Matrix : Revolutions (spoilers and discussions)

[grinner]

Okay, I saw this movie today... and well... it was alright... but I was disappointed with the ending. It left me a little unfulfilled. I understand the reasoning...
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I understand that some stories have the major characters die... but Trinity's death didn't advance anything... and Neo's... sheesh... how much can the pound the Christ figure= Neo. Blatently posing Neo in a crucifix pose at the end... and having him disappear... okay... I get it... Neo=Christ.

But I have to say the sunrise that the little girl created at the end of the film was a very nice touch.

And the fight scenes... amazing again... TPTB outdid themselves and raised the bar again... Bravo.

Anyway... I need to think some more about this film.

[eta_carinae]

I just saw it tonight, and I really liked it. I was a little nervous after hearing so many bad reviews of it, but I really wasn't dissapointed. I am a bit curious about the ending though....is he dead? I don't know. All three movies had very religious overtones in my opinion, and this one kinda put it all together. I was really sad when Trinity died though....she was my favorite character :cry2:

My boyfriend and I rented the Animatrix a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say I am glad I saw it before this one. The stories made what was happening between the machines and the humans make alot more sense to me. I would reccomend you see it if you haven't already.

[who45]

I'm going to try and see it next weekend.

[Under A Dying Sun]

i thought it was one of the best science fiction movies i have ever seen. i understand that our culture today thrives on just action sequences and shuns upon, god forbid, themes, characters, and dialogue; even so - people should find thrills in the action sequences. great heroics and suspense as well. i didn't mind trinity dying - it was sad and i thought her character made a great sacrifice to help neo get to the city up above.

i don't need 24/7 action in my scifi/fantasy but this movie had both. :) i really enjoy the philosophies of this movie and i hope hugo weaving gets some kind of oscar nod. he's really great.

the only thing i don't understand is the concept of the previous neo's. they really didn't cover it or explain it well or at all. i am still confused. can anyone explain this? how can zion keep getting destroyed and the humans fail if zion takes place in the physical realm?

[grinner]

What it is... is that The Matrix keeps getting upgraded so that the people inside it won't want to leave. All the other Neo's were gliches and when the Builder finds him... he gives him a choice. But the choice is a false choice because Neo is just used to make The Matrix better. This time, a new variable was entered into the fray... Agent Smith. I think what they were trying to say is that the programs that followed the Oracle won... so until the next conflict occurs... Humans are safe.

[eta_carinae]

I don't know if it's just me, but there were parts of this movie that reminded me of Dune - like the whole loses-his-eyesight-but-can-still-see thing. I have a feeling they alluded to alot of things and I just completely missed it.
On the subject of being confused- yeah. I had to watch the first two at least two times before it really made sense to me. And I imagine I will have to watch this one again before I really get it. There are so many allusions and things in these movies that you can watch them a hundred times and still see something you missed before. Kinda like the Simpsons.

[waltersgirl]

the only thing i don't understand is the concept of the previous neo's. they really didn't cover it or explain it well or at all. i am still confused. can anyone explain this? how can zion keep getting destroyed and the humans fail if zion takes place in the physical realm?

it's in the scene with the Architect in the second film. they weren't previous versions of Neo, but rather previous versions of "The One". they were pacifiers to the system essentially designed to allow the machines to keep order.

go back to the first film when Agent Smith has captured Morpheus. remember what Smith says about the origins of the Matrix...the first time was too perfect and the humans couldn't deal with it. their minds rebelled without the conflict. so the next version of the Matrix had conflict. it is the nature of things for the human mind to question, to push, to search out its origins, to understand the "why" of existence. eventually, the more intuitive minds would discover the Matrix, and by extension, find the "real" world.

skip ahead to the Architect. each previous version of The One reached the Architect because the War had reached its peak. the machines couldn't risk complete annihilation so they came up with The Choice. notice how the Architect is talking in a droning, lecturing, inevitable kind of way...blah blah blah, you can't beat us, blah blah blah, it's inevitable that we are stronger, blah blah blah you won't notice my beard is crooked, blah blah blah you are mere humans and you don't have anything worth dying for blah blah blah here's The Choice, blah blah blah take it because we're going to kick your ass no matter what you do and if i keep repeating myself you'll believe me and not see that we're vulnerable.

door number one is the outcome according to the machines, that Zion would be destroyed and all life would cease, a risk the machines say they are willing to take.

why?

because no one in their right mind would choose that option and they knew it. the choice isn't logical and they are creatures of logic.

door number two, is go back to Zion, pick X number of men and almost twice that of women and go repopulate the species cuz we're killing the rest of you to give us some peace.

they expect the same decision every time because they are machines. they expect the logical decision when faced with overwhelming failure and ultimate destruction. Neo, unlike all the previous versions of the One is different, not just because he is part of the Matrix but also because of his love for Trinity. love is irrational. it has no logic. it follows no rules.

the Oracle exists to guide the path of the One. she is the imbalance to the Architect's balance. she exists to offset the equation. Chaos to Order. the equation, the Matrix, is flawed and she knows it, so she does something about it because she chooses to.

nothing is inevitable, or predestined, because there is always choice.

