Yeah, that’s my biggest problem too. Finding original meaning where there is none. It just felt like he kept mentioning a scene that people didn’t like and saying, “No but wait, you just didnt get it!” And then he goes on and on about something that, when you think about it, never really connects to what actually happened in the movie.
“So you didn’t understand the movie? So what?”
I don’t recall anyone complaining that they didn’t understand it. I pretty much only hear people talking about how they didn’t like it. Perhaps some people don’t know a lot of the mythological/spiritual/religious/philosophical background behind the movies, but until the Wachowskis publish “The Matrix Companion” to tell us exactly what we need to know to get it, then telling us we “just dont get it” isn’t any sort of defense for disliking what we saw.
March 15th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
In terms of humans-as-batteries, I kept hoping for the fleshy-cluster-computer explanation as well. The machines needed to use our brainspace to do something that they couldn’t do.]
But alas.
March 15th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Just because the machines didn’t divulge it, doesn’t make it untrue. Why would the machines (to include the oracle) put information so valuable into the hands of the resistance?
March 15th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Do any of us in here have girlfriends?
March 15th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
“Just because the machines didn’t divulge it, doesn’t make it untrue. Why would the machines (to include the oracle) put information so valuable into the hands of the resistance?”
They could have revealed the true intention a thousand different ways without having the machines directly and literally explain it to the humans. They didn’t give the audience any reason other than “human batteries”, so taking directly from the film, we have to accept that as their (the W Bros) intention.
March 16th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Do any of us in here have girlfriends?
John doesn’t.
March 16th, 2006 at 12:53 am
i think scriptweaver’s comment was inadvertently awesome . . .
March 16th, 2006 at 3:13 am
Sadly, I don’t have a girlfriend… My wife won’t let me have one.
March 16th, 2006 at 6:24 am
Just to make myself unpopular - I thought Matrix sucked ass from the beginning film right thru to the end! Their versions of so-called “philosophical concepts” were so paper thin as to be ridiculous without a hint of the sublime anywhere. To me, it felt like Terminator-fucks-Descartes-sideways.
And no, I definitely don’t have a girlfriend! ; )
March 16th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Good lord, it’s been 13 posts since I last heard about DGB’s original concept!!! What’s going on?
March 16th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
John’s right about the cluster fuck - as a whole, they mashed up their great inventive original with sequels that diluted everything great about the first film. Human’s as batteries? Brilliant. It slammed us out of an egocentric world and showed us just how disposable we really are from another point of view, and therefore how deadly this new world was. Any aspect of soul, poetry, fire, human rights, or anything we cared about mattered nothing to the machines. There would be no emotional appeal to them, they didn’t care, making them fantastic villains. The “meta-universe” that is so apealing in anime, and other epic fantasy operas didn’t seem to go deep enough here. 10 minute dance sequence in zion on the eve of battle really doesn’t replace the idea of spice in Dune, the jedi of star wars, or the corruption of Saurman in The Ring.
March 17th, 2006 at 9:57 am
This from the guy who brought us “Charlie’s Angels”.
Guess what? I’m calling bullshit too.
March 17th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Just want to say that “V for Vendetta” makes up for a lot. Hopefully George Lucas can get some redemption too.
March 18th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I was thoroughly disappointed with #2 and #3. The first had some magic. I actually cared about the characters, I wanted them to survive. There was a desperation the characters felt in the movie that came through and made me feel it too.
In the second one, I couldn’t really get myself to care about the. It all just felt like coasting to me.
March 19th, 2006 at 9:35 am
There is something to be said for being hungry as an artist. as someone already pointed out the 1st film seemed thought-out to amazing detail. Hell they sat on the script for years. They didn’t have the time and plus they probably had alot more pressure on them. Anyone who has seen ‘Bound’ or now V for vendetta will be reminded these guys are brillant.
For me the first hour and 15 minutes of reloaded are painful,Morpheous speech in Zion reminded me of the warriors.”Can you dig it”? Hell no. After that I like the end of reloaded. I am also one of 5 people who liked the thrid film. Flawed and yes I think Mr.August’s point could be true.
