Enter the Matrix

HMMMMM eh? More fighting in the Matrix and less rubbish in the ship say I. Also GROOOO the lady snogging his out of almost-corpse? Put it AWAY luv. We could have so done without the love interest which made me shout at the TV towards the end of the flick. Hiii-YA!

I wasn't going to see Reloaded but I SO AM NOW. Any ILx-ers up for a cinema trip?

If it's so jam-packed with stupid things, it ought to be easy to point one out rather than saying "Ho ho it's self-evident!" and cyber-smirking.

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

(IOW, if you're disconnected enough from the film to single out dialogue gaffs that people make every day, you haven't bought the premise of the movie.)

And they're all worth it.

"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.

I just went back to check, and between the end of the intro fight and the Agents Smith fight in the second film there is I think a 45 minute break, and those minutes are super silly and absolutely stultifying. The rave, the inexplicably stilted robo acting, the grandiosity. That's what did us in.

Great trailer imo - it took me from indifferent to pretty excited in under three minutes.

I'm not convinced yet, come on we've all been burnt by many trailers in the past (mute white rabbit from that trailer and meh imh). Will wait and see.

Matrix 2 & 3 struck me as the Wachowskis not really understanding what folks loved about the first one and doubling down on all the wrong bits

See also: Lucas and his prequels, sad proof that maybe an unlimited budget and full creative control are not always a good thing. (Cameron lifts his head in the editing bay, alert, chuckles to himself, then gets back to work on Avatar 5.)

Also: the Peter Jackson of the LOTR films vs the Peter Jackson of the Hobbit films. (Darragh proceeds to complain about how they're all like that, etc.)

Also Ridley Scott & Prometheus etc - are there actually any examples where unlimited budget and creative control turn out well?

i literally can't have this convo with any of you. ok the hobbit movies are not great i assume i have never seen any of them. alien covenant is one of my favorite movies of the last decade and prometheus is dumb and gorgeous

Fully agreed with Brad on Prometheus. (And yes, trust me on the Hobbit movies.)

Also Ridley Scott & Prometheus etc - are there actually any examples where unlimited budget and creative control turn out well?

Mad Max: Fury Road?

Watched the first Hobbit movie and that was enough for me, but I just finished reading it with my son for the first time and now he really wants to see them all.... ugh (we've already watched all the LOTR ones)

Anyway some SF specificities

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/matrix-resurrections-trailer-san-francisco-filming-16446150.php

And a full trailer breakdown if you want it

https://gizmodo.com/breaking-down-the-matrix-resurrections-head-trip-of-a-f-1847639698

Did anybody recognize who’s doing the score for the film?

Good sequels and expansive funding;

Fury Road
Psychonauts 2
Maybe some Tarantino thing?
Hideo Kojima lolz option

The basic problem with the idea of making/remaking/soft rebooting The Matrix right now is that we already all know what the Matrix is

So my guess/gamble is that it is no longer what we think it was, it is something severely worse

— qntm (@qntm) September 8, 2021

man i hope so

how does a Matrix movie work in 2021? I'm supposed to be scared of living in a fake reality, trapped forever in 1999? Shit frost my tips and log me in

— Kenny Keil (@kennykeil) September 7, 2021

I’m curious how much they’ll play Keanu as Zen/Jedi Master given his age and vibe. Similar to how he can’t really play Ted “Theodor” Logan anymore, I don’t think he can do Neo ‘99 either.

even when the movie came out "the Matrix doesn't seem so bad" was a standard joke response, the biggest downside was having to listen to Rob Zombie at the club

“the matrix doesn’t seem so bad” - straight people

“the matrix doesn’t seem so bad” - straight people

Eh. tons of straight people embraced the "red pill" idea. but that's only because they fantasized themselves as Neo and they wanted to learn kung fu in twelve seconds and be able to fly like superman.

every straight dude I knew loved the original matrix, I don't think I've ever met anyone who is really into the sequels

they received such a bad reception that I didn't even end up seeing either of them

I'm not convinced yet, come on we've all been burnt by many trailers in the past (mute white rabbit from that trailer and meh imh). Will wait and see.

― Sorry, but that is how I feel (Ste)

I'm saying it'll be a great film, but it is a great trailer.

this is surely going to deliberately subvert the soft-reboot pitch of this trailer, right? no idea if they'll pull it off well but i expect it will be interesting and gorgeous at the very least

people seem to be expecting some mgs2-esque meta take on the reboot-sequel thing though so obviously the question is if they can subvert that somehow...

