Enter the Matrix

"It's a killing machine designed for only one purpose. Searching and destroying."

Sterling, that's my favourite too! I cracked up in the theatre when I heard that--I actually said to my friend "but that's two purposes!"

Really, the movie is all about the special effects/fight sequences and the broad plot outline. The dialogue and actual acting is completely secondary. If you don't enjoy movies on that level, you'll probably hate "The Matrix". (Keep in mind also that an action film has to be god-awful horrible before I will say mean things about it.)

Also the fact that it has more than one idea => it can actually get better as it goes on, a feat lost to most action films.

Examples of films that are bad enough for Dan to say bad things about? Are we talking The Saint, or Godzilla? Hard Target, or The Fifth Element?

I agree, but it's a pointless argument when discussing the movie with people who've already decided that the movie is dumb.

Examples of films that are bad enough for Dan to say bad things about? Are we talking The Saint, or Godzilla? Hard Target, or The Fifth Element?

Of those movies, I liked "Hard Target", loved "The Saint", ADORED "The Fifth Element" and absolutely hated "Godzilla" (despite some fantastically funny parts).

Wasn't it already? Or that whole frozen-as-camera-swings-around thing? I thought the Wachowskis were allegedly sick of that, which is sorta funny. "Hey, we've pushed the edge! *looks around* What the fuck, why are you copying us?"

This thread inadvertantly reminds me -- Dan, I finally saw Dark City and lurved it, but wasn't sure what about the ending you didn't like, or at least my 'what does my twin not like again' meter was busted.

It was the whole "GOD DAMMIT, I'M PISSED OFF AND ULTRA-POWERFUL AND YOU'VE BEEN FUCKING ME OVER AND I'M GONNA TAKE YOU OUT... nah, forget it; let's hang out at the beach" thing.

This does mean that there could be loads of potential for interesting ideas in the sequel(s), but I have a notion it won't pan out that way, because the stuff people loved is super kung fu from a gorgeous movie star. Also the animated thing looked dumbed down rather than freshened up.

(Note to Dan and anyone else interested: I suspect my sensitivity earlier is at least 99% to do with my rather fraught mood these days.)

It's unclear whether the human outpost was formed solely by people who broke out of the Matrix or if some folks who managed to evade the machine pogrom helped the founders break out of the Matrix.

The "love conquers all" message isn't out of touch considering that the dynamic is man versus machine/logic versus emotion. Keanu was already on the verge of mastering the Matrix in the early stages of that showdown (witness how he matches Trinity move for move despite only having been out of the Matrix for all of three days) and, after being pushed to the verge of death, Trinity's whisper into his ear gave him the last bit of strength he needed to dig down inside of himself and really let loose.

http://www.technoccult.com/archives/2008/06/05/open-source-personal-fabrication-device-creates-first-copy-of-itself/

Okay that photo.

Maybe it can fabricate those guys a life?

they're hoping for some emergent aesthetics.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/mondooltro/mantrix.jpg

ENTER THE MANTRIX

Surely the Mantrix does the entering.

https://thechoiceisyours.whatisthematrix.com

trailer this Thursday

picking each pill gives you brief clips, I'm so hard for this

the clock gag in those clips is pretty neat

also I've watched these clips a billion times now and I swear that although most of the clips you'll see again and again, there are rarer clips that are randomly placed

or maybe I'm just imagining it but I stg

ok so I wasn’t imagining things

The revived "What Is The Matrix" website can show you over 180,000 different combinations of teaser shots and footage from The Matrix Resurrections depending on chance and when you check it.

Here are just a few cool images. https://t.co/8Qz2vCJ85D pic.twitter.com/p3iXcGga5w

— IGN (@IGN) September 7, 2021

"IT DOESN' MADDA WHEDDA THEY'RE IN DA MATRIX OR NOT; CONSCIOUSNESS IS ITS OWN PRISON, AN' DA FIVE SENSES AH' ITS WARDENS! DA TRUTH IS, YEH JUST AFRAID *WE'RE* IN DA MATRIX, AN' EVEN IN A BOUNDLESS DIGITAL WONDAHLAND YEH LIVIN A COWAHD'S LIFE, LIKE A DOG!" pic.twitter.com/2HuEp7oQZ0

— Gretchen Felker-Martin (@scumbelievable) September 7, 2021

had to accept cookies before i clicked a pill...trenchant..............

