Matrix Reloaded

[buga]

A wicked bad movie. It couldn't overwhelm me, since so few movies do. Far from a disappointment, so it was not underwhelming.It gives you a ton of stuff to think about, and speculate on, and catch little things on repeated viewings. Which is also why I think that the general opinion of this film is not going to be good, as it requires an attention span and the ability to think about what you're watching, something greatly lacking in the average movie-goer. I heard a lot of grumbling and negative comments when I left the theater last night, either about them not "understanding" the film, or the "to be concluded" at the end, which I thought was funny! I personally like movies (or books or TV shows or whatever) that don't answer every question, and give you things to think about after you've experienced them. But that's just me.he whole ending sequence of Reloaded comes together with this. For Neo to have actually defeated the sentinels in the real world, he'd have to be some kind of real life superhero or messiah, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that's not something the Wachowski's would try to make us believe. The Architect tells Neo that the Matrix is far older than anyone thinks, which has to be the giveaway that it's been there pretty much all along. My guess then as to what happened to Neo when he killed the sentinels was that he became the first person ever to truly disconnect from the Matrix - that's why he shows no brain activity, appears to be in a coma etc... Much like how Link lost his track on them when they went into the backdoor hallway.

It makes perfect sense even if you think back to the first film when Agent Smith is talking about needing to be free and needing the keys to Zion - he's not talking about literally entering the city, he's talking about crossing over into the lower plane "real world" Matrix, which is exactly what he did when he assimilated the guy and used the exit!!!

Also, when Morpheus is explaining to Neo that no one knows who started the war etc - this totally explains why he doesn't know. It never did make sense to me in the first movie that the real world sky would still be "scorched" hundreds of years after the fact and that the planet wouldn't have recovered from whatever nukes etc humanity used. This brings up so many profound questions for the overall plot now - what if there never even WAS a real world and humans have actually been enslaved for millenia?!

I was afraid that this wouldn't live up to the hype, but to me this is the equal of the first. Wow, two kick ass movies so far this year (X2 being the other one). Looks like nothing else good coming, though, since we were treated to trailers for future academy award nominees "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "2 Fast 2 Furious". Um, yuck...

[PocketPlayer]

Just got back form seeing this flic. Not a big fan of this type of movie, but if you like special effects...nothing better.

Here's why I made a Matrix thread. As I watched one of the many fight scenes...not giving anything away with that right..there was some inetresting music that caused a reaction.
All of a sudden, right there in the theater I started playing these double bass fills to increase the intensity of the fight scene. I thought of Virgil just nailing this particular scene with blazing DB work. The scene I'm referring to had cool music, but it was Hollywood cool. A progressive metal guy could have really made the scene RIP with a few casual suggestions to the producer, especially the addition of DB flurries when Mr. Reeves was kicking high and low all over the place.
Just wanted to share that. I know the gal in front of me must have freaked when my feet started dancing over all that sticky soda into some nice left-right kicks. Hmmm...so sweet! I tell ya, I felt like hitting the drums SO hard during this movie I wanted to run home.

[PocketPlayer]

WOW Bozzio, did you take notes during the flic? I liked the flic, but was thinking drums during many of the action scenes, especially that courtyard fight scene.
Oooh Virgil...Come out and Play!

I don't see many movies, but about the time of Eastwood's In the Line of Fire I realized the utter significance of drums and killer drum sounds during specfic scenes, especially action. Remember when Clint was looking for the assasin at the end of the movie and there was that running bass drum that sounded more of a huge kettle drum? That sound and rhythm was the first I recall of that type and even though most probably never really "think" about what type of drum or rhythm they are hearing, they feel it. That drum sound made the movie 100x better for me, escalatingthe intensity...got me ta thinking about all of this.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 16, 2003 06:12 PM: Message edited by: PocketPlayer ]</font>

[buga]

heheh not really man(im kinda geeky when it comes to movies [img]wink.gif[/img] )the only thing that disturbed me was the other "annoying geeks" talking and all the cellphones ringing on and on [img]mad.gif[/img]