Artists who make it big would do well to remember the name of Twisted sister’s biggest album. ’stay hungry’.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
The second and third Matrix movies sucked because these yahoos took their ideas from Grant Morrison and his comics series, “The Invisibles.” Morrison has written that he has spoken to people who worked on the first Matrix and they acknowledged they freely dipped into the themes from his books. Simply put, the Wachowskis didn’t have the lunatic creative mind of Morrison to take the initial ideas they lifted from him and make them their own in the two sequels.
As to V FOR VENDETTA, just ask Alan Moore how well they did when they warped his original concept.
March 21st, 2006 at 6:30 am
John, you don’t need another post here, but I’ll keep it quick and simple.
The main problem with the Matrix sequels: They weren’t really about “the Matrix”.
Think about it.
March 21st, 2006 at 6:46 am
I know it’s late to post a comment on this, but hey, I’m putting my money in the slot anyway.
I think I take a lot of people’s stand - loved the orginal, hated the follow-ups. I never thought the first film was perfect, just bloody good, but I tend to hang up on things like “Hmm, with all that mini-gun fire strafing the room, I’m pretty sure Neo would have perforated Morpheous along with the three agents” but I was having so much fun I didn’t mind.
I rushed along to the opening night of Reloaded, joining my friends with minutes to spare (having been working, filming a theatre production). And my thought process was pretty much as follows:
Ooh, starting!
Hmm, that slow-mo shot of Carrie Ann-Moss not only goes on for-ev-er but makes her look remarkably unattractive.
Okay, plot. Good.
Speech, okay. Hmm, you know, Zion maybe the land of the free, but they all just look like a bunch of goddamn hippies to me. (Cartman: “Hippies, hippies everywhere…”
Rave.
Still rave.
More rave.
Sex.
Still sex.
More sex.
Hooray, Agent Smith’s! (x n)
Okay, we get it, he can fight now - but the CGI Keanu looks like shit.
Plot, plot, plot (damn that “Kid” character is getting on my nerves). Talk, talk, talk.
French guy. Hmm. Monica Bellucci. Mmmhmm.
More plot and talk. Good fight scene on stairs.
Car chase. This is supposed to be the best car chase in history! Hooray!
10 mins later…The Rock, Bullitt, To Live And Die In L.A., Bad Boys 2, The Bourne Identity, French Connection, Badlands…Oh sorry, you just caught me listing all the better car chases than the one I’ve just seen…
And so on. But let me be clear at this point, I was still ENJOYING the movie. And then, I met my Everest.
The Architect. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is not the end of a movie (not even a 2 parter), that is not clever writing and none of that scene makes any kind of sense from any point of view (philosophical, practical, hell, even just verbal). I have never had such a downer in all my cinematic life as that scene. As we left, I was talking to my friends, telling them that, fair as some of the rest of the movie, that scene bullshit of the purest variety.
As an argument, my friends fired back the Architect’s line at me “some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not” and told me I wasn’t supposed to get some of it. I knew then that they had fallen into the trap of thinking it was all some hugely clever and meaningful stuff and it was okay not to get it. No. As John has said, ambiguity is fine, and preferable sometimes. Being so (seemingly willfully) obscure and then pretending you’re clever is not. I know I’m just a spec-writer and all, but I hope I’ll never write something that plain stupid. I almost think the “some of them you will not” line might have been added after the rest of the scene had been written as a get-out clause, to prevent the audience feeling like there was some great thinking in there if they just dug hard enough.
For the record I actually enjoyed Revolutions more, because it dealt with the single and only plotline I became involved in during the whole 2 sequels, which was Nona Gaye’s character in Zion. Aside from that, I honestly gave up caring about it. That final scene…does that seem to have anything to do with the triumphant closing minutes of the first film? Meanwhile, scenes I would have enjoyed, such as Agent Smith maybe confronting French Dude in his takeover of the Matrix, were left totally unattended.
In fact, I would have preferred a whole movie set in the Matrix with Hugo Weaving surrounded only by himself and being all disgruntled because now everyone is snide and irritable - like that Twilight Zone episode where the guy replaces the whole human race with versions of himself. Now THAT would have been a fun watch.
