On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:48:37 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> The thing that surprised me during the rewatch that I hadn't noticed
>> before was who was left after the big fight at the end of Revolutions.
>> When it first came out, I thought it was Neo.  It isn't, and that
>> actually changed the ending for me rather significantly when I noticed
>> who it was.
> 
> How could you not notice that?!

I made an assumption on my first viewing and didn't look that closely 
when the close-up shot happened.

> I enjoyed the whole trilogy, down to the storyline and details.  But
> yeah, the novelty of seeing a whole new world unveiling right in front
> of your eyes as in the first was obviously gone in the sequels.

Yes, but I don't think that was the thing that made the second and third 
films less interesting to me; I think the first story was a very well-
written story, but the second and third had too much exposition.  That 
and the fight scenes between Neo and Smith were too far over the top in 
the last two films.  For example, in the second film right after Neo 
meets with the Oracle again, there's a point where here we all just say 
"OK, we get it, stop dropping anvils on our heads".  The same with the 
final fight sequence in Revolutions.

Jim

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On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:55:23 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Nowadays when you
> can control absolutely everything and have whatever you might want show
> up on screen, no matter how crazy, it easily derails the directing. The
> director might get so enthralled by his own omnipotence to get whatever
> he wants on screen that he forgets that he should actually be filming a
> story, not a computer graphics demonstration.

Well said; one of the things I really like is when the effects are 
invisible.  We just watched the first and second Bourne movies again, and 
I was quite amazed watching the credits to see ILM credited with VFX 
work.  I couldn't name a scene with ILM VFX in it, that's how well done 
the effects were - they didn't jump out and scream "I'm CGI!  I'm a 
special effect, look at me!" - they helped tell a very well-written story.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:48:37 -0500, nemesis wrote:
>
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> The thing that surprised me during the rewatch that I hadn't noticed
> >> before was who was left after the big fight at the end of Revolutions.
> >> When it first came out, I thought it was Neo.  It isn't, and that
> >> actually changed the ending for me rather significantly when I noticed
> >> who it was.
> >
> > How could you not notice that?!
>
> I made an assumption on my first viewing and didn't look that closely
> when the close-up shot happened.
>
> > I enjoyed the whole trilogy, down to the storyline and details.  But
> > yeah, the novelty of seeing a whole new world unveiling right in front
> > of your eyes as in the first was obviously gone in the sequels.
>
> Yes, but I don't think that was the thing that made the second and third
> films less interesting to me; I think the first story was a very well-
> written story, but the second and third had too much exposition.  That
> and the fight scenes between Neo and Smith were too far over the top in
> the last two films.  For example, in the second film right after Neo
> meets with the Oracle again, there's a point where here we all just say
> "OK, we get it, stop dropping anvils on our heads".  The same with the
> final fight sequence in Revolutions.

I enjoyed the fights for their pure visual beauty.

They also serve the purpose of depicting how far above normality in the Matrix
both Neo and Smith have progressed, getting pretty god-like and literally
provoking earthquakes and hurricanes with their punches and kicks.

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Jim Henderson wrote:

>> Neo is invincible. Smith is
>> invincible. And they're fighting... why? 
> 
> For the future of the human race; humanity's survival.  Fairly typical 
> messiah story plotline in that regard.

How would defeating Smith alter humanity's survival? How would defeating 
Neo alter humanity's survival? The implications are not clear to me.

>> So they can meet the
>> Architect...? Who does what...? Babbles some meaningless babble that
>> doens't really mean a lot...? 
> 
> The Architect's speech for me basically boiled down to "people wouldn't 
> believe in the Matrix if it was too perfect or if there wasn't an 
> appearance of choice".

Do we really need 20 minutes of babbling about this? FWIW, I found the 
Morpheus speech in the first movie to be similarly pointless. I think 
XKCD summed it up nicely:

http://www.xkcd.com/566/

Of course, if they just *told* Neo (and therefore the audience) what's 
going on, it wouldn't be such a cool movie I guess. By unplugging him 
and *then* explaining what's going on, he now has no way to go back. 
Which is kind of part of the interesting tension of the film.

>> So... uh... I've just watched several hours of film and
>> I *still* don't know anything I didn't know before. In fact, the film
>> has undone several of the things that were cool about the one before.
> 
> That was my first impression of the 2nd and 3rd; I still don't feel they 
> live up to the "promise" of the ending of #1 (and #1 is still the best in 
> my book), but rewatching them, the story made a lot more sense to me now 
> than it did when it came out.