Besides, I had this huge detailed analysis of the first two movies to fill out my speculations, HOW does Neo stop the sentinels? WHY is he in a coma? Because ZION DOES NOT EXIST. It is still the Matrix. We should have known it as soon as Agent Smith travelled through the phone connection. Neo stopped the Sentinels the same way he stops bullets, flies through the air, etc... by bending the code in the fake "real world"... he could see and perceive it just as the sentinels approached and he realized it at the last moment. And then either:
1. The shock of realizing the truth knocked him out cold;
2. The Architect put him in snooze mode so he could do some damage control;
3. Other similar explanation.
And in the Revolutions trailer we see him wake up.

If you're the machines, how do you handle the .001% of people that refuse to accept the Matrix? The Architect told us how. You give them soemthing to do. You give them a world within the world, or the reverse thereof, to "escape" to and start a revolution. Then every once in a while you insert The One into the Matrix, let him do his thing, and he resets everything in the manner that was explained. Remember all the previous Ones took the other door, freed some people from the Matrix, and started Zion 100 years ago. Just like Morpheus said: "IT was he who freed the first of us" - in the first movie. Well how the hell could he have spontaneously done that? It was all a setup, to perpetuate the cycle and pacify the implacable.

It's the perfect setup because with Zion at the center of the Earth, the humans can't use the stars to track date and time. So they will never know there were previous Zions in the Matrix and previous Ones and previous... etcetcetc... argh!! Incredible!!

And this is ENTIRELY CONSISTENT with the first flick... as far as I can tell. I have the DVD on now on the TV to my right, and everything Morpheus tells Neo fits in perfectly with the illusion that the machines have created... Matrices within Matrices with as many layers as necessary to keep things moving along smoothly.

In the words of Neo: "Whoa."

Based on the "Revolutions" trailer and the fight in the rain between Smith and Neo, I'd guess that that will be a prelude to a fight between physical-world Smith and Neo. And that's where Neo is gonna win. He can't win in the Matrix... he can only stalemate over and over, since Smith can endlessly retaliate and regroup.

Ironically I thought it odd that most of the religious subtext from the first film was broken by the end of the second, attributed to nothing more than the programs and their own motives and destinies...

[FlamTriplet]

I haven't seen it yet, but my brother worked on it's digital effects. He says they are the bomb, and he will be starting work on number three next week.

[FuseU1]

Hey, i know we're startin[?!] to get off the subj of drums/music, but here goes -
Boz quote:
"I think that the general opinion of this film is not going to be good, as it requires an attention span and the ability to think about what you're watching, something greatly lacking in the average movie-goer"

Hey, Boz - I hear that the flik "Identity" is kinda like that - which means i'm out to c BOTH of these flix [img]wink.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img] [img]cool.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]
Quick "?" 4 ya: Do ya havta have seen the 1st Matrix to understand the 2nd, kinda thang?....

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 18, 2003 12:57 AM: Message edited by: FuseU1 ]</font>

[buga]

Yes you have to watch the first film again and play close attention to "expecific dialogues" btw the characters and it will make more sense

For example:

This scenario with there being The One inside the Matrix has happened five times before in the past. The existence of The One is basically the result of a bug in the Matrix code that the Architect could never figure out how to eradicate, thus it seems to repeat every few generations. Each previous time the person thought to be The One entered The Source and was given a choice between taking a door that eradicated humanity but killed the Matrix and a door that allowed him/her to pick (23 I think it was) people to survive and start a new Zion after the machines killed everyone in the current one. Each previous time, the person has chosen the one that saves humanity, but Neo chooses the other door because (and this is my assumption of what is going to happen in Revolutions) he truly is the real "One" and he can defeat them even outside of the Matrix, as we saw when he killed the Sentinels.

here's just some random snippets of what I can remember:

-In the first movie, Smith goes on about how people defined their existence through suffering, which is why the utopian Matrix failed. What we have here then, is that there's a fairly dystopian Matrix, but for the 1% or whatever that don't accept it, a full dystopia (with people plugged into a horrific "Matrix" built by evil machines) was created to satisfy them.

