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Jones and Brown, although I don't think they're ever named in the film. EDIT: Johnson is the square-jawed smirking one that punches the door open in the beginning of Reloaded. Played by martial artist stuntman Daniel Bernhardt, who's in everything these days (including maybe the best episode of BARRY). Apparently he's coming back for Resurrections, too. Mister Speaker fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Sep 27, 2021 |
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Sep 27, 2021 02:52
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Agent Jones played Walt Longmire on Longmire.
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Sep 27, 2021 03:07
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The other point, the big one, concerns the form of the metaphor. Your assertion is that the matrix is specifically a metaphor for transphobic healthcare systems, while I argue that it’s more generally the symbolic order (from lacanian psychoanalysis). I can kinda see the ‘healthcare’ reading because, yeah, the robots are providing a life-support system for humanity and some would prefer to opt out. But that doesn’t really work when we go into greater detail. Morpheus lays it out pretty clearly: Not to get into my personal life too much, but I work a lot with issues regarding queer youth. I was able to help bring my current school into compliance with current gender guidelines (Not saying boys and girls, having flexible bathroom options). One issue I ran into was that around lunch, there is supposed to be no gender segregation. I had someone push back against this because the 'horny' boys might be out of control with the girls. They tried to convince me we could still figure out a way to support non-binary and trans kids while having the segregation for CIS kids. The person who said this was seeing the issues of gender non-conforming people as this separate issue from that of CIS people. The issue was that they were absolutely wrong. The little Black boys she was trying to instill these rules against may be mostly CIS, they may never have the experience I have of choosing a new name or having that first moment of stepping out in women's clothes. But just like me, someone is telling them, "THIS is your gender. And THIS is what that means." So, when someone fights for gender inclusivity and against the gender binary, it's not just for gender non-conforming or intersex people. It is indeed for everyone because everyone is trapped in the binary. An when you follow the rabbit hole, you end up fighting against white supremacy as well because that is also a massive system and by their very nature they end up intertwined. That is all to say, I think your post implies that you are looking at the gender binary as a thing that only impacts a certain class of people. Morpheus saying 'everyone' excludes the possibility of the Matrix representing the binary, but that's not true. Just like if you were to read the Matrix as representing white supremacy it would not mean that it only traps People of Color. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Sep 27, 2021 |
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Sep 27, 2021 03:08
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Mister Speaker posted:Jones and Brown, although I don't think they're ever named in the film. Yea that’s what I thought. I think you can even see him in the trailer
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Sep 27, 2021 03:11
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Mister Speaker posted:Jones and Brown, although I don't think they're ever named in the film. Bernhardt only looks more menacing with age, and it was fun to recognize him in John Wick and know immediately that an action sequence was about to happen when he shows up in Nobody.
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Sep 27, 2021 03:15
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But... what if the matrix was about pizza instead? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhvhmtUS128
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Sep 27, 2021 04:22
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Shiroc posted:I think that my frustration with this conversation is that you have me and several other trans people talking about how Neo in particular and some of the preoccupations of the movie generally resonate very strongly with egg and baby trans experience. I don’t disagree with any of that, so it seems that we’re getting tripped up by semantics. I’m talking about the thin difference between that resonance and allegory. Like, for example, the specific imagery of the red pill resonates with a lot of people because estrogen used to be red. That’s a cultural resonance - like how, depending on your culture, a white dress can imply a wedding or a funeral. It’s totally legit, and I fully endorse it. Now, keeping that in mind, let’s go back to the literal events of the film. In the diegesis of the film, the red pill is part of a “tracer program”, “designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signals so we can pinpoint your location.” In other words, the pill fucks with the connection between Neo’s mind and the matrix, which is the network of symbols that constitutes his everyday reality. This results in severe hallucinations, along with a high probability of death - but those are side-effects. The purpose of the red pill is