Think it's a bad trailer (nothing that exciting on show - just confirmation that most of the things you'd expect to be there are present) but I then think most trailers for these kinds of films are bad (deliberately showing and telling you as little as possible). It really doesn't offer anything that intriguing though does it - as in beyond the questions that would already have arose from the fact that it's being made at all ? Not sure what they can do to match the visual and technical novelty of the first trilogy though.

deliberately showing and telling you as little as possible is good not bad ftr.

That's for sure. I was impressed by how little the Shang-Chi trailer (for example) gave away of what's actually in the movie. But really, this is the fourth Matrix movie. From color scheme to time-warp kicking, people generally know what they're going to get on that front. As for the story, it's surely going to be some convoluted "do you see!?" would-be trip, and I don't know how they would shoehorn that into a trailer, anyway.

So we all agree that trailers are pointless should be abolished cool

I think some trailers are super cool and add to the intrigue/excitement (the creepy trailer for "Lamb," for example, though that one admittedly earned the movie a "nope" from my wife). And then you get stuff like the recent "Suicide Squad" trailer, which provided some pretty sneaky misdirection.

I'm not very enthused about this, but if they take the Universal Soldier approach of effectively rebooting and pretending the second and third movies don't exist, it could be OK.

pretending the second and third movies don't exist has long been the best option for everyone

Did anybody recognize who’s doing the score for the film?

― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish),

juno reactor tweeted this earlier :

"Thank you & I Love the support. Lana has made a great choice in Thomas Tykwer and co-composers, nothing stays the same, excited to see the new film!"

I tend not to watch trailers before seeing a movie as they often contain mild (and sometimes not so mild) spoilers but their one job (duh!) is to make people want to see the film, not necessarily convey what the film's about.

It seems that a lot of people walked out of The Green Knight as the trailer suggests you're in for some sword & sorcery action type shit and the reality is obviously nothing of the sort

idk, hatred for the matrix sequels seems like one of the worst hangover opinions from the early '00s

skipped everything after this post, otm

the second and third were bad, the first was good, i will watch the new one as soon as i am able

anyone who walked out of green knight slipped on a banana peel on their way out

to hell with this non-action movie that has a ton of action, i'm gonna go get some fruit instead, whooaaaa

I rewatched most of Reloaded/Revolutions and imo Reloaded is a great action set piece, subverts some of the things people assumed about the movie’s world after the first one, and ends on a cliffhanger that’s unsettling in how it fundamentally changes the conceit even further

Revolutions has some amazing bits, but suffers from too much Zion content. I get exactly what the Wachowskis were going for, but too much of the audience didn’t want an earthy, very human third setting between machine hellscape and VR dystopia

I will admit that I skipped a bunch of Zion scenes and rewatched all three over the weekend

Jessica Henwick looks cool af in this trailer

revolutions very tenderly pays off a bunch of character stuff initiated in reloaded and for that i always feel so emotional watching it that i can't really focus on the things that are supposedly bad about it. zion rules. the ultimate neo/smith fight is just 360 degree punching in digital rain and it's the best shit ever

ugh i'm gonna end up watching all of these again

hello i am rewatching all of these and coming to terms with the fact that i still love this trilogy truly madly deeply in a non ironic nerdy way

and i still love the philosophical gobbledygook underpinnings like i am very linus w his blue blanket about that aspect <3

I watched the sequels for the first time ever recently. didn't love the third, although I liked the ending and the Neo and trinity stuff. just find the big battle for Zion a bit of a slog, as well as the final smith fight. but the second one was very decent I thought

I suppose the final smith fight just felt a little underwhelming. I liked the smith fight in the second movie in the courtyard a lot more

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

this is gonna whip ass (i hope i hope i hope)

change change change change...

change is the only constant...constant...constant...
change change change change

Keanu was spotted eating ice cream alone during the filming:

https://dlisted.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/keanu-ice-cream-1.jpg

i rewatched reloaded and revolutions and they are the best movies ever

this is my first time watching them while in a loving and committed relationship and the neo/trinity stuff shook me to my core

i had no idea this was coming out until this morning, when i saw a poster on the Tube for it

eat that, online advertisers!

