I’m going to commit heresy, here: I liked the Matrix – the first one. The sequels entered into the Land of Suckage shortly thereafter, because they were stuck trying to get around Neo’s apotheosis at the end of the first movie. Becoming a god is interesting to watch; being a god can get old, fast. Real heresy: they should have made the first movie into a two-parter: the first part would be Neo learning that his world is a lie, and the second be Neo gaining levels in badass. Then have Neo deal with the super-computer or whatever in the last film.
Now, if they do that in this Matrix reboot – which will not involve the Wachowskis, which doesn’t actually bother me: they’re the reason why the series ended in such a mess – that would be worth watching. Particularly if they got rid of that stupid body heat explanation. Cows! The Matrix would use cows for body heat! They’re larger and can’t rebel against the system.
…Sorry about that. Some wounds never fully heal.
I get what the Wachowskis were doing and the action scenes were awesome, however it was a confusing tale. It doesn’t help that they used The Architect to insult the audience’sintelligence.
Not sorry to see the brothers kept away from the remake. There’s a long proud tradition of mentally ill film-makers; but they fail very quickly once their problems are humored rather than managed.
More to the point, their films haven’t gotten better since The Matrix, they’ve gotten steadily worse. I do wonder why anyone gives them the huge budgets they’ve been getting, given the performance of their post Matrix work.
How is liking the Matrix and not the sequels heresy? That’s chapter and verse for all right thinking people.
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As for splitting “The Matrix” into 2 films… eh, it’s kind of perfect the way it is. If they had had the foresight that it would be a franchise, then maybe, but given the risks involved in making the first one and how thin the brothers’ resumes were at the time, it was better to have it be just one film, imho.
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I have no particular interest in a reboot. The Matrix didn’t botch it’s story or premise and wasn’t limited by the technology of the day… What’s the point of revisiting it? Yes, yes, $$$ and all that, but why should I care about WB’s bottom line?
This.
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No way Matrix makes two films though. Too many internal weaknesses and too much susceptibility to fridge logic. It’s got to power through on spectacle and Rule of Cool, or it falls apart.
(And the spectacle isn’t what it used to be. Bullet time was awesome the first time we saw it in The Matrix. We’ve kind of gotten used to it by now. And the physics defying abilities kind of pale beside all the recent superhero movies.)
Exactly.
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*As a stand-alone*, “The Matrix” just works.
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As a first chapter in a series .. it does not .. and mostly for the reasons Moe outlines.
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I’ve long cited “The Matrix” as an example of “artist fade” .. same thing affects a *lot* of musical acts, the first album is brilliant, the second is awful, the third “comeback” isn’t listenable.
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The same thing happens in book series as well, which is one of the reasons I appreciate Moe’s “book of the week” .. Moe seems to avoid series that need a flush after book # 2.
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My hypothesis is that the time in the wilderness, playing small gigs, polishing songs, building up musical (or storytelling) chops makes a great first [album/book/movie] .. and *can* make a great artist .. but *only* if the artist doesn’t get lazy.
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The “Star Wars” series suffers from similar problems – if the studio hadn’t forced George’s ego into a box when the second was being written, it wouldn’t hadn’t been as good .. and the third was pretty much on rails .. but once George got control again, it went straight into the toilet.
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You’d think, as often as this sort of thing happens, various media groups would have a better process in place to ensure the artist doesn’t crash and burn ..
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Mew
yes. this.
A couple things:
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1: I think rebooting the Matrix is a bad idea. The first one was kinda lightening in a bottle. They couldn’t recapture it in the sequels, why is a reboot going to be any different?
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2: I don’t think my suspension of disbelieve has bottomed out any harder than that “they’re using humans as batteries” moment. Fortunately, that was the only “aw, you didn’t just say that” point of the movie.
I still think Reloaded should have ended with the realization that they’re still in the Matrix (the ‘real world’ they appear to be in may be plausible to the kind of people who discover they’re in the Matrix, but doesn’t hold up under much scrutiny), and taken a completely different story from the third.