to summon a hovercraft from the future. Although the pill is literally just part of the interface for some futuristic computer software, Morpheus uses it to perform a quasi-religious initiation ritual where the inductee is taken to a secret location and asked to imbibe a mysterious liquid or whatever. “Gaze into this mirror while the I talk about Gnosticism.” The image of a pill was specifically chosen by Morpheus for that purpose, and similar imagery of drugs that unlock ‘psychic powers’ are familiar to us from movies like Altered States and The Empire Strikes Back. Morpheus could have made the tracer program look like anything, but chose the pill to convey a metaphorical point: “the experience of having your brain hacked will be like taking a shitload of drugs.” In the same way, Cypher says the hacking will be like being hit by a tornado. The imagery in the film is then of being flushed down a toilet, mixed with an alien abduction. (Here we have some ambiguity: is taking hallucinogenic drugs a diegetic metaphor for summoning a hovercraft, or is “summoning the hovercraft” a diegetic metaphor for taking hallucinogenic drugs? It’s very possible that Neo is literally just having some kind of psychotic break, and the plot works either way.) In any case, these diegetic events don’t actually work as an allegory for taking hormone treatments, because it would obviously be a huge no-no for Morpheus to start dosing Neo with estrogen without first telling him what it is! But, then, the red pill in the movie is a one-time dose with sudden extreme effects, while estrogen is definitely not. To repeat, though: the red pill being a badass rebel superhero drug obviously has a specific resonance for trans women and trans folks in general, along with the many, many other things in the film that resonate. My point is simply that this doesn’t make the film an allegory, for the same reason that Lord Of The Rings isn’t an allegory for World War I despite Tolkien being a veteran. Allegory depends on every aspect of the text serving as a parallel to something specific in the ‘actual’ story. As a result, allegories are necessarily rather schematic and formulaic: the animal farm represents Russia and is Russia-like, the pig represents Trotsky and is Trotsky-like, blah blah blah. Matrix isn’t that simplistic. Timeless Appeal posted:That is all to say, I think your post implies that you are looking at the gender binary as a thing that only impacts a certain class of people. Morpheus saying 'everyone' excludes the possibility of the Matrix representing the binary, but that's not true. Just like if you were to read the Matrix as representing white supremacy it would not mean that it only traps People of Color. That’s precisely it, though: the enemy is transphobia and white supremacy, and sexism, and so-on. We can and should pay attention to all these particular struggles but, going further, everything that occurs in the film is grounded by the looming apocalypse. In 200 years, as the plot goes, humanity will be extinct. The film’s time-travel imagery is ripped direct from The Terminator films, with the point being that we are all in danger of losing all. That’s the universalism aimed for when Neo turns into an obvious Jesus reference at the end of Part 3. But this brings us back to the point that Smith is the only character who cares about conditions in our present-day reality, and is therefore the only one who believes it possible to change the future.
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Sep 27, 2021 06:30
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Lol at smg being low-key transphobic
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Sep 27, 2021 06:39
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Ugh! (@SMG)
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Sep 27, 2021 06:40
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Stairmaster posted:Lol at smg being low-key transphobic In the interview posted earlier itt, Lilly Wachowski says they were making a “closeted” film about a more general (spiritual) transformation, but aspects of their personal experience ended up in there unconsciously. This was, she says, a result of both the realities of working for a major studio, and her own struggle with finding the ways to express herself. I believe that’s exactly what’s reflected in the final work. If that’s incorrect, I’m not sure why.
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Sep 27, 2021 07:35
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this thread is unbearable. gas it.
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Sep 27, 2021 07:45
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SMG shut the gently caress up about telling trans people what the 'trans story really is'. Just stop talking about that. Talk about anything else you want, Jesus Christ, what the gently caress. Nobody loving cares about 'the thin difference between that resonance and allegory,' especially when you start using that to edge closer and closer to calling transness an invention of capitalist society. Shiroc fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Sep 27, 2021 |
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Sep 27, 2021 08:45
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The Matrix is the ne plus ultra 90s alienation movie; The Man is whatever you want it to be. But in the end, remember: Gnosticism is always DOA. The Matrix is the real; Zion is fake.