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

got IMAX tix, opening night, let's fucking go etc

I hope we finally find out how Keanu Reeves becomes the Matrix.

eeeee so excited

I don’t want to say more but based on empirical visual evidence: Lana Wachowski confirmed Blackhat stan

— Jake Cole (@ThatJakePC) December 16, 2021

lmao this is going to rule

SO

EXCITED

I hope the end credits-roll has a blooper reel.

omfg

nah it's a sequel for people who think that lana wachowski found her perfect galaxy brain match working with david mitchell (cloud atlas! sense8!) and pretty much ideally ties together both the inherent optimism of her films with the cynicism that comes with working in film https://t.co/4EunwCUXnK

— the morally corrupt juan barquin (@woahitsjuanito) December 21, 2021

read a pretty bad review over here - "numbing sequence of (nice looking) action scenes just like the 2nd & 3rd movies" etc

well they’ve already characterized the sequels incorrectly

I'm about 90 minutes in and so far there's not one scene that's not a) an easter egg or b) glib meta-commentary on the previous three. Shit, half the movie is a clip show. It's honestly pretty boring. The one thing I'll give it is that in this one, people bleed when they get shot.

what a beautifully incoherent mess A+

also funnier than expected

also lol reminded me of Scream 4 because it's also a 4th entry in a series and both are about [redacted]

Its true the action scenes in 2 & 3 were ugly

??? they’re beautiful

sorry if you’re having a laugh deems it’s hard to tell given the way ppl talk about these movies

NEO!

TRINITY!

Im afraid we might for first time ever part ways on the sequels but i want you to know its been an amazing journey and we will meet again the far side of it im sure

they’re so good deems open your heart

https://boxd.it/2nTThf

I may revisit based on your good word alone, i want you to know its not everyone would sway me even that much

the highway scene in reloaded is my favorite action sequence ever, clearly inspired by the long chase at the end of terminator 2 (and cameron in general) and somehow exponentially better than it

the fate of the world doesn't matter nearly so much as the one person who can see you even when you've lost yourself

Easy to say when the world is actually ending tbh.

what can you do about it

that writer is also responsible for my favorite review of revolutions/my favorite review on letterboxd https://boxd.it/9FdjD

the highway chase is literally the only thing i can remember about the sequels rn apart from the rave orgy

when I think of the matrix I think of neo doing the "come hither" movement with his hand before a fight

I have a certain regard for the sequels but I rewatched the whole trilogy recently and the dialogue in the last two is super cringe at times.

Things I liked about the sequels:

- maximum Agent Smith (do not @ me, I love that character)
- the soundtrack for Reloaded is great iirc
- the weirdness of two of the guys from Changing Rooms cast as villains
- Revolutions maybe edges Reloaded slightly for me, Reloaded is very fun but it’s a bit too computer game and there’s not enough humour. A big part of what I loved so much of the original was the touches of humour in the right places that stopped it being overly pompous.
- also, the notion of contamination between the worlds (even if they don’t flesh it out right)

Things I didn’t:
- Cypher is an incredibly relatable villain, there’s nobody quite like him in the sequels. They’re all either Smiths or rushed caricatures, whereas Cypher is genuinely less is more and Pantaliano really does the most with it
- the dialogue, fuck me, I wanted to die at some of Morpheus’s lines in Reloaded
- they didn’t lift enough stuff from The Invisibles to tip it over
- some of the cgi (esp for the Burly Brawl) aged horrendously
- they didn’t spend enough on Trinity being the only person to see the sun in centuries

Am interested in seeing this fourth one, despite decidedly mixed reviews

I love Brad's enthusiasm for, well, everything, and I agree at least as far as my memory has it that the highway chase in part 2 was pretty awesome. when we tried to watch the movie last year or so, though, for the first time since I either saw it in theaters or more likely an advanced screening, we didn't even make it that far
It's one thing to be silly, but that second movie was so boring. as I recounted here some months ago, at the start there's something like 50 minutes after the first fight scene before anything interesting happens again, and this sequel ain't no Aliens.

This is how I break it down

watching matrix reloaded, I had forgotten the refuelling section in zion at the start feeling like 18 hours of painfully slow in-engine rpg cutscenes. I know this one is good too but I am dying to press select in my mind to skip this shit.