The 3rd one is at least moderately interesting. The 2nd one just sucks 
though.

Seriously, it looks like "OMG, this film was so popular! We MUST make a 
sequal! Hey, why not make it a trilogy?"

I guess it's not that unusual for a sequal to be substantially worse 
than the original. It's disappointing though...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:

>   Reloaded was greatly misunderstood and got a lot of negative hype soon
> after release because it was *different* from the illusion people had for
> a Matrix sequel. In other words, it suffered from "they changed it, now
> it sucks" syndrome (even though they really didn't change anything).

I think the sequals sucked for the same reason as the Star Wars 
prequals: All the same characters are there, they're all doing the same 
sort of stuff, but there is seemingly NO REASON for their actions. I 
mean, something happens, they react to that, which causes something 
else, so then they have to do this other thing... what are we working up 
to again? I have no idea.

>   The machines need people to be conscious (the reason given in the first
> movie, using humans as energy sources, is completely bogus and AFAIK a
> result of executive meddling; the Wachowski brothers originally had a
> more logical explanation, but it was scrapped because executives thought
> viewers are morons and wouldn't understand it). In order for people to be
> conscious and not go crazy (which happens if you keep people locked in
> solitary confinement), they created this life simulator. The Architect
> was the main developer.
> 
>   Now, what the Architect created was a perfect world where nothing bad
> happens ever, but much to his surprise people started dying, and he couldn't
> understand why.
> 
>   He concluded that the simulated world was too good, too perfect, and the
> human mind needs problems, confrontations and crises in order to keep sane.
> A perfect life seemed to bore people out of their minds, making them
> perform unconscious suicide.
> 
>   So he created a second version of the matrix, one which was like a
> nightmare, with monsters and werewolves and vampires (it's implied that
> this is where such stories are from)... And also this was a similar failure.
> 
>   A different program, here named "Oracle" came up with the real reason:
> What people need is not problems and confrontations. What they need is
> choice. If you completely remove the human capacity for true choice, the
> mind rebels against the situation in the only possible way it can (by
> dying).
> 
>   So the third version of the matrix was built with a genuine choice for
> all people, even though this choice was to be made at a near subconscious
> level: They could choose to escape from the matrix, or choose to believe
> the world they were experiencing was real.
> 
>   This capacity of making a subconscious choice seemed to be enough to
> keep people happy and alive. Of course a few people actually chose to
> escape, which is the whole point of the series. The Architect allows them
> to escape because else they wouldn't have a real choice. (It's never clearly
> explained why this has an effect, but I assume that some kind of supernatural
> connection between all human consciousness could be implied.)
> 
>   This setup had yet another unexpected side-effect: Neo. (Again, it's not
> clearly explained why, but again it could be implied as some kind of
> supernatural global consciousness of the entire humanity thing.)
> 
>   Neo is the culmination of free choice of all humanity, and Neo must be
> given the choice of continuing the cycle (his consciousness is fused with
> the "Source" and eventually a new Neo pops up some time in the future) or
> try to free the entire humanity and defeat the machines.
> 
>   (Apparently Neo must be given the choice only if he reaches the Architect.
> If he dies in the process, that's ok. A new Neo is born eventually again,
> and the cycle continues. That's why the agents don't have any problem in
> trying to kill Neo. Killing him is just beneficial because it gives them
> more time until the next Neo tries to reach the Architect.)
> 
>   If you think about the above explanation, and then listen to the
> Architect's explanation in the movie carefully, you'll see how he is
> explaining exactly what I wrote above. Try it. It's enlightening.

So it's possible to construct an explanation which appears to make sense 
in the context of the film. That's not the same as the film making sense.

I was expecting the original film to be rubbish. Lots of guys posing 
around in dark glasses and expensive suits, with gun-fu fighting and 
slick special effects. Much to my surprise, the film was... really 
gripping. And it ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. Contrary to what I was expecting, 
by the end of the film you more or less understand why everything 
happened. (Although it's deliberately mysterious initially.)

The sequals, however, consist mostly of mental fights, crazy special 
effects, and cryptic dialog unrelated to the rest of the film. It just 
isn't entertaining. Some of the fights are even more impressive than the 
original, but since it's not clear what there is to gain or lose... I 
find myself feeling "OK, this is an epic battle, but... I just don't 
actually CARE any more. Even though I feel like I should care."

>> Not a 
>> lot, really...? So... uh... I've just watched several hours of film and 
>> I *still* don't know anything I didn't know before. In fact, the film 
>> has undone several of the things that were cool about the one before.
> 
>   You simply didn't understand. Try it again.