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Sep 27, 2021 09:05
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Horizon Burning posted:this thread is unbearable. gas it.
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Sep 27, 2021 09:09
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:In any case, these diegetic events don’t actually work as an allegory for taking hormone treatments, because it would obviously be a huge no-no for Morpheus to start dosing Neo with estrogen without first telling him what it is! But, then, the red pill in the movie is a one-time dose with sudden extreme effects, while estrogen is definitely not. You just have absolutely no loving clue what you're talking about. You can dress up Morpheus' explanation of the pills as being a less involved, scifi version of my actual, literal, real life informed consent appointment with my doctor. Actually taking my estrogen pills for the first time may not have radically changed my body but it absolutely was like an explosion in my mind and knowingly putting me over a threshold I was absolutely never going to be able to come back from.
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Sep 27, 2021 09:32
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So uuh, who's looking forward to the new Matrix film then? Lots of kung fu and bullet time action I expect. *bends over backwards out of thread*
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Sep 27, 2021 09:44
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porfiria posted:The Matrix is the ne plus ultra 90s alienation movie; The Man is whatever you want it to be. Pretty much. Just slot it whatever system is keeping you down into the Bad Guy role and the movie's metaphors keep working fine. Pennant posted:So uuh, who's looking forward to the new Matrix film then? Lots of kung fu and bullet time action I expect. Considering I bounced off of every single Wachowski movie/series except for the Matrix, I'm not expecting too much. Maybe some cool effects, Keanu being cool, big words being thrown arounds. Archer666 fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Sep 27, 2021 |
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Sep 27, 2021 09:50
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People in the thread unironically calling for the thread full of trans people to be gassed
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Sep 27, 2021 10:14
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SCheeseman posted:People in the thread unironically calling for the thread full of trans people to be gassed yeah this is getting really really lovely in here y'all. listen to your trans goons about the trans story, imo. we kinda know what we're talking about
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Sep 27, 2021 14:17
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And, if the Trans Experience doesn't resonate with you, that's perfectly fine! You can just watch the cool kung fu and robot fights! That's how I enjoyed these films for YEARS.
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Sep 27, 2021 14:25
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Noob Saibot posted:What were the other agents name? I think the second in command was Johnson? First movie were monosyllabic: Smith, Jones, and Brown. Upgrades were "sons": Johnson, Jackson, and Thompson.
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Sep 27, 2021 14:37
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Shiroc posted:Nobody loving cares about 'the thin difference between that resonance and allegory,' especially when you start using that to edge closer and closer to calling transness an invention of capitalist society. I would never write anything like that. If you say the specific details of the film don’t matter to you because you’re talking about the broader strokes, that just means there’s no actual disagreement here. I may be emphasizing different aspects of the text, but I have neither the desire nor the authority to speak for you or silence your story. That belongs to you.
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Sep 27, 2021 14:38
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Szmitten posted:First movie were monosyllabic: Smith, Jones, and Brown. Upgrades were "sons": Johnson, Jackson, and Thompson. I always thought that was a cute touch
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Sep 27, 2021 14:48
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RBA Starblade posted:I always thought that was a cute touch I never put together the "son" naming convention--I only caught the "bland and generic sounding" names. Clever!
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Sep 27, 2021 15:26
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What does that make Anderson?
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Sep 27, 2021 16:23
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Robot Style posted:What does that make Anderson? The Son of man
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Sep 27, 2021 16:50
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Hand Knit posted:The Son of man The son of Ander
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Sep 27, 2021 17:02
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Problematic Pigeon posted:Considering their previous film rather infamously contained a fairly racy sex scene (albeit between two women) and was overall heavily eroticized, I'm not sure how well that tracks. From a few pages back but this bothered me. Trans folk can feel weird about sex but know how it works. Trans folk can practice heteronormative sex and feel weird about it.
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Sep 27, 2021 17:05
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Hand Knit posted:The Son of man It's this! Which is cool, I never thought to look up the significance. Wikipedia states [Ander] derives from the Greek noun ἀνήρ anēr, with genitive ἀνδρός andros, which means "man".