— Marty Punkhouser (@NoChorus) December 23, 2021

the zillion agent fight is so good and then we're immediately back to this stuff, god help us. pic.twitter.com/hWFrscrLcs

— Marty Punkhouser (@NoChorus) December 23, 2021

Otm

simply the hardest shit of all time pic.twitter.com/LDNAfJ2vZJ

— Marty Punkhouser (@NoChorus) December 23, 2021

some of the cgi (esp for the Burly Brawl) aged horrendously

It looked crap at the time too tbf

Oh sure but even from that low base it hasn’t aged well.

i do not really care about realism re: cgi so the burly brawl works for me just via the impact and weight (plus bowling pin sounds) and the insane camera movement

the battle of zion cgi is still astonishing

portentous dialogue, a five minute sequence of ships docking, oh i love it so

also agent smith is the best character and the best analogue for fascism i’ve seen in a science fiction property

otm, was thinking about the first interview scene and the little grimace when he’s saying “and you help your landlady take out her garbage”

Apart from imelda staunton in potter surely

I can see why ppl dig Reloaded - Zion is awesome, complicates the Chosen One idea, all the crazy stuff with the horny French dude, lotsa good kung fu still. It's not my thing but there's lots there.

Revolutions tho I found much flimsier in its thematic concerns and less creative in its action - Reloaded introduced all these ideas about programs within the Matrix having moral shades of grey but outside of the Matrix in Revolutions the machines are all just mindless bug robots to shoot down; felt like watching an unironic version of Starship Troopers at times. Likewise despite Reloaded's revelations Neo ends up in a messianic role.

I hated Revolutions when it came out, but I hadn't even seen Reloaded so I'm sure a lot was lost on me.

are we doing spoilers yet

Likewise despite Reloaded's revelations Neo ends up in a messianic role.

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, December 23, 2021 11:54 AM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

kinda but he wouldn’t be successful at all without everyone else’s efforts in zion + the machines

as niobe says, she doesn’t believe in “the one” but she believes in neo

i won’t be able to see the new one until the 30th so if spoilers start happening in this thread i’ll stop reading

I feel like there’s an effect of power creep throughout the original trilogy where other characters are able to do things in the matrix that they weren’t at the beginning. As if being The One isn’t necessarily a unique individual, it’s just the person who has a sixth sense that’s stronger than anyone else currently plugged in, and being around that person helps others more finely tune into that sense

Obviously having people running around the matrix doing things that seem impossible eventually leads to the system breaking, needing rebooted, etc. but Neo’s the tipping point, just like all the prior tipping point Ones that came before him

Revolutions tho I found much flimsier in its thematic concerns and less creative in its action - Reloaded introduced all these ideas about programs within the Matrix having moral shades of grey but outside of the Matrix in Revolutions the machines are all just mindless bug robots to shoot down;

Think Matriculated (the Peter Chung short!) did some interesting work on connecting humans outside the matrix with the machines

i love matriculated. i hated it when i was a kid bc i just didn’t aesthetically jibe with chung’s stuff at all but now i think it’s so gorgeous and sad

agreed that the animatrix is highly optional but the second renaissance aka the entire history of human/machine relations enriches the narrative a lot

Yeah it does, it’s great. I don’t mean it’s optional in a derisive way, just that the majority of the audience are never going to seek it out so a lot of that backstory gets lost.

Matriculated is really great, agreed.

i love that one short that’s just a bunch of kids playing with the gravity glitch in the matrix that they found

the horny cgi short at the end is really weird

This...is true.

holy shit the matrix resurrections end credits music is a ratm cover by the lady who peed on somebody onstage. neo is livin' his life it's golden

— Al Shipley (@alshipley) December 24, 2021

Also SF mayor London Breed is one of the Neo/Trinity support team at the end.

What my mom says she’s excited to watch🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️#TheMatrix #MatrixResurrections pic.twitter.com/h7ntEqrbLG

— Beyoncé Bloodlust (@NylaRoseBeast) December 24, 2021

Morpheus (showing neo 2 advils in the palms of his hands): these are for headaches

— Rajat Suresh (@rajat_suresh) December 23, 2021

Need to watch Animatrix. Underrated youtube account Stevem is going through all of that studio's projects atm.

kinda but he wouldn’t be successful at all without everyone else’s efforts in zion + the machines

I might be missing something here but isn't the whole conflict in Zion after Neo and Trinity take the one ship totally irrelevant to the success or failure of Neo's mission?

well they’re interlinked efforts imo, get the other ship to zion so the first wave of machines doesn’t completely destroy zion, while neo’s ambassadorial mission appealing to the machines’ own desire for survival ensures zion’s

neo would have nothing to save without the defense of the dock idk

Made it through maybe half of the mostly well-regarded "are we in a simulation" doc "A Glitch in the Matrix." It was pretty dumb.