The Oracle utilizes the flaws in the programming of the Matrix to manipulate events because even in the machine world nothing is perfect. they have all kinds of programs run amok. the machines are fighting a war on two fronts, in a way.

she keeps waiting for the "right" One. the One that is of both worlds. Neo. he and Agent Smith had to meet. Smith wasn't a variable, he was the tool that the Oracle used to manipulate events in her favor. Smith becomes a virus when he and Neo merge in the first film, and because Smith exists as a virus, he is the only threat big enough to crash the system, the only thing that Neo can use to bargain for Zion, to bargain for peace.


Revolutions' only flaw is its ending. i couldn't figure out why i felt unsettled when the film was over. not cheated or anything, but not settled. incomplete. then red said she thought they didn't quite pull it off, didn't take Neo as far as they could have, and she was right and i knew the flaw....or at least what i see as the flaw.

the film is cool. it's visually beautiful. the action grabs you, the emotion grabs you. in the scene where the two ships split up, you know that those two crews will never meet again, that Neo and Trinity will never see Zion.

i get that Trinity died so Neo would be free to do what he needed to do, free to stay inside the Matrix. the only thing that would keep the balance between the two worlds, force everyone to behave, keep the peace, is Neo because he exists both inside and outside the Matrix. for him to then not stay in the Matrix after he kills Smith invalidates the whole narrative point of Trinity dying and of the film.

why should the machines keep the peace? they have no reason to now, the way the film ends, because the reason is Neo and he's not in the Matrix anymore to keep them honest. taking Neo out of the Matrix essentially resets the whole universe all over again, only minus the whole slaughtering part, which doesn't bode well for the machines because there are now way more humans to be irritants. so even if you tried to argue that the machines lied somehow, that they *knew* that the fight with Smith would kill Neo, it still doesn't wash logically for a resolution because the machines are in a worse position now than they were before. the atmosphere above the cloud cover is restored, and there are humans around to rebuild their defenses and take their world back.

do i recommend the film? you bet. if it's a failure, it's a glorious failure.

am i a tiny bit disappointed they didn't quite get it? yeah, but hey, no one's perfect. which, in a sense, is part of the point of the film, so maybe they didn't get it wrong after all. :smokin:

[Digger]

I had a few problems with the movie, but the biggest was the ending. I think Waltersgirl hit it right on the head. The fact that Neo died means that the machines have no reason to keep their end of the bargain. With Smith destroyed and Neo dead there is nothing to really threaten them. They could simply just send the sentinals back to Zion and finish what they started. A better ending would have been for Neo to have been trapped in the Matrix for the rest of his life to keep order among the humans and prevent other rogue programs from becoming like Smith. If he agrees to this the machines would allow the humans time to try and fix the sky so that they could go back to running on solar power and gradually release the humans being kept in the power plant (and after all, there's no way the earth could support all of them anyway so their release would have to be gradual).

My other biggest problem is Trinity. Having her die too was unnecessary. Better to keep her alive and force her to make a choice too. Live the rest of her life in the Matrix with Neo or stay outside and help with the rebuilding. I'm sure she would have chosen to stay with Neo. It would have been nice at the end to see her wearing something other than black leather (perhaps a red dress?), and to see her smile. The fact that right up to the end both Trinity and Neo were more robotic than many of the machines really bothered me.

This could have set up an interesting dynamic. How would the humans feel about the fact that Neo was staying in the Matrix to keep order, and thus keep it whole? Would they feel betrayed? Would they understand that without the Matrix most of the humans in the power plant would die? Remember, Morpheous said it himself in the first movie. Most people are not ready to be unplugged. Many never would be.

I don't feel cheated so much as I feel disappointed and unfulfilled at the ending. It could have been so much more.

[fandom]

Are you sure Neo is dead?

When the machines are taking him away the image switches to the 'Neo' vision and the place where Neo is there is big light, so bright you can't see any details.

I thought that was meant to make us wonder whether he was dead or in the Matrix.