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Sep 27, 2021 17:21
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I feel like later revelations that the whole zion resistance thing is just manufactured role play concocted by the powers that be to distract malcontents makes any specific reading of morpheus pill scene really nasty in retrospect. Like a lot of things in the matrix you basically have to ignore later movies to not have it turn into a really rancid message.
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Sep 27, 2021 17:22
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It's not really crazy to acknowledge that an oppressive system both unavoidably manufactures and systematically attempts to coopt revolutionary movements. The machines didn't actually choose to have a The One (or at most they chose to have a The One rather a The Many or whatever); if it were up to them, a single matrix would just remain in a steady state forever without having periodic insurrections and reboots. And, remember, The One is ultimately a hope-based strategy; it's designed around the premise that, when offered two options, any One will pick the option the machines prefer, which happened in the past but does not happen in the movies we see. Put another way, the fact that modern-day corporations post Black Lives Matter on social media and put famous trans people on magazine covers does not actually mean that capitalism has resolved the threat posed to it by black liberation, abolition of gender norms, etc; it just means it's recognized that threat and is sweating.
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Sep 27, 2021 17:28
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bushisms.txt posted:From a few pages back but this bothered me. Trans folk can feel weird about sex but know how it works. Trans folk can practice heteronormative sex and feel weird about it. Yeah, that's kind of what I was trying to get at. If it was poorly worded, I apologize.
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Sep 27, 2021 17:53
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teagone posted:It's this! Which is cool, I never thought to look up the significance. Wikipedia states [Ander] derives from the Greek noun ἀνήρ anēr, with genitive ἀνδρός andros, which means "man". Lmao God drat
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Sep 27, 2021 17:57
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I mean his name is Thomas A Anderson. We don't know what the A is, but Thomas traditionally means twin ("two lives") and associated with the "Doubting" apostle. So he is literally the reality doubting alter-ego'd son of man. Fuckin Smith's license plate is a bible verse about smithing weapons and destroyers. Szmitten fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Sep 27, 2021 |
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Sep 27, 2021 18:13
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:I feel like later revelations that the whole zion resistance thing is just manufactured role play concocted by the powers that be to distract malcontents makes any specific reading of morpheus pill scene really nasty in retrospect. Like a lot of things in the matrix you basically have to ignore later movies to not have it turn into a really rancid message. The sequels are generally a huge narrative departure from Matrix 1, which is why it's difficult to talk about the series as a whole. Matrix 1 famously ended with Neo promising to show humanity "a world without you [the dark machine-god]", and then he just... doesn't. In an earlier draft of Matrix 2, Neo's mission is to blow up a skyscraper, and he ends up killing thousands of people in the attempt. The 'burly brawl' was originally to end with Neo crawling out of a pile of civilian corpses, soaked in blood, realizing that Morpheus's plan to destroy the matrix will result in the deaths of billions. From the script: "A few more smashed Smiths fall, morph back into their stolen forms, and Neo is knee-deep in the dead. He can’t take it. Choking, Neo struggles to free himself. Smiths climb up the corpse pile and drop onto him, pounding viciously. Neo stalls, in shock, his eyes locked with the lifeless blue eyes of a woman he just killed. She looks amazingly like Trinity. Perhaps for the first time, he is confronted with the consequences of this war, and his mind seizes as the Smiths pummel him." "It’s a sea of the dead. From its center, Neo emerges, soaked in blood, gagging and gasping for breath. He stumbles over them. Shocked and crazed, he glimpses the Metacortex building. It’s in one piece again, unharmed." Shortly later: Neo: if I destroy the Matrix, everyone within it will die. Smith: I take it the great Morpheus failed to mention this? Neo: How many people are in it? Smith: Six and a half billion. You can see how, immediately post-9/11, they went into full reverse. The 'burly brawl' is bloodless fun, with nobody ending up dead, while Morpheus' plan of resetting the planet by killing all but a few people is displaced onto The Architect (who, in turn, is revealed to be well-intentioned but impotent - 'not such a bad guy').