^ that was probably logged somewhere if we're in a simulation.

fwiw if anyone is interested in the matrix comics, including the original batch that were on the movie’s website, they’re collected and still for sale on the wachowski’s publishing company website, at least as of a week ago. seemingly sold out through every other distribution chain

http://www.burlymanentertainment.com/

Need to watch Animatrix. Underrated youtube account Stevem is going through all of that studio's projects atm.

Huh, I briefly thought that this would be ex-ILXoR stevem, who is(was) I think the non-Brad Revolutions stan on ILX

xp thanks for the tip on stevem video reviews, i love studio 4c productions
if you like animatrix, there was a similar project with 6 anime shorts done by different studios including studio 4c: “batman: gotham knight”

Just went to see that new Keanu film ‘Matrix: Exposition.’

— Seán Ono Lennon (@seanonolennon) December 24, 2021

Replies to his tweet are gold.

Well, my Christmas present is apparently finding out that Sean Lennon is a bitcoiner

Huh, I briefly thought that this would be ex-ILXoR stevem

Haha, had the same reaction when I first discovered the channel!

what a beautifully incoherent mess A+

also funnier than expected

I'd probably go more for B+, but that's pretty much my take too. It was sad to see the fight scenes edited to within inches of their lives, the one big knock I'd put on this movie

more like the Metarix mirit lol i have not watched this movie

watched the original sequels for the first time this week & reloaded is so good! it's messy and flawed in a way that the first isn't, but once it gets going (after a pretty slow start) it's fantastic nearly the whole time, enough for me to rate it higher than the first despite its issues. really made me go 'this is absolutely the coolest shit ever' in a way the first didn't. if you tightened up the plot just the tiniest bit, cut down on the zion stuff (especially at the beginning), and gave neo's conversations with the oracle & the council head another pass (they're pretty clunky), it would be a perfect film, but it's great as is.

revolutions is mostly a dud though, it triples down on all of reloaded's issues (which were fairly minor there) until they take up nearly the entire movie. the battle for zion is a huge drag and not compelling at all. the final smith fight isn't bad but pales in comparison to what came before, and he's not really given enough time to be actually set up as a threat to the machines too either.

unfortunately probably not going to be able to watch resurrections anytime soon since it's not streaming here

I thought the rhythm to the section where they're fighting on the highway was so great.
Had to go and see the 3rd one in Leicester Square, think I must have missed it in Galway cos I was trying to sort out times with someone and it went before we managed to do so.

I keep seeing the alien craft as being some kind of tribute to H.P.Lovecraft. Is that widespread?

I listened to teh Bechdel Cast podcast on the first film this week. They were talking about a trans subtext I hadn't been aware of before. Think it is totally outside of the fact taht the directors stopped being brothers and started being sisters since the film came out. Probably a bit linked to really and possibly evidence of it being an idea looked at but standing on its own.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5uRJ7GGGxErpSIhX85x1c7?si=df5071ea2f63484f

Still managed to miss the showing of the film this week cos i was watching 2 of the cast 20 years later in John Wick 3. So must have been Xmas day. Well hopefully have the dvd still , not looked at the state of it in an age. But got the box in the early 00ies.

the trans narrative is v real, the first film is about breaking out of the structures imposed by society and choosing your own name and family, reloaded and revolutions are about how even as you escape from these structures you still find other forms of control running beneath your every decision and how the only way to reconcile that is to love and believe in yourself and others hey

even if they weren’t conscious of it as they were making it (which, sure, most of these themes also seem to be saying something about the possibility and impossibility and (once again) possibility of political revolution) it’s so incredibly there

people talk and complain about the battle of zion but no one talks about niobe piloting the ship with the fat ass

I was reading trans people talk about the subtext on livejournal back in the noughties and it’s definitely been a discussed thing even before the sisters transitioned. Even at a super basic level, if you’re at all aware of the sisters, I don’t see how you ignore Smith constantly deadnaming Neo!

the zion battle’s shift in focus to extremely minor characters trying to survive and defend their home also reminds me of like, dfw's insistence that infinite jest is not about its main characters but is actually about everyone (except less racist and much better)

it's not a bad idea at all just the execution isn't really there

like most of revolutions really

I don’t see how you ignore Smith constantly deadnaming Neo!