In the first movie, Neo destroys an agent - something which is seemingly 
unprecedented and has never happened before. But right at the start of 
the 2nd movie... oh, no, he's not destroyed, in fact it's basically like 
that battle never happened. Oh well, never mind.

>   Maybe the point of the sequel was not to repeat the first movie, but
> to explain things instead? If you want the first movie again, then watch
> it again.

I will admit that if Neo had just showed up, kicked arse and saved the 
world - like we were all expecting - that would have taken, like, maybe 
30 minutes, and would have been quite dull actually. But then, if you 
don't have a compelling story to tell, don't bother making a movie?



I think both the Matrix and Star Wars can be understood on another 
level: Cut density.

Look at the original Star Wars films, and there are lots of scenes which 
could theoretically by cut shorter, but aren't. Now watch Episode I, and 
it's CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT. Each scene is just barely long enough to impart 
some small piece of information, and then we cut to the next.

Similarly with the Matrix films. We didn't *have* to spend 10 minutes 
with Cipher deliberating over who to kill next. That whole scene could 
have lasted 30 seconds instead. But it didn't. And the film is much more 
intense as a result. In the sequals, we just seem to cut from fight to 
fight to rambling dialog to fight to another fight to more dialog to 
fight to... oh, wait, that's the end? OMG, what was the point?!



Anyway, it's a free country, so you can like the Matrix sequals if you 
want. Personally, I don't. ;-)

Also... watching this review has taught me more about why some films 
work better than others than I thought possible. Suddenly I can 
comprehend *why* Episode I was boring, even though it seemed to contain 
all the right stuff.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I think the sequals sucked for the same reason as the Star Wars 
> prequals: All the same characters are there, they're all doing the same 
> sort of stuff, but there is seemingly NO REASON for their actions. I 
> mean, something happens, they react to that, which causes something 
> else, so then they have to do this other thing... what are we working up 
> to again? I have no idea.

  Maybe you are simply refusing to understand the movies because of some odd
principle? ("I have bashed this movie, I'm not going to back down now.")

  And it's sequel, not "sequal".

> So it's possible to construct an explanation which appears to make sense 
> in the context of the film. That's not the same as the film making sense.

  What I wrote was not a constructed explanation. It's almost exactly what
the Architect is saying in the second movie. Just watch that scene again
and listen to what he is saying, keeping in mind what I wrote.

> The sequals, however, consist mostly of mental fights, crazy special 
> effects, and cryptic dialog unrelated to the rest of the film. It just 
> isn't entertaining. Some of the fights are even more impressive than the 
> original, but since it's not clear what there is to gain or lose... I 
> find myself feeling "OK, this is an epic battle, but... I just don't 
> actually CARE any more. Even though I feel like I should care."

  Maybe you should give it another try rather than deciding that you didn't
understand it, period. Outright refusing to do so and instead keep complaining
about it is not smart.

> In the first movie, Neo destroys an agent - something which is seemingly 
> unprecedented and has never happened before. But right at the start of 
> the 2nd movie... oh, no, he's not destroyed, in fact it's basically like 
> that battle never happened. Oh well, never mind.

  The reason is explained in the second and third movies. It's exactly
their point.

> Anyway, it's a free country, so you can like the Matrix sequals if you 
> want. Personally, I don't. ;-)

  That seems to be a common problem with you: Once you decide you don't like
something, you won't back off, ever. You will refuse to even give it another
try, even if someone tries to explain it to you.

> Also... watching this review has taught me more about why some films 
> work better than others than I thought possible. Suddenly I can 
> comprehend *why* Episode I was boring, even though it seemed to contain 
> all the right stuff.

  I don't really understand how Episode I was *boring*. Perhaps it didn't
make too much sense, perhaps the story was shaky, perhaps it did not follow
the steps of the first trilogy equally well (thus being a disappointment in
that regard), but boring?

  If Episode I was *boring* to you, I wonder what exactly does it take to
keep you entertained. I assume that you watch films like Die Hard when you
have problems sleeping.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:

> >> Neo is invincible. Smith is
> >> invincible. And they're fighting... why? 
> > 
> > For the future of the human race; humanity's survival.  Fairly typical 
> > messiah story plotline in that regard.

> How would defeating Smith alter humanity's survival?

  All humanity is connected to the Matrix, Smith takes over the Matrix,
Smith hates humans. What is there to not to understand? What do you think
would happen if Smith succeeds?

