The Matrix: Revisited!
 

Well, I sat down today and decided to re-watch all 3 Matrix movies (Yes, I have nothing better do to for another 8 weeks while the shoulder heals up from surgery).

I found myself actully entertained, and paid attention more to the story and dialouge and actully enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd movie. I hated them in the theatres, I hated them the first time I watched them on DVD. When I watched today, and actully found myself saying, "wow these movies aren't as bad as I thought" and got into the movie a little more. Even looked around on the web for questions I had about the movies.

I actully like them now!

Anyone else still hate them? :thumbsup:

i didn't thoroughly enjoy Star Wars: Episode 1 and 2 but the more I play them on the DVD player the more details I find in the movie... and i enjoy it more and more.

THERE IS A GOD!!!!!


I had to watch the Matrix sequels twice each to like them. The first time I saw both of them I didn't like them that much (especially Reloaded). After I saw Reloaded a second time in the theater, I was completely obsessed with it. I saw it 5 times in the theater and have seen the DVD dozens of times. Reloaded is my favorite movie of all time.

I've been saying this ever since Reloaded came out...you have to watch the sequels more than once to like them, bar none. Reloaded got exponentionally better the second and third viewing, mainly because the plot all made sense afterwards. MATRIX FOREVER!@!!3333

-Lasereth

I guess that means I'm going to have to watch them several more times... :|

I find myself agreeing with Lasereth. I thought both movies were fucking excellent the first time through, but after watching them multiple times, they've really grown on me and become part of my personal favorite movies.

I watched Revolutions yesterday for the first time and was left feeling dissatisfied.
I really don't like it when the protagonists Spoiler: get killed off in the story I'm enjoying.

Are there ever going to be any more Matrix movies?

If so, maybe they ought to entitle one, "The Matrix: Resolutions".

Overall, The Matrix movies are some of the better sci-fi fantasy action movies to come along the pike in a good long while, in my opinion.

I seriously doubt there will be a 4th one. With the Sofia whatever her name is sueing the brothers for 210 million for copyright infringment and racketeering of the movies, I don't imagine they'll have time for a 4th one anytime soon.

Yes, I agree. I would have to say the movies are now some of my favorite ones to watch.

Supposedly, the brothers are releasing a box set with director commentary on it, and the deleted scenes that were in the game, will be in the 2nd movie with that box set. It will be neat to finally hear exactly what everything means, or was supposed to mean, and exactly what they thought when the movies were written. I'm especially intrested in the Architect part.

Overall, I love the movies now that I've seen them again.

Although, the line "I suspect" when Seti asked about Neo in Revolutions at the end, makes me think, a 4th one is possible. But not likely.

I love the movies too. I wasn't sure about Reloaded after the first viewing, but after I saw it again (and again, and again, etc.) I realized how awesome it was. Just gotta get to know the plot and why things happened the way they did. Too many movies don't make you think nowadays.

I liked Revolutions the first time I saw it, but I was dissappointed with the ending. <b>That's what made it a good movie.</b>

Spoiler: I didn't fucking want Neo to die. I didn't want Trinity to die. I didn't want the machines to co-exist. I wanted them to die like the bitches that they were. But the Wachowskis gave it emotion. When I think of Revolutions, all I think about is Neo being carried off on by the machines, having died for the people. That's good shit. Really good shit.

Its kind of like an updated and modernized version of the bible in some aspects. Its tricky, but it teaches about important points. :)

I loved Reloaded the first time through and despised it the second, third, forth, fifth and sixth time I watched it. It just feels like a pretentious CGI extravaganza, and yes, shut the fuck up, I understood it the first time through. Revolutions on the other hand I loved incredibly the first time through and still do, personally I think it's a greater film than Matrix 1.

:lol: It might be all the drugs <b>Kurant</b> is taking for his shoulder - lets see what he says in 8 weeks.

I didn't hate any of the movies, but the 2nd and 3rd had the following problems:

Reloaded: Had Kung Fu for sake of Kung Fu (case in point, when Neo goes to see the Oracle and has to fight the asian guy for no damn reason).

Revolutions: Instead of answering the philosophical questions posed in the first movie, it was a bullet-fest and more or less a straight up action movie.

I think the Wachowski's mistakenly believed that people loved the first Matrix for the action, where I believe most loved it for the DesCartian philosophy.

I couldn't disagree more :)
First off, the "asian guy" (his name is seraph) had to fight Neo to make sure he was The One. If some imposter came to talk to the oracle, they could kill her, or copy her (agent smith), or something like that. Seraph had to make sure he couldn't kill the person he was going to fight. If he couldn't, it was The One.

And the movie is "Revolutions," not "Revisited." Most people hated the two sequels (at least that I've talked to) because it had too much philosophy and NOT ENOUGH action and bullet time and fighting.

Personally I watched the first part of the matrix several times. I loved it at first and it got progressively more boring like all movies. I went to cinema to see the second one, like the first one, and I thought, what a boring piece of shit, frankly I was thinking about getting out of the cinema. I didn't bother with the third one, but after I read the spoiler, I might give it a go after all, sometime.

I understand why he fought Seraph, I just felt it was "this is a Matrix movie, so we need kung fu on wires". There could have been 1000 other ways to test that Neo was The One.

And I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the sequels, because I felt that they did nothing to answer the questions posed in the original film, and that the 45 minutes of shooting sentinal machines invading Zion wasn't terribly philosophical.

