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Mel Mudkiper posted:Oh I agree. My frustration is that they, in the immortal words of Jurassic Park "were so focused on whether they could that they didn't think about if they should" I think the only way to avoid going all-out the way the Wackowski's did would've been to just not make any sequels at all. Because the end of the first film has Neo becoming a near invincible super-hero. You can't push things that far and then dial it back for the sequel, it's just not fun or satisfying to see that. By the end of the trilogy there was still plenty of mystery left as well. What exactly was it that allowed Neo to connect with the Source even when he wasn't jacked into the Matrix? There's some sort of a higher power that feels present in a lot of the unanswered questions but that isn't ever really discussed in detail.
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Apr 4, 2019 20:13
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Basebf555 posted:By the end of the trilogy there was still plenty of mystery left as well. What exactly was it that allowed Neo to connect with the Source even when he wasn't jacked into the Matrix? No joke I always figured it was because being The One gave him cerebral wifi
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Apr 4, 2019 20:15
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Mel Mudkiper posted:No joke I always figured it was because being The One gave him cerebral wifi It's explained as somehow due to his status as The One, that's true, but never elaborated on beyond that.
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Apr 4, 2019 20:16
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Basebf555 posted:It's explained as somehow due to his status as The One, that's true, but never elaborated on beyond that. No I'm serious I think his brain just is a router
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Apr 4, 2019 20:21
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Mel Mudkiper posted:No I'm serious I think his brain just is a router I legit believe this is a reasonable explanation, because it is very on-point with the kind of comic book logic the sequels in particular subscribe to. A major aspect of the Wachowski’s brand of original storytelling is “take something externally silly and justify it with sincerity.”
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Apr 4, 2019 20:31
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Fart City posted:I legit believe this is a reasonable explanation, because it is very on-point with the kind of comic book logic the sequels in particular subscribe to. A major aspect of the Wachowski’s brand of original storytelling is “take something externally silly and justify it with sincerity.” Yeah I always saw it as "because his brain is able to interact directly with the code of the matrix his brain waves are always in tune with the matrix's signal" Like, I think the reason it pops up when he goes blind is entirely because there is less interference with the signal If he went deaf he'd probably hear the matrix too
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Apr 4, 2019 20:35
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The freeway chase is rad and cool and good. Fart City posted:I legit believe this is a reasonable explanation, because it is very on-point with the kind of comic book logic the sequels in particular subscribe to. A major aspect of the Wachowski’s brand of original storytelling is “take something externally silly and justify it with sincerity.” This describes Sense8 pretty well.
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Apr 4, 2019 21:27
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Fart City posted:“take something externally silly and justify it with sincerity.” I love love love the way you put this, and I think perfectly explains what I adore about the Wachowski's entire filmography
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Apr 4, 2019 21:30
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Why hasn’t there been a KFC crossover ad featuring the Architect yet
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Apr 4, 2019 21:58
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Cloud Atlas the movie was not exactly that faithful to the book i would argue. both of the future plots were almost completely changed - the korean dystopian future in the book was the android having found out that she was used as a scapegoat for the domineering government to fuel a "rebellion" which was always going to be quashed. she willingly accepted that role despite such knowledge because she considered herself a cog in the machine of rebelling against fascism. there's also a huge slow part where she just sat in a university dorm room reading stuff which lol i can see why they never went there. Then the hawaiian far far future was meant to have a kid as the protagonist and there was none of that hopeful halle berry quest in the movie, the advanced civilisation took him off in their spaceship where it's still hinted humanity is going to die off at some point, and when he looked down to earth there was a "cloud atlas". despite that i found myself enjoying those two plots, and the geriatric care story which i understand wasn't done by the wachowskis. i was not that on board with the whole comet tattoo thing being a sign of reincarnation but the repeated motif of the music composed in the ben wishaw plot was pretty nice. absolutely wasn't a fan of the ending to movie hawaii future but it is very onbrand wachowskis to give a very sincere and feel good thing to bookend everything.