> Do we really need 20 minutes of babbling about this? FWIW, I found the 
> Morpheus speech in the first movie to be similarly pointless.

  First you say that the Architect's speech was pointless, and then you
complain that you don't understand what the movies were about.

  Maybe there's a correlation between those to things?

> Seriously, it looks like "OMG, this film was so popular! We MUST make a 
> sequal! Hey, why not make it a trilogy?"

  It's a sequel, not a sequal.

  And the Warchowski brothers had the entire trilogy plotted out from the
very beginning. The only thing that happened was that they modified the
first movie's script to be a bit more independent just in case it was not
a success and executives wouldn't finance the two other parts.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> I think the sequals sucked for the same reason as the Star Wars 
>> prequals: All the same characters are there, they're all doing the same 
>> sort of stuff, but there is seemingly NO REASON for their actions. I 
>> mean, something happens, they react to that, which causes something 
>> else, so then they have to do this other thing... what are we working up 
>> to again? I have no idea.
> 
>   Maybe you are simply refusing to understand the movies because of some odd
> principle? ("I have bashed this movie, I'm not going to back down now.")
> 
>> Anyway, it's a free country, so you can like the Matrix sequals if you 
>> want. Personally, I don't. ;-)
> 
>   That seems to be a common problem with you: Once you decide you don't like
> something, you won't back off, ever. You will refuse to even give it another
> try, even if someone tries to explain it to you.

yeah, exactly like his bashing against polygons.  Despite tirelessly 
being proven wrong, he just goes on like a mindless drone...

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On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:48:57 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> I enjoyed the fights for their pure visual beauty.

I enjoyed most of the fights too because they were really well done.  But 
the fight I mentioned specifically goes into the realm of total-CG, and 
at that point, it lost my interest.  At that point it's just someone 
manipulating models, and not the actor doing the work.

> They also serve the purpose of depicting how far above normality in the
> Matrix both Neo and Smith have progressed, getting pretty god-like and
> literally provoking earthquakes and hurricanes with their punches and
> kicks.

Oh, sure, the final fight in particular does that - but it just went on 
for too long and depended too much on CG.  When the CG screams out "I am 
CG!", then it loses my interest.

Jim

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Warp wrote:

>   Maybe you are simply refusing to understand the movies because of some odd
> principle? ("I have bashed this movie, I'm not going to back down now.")

Or how about "I didn't enjoy watching it"?

I mean, it's not like I *have* to like it. It's a free country, right?

I'm told there are people who actually *liked* the X-Files, for example. 
I cannot begin to imagine why, but apparently some people really liked 
it. Good for them...

>> So it's possible to construct an explanation which appears to make sense 
>> in the context of the film. That's not the same as the film making sense.
> 
>   What I wrote was not a constructed explanation. It's almost exactly what
> the Architect is saying in the second movie. Just watch that scene again
> and listen to what he is saying, keeping in mind what I wrote.

For me, what you wrote is more like those people who try to "analyse" 
the lyrics of the Beatles. Like, they sing "it's raining outside" and 
some beardy professor goes "ah, yes, that's actually a reference to the 
Nazis". Um, WTF?

Now, what you wrote isn't quite that crazy. The Architect clearly does 
talk about choice and about how the Matrix has been redesigned a few 
times. But he says everything extremely cryptically (for no obvious 
reason). You could interpret his actual words as implying several 
possible things. (Maybe that's deliberate? Apparently some movie makers 
think it's actually cool to make a film where the audience isn't 
actually sure what's going on.)

>   Maybe you should give it another try rather than deciding that you didn't
> understand it, period. Outright refusing to do so and instead keep complaining
> about it is not smart.

You realise I've watched it several times, right?

Besides, it's not like it's my *duty* to understand it or like it. It's 
entertainment. If I don't find it entertaining, why would I watch it 
again? That doesn't seem smart.

>   That seems to be a common problem with you: Once you decide you don't like
> something, you won't back off, ever. You will refuse to even give it another
> try, even if someone tries to explain it to you.

I believe that to be an over-generalisation.

>   I don't really understand how Episode I was *boring*. Perhaps it didn't
> make too much sense, perhaps the story was shaky, perhaps it did not follow
> the steps of the first trilogy equally well (thus being a disappointment in
> that regard), but boring?

On one level, it had some quite entertaining moments. Unlike the other 
guy, I actually *enjoyed* the "perfectly choreographed light saber 
fights". But it wasn't particularly emotionally enguaging. I guess it 
was OK the first time through, but little replay value.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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