Matrix Sequels

[youngsyr]

Inspired by this cartoon on the other thread:



What are people's problems with the Matrix sequels, I don't want to patronise and claim that you didn't understand them, but I recently watched all three on a long flight and thought they were great, especially considering the first one is now 11 years old!

Ok the second film is leaves a lot in the air as a stand alone film, but it's the middle of two films and is no worse than Empire Strikes Back on that basis. It still has arguably the most awesome car/bike/lorry chase in cinematic history in it and is only improves on the effects from the first film.

The third film ties everything up nicely and again has some amazing fight scenes, although perhaps these are a little too CGI in places. The defence of Zion is amazing as a battle scene though.

If your argument is that Keanu Reeves is wooden, then you'll find no disagreement here, but he's just as wooden in the first film and that is widely held as a great film.

So, what is the problem with the later films, I just don't get it?

[dxg]

At the end of the first film, you had the promise that Neo could do *anything* He could bend the matrix world to be whatever he wanted. The notion of building a sequel where the *world itself* was unpredictable was fantastic.+ Instead, we got a bunch more fighting - why did Neo bother to fight? - a bunch more Agent Smith - and a who bunch of Zion stuff. I'm not even going to mention the Neo/Trinity love angle. That was pretty awful in the first film, too.

I mean, You can bend the world around you so you can *fly.* Fly Goddammit! And yet you get involved in car chases and fights and these other things that mortals (or at least unenlightened Matrix inmates) are bound by. Why? Just why?


+ The role of the Architect in Inception, particularly in the first "street bending" exposition sequence gave us an idea of what the Matrix sequels could have been structured around...

[MiniMan64]

They are so bad precisely because the first film is SOOOO good and so well put together that it's amamzing the 2nd and 3rd ones ended up so bad.

The 2nd and 3rd actually have some wonderful sequences and scences in the that on their own are great but as a whole they are just spoiled by all the rubbish in between.

[youngsyr]

dxg said:

At the end of the first film, you had the promise that Neo could do *anything* He could bend the matrix world to be whatever he wanted. The notion of building a sequel where the *world itself* was unpredictable was fantastic.+ Instead, we got a bunch more fighting - why did Neo bother to fight? - a bunch more Agent Smith - and a who bunch of Zion stuff. I'm not even going to mention the Neo/Trinity love angle. That was pretty awful in the first film, too.

I mean, You can bend the world around you so you can *fly.* Fly Goddammit! And yet you get involved in car chases and fights and these other things that mortals (or at least unenlightened Matrix inmates) are bound by. Why? Just why?


+ The role of the Architect in Inception, particularly in the first "street bending" exposition sequence gave us an idea of what the Matrix sequels could have been structured around...

The only fights that Neo get's involved with in the later films are either with Agent Smith, who is the anti-thesis of Neo and so can do all that he can (including fly, there are even flying fighting scenes in the final film between them) or are to protect others who cannot fly or fight as well as Neo and would otherwise be killed by agents. Apart from the fight with Seraphin, who fights Neo to be sure he is "The One".

I thought the later fight scenes were done pretty well, Neo seems pretty non-plussed by fighting in a "I can take it or leave it" kind of way, even when facing down hundreds of Agent Smiths or 10 heavily armed rogue programmes/bodyguards in the Merovingian's gaff.

What's your problem with the whole "Zion" and "Agent Smith" stuff? I thought their inclusion is pretty well explained in the latter films?

[nonuts]

I watched all three again a few weekends ago, as a whole I still think they're very, very good even with the pointless ste in 2 and 3.

I'm still not sure if I like the ending though.

[james_gt3rs]

The sequels aren't as good because they don't spend as much time in the Matrix itself. The Zion bits are pretty boring, even the bits on the hovercraft in the first film are.

The first film is still one of my all time favourite films though!

[Daniel1]

I think the matrix allowed you to make up your own ending, as simple or as bonkers as you like.