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Apr 5, 2019 03:52
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Fart City posted:I legit believe this is a reasonable explanation, because it is very on-point with the kind of comic book logic the sequels in particular subscribe to. A major aspect of the Wachowski’s brand of original storytelling is “take something externally silly and justify it with sincerity.” yeah that encapsulates everything the wachowskis do. when people claim Sense8 was pretentious i just roll my eyes, the trans storyline is 100% Wachowskis and drat do they not stretch everything to make you cry then be jubilant when the characters meet with success
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Apr 5, 2019 03:54
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Basebf555 posted:I think the only way to avoid going all-out the way the Wackowski's did would've been to just not make any sequels at all. Because the end of the first film has Neo becoming a near invincible super-hero. You can't push things that far and then dial it back for the sequel, it's just not fun or satisfying to see that. Honestly, I kind of feel like they had a fork in the road ahead of them, and the sequels we got represent them trying to take both options. The first option, which we basically got as Reloaded, was to double down on the action and spectacle, turn everything up to 11, and make basically a cyberpunk superhero movie. The second option, which we basically got as Revolutions, was to dial the action back and go deeper into the philosophy and metaphysical elements of the first movie. It's clear from Reloaded being pretty watchable, and Revolutions being hilariously awful, which route they should have taken.
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Apr 5, 2019 05:43
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Like, I like Reloaded. It's not as good as The Matrix, but it at least feels like a sequel to The Matrix. Revolutions just feels like nothing because it's a boring wet fart.
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Apr 5, 2019 05:44
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:Honestly, I kind of feel like they had a fork in the road ahead of them, and the sequels we got represent them trying to take both options. Yeah, this has always kinda been my bead on things. The first Matrix movie ends with Neo going "look, I'm going to be a goddamned superhero, you can't stop me, so hold on to your pants". But instead of going that way, they doubled down on the philosophy stuff and I feel it didn't work super well. Like, take the end of Revolutions, conceptually. You've got Smith as a virus screwing up the Matrix, which the robots need to survive. You've got Neo, who basically explains to the Machine Leader that, look, you need to get rid of Smith, and I need to get you guys to stop fighting us, so let's make a fuckin' deal, ok?. But instead of being a little bit more opaque about it, you get a rather complicated discussion of choice and unchoice and man most of us weren't watching these movies for the philosophy in the first place, we watched it for the ninja kicking and gun shooting.
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Apr 5, 2019 08:31
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It's so funny how you can trace the line between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded as sort of the death of American blockbuster action films. The difference between CGI enhancing a fight scene, and CGI replacing a fight scene. I mean, poo poo. You look at the buildup and the execution of the final confrontation between Hugo Weaving and Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, who you can immediately tell just loving hate each other - and absolutely smash the loving poo poo out of each other - versus the rubbery trashfight of Reloaded, and compare that to the Thanos vs. Iron Man fight in the last Avengers, where Tony Stark has a nanosuit that can transform into absolutely anything. It's amazing just how heartless fight scenes have become in the aftermath of The Matrix. None of this is a dig at Hugo Weaving, who played the greatest cinematic villain of all time: Agent Smith. I mean, holy poo poo. A rogue enforcer program that self-actualizes and is this destructive third party that exists solely to destroy everything around it. How loving cool is that?
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Apr 5, 2019 10:44
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It's me, I am the one who likes the Dragonballs fight in Revolutions. They weren't going to top Smith vs. Neo from the first movie, and they already tried the Multiple Smith fight in Reloaded, so I appreciate them trying to go epic. I still would have preferred the Giant Agent Smith made up of all the Agent Smiths that one of the video games used, but this isn't the perfect world-Matrix so I'll gladly take what was basically the Zod/Superman fight from MoS, but greener and with more karate.