Haven't seen the new one yet, but from what I read it starts with Keanu living in the matrix again under his old name. Per the above reading would that mean he effectively detransitioned?

i believe this is a theme in the new one (also haven’t seen it)

or at least i read a review that was like “most trans ppl detransition bc the world makes it too hard for them”

it's not a bad idea at all just the execution isn't really there

like most of revolutions really

― ufo, Tuesday, December 28, 2021 7:57 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk it’s there if you think of reloaded and revolutions as a single movie

admittedly i care about the rave orgy-oriented citizens of zion by default

and i love kid but he is very much assisted as a character by his animatrix short

wow i never made the connection. maybe i’ll like the movie character better now..

reloaded could have done a much better job at making me care about the zion residents than it did but even ignoring that the actual battle in revolutions is just such a drag with its endless scenes of mechs shooting at the machines.

new one is a cross between wes craven's new nightmare and rebuild of evangelion. doesn't have enough gremlins 2 (looney tunes character excepted)

I liked the first half much more than expected. Kind of wish they would have committed to the first three movies being a fantasy in sad Keanu's brain, or even Neo & Trinity only continuing to exist as computer programs would have been more poignant .

Biggest surprise was how good Keanu looks without that beard.

“This is Cybebe.”
[crowd goes apeshit. Just absolutely foaming at the mouth wild.]

— 🏜🔋, fka ☕️ (@coopercooperco) December 23, 2021

(Elliott smith needle in the hay voice) I know Kung fuuuuuuuuuuu pic.twitter.com/VgEVTcV44c

— Mister Goblin (@DrMisterGoblin) December 31, 2021

Matrix 4 best Matrix

I hope the end credits-roll has a blooper reel.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, December 16, 2021 4:01 PM (two weeks ago)

sshh

Dear God

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-covid-19-tracker-players-list-week-17/17xzodcji35bn1e2w5gnho3r3d

Lol wrong thread

ok i never finished my rewatch of the trilogy (the revolutions rave stopped me cold & i forgot to go back) (sorry brad ilu)

BUT

Resurrections was so good, like i am kind of flipped out by how much i loved it. i loved how it pulled so many things together but was like a seven-layer dip of new ideas and new feelings and reclaiming ideas & holy crap meta on meta on meta

yes i am very down

also this piece by Emily Van Der Werf is SPOILERS but well worth reading

https://www.vox.com/culture/22847558/the-matrix-resurrections-4-spoilers-review-neo-therapy-mental-health-trauma

the cave rave is the best sex scene of all time

matrix power rankings currently 2 4 1 3, watch this space for updates

finally saw resurrections, cried through the whole thing, 10/10

<3

this movie is like... swirling through my head like a helix of code. the meta stuff was so well done. making art to access the truth in a world that constantly sublimates it away. feeling too old to resemble who you used to be, to be capable of what you used to be capable of, because the world has reinforced, over and over again, that you can't be, won't be, and you weren't ever that person in the first place. but you were. you knew hope, and love. and you will know it again

for my anime heads it was very much like watching evangelion 3.0 and the utena movie at the same time

I have seen that comparison(to Eva, esp.) made elsewhere, yeah

Hey whaddayaknow, this new one is probably the best of all the Matrixes. Matrices? Anyway. Would not have expected that.

I only saw Revolutions for the first time ever this week, mostly underwhelmed. And only saw Reloaded for the second time ever this week, better than I remembered. Resurrections kinda retroactively makes the whole series better than it was before, though. It's like a magic trick.

otm

i think making it so personal really opened it up.

Revolutions definitely made Reloaded worse for me retroactively, so that's good to know.

i'm personally glad that revolutions will continue to be misunderstood

i could have done without the kung fu scene and the groff agent smith. i liked everything else.

I really didnt care for this film. Groff was really miscast as Smith (I do realise they wanted Weaving back in the role but he couldnt commit).

I do get the whole trans subtext and think the overall premise of the Matrix story is great and the first film remains a standout but this? This just felt like a clip show! A good 20 minutes or more was just bits of the other films!

And I'm gonna say it. We all love Keanu but that man cannot act.