March 21st, 2006 at 6:48 am
Please forgive certain mispellings of names in the above - been a long time since I saw any of the films. D’oh!
March 27th, 2006 at 6:41 am
I hate that I’m jumping in on this so late in the game, but…I have a friend who has a vivid phrase for this sort of thing. As we we leave the theater he often says, “We just paid ten bucks to see the emperor’s dick.” And that’s our justification for sneaking into another movie.
March 28th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Just found this site… (ironically, through a link on a HIGHLANDER messageboard!!)
Never been a fan of these films, any of ‘em, and the more I find out about the actual production of the first Matrix, the more I’m convinced that it’s a savvy hodge-podge of slightly-used ideas masquerading as mainstream ‘philosophy’.
Then again, I’m doing a PhD involving Dark City, so I would feel this way…
June 6th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I absolutely agree with the “Ultimately Blows” comment. The Matrix (1) has remained one of my personal favorite movies…I too own the DVD. However, even I SIGHED when I heard that The Matrix was going to have a sequel…and ultimately a trilogy.
I, as a movie fan and an aspiring screenwriter, couldn’t imagine how a sequel could possibly top the original…something that, in my opinion, automatically set them up to be disappointments.
What made the original Matrix so intriguing: a high concept, original characters, an interesting and compelling story (not the mention, the then cutting edge “bullet-time” photography), would only be cheapened by a sequel (as evidenced by Reloaded and Revolutions).
The original Matrix story ended with a sense of continuation. I understood and/or surmised, that ultimately, Keanu “THE ONE” Reeves, was going to be the savior of humanity. I didn’t need to be beaten over the head by two sequels, which bluntly told me what I already concluded.
After I watched The Matrix, I even stated to the people I saw the movie with, “That movie was great (or something to that effect), but I don’t see how they’ll make a compelling sequel which will continue the original story.” Looks like I guessed right.
On the other hand, maybe they should have made, or can still make, a prequel; now there’s an idea (one that I’m sure some other professional somebody is tossing around at this very moment); they can call it “The Matrix: The Legend of Zion” or “The Matrix: The Chronicles of Morpheus”. THAT’S FLAWLESS!!! It has blockbuster written all over it!! I can just smell my cut of the gross profit already.
To play devils advocate for a moment. Let’s not forget, or incase you didn’t know, the gross profit numbers for “Reloaded” and “Revolutions”. If we judge the caliber of movies only by their financial success, as most studio professional do, then both Matrix sequels might be considered masterpieces of cinema.
The following info can be found on The Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com
Business Data for The Matrix Reloaded (2003) Budget $150,000,000 (estimated) Gross $281,492,479 (USA) (26 October 2003) $737,600,000 (Worldwide) (29 December 2003)
Business Data for The Matrix Revolutions (2003) Budget $150,000,000 (estimated) Gross $139,259,759 (USA) (22 February 2004) $412,000,000 (Worldwide) (29 December 2003)
IMDbPro.com offers representation listings for over 65,000 individuals, including actors, writers, and directors, as well as contact details for over 10,000 companies in the entertainment industry. Click here for a free trial!
June 29th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Ugh, totally agree. I have waited to see Revolutions until now because I’ve heard how disapointing it was, and I thought i’d give the reviews time to fade in my mind. Well, still knowing what was generally in store, I was thinking WTF at the end. God it was terrible. Utterly incoherent and random. It’s a good thing I borrowed a friends DVD, cause if I paid for that shit, I’d be furious instead of disapointed.
August 12th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
“It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art, and ignorant also of surgery. Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes, and surgeons and anatomists see no beautiful women in all their lives, but only a ghastly stack of bones with Latin names to them, and a network of nerves and muscles and tissues.” Mark Twain
January 14th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
The last matrix movie was quite terrible because the plot ended half way through to let the climax of just endless shooting which soon became booring. It was like the return of the jedi film although return of the jedi was compelling and thrilling through the end, matrix revolutions isn’t.