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Apr 5, 2019 12:23
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The Matrix sequels are like the Star Wars prequels, in that you absolutely have to give them credit for innovating and moving the industry forward in terms of the scope of what CGI could be used for, even if you feel they're dated and not enjoyable today. The Wackowskis were one of several filmmakers(like Lucas, Spielberg, Peter Jackson and James Cameron) that helped usher in the new era, and I don't see it as a bad thing. For one, there are still great action films being made today, not everything is like the MCU. John Wick and Mission Impossible come to mind right away, there are plenty of others made every year. We had a game changing Mad Max film only a few years ago. And that's not even getting into international stuff like The Raid films. But CGI is about spectacle, and that's where the Wackowski's have always pushed the envelope, and the 90's kid in me that had his mind blown by all that stuff in the late90s/early 2000s will always appreciate that. I'm very nostalgic for the time when it felt like CGI was giving me a brand new experience that wasn't possible before. It was I'm sure similar to how kids felt about what Harryhausen was doing for them with his techniques, an experience that just wasn't possible before, total innovation.
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Apr 5, 2019 14:08
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The Matrix movies leave me sort of cold, and Jupiter Ascending is marred by a bunch of not very impressive performances, but every other Wachowski movie is a stone cold masterpiece, and their TV show is wonderful too. Speed Racer is like 50 years ahead of its time. I actually hadn't seen most of their movies before the Blank Check podcast did a miniseries on them, which is when I watched all their stuff, and that Blank Check series came to more or less the same conclusion as Fart City, which is that the Wachowskis are really about sincerity and common humanity and the fundamental importance of human connection and love and decency. Which is nice on its own, but when you dress it up with the absolutely insane targets they set for themselves, it's really something else. It's going to be a real shame if they never make anything again, or even if it's a while until they do.
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Apr 5, 2019 16:30
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Grendels Dad posted:It's me, I am the one who likes the Dragonballs fight in Revolutions. They weren't going to top Smith vs. Neo from the first movie, and they already tried the Multiple Smith fight in Reloaded, so I appreciate them trying to go epic. I still would have preferred the Giant Agent Smith made up of all the Agent Smiths that one of the video games used, but this isn't the perfect world-Matrix so I'll gladly take what was basically the Zod/Superman fight from MoS, but greener and with more karate. I like that fight, and I like the Trainman chase, but those are also the only two action scenes in Revolutions pretty much. It's almost hilarious in how bland it is.
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Apr 5, 2019 19:30
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:I like that fight, and I like the Trainman chase, but those are also the only two action scenes in Revolutions pretty much. The only action scenes within the Matrix, I'm sure you mean. I distinctly remember some mechasuit vs squidbot fuckery in Zion that was probably kinda exciting, but man did I not watch the Matrix movies for stuff happening outside of the Matrix.
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Apr 5, 2019 21:00
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Grendels Dad posted:The only action scenes within the Matrix, I'm sure you mean. I distinctly remember some mechasuit vs squidbot fuckery in Zion that was probably kinda exciting, but man did I not watch the Matrix movies for stuff happening outside of the Matrix. At the time I remember not enjoying those scenes because I just wanted every scene to take place inside the Matrix, but rewatching it recently I thought they were pretty drat good. Very apocalyptic, like you really do get a feeling of dread that they're fighting a losing battle. Those scenes are intense.
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Apr 5, 2019 21:05
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Basebf555 posted:At the time I remember not enjoying those scenes because I just wanted every scene to take place inside the Matrix, but rewatching it recently I thought they were pretty drat good. Very apocalyptic, like you really do get a feeling of dread that they're fighting a losing battle. Those scenes are intense. I remember being impressed by the Sentries gathering their strength to become this overwhelming wave of darkness. It reminded me of schools of fishes, just that in this case they weren't trying to disorient predators, they were preparing to smash tiny mechas. And like, General Mifune was kind of badass, and the Kid had his little mini-arch of becoming the hero that saves Zion (for all of ten minutes) and all of it still isn't as interesting as what's going on with Neo.