The second and third fell down because you were told what happened and it wasnt what people thought it would be like, hence they sucked (to most poeple)

Its a bit like finding out how the italian job finished, you dont really want to know. You just make your own mind up.







i liked the trilogy, btw

[Jasandjules]

I was quite pleased with the third one but not so much the second one... I think though the bottom line is that the first one was so good that it should have been left alone..

[youngsyr]

Jasandjules said:

I was quite pleased with the third one but not so much the second one... I think though the bottom line is that the first one was so good that it should have been left alone..

I don't think the first one was that good in comparison to the second and third though.

The first one takes a long time to get going and spends a lot of time with the Matrix seeming to be the real world (so nothing special) too. Granted it has the infamous "lobby scene" and is the unveiling of "bullet time", but the other two films have just as much going for them, in my opinion.

The second film is worth watching just for the scene on the interstate. Then you have the fight scene in the Merovingian's gaff, the fight with Seraph and with the multiple agent Smiths. The opening sequence is pretty impressive too - Trinity, dressed head to toe in gloss black, back flipping in slow motion off of a jet black motorbike after jumping it off a skyscraper!

The third film slows down somewhat in terms of action, but spends a lot of time tying the story back together again. It still has the Zion battle scene and the chase scene with the ship trying to get back to Zion, not to mention the "ultimate Neo fight scene" with Agent Smith at the very end, although the CGI couldn't quite pull it off to my satisfaction, although the ultra slow motion punches through the rain are phenomenal.

I know I can't just change people's minds, but I really do struggle to see any of the films as being bad and certainly all of them are worth a second viewing, but it's probably best to watch them all in order over a short period and on a very good home cinema set-up.

[Daniel1]

youngsyr said:

Jasandjules said:

I was quite pleased with the third one but not so much the second one... I think though the bottom line is that the first one was so good that it should have been left alone..

I don't think the first one was that good in comparison to the second and third though.

The first one takes a long time to get going and spends a lot of time with the Matrix seeming to be the real world (so nothing special) too. Granted it has the infamous "lobby scene" and is the unveiling of "bullet time", but the other two films have just as much going for them, in my opinion.

The second film is worth watching just for the scene on the interstate. Then you have the fight scene in the Merovingian's gaff, the fight with Seraph and with the multiple agent Smiths. The opening sequence is pretty impressive too - Trinity, dressed head to toe in gloss black, back flipping in slow motion off of a jet black motorbike after jumping it off a skyscraper!

The third film slows down somewhat in terms of action, but spends a lot of time tying the story back together again. It still has the Zion battle scene and the chase scene with the ship trying to get back to Zion, not to mention the "ultimate Neo fight scene" with Agent Smith at the very end, although the CGI couldn't quite pull it off to my satisfaction, although the ultra slow motion punches through the rain are phenomenal.

I know I can't just change people's minds, but I really do struggle to see any of the films as being bad and certainly all of them are worth a second viewing, but it's probably best to watch them all in order over a short period and on a very good home cinema set-up.

you got to have a decent story in there too though. And thats why no one 'got' them.

[youngsyr]

Daniel1 said:

you got to have a decent story in there too though. And thats why no one 'got' them.

Maybe that's the problem - people had forgotten what happened in the second by the time they watched the third?

Watching them in short order and there clearly is a story there - you're discovering the truth along with Neo right up until the end.

[y282]

lethal weapon. now THERE'S a filum.

[Conian]

I loved 2 and 3, but agree that the greatness of the first 1 makes them look less good

they did seem to use the premise...
if 1 ninja is good, then TEN ninjas will be TEN times as good
which isnt always true

but to recap, i loved all 3

[durbster]

Daniel1 said:

you got to have a decent story in there too though. And thats why no one 'got' them.

Bingo.

The sequels were like watching a series of special effects showcases. It's been a while since I watched any of them but I could tell you the entire plot of the original film, and yet I can barely remember what the sequels were about.

From the opening scenes of The Matrix you knew it was leading towards something; principally the unveiling of the Matrix and Neo discovering his power. I cannot for the life of me remember what the sequels were building towards but I know I didn't really care by the end of it.