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB59tJPthZg

I mean it seems like it's a pretty accurate documentary about San Francisco.

I haven't (re)watched a matrix since I walked out of the movie theatre disappointed after watching the third one, but that trailer has me anticipating

(I might just generally be missing watching big budget action movies in a movie theatre)

i'm so fucking excited

I love the enthusiasm! We, one of my kids and I, couldn't make it through the second one, which she'd never seen and I had only seen once and didn't like at all the first time, so no idea if I'll see this or even want to see this. The first one's belated impact has been impressive, in terms of themes and FX, but both have been ripped off (and the FX matched or bettered) so much in the ensuing years that I doubt FX alone can draw me in and the inevitably shitty writing will likely push me away.

you watch MCU garbage, i doubt shitty writing is that much of a repellant

cool

I figure I'll watch it, my irritation with Keanu of a time has shifted since he clearly knows what he's doing, and I know enough of the basic tropes and iconic scenes or whatever that I'll come into this fresh. Plus, the SF angle. (Between Shang-Chi, the new Venom and this it's clear that the world loves us.)

(Also given the whole redpill thing among shitty morons vs. the Wachowskis becoming their true selves in a much different way I'm kinda interested in the meta commentary that's half hinted at in these scenes.)

The best scene of the trailer pic.twitter.com/EvnnxP9VpO

— Tits McGee (@Scientits) September 9, 2021

We, one of my kids and I, couldn't make it through the second one

could not relate less

action sequences in reloaded blow most action sequences out of the water

I'm hoping the twist is that 'real' Neo is the graying balding dude in the mirror, because I mean how likely is it that Thomas Anderson is still hot in 20 years?

and the philosophical gobbledygook really struck a chord with teenage me, whose favorite work of art was neon genesis evangelion and thus for any major studio action/scifi movie to climax with a discussion that just hovers out of comprehensibility was fucking thrilling to me

and the actual message of it still lands home with me, i.e. "you thought you had broken free from this system of control, but the degree to which your actions are not your own is far vaster than you imagined" xp

This looks pretty good but I guess 2 & 3's trailers didn't reveal what a shitshow they were.

The freeway chase / multi-weapon fight still looks awesome, but unsurprisingly the thousand-agent one looks pretty dogshit these days.

The main problem with Reloaded is that it's part 1 of 2, and I defended it on the basis that Revolutions would cause it to all make sense - and it made a liar of me :)

thousand agent smiths scene looks like a ps2 cut scene on our modern quadrillion pixel televisions but caring about this seems pointless to me

also what doesn't make sense about it???? idk, hatred for the matrix sequels seems like one of the worst hangover opinions from the early '00s

I'll come back to you when I rewatch them ahead of this one coming out - it's been a while and I remember being massively underwhelmed more than the details.

I really liked the second one a lot (some of the best action sequences I've seen), strongly disliked the third one (boring action sequences). I don't really care too much if these kinds of movies make sense or not, just give me a couple of weird wtf moments.

Iirc it was the *lack* of action that did us in with number 2. At least for the half (1/3rd?) we watched. Up to the big Agent Smith(s) fight, whenever that part arrives. She was just bored and I couldn't handle the acting or directing or writing or most of all the enervating portent. But whatevs, different strokes!

My memory of 2 & 3 is of interminable, low-stakes fights like playing Doom on God Mode.