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Apr 5, 2019 21:22
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If there had to be a sequel to the Matrix - and I'm not sure there needed to be, at the end of the first movie Neo is basically God inside the Matrix - I'm disappointed they didn't delve into the morality of the rebels' actions more. For example, in the first film Morpheus says "how do you define real? If you're talking about what you can taste, see, etc. then real is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain." When they're killing all those guards and people who might become/have become taken over by agents, they're killing people who are living their lives probably happier than they'd be in lovely Zion. These people don't really get a say in whether they give up their lives (or their fantasy world of the Matrix for that matter). The rebels just make that decision for them, and they never really explore that value judgement and/or their authority to pass it on others at all. Anyway the first movie still owns and it's the only one I've ever watched more than once and it will forever remain that way.
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Apr 5, 2019 21:34
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Cloud Atlas was loving amazing and Roger Ebert got in right in his (4-star) review of the film:Roger Ebert posted:Even as I was watching "Cloud Atlas" the first time, I knew I would need to see it again. Now that I've seen it the second time, I know I'd like to see it a third time — but I no longer believe repeated viewings will solve anything. The Matrix was also great, Reloaded was a bit rocky but overall still quite good, and Revolutions was a clumsy but somewhat necessary end to the trilogy, necessitated more by Reloaded than any unanswered questions from the first film.
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Apr 5, 2019 21:58
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sean10mm posted:What stands out to me about the Matrix sequels is how disconnected they feel from the first film. I always feel like the first Matrix movie was better for leaning hard into cyberpunk's roots. It was about a lone voice standing up to power that could actually screw with him. The messianic stuff in the second two movies didn't really have that going for it, because Neo was already superhuman and we the audience didn't really care about what happened to Zion. Taintrunner posted:None of this is a dig at Hugo Weaving, who played the greatest cinematic villain of all time: Agent Smith. I mean, holy poo poo. A rogue enforcer program that self-actualizes and is this destructive third party that exists solely to destroy everything around it. How loving cool is that? Hugo Weaving is great, but I'm not going to under-credit Keanu Reeves for how good that was either. His later work in John Wick has showed off that he's just really drat good at that sort of intensity and fight choreography. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 05:16
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The Matrix sequels are like the Resident Evil and Metal Gear series, you have a great premise and then you gently caress it all up with nonsense. Sure on their own they might be good, but it could been so much better without some of the bullshit.
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Apr 6, 2019 09:56
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I feel like the Matrix sequels really kind of maybe could and should have been prequels.
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Apr 6, 2019 10:47
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I remember reading somewhere that before The Matrix came out they had the idea if it did well to do ONE sequel that would conclude the story but then after it became a megahuge cultural touchstone it got two new movies instead and I always wondered what direction they would have gone in if they had ONE sequel with total free reign to do whatever instead of knowing they'd have two. The first movie is so loving good. IIRC weren't later releases of it re-colored to be greener when they're in The Matrix like in the sequels or something? Even aside from the many issues folks had with Reloaded, I think part of it also was its trailers being slightly deceptive about the plot. Like the dream of Trinity falling out a window dying while shooting back up at them is shown like a super badass moment instead of a deadly and not even real one (by the time it's relevant again in the movie you already know Neo will save her). The stuff with the "key" and de-powering the building is brought up like it's the primary main plot of the movie making it seem like a crazy heist film sort of like their trips in the original, etc. The Philosophy of The Matrix and all kinds of stuff like that were already out before Reloaded so it's not like people wouldn't have been receptive to the kind of movie Reloaded is. But it was absolutely pushed as being a non-stop balls to the wall even more kickass version of the original movie's look and feel and its mix of technology and mysticism. And between it both specifically not being that and the action scenes not being quite as impactful because of how the first movie ends it's easy to see why it got the reception it got. During the climax of the first movie, when he takes a deep breath and the entire world inhales and exhales around him, that was so powerful feeling compared to basically anything that happened in Reloaded. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 13:57
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Bound and The Matrix are two really good movies of theirs that I enjoyed. Reloaded was fun enough. Most of the other films I think are kind of like Top Gear: ambitious but rubbish. Ok, ok, rubbish is too harsh and I do appreciate what they're trying to do, but movies like Revolutions, Cloud Atlas or Sense8 try to do a lot of things and I don't think succeed completely.