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Sep 27, 2021 18:37
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I don't know anything about the early matrix reloaded drafts (though they sound interesting), but the Morpheus a presented in the first Matrix does not come off as someone who would knowingly force billions out of the matrix. When he first introduces neo to the matrix, neo has the panic attack, and Morpheus apologizes to him in his room. A bit like yoda, he states that they Neo is older then their limit for pulling people out of the matrix typically, but here he had no choice. He understands that it will be difficult for most people. And most importantly, Morpheus is all about choices. There is the pill scene as thoroughly discussed, but he also repeatedly tells Neo that he can only show Neo the door. Neo must choose to walk through it. All that being said, it was never clear after the first matrix what the next step in the revolution and freeing humanity would be. The first just all about Neo's awakening. The philopshy commentary discusses this change between the two films a bit. The first follows morpheus's plan and dogma to locate his messiah to free people from control. But the second movie then states this dogma of morpheus is another form of control that must be broken also.
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Sep 27, 2021 19:29
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The Architect occasionally goes to a level 3 out of 10 on the Ian McDiarmid Evil scale during his big scene. He does not come off as entirely well-intentioned, and when we later learn that programs can become near-indistinguishable from humans and that they don't have to be ghosts, goblins, or terminators, his behavior becomes even more questionable.checkplease posted:I don't know anything about the early matrix reloaded drafts (though they sound interesting), but the Morpheus a presented in the first Matrix does not come off as someone who would knowingly force billions out of the matrix. When he first introduces neo to the matrix, neo has the panic attack, and Morpheus apologizes to him in his room. A bit like yoda, he states that they Neo is older then their limit for pulling people out of the matrix typically, but here he had no choice. He understands that it will be difficult for most people. Morpheus' faith in Neo and in people is ultimately rewarded; his faith in the providence behind coincidence is not.
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Sep 27, 2021 19:51
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I watched Revolutions again last night, and while I really like Reloaded, Revolutions still feels like a mess to me all these years later. The script needs refinement, we have a bunch of characters who just didn't get real screen-time in Reloaded who are suddenly Very Important and as a consequence a lot of stuff feels tacked on. Niobe and Ghost getting introduced in a (infamously bad) video game really hurts here when Niobe's character is just doing everyone a big favor all the time and remarking about how things do and do not change. Locke is just a useless rear end in a top hat that no one likes, with no character arc. What's most jarring is Locke realizing the dock is lost and then three minutes later chastising Morpheus for losing the already lost dock. Difficult to tell if Locke is that big of a dumb rear end in a top hat or if the writing was just rushed. If we just assume authorial intent, he's just a huge dumb rear end in a top hat. Speaking of video games, I still want to try Path of Neo and fight an ant person, but it came out in that gray period where not everything in the universe was on Steam yet and now you need to sell a spleen to get a copy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvDeXaiBy3I
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Sep 27, 2021 20:21
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I feel like smith is another example where there is seeds of a strong theme that kinda just wilts and falls flat. He's the agent of the system, (and a computer AI "agent") he represents the system, but he's nonconformist, he hates his job and wants out, especially after neo breaks him. He then becomes ultimate conformity, a world where everyone is him, and that feels like ground to write a point on, but that kinda just happens as a sci-fi thing that happens, he never really displays a want for a world made in his image, he just kinda does that because it's his evil bad guy power to further his plan to get rid of humans, there is never really any clear "nonconformity can become conformity if forced on others" message, he never seems to WANT a world of just him, he's just doing it because it's a computer virus thing to do and they wanted computer words to happen.
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Sep 27, 2021 20:25
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:I feel like smith is another example where there is seeds of a strong theme that kinda just wilts and falls flat. I think the idea is that Smith is entirely nihilistic and suicidal, and he wants to prove Neo's belief in his own existential freedom to choose/act is dumb and doomed by the iron laws of nature.
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Sep 27, 2021 20:38
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