Like dxg, I was also bugged by the sense that the setups were completely pointless, since the two people fighting were had no vulnerability. In the first film Neo could be beaten because he didn't know what he was doing, whereas in the sequels he was essentially a superhero who could have simply buggered off at any point if he'd wanted, but instead chose to hang about throwing punches.

The other major point was that the first film introduced a whole bunch of memorable and distinctive characters who developed throughout the first film, but in the sequels they simply continued as they were. There was no more depth.

But more important than that, I can only remember one new character in the sequels; the beardy "God" man who droned on endlessly to pad out the bits of the story they couldn't work out how to explain visually.

So film one: five or six great characters. Films two and three: one dreary old duffer.

Cool as it is, it doesn't really matter how many chaingunning robots you throw at a scene if your audience doesn't give a monkeys about the characters or what they're fighting for.

[MiniMan64]

It's worth mentioning at this point that there is one particular scene which everytime I see it (and I must be getting close to 20) completely and utterly ruins the 3rd film for me. Every single time I have to cringe and turn away, it might actually my least favourite scene ever.....

[Bullett]

To me the third film felt like it had no connection to the other 2 and that there was a real wtf how do we end this. Was the real world another Matrix? That was teh conclusion I drew as Neo became godlike in the real world as well. And that guff with the big superbrain computer thing.
2 and 3 also broke their own internal logic, which is a big no no.

Also why didn't the machines just do a hard reboot on the Matrix? Do they know nothing about IT support?

[youngsyr]

Bullett said:

To me the third film felt like it had no connection to the other 2 and that there was a real wtf how do we end this. Was the real world another Matrix? That was teh conclusion I drew as Neo became godlike in the real world as well.

The Matrix in the first film is the sixth recreation of the Matrix, the first one or two were perfect in that there were none of the errors that we see in the first film and no Neo, but the humans didn't believe it, so they failed.

After the first one or two attempts, the machines started introducing errors to enable the humans to believe the Matrix is real. Neo is one of these errors and will always come along in each reincarnation of the Matrix. Due to these errors all humans have the ability to manipulate the Matrix to a certain extent once they accept it is not real, but Neo has a much higher than normal ability because he is partly a creation of the Matrix (an anomoly in the system).

When Neo "destroys" agent Smith in the first film, it changes him so that he becomes more attuned with the machines in the real world. This is what allows him to manipulate machines in the real world in the third film.

The opposite of this is Banes, who Smith infiltrates in the Matrix, but can be controlled by Smith in the real world (he attempts to kill Neo several times in the real world and is described as having the brain waves of someone who is "jacked in to the Matrix", even when he isn't).

The real world isn't the Matrix, but machines and humans exist in the real world and some can influence one another.

Bullett said:

2 and 3 also broke their own internal logic, which is a big no no.

Not sure what parts you're referring to.

Bullett said:

Also why didn't the machines just do a hard reboot on the Matrix? Do they know nothing about IT support?

Rebooting the Matrix wouldn't affect those outside of it, e.g. Neo and the crew fighting the machines, so it would be pointless.

Also, Smith is a danger to the machines and the machines know this, this is why they accept Neo's help in defeating Smith in exchange for creating a Matrix where anyone who wants to be set free can be.

As explained above, all humans have the ability to influence the Matrix to some extent, so rebooting it wouldn't change anything.

[Asterix]

To me, it always felt that 2 & 3 were only made to make money. The first came out to a relatively quite response, then grew and grew and held as the classic it is today.

The studio went 'Oh st! This has uber $$$ potential' and we have what we have.

[Jasandjules]

youngsyr said:

I don't think the first one was that good in comparison to the second and third though.

It's more that in the first one you find out what "The Matrix" is. And it's a wow moment, a superb concept cinematically. Then as you say the Bullet Time at the end which is frankly one of the most superb scenes. So essentially the film has a couple of moments which frankly blow you away.

The other two films just had too hard an act to follow.

[Mr E]

(I love XKCD)

The CGI and action scenes in 2&3 are top notch. Indeed, the interstate chase is one of the finest examples around.

The rest of the film(s) just don't work for me. There's more to storytelling that effects.