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Apr 6, 2019 15:06
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The reason why the first Matrix feels so different from the sequels is because of how much they were 'borrowing' from that one comic series plus a smattering of animes. They were leaning very hard on their influences and/or inspirations. They couldn't really do that with the sequels.
Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 15:49
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They also definitely borrowed from Neuromancer pretty hard.
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Apr 6, 2019 16:33
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:The reason why the first Matrix feels so different from the sequels is because of how much they were 'borrowing' from that one comic series plus a smattering of animes. They were leaning very hard on their influences and/or inspirations. They couldn't really do that with the sequels. This is extremely true. IIRC even the pitch for the movie was to show clips and concept art from Ghost in the Shell and like the super punch from Wicked City and stuff and to be like "We're going to do this but we have the technology now to do it in live action and make it look good." Wicked City sucks rear end (the live action movie is kind of fun though) but just watch the first like 60 seconds of this and it's basically TheMatrixExposition.txt and TheMatrixReloadedWerewolvesVampires.txt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYZTqIZisl8 Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 16:35
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MY INEVITABLE DEBT posted:ill watch that poo poo anytime. and to no ones surprise it goes great with drugs. My friend and I took ecstasy and watched it at the lovely mall theatre in high school. It ended up just being us making out for most of it I don’t know why we thought it would make the colors more vivid or whatever. Bound and Gina Gershon own
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Apr 6, 2019 16:42
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Mage: the Ascension was also among the big list of inspirations.
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Apr 6, 2019 16:53
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MonsieurChoc posted:Mage: the Ascension was also among the big list of inspirations. Speaking of magic and cyberpunk stuff in The Matrix, it was awesome seeing The Matrix on opening completely blind because of what a different movie it is before he learns what The Matrix is.
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Apr 6, 2019 18:41
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One thing that I think gets glossed over with the holy-poo poo-everything-is-awesome stuff about the first Matrix movie is that it was one of the very first truly must-have DVDs that got released, right as DVDs and home entertainment systems were starting to blow up and become mega-popular. The behind-the-scenes stuff showing bullet time, follow-the-white-rabbit hidden features, isolated soundtrack, philosophical discussions etc. set an enormous precedent for how DVDs would be released for a long time. I remember a ton of websites and publications being like "this is the reason you get DVD", "this is the movie to blow the walls out of your house with your new expensive speakers", "you can spend days watching informative stuff on this disc".
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Apr 6, 2019 21:19
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Captain Hotbutt posted:One thing that I think gets glossed over with the holy-poo poo-everything-is-awesome stuff about the first Matrix movie is that it was one of the very first truly must-have DVDs that got released, right as DVDs and home entertainment systems were starting to blow up and become mega-popular. Pretty much. Before The Matrix, it was all about those animated menus 
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Apr 6, 2019 21:31
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Loved The Matrix and Sense8. I don't know if we'll ever get another show that touches on sexuality and gender expression/fluidity with such jubilance again.
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Apr 6, 2019 21:33
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Ubiquitous_ posted:Loved The Matrix and Sense8. I don't know if we'll ever get another show that touches on sexuality and gender expression/fluidity with such jubilance again. I can only speak from personal experience, but Sense8 was a rare experience of me feeling like I was truly being "seen" in media.
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Apr 6, 2019 21:42
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I did enjoy Cloud Atlas. I think it was a good, but not great movie. But one distinction (that doesn't really count for anything) was that it had probably the most captivating trailer for a movie I've ever seen. Clocking in at almost 6 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s
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Apr 6, 2019 21:44
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