20 minutes feels like a real exaggeration

instead of projecting actual clips from the first movie in that room they should've committed to the bit and remade them in half-life 2 era source engine

i'm an idiot... they could've just used footage from enter the matrix!

i am not mad at u trayce to be clear
but this is a rant i need to get off my chest bc i see it alot

the Keanu cannot act thing drives me fucking ~crazy~

yes i am a stan but

but

as written, what would a “well acted” Neo look like. like, please tell me. he inhabits the role incredibly well & by not trying to do too much ppl just go oh he is doing nothing
which is not the same thing at all
like no one says carrie ann moss can’t act bc she stands around delivering lines stonefaced.
thats what is required of the role. but ppl understand that bc she has the benefit of no one saw her in anything else ever & she didnt spend decades laboring under the conventional wisdom of critics that you are sooo terrible at your job, which you arent and never were

anyway this is not the keanu thread i’ll shut up

otm tho

I can't find the *really* good article about Keanu's acting that I was reading a while ago, but this one's definitely pretty good:

https://lithub.com/the-hero-we-need-keanu-reeves-is-demolishing-all-our-dumb-stereotypes/

Here it is! https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2016/04/21/the-grace-of-keanu-reeves/

yes! doing less ≠ doing nothing
that is almost my thoughts exactly, excellent piece -thx for linking

Griffin & David go about as long on this flick as you’d expect https://audioboom.com/posts/8006197-the-matrix-resurrections

the "Keanu can't act" accusations better fit a film like Devil's Advocate, where he actually tries for some gravitas and fails. he's a pretty convincing Neo and those are the roles he does well.

xpost listening now, in total hog heaven podcastwise

Carrie Ann Moss is even worse! Anyway I will stop now :)

saw resurrections and it was pretty good! not everything worked but most of it did. much better than revolutions for sure, though it doesn't reach the same heights as the first two. i do wish hugo weaving had been available though, that would have made this version of smith even better.

not really surprising that a lot of people hated this though, it really requires being at least familiar and sympathetic towards the sequels + having tolerance for its self-indulgent meta stuff which i guess most people don't. personally i loved mgs2 and could have done with even more of it though

i want speed racer resurrections

I haven't seen any of this yet and may yet watch some of it, but I know the very general gist and saw someone else suggest that it should have been called "The Matrix: Rebooted," and I think that's very clever.

keanu is the uncarved block

xp: It would have been more clever if this movie was a reboot and did not involve multiple resurrections

Can I watch this if I haven't seen the third one?

Yeah. Skim a plot summary though.

this is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time, it felt so small, stupid, cheap

Didn’t post this here the other night but this impenetrable line read is absolutely incredible & I keep watching it every few hours. When she takes the big breath and it’s STILL indecipherable? That’s the prestige pic.twitter.com/rQhHlIvRVY

— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) January 3, 2022

This movie is more enjoyable to talk about afterward than it is to watch imo

lmao at that video

I thought I got most of that line when watching it.

Here's the subs:

You call this a choice?

Oh, honestly, when somebody offered me these things, I went off on binary conceptions of the world and said there was no way I was swallowing some symbolic reduction of my life. And the woman with the pills laughed ’cause I was missing the point.

What point?

The choice is an illusion. You already know what you have to do.

it was clear, if fast, for me. definitely don’t judge it based off that phone recording of a tv

I will say that this movie is Exhibit 842 in my argument that Hollywood needs to get over its recent aversion to ADR. It feels like there have been at least a few incomprehensible mumblefests in most every movie or tv show I've seen from the past several years.

I liked the new Smith, if only for the fact that it’d have been a dead giveaway from the beginning who Neo’s boss was. That facial expression as he sees the office shootout take place, his eyes settle on the gun that’s on the floor, and then remembers was pretty fun

I remember the "binary conceptions of the world" and "I was missing the point" parts. That was enough.

I think the main sound thing that recent movies have a problem with is that they do a decent surround sound mix for theatres but just use an automated program to convert it to stereo.

otm, and increasingly noticeable due to the thing with modern sci fi/fantasy/superhero movies where actors are given big mouthfuls of knotty expository dialogue that would read fine on the page of a comic book, but sound bizarre when a live human is told to bark it out as fast as possible in order to keep up the pace of an exciting scene.

I liked the new Smith, if only for the fact that it’d have been a dead giveaway from the beginning who Neo’s boss was

Yes that did occur to me. So if Weaving had been available I wonder how they'dve got around that.

new smith was good, just having weaving play this version would have been funnier. it wasn't really a twist, it was made pretty clear as soon as he was introduced

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.