I don't understand why people say that the sequels didn't answer the questions in the series. Nearly all (maybe all of them) of the questions posed in any of the movies were answered. There aren't any cliffhangers...the series ended after explaining everything. What Neo was, why he was the One, why the One was needed to beat the machines, everything with the Oracle...it was all explained. What questions weren't answered?

-Lasereth

The only lack of action I found in the two later movies was said kung fu. Punch block punch block punch punch block punch block block punch etc. The best part was when Neo nabbed that big ol' pipe in Reloaded.

Who/what was the Architect and what was his/its purpose?
What happened with the previous iterations of Neo?
Will there be more iterations of Neo?
What controls the machines?
How does Neo have powers outside of the Matrix?

I'm about to leave for work so I'll answer these as quick as I can, or at least as well as I think...
1. They were re-inserted into the source so that the cycle of Zion's destruction could happen
2. No, since the anomaly has chosen not to fulfill his purpose the cycle of the Matrix has been disturbed, yet, it is still possible.
3. The machines control themselves, they're highly advanced AI, sentient being as it were.
4. Why do some people possess slight telekinetic powers? It's anomalous and since Neo has the ability in the Matrix it would only make sense that his physical self would do too.

Very quick and very brief, still half asleep and needing to get to work.

EDIT: Sorry my answer number one reads as if you were asking about the past Ones, not the architect.

Well you seem to have answered these questions for yourself, but non of these are explicitly laid out in Revolutions. You have drawn your own conclusions, which is fine, but I don't believe that any of these were actually directly addressed in the movie.

Maybe they left it that way on purpose, to allow you to form your own conclusion as Mr. Deflok just did. Its not like they left things completely open to interpretation and made you had to guess what the film was about(unlike Muholland Drive, the crappiest movie ever).

Actually I think those answers are in the movie. Except number 4. Cuz in the movie he's just the one.

I enjoyed the 1st Matrix movie. It was a little overrated, but it was different from typical Hollywood actioners. By the time the sequels came around, the whole "bullet time" thing was overdone and played out. Then they lost me with all the former Neo's and the self replicating Agent Smith. Not to mention the ad campaigns for all the different Matrix-endorsed products made me want to puke.

1. The architect was the human incarnation of the designer of the Matrix. He built the Matrix, and the architect is simply the human form of him that talks to Neo. That was explained in Reloaded during the architect talk.

2. What happened to them? They died, along with every other human survivor. People don't live forever. There have been 7 Matrices. The "One" has a choice to save 16 people from the Zion group to rebuild the human civilization under ground to start the process again. Neo was the first person to choose otherwise (hence the different outcome in Revolutions). The previous One's had chosen the 16-person path. Either way, every cycle of the human vs. machines battle kills off basically everyone in Zion. The previous One's died in battle to save the humans just like Neo did. Explained in Reloaded and Revolutions.

3. There shouldn't be any more One's after this point. Neo was the anomaly..he disrupted the Zion vs Machines cycle ending in a truce basically between the machines and the humans. This answers the question without addressing it...there's no more conflict between the freed humans and the machines so there's no need for another One. Answered in Revolutions.

4. It's said in the first, second, and third movie that the machines are a mass of AI that took over the world. They're self-aware machines. They all move as one being for one purpose: to live. They use the humans as batteries to live. Answered in all three movies.

5. The One is always tied to the source of the Matrix. That's almost an exact quote from Revolutions. The Matrix is "hosted" if you will in the machine city. Neo has the power to control the machines because they're constructed in a system that hosts the Matrix. If you can control the Matrix then you can control those attached to it (the machines in the real world). This is explained in Revolutions, but very briefly.

-Lasereth

Well done Lasereth, helped me to better understand some of the items in the movie as well. The series by far is my favorite of all time, the amount of action, and thought that went into the movie are top notch. I do look forward to the box set coming out the fall, even if I already own all three movies seperately.

If you really want to read up on how deep the movie goes, may I suggest the following reads (warning: long reads, but very well done imo)

Reloaded
http://wylfing.net/essays/matrix_reloaded.html

Revolutions
http://wylfing.net/essays/matrix_revolutions.html

Those are some really, really good articles. Very well written, very well argued.

Those essays were extremely well written and argued. I encourage anybody with even a slight interest to at least check out the first one. Personally, I didn't like the Matrix sequels all that much... Not because of the questions it made me think about, but because I thought the action sequences sucked and were distracting. I would have rather read a book ;P However, the author of those essays offers very cogent reasoning and shines the light on a lot of themes by explaining reoccuring motifs throughout the films. Try not to be bogged down by his use of various religious deities and pantheons to explain all the metaphors!

Why do the machines use humans for fuel instead of, say, cows

The machines know that humans are a powerful species. In order to keep them in-line, so to speak, the machines (or the architect to be precise) made the Matrix so the humans would think they're free. Killing all of the humans off is impossible. There will always be a resistance. Cows aren't capable of fighting the machines, so they were simply slaughtered. Humans are capable of the destruction of the machines, so the machines chose them as an energy source and put them in the Matrix to prevent a resistance.

-Lasereth

I would think the machines would be better off without any humans to make resistance against, and instead use cows or another large animal that would produce more energy than humans do.

I thought they used the humans as fuel because despite being their enemy the machines weren't hateful beings. In Second Renaissance, the machines try for a truce with man but are denied. I believe they use humans as fuel out of respect and give them The Matrix to give them a life they would otherwise not being able to live.