He has a bust of Weaving in his office and calls Neo by the wrong name consistently- I don’t think it was meant to be a mystery!

i would've loved to see weaving play a douchey tech boss for the first part

big mouthfuls of knotty expository dialogue that would read fine on the page of a comic book

tell me you didn’t buy Shaolin Cowboy without telling me you didn’t buy Shaolin Cowboy

one of the issues with this is it has so many ideas that it doesn't really get the chance to explore them all. smith & morpheus are the biggest victims of that, though smith is still great here

I read a review that said they should have cast Samara Weaving as nu-Smith, and that would have been amazing.

Could have gone with Tony Abbott

He wouldn’t have been able to pull off the “pretending unconvincingly to be human” part at the start

Could perform his own system glitches though

one of the issues with this is it has so many ideas that it doesn't really get the chance to explore them all

Definitely felt this, but it's a much better problem to have than the opposite

He has a bust of Weaving in his office and calls Neo by the wrong name consistently

He has a bust of the villain from the game they published, and calls Tom by the name he is known by in their world? sus

just going out for coffee, game guy is much worse before the reveal

total milf!

i just think of the horrors that were avoided by zak penn NOT picking up the matrix ball and running with it

am grateful that we got this instead

like, i have been thinking about this a lot. there is so much cynical glib shit out in the world and manufactured emotion and especially in Big Event movies humanity doesnt always survive the moviemaking process from script to screen & i am personally so glad that this movie exists and that there’s so much soul in it and that it ends in a beautiful way

He has a bust of the villain from the game they published,

Being punched so hard (for being a turbocunt) that his entire face changes shape!!! c’mon

+ also in contrast to the already-established Thomas-desk statue of Trinity looking cool* as fuck

and calls Tom by the name he is known by in their world? sus

Does anyone else call him “Tom” familiarly? It verrrry much felt like a “cool boss” tactic equivalent of the more aggressive deadnaming that Weaving does in the orig(inals)

* I found the gun stuff mostly gross in the first one so adoooorrrred how neither of them touch one in this

yeah i loved that

stuff i didn't really like:

the action is fairly perfunctory - it's not bad but it totally lacks the cartoonish flair and ambition of the originals. it's not the focus and gets away with this but it's still kind of a shame?

morpheus mostly didn't work here & not having fishburne back was a real shame. he's also by far the biggest victim of too many ideas, there's just so much going on with what they do with him but none of it really goes anywhere at all & there wasn't really space for it to begin with. smith also suffers from more ideas than there were room for, but what they did with him works much better.

i totally get how people who hadn't watched the originals very recently could have found the plot hard to follow in places. i only had pretty minor complaints there though (smith's motivations here took a little bit to figure out & could have been clearer).

re: the action, no matter how you cut it a film without Yuen Woo-ping is not gonna live up to one with him onboard.

If you want more to chew over

https://gizmodo.com/the-matrixs-queer-subtext-is-plain-text-in-resurrection-1848323936

this is a good appreciation of Keanu

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-matrix-resurrections-is-a-crucial-keanu-reeves-movie

It is very weird to play Cyberpunk 2077 after seeing this for how much Keanu is in that game(and how monotonal his voice acting is)

Griffin and David naturally go on for quite awhile about this one: https://audioboom.com/posts/8006197-the-matrix-resurrections

i just love this movie

this is my husband chad

“Handsome Chad”

the meta-ness of Chad is delightful

the chad who is a chad, but also a construct and then the guy who shoots keanu doing violence in another franchise

AND the chad who was keanus stunt double in the original matrix

ty for filling in the omission

glitch, etc

on rewatches, I appreciate that they make it clear that Smith isn’t a megalomaniac, just hates the Matrix as much as Neo. I don’t think he’d ever want to be a free range ai construct like nu-Morpheus, he just wants an autonomy that is yet to be defined. it’s impossible to be an ally or true enemy that doesn’t have a clearly defined idea of what they want

Finally got around to watching Resurrections - honestly I had forgotten it was even released. I was hoping that the movie would continue with the meta-commentary set-up in the first 20 minutes, until it because just another Matrix movie. Good to even great at times, but I couldn't tell you a goddamn thing about it now. nuMorpheus was underused.