-The spoon. Spoon boy sends Neo the spoon as his first clue that Zion is not in the real world.

-Human-Smith cut himself to signify his humanity, and to prove to himself that he's in the "real world". NB the french-guy's line when Neo gets cut with one of the sword-things (something to the effect of "See? He's only human")

-At the end, Neo says that "Something's different", and that he can "feel" the sentinels. That's him realising that Zion is not the real world, after his discussion with the Architect. Him falling into a coma is him being unplugged from the Zionix and going into whatever's below that.

-Human-smith got sent against his will on the ships that went to fight the sentinels. He was the only survivor because he set up the premature EMP detonation and got out of the ship before everything blew up, to be picked up by Niobe's ship.

-Human-smith was in a coma at the end. Neo, in the first movie, died, then came back to life as The One. Smith died, then came back as Rogue-Smith... he has some of Neo's powers either because of his return, or because of what he was telling Neo about them being similar, and a part of Neo being in him. So at the end, he's probably unplugged from the Zionix as well.

-The council. They're only old guys, and there are no other old guys in Zion. They are the 23 that each previous One chose to continue Zion. They think Zion is the real world, and they are sort of allied with the machines, or at least they're happy for the Matrix to exist, and they are part of the few that knows there was a Matrix and a Zion before them. That came out when the counceller was talking to Neo about machines needing people and people needing machines.

-The architect is at the same level as the council. He built the Matrix, but he's only being simulated as part of the Zionix. He believes Zion is the real world, which is why he can't just unplug the inhabitants of Zion to kill them whenever things need to start anew... he has to send sentinels, which he thinks are real, to kill them. He saves the 23 chosen ones to accept the people that don't accept the Matrix.

-When people get plugged in, they go straight into the Matrix. If they're not happy with that, they are happy in the dystopian Zionix. What is the level below that? No one knows. I speculate that humanity had gotten to the stage where they willingly put themselves into the Matrix/Zionix, similar to why Cypher betrayed everyone simply for the chance to go back into the Matrix, because that life was as real as any other.

It seems the "W" brothers obviously have a philosophic conclusion or theme in mind that they want to express, but it seems to go back and forth, thus making the concrete events presented up until now very difficult to interpret. In the first Matrix, it seemed like the theme was all about "not being able to tell reality from non-reality", an idea touched upon by many, most notably Descartes (see "The 13th Floor" HIGHLY RECOMMENDED above, as Descartes is the explicit inspiration for that movie). On rewatching the original Matrix, however, even though the plot focuses most explicitly on reality vs. illusion, I think the *theme* has more to do with the issue of free will vs. determinism. The free will/determinism alternative came across much more strongly in this second movie, and it seems that much of the conclusion of the third movie will have to be spent resolving this question.

the brothers were highly influenced by Descartes (thus the reality vs. nonreality theme so strongly expressed in the first movie), and are therefore also influenced by other of Descartes' ideas-- for instance, the idea that there could be an "evil demon" manipulating reality behind our backs and we couldn't even know it. This would seem to tie together the more philosophic and religious themes more explicitly, but it's probably more far-fetched.

So yeah, I don't think any solid conclusion is going to be reached by the speculation here until somebody figures out what is the fundamental conclusion the brothers are trying to reach (philosophically speaking). Is it to prove that free will exists? Or to demonstrate the nature of humanity (emotional, not fully rational like machines, capable of love, have free will, etc.)? I think these two points comprise the brothers' ultimate message, though I have to imagine that they will tie all the other aspects in as well. Unless somebody here knows of a website or article where the brothers discuss their own personal philosophic/religious views, I don't think we're going to really figure it out.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 18, 2003 04:18 PM: Message edited by: Bozzio ]</font>

[Plaid]

Good God, Bozzio! It appears that all you do is study drums and The Matrix! [img]wink.gif[/img] I saw it last night, and you just cleared some things up for me. Thanks for spending the time to write this!

[Derek DeFields]

LOL. The movie ALMOST makes sense now! [img]eek.gif[/img]

[matricks]

DITTO!!!