[Digger]

Are you sure Neo is dead?
When the machines are taking him away the image switches to the 'Neo' vision and the place where Neo is there is big light, so bright you can't see any details.
Yeah, I thought about that. Especially when the little girl asked "will we see him again?" and the Oracle said "I expect we might" or something like that.

Thinking that Neo might still be alive (or kept as a program inside the Matrix?) does make the ending a little less disappointing, but I still have problems with other things (especially the awful and overly melodramatic Trinity death scene) and would only give Revolutions 2 1/2 stars out of four. It was better than Reloaded though.

[Zantar]

I thought reloaded was way better...because of the acting. I liked the plot in this, and honestly the peace is the only way it could end logically. The machiens will keep the peace because like the architech said he isnt human. A war is costly for them, and a peace and mutual coexistance would work out just fine. If anyone breaks the peace it will be the humans im sure. If you watch the animatrix they are the ones who started the damn war in the beginning.

[LiLOrion]

Originally posted by waltersgirl
it's in the scene with the Architect in the second film. they weren't previous versions of Neo, but rather previous versions of "The One". they were pacifiers to the system essentially designed to allow the machines to keep order....yada yada yada


You are like the Cliffs notes to the Matrix. :D

I need you sitting next to me when I watch the third one. I really should go back and watch 1 and 2 though first.

[grinner]

Originally posted by LiLOrion
You are like the Cliffs notes to the Matrix. :D

I need you sitting next to me when I watch the third one. I really should go back and watch 1 and 2 though first. That is a very good idea. If you see the lastest one right after you watch the first 2... it works a lot better.

[stellar]

Originally posted by Digger
Yeah, I thought about that. Especially when the little girl asked "will we see him again?" and the Oracle said "I expect we might" or something like that.

That could be a reference to (a) the second coming or/and (b) the second war thus necessitating the need for another The One.

[vhsiv]

Unplugging The Matrix
Why the sci-fi franchise went south.
By Matt Feeney Posted Friday, Nov. 7, 2003, at 11:07 AM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2090943/

The good news is that the conclusion of the Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Revolutions, is not quite as terrible as the second entry, The Matrix Reloaded. Reloaded was downright infuriating, with its portentous monologues and willful rejection of narrative coherence. Revolutions, as a thudding sci-fi war movie, is merely disorienting and unfathomable. From the standpoint of the original it is profoundly disappointing, but it does have its own romantic and martial intensity. The bad news is that that, in tandem with Reloaded, it achieves a kind of cumulative badness that will permanently and unfairly stain the reputation of the original. How did something so good go so wrong?

It seems that, in conceiving their pair of sequels to The Matrix, the writing and directing team of Andy and Larry Wachowski overestimated the profundity of the original's philosophical musings. The resulting ponderousness might have been excusable, except that they disastrously misidentified which of those musings was most important to the original—namely, the Matrix itself. In the sequels, the Wachowskis ditched the conceit of the Matrix, the computer program in which all of humanity, save for a few thousand enlightened souls inhabiting an underground city called Zion, is unwittingly trapped. That, in turn, removed virtually everything distinctive and meaningful about the original film—its hipster skepticism, its strangely compelling logic of human striving, and, perhaps most fundamentally, the storytelling discipline that imposed a gorgeous economy on almost every scene. The Matrix, it turns out, is nothing without the Matrix.

Brevity is the soul not only of wit but of the paranoid buzz of the best sci-fi action movies. It's instructive, in light of the sequels' maddening long-windedness, to remember how teasingly elliptical the original Matrix was, not only in its exposition but in its most memorable dramatic moments. The deliciousness of our introduction to Trinity—her gravity-mocking, gloriously abrupt dispatch of four clueless cops—is of a piece with the utter coolness of her introduction to Neo, which is the movie's first bit of exposition:

"Hello, Neo."

"How do you know that name?"

Neo's story, then, starts with a question, a mystery (whose effect may have less to do with its philosophical intimations than with the fact that the Prodigy's "Mindfields" is blipping and slamming apocalyptically in the background). After Trinity breathes into Neo's ear, "It's the question that drives us," the encounter climaxes with Neo forming that question, on his own lips, apparently for the first time: "What is the Matrix?" This entire conversation, despite its tentative, druggy pace, takes about 90 seconds.

David Denby, in his New Yorker review (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/?031110crci_cinema) of Revolutions, argues that the original Matrix rested on a host of "clichéd science-fiction elements," in that "[ i ]n sci-fi, the machines are always taking over." But Denby achieves this dismissiveness only with the aid of hindsight. I bet when he was first confronted with The Question—"What is the Matrix?"—he didn't know the answer, either. And if he's any kind of movie buff, he found the Wachowski brothers' way of hinting that there was something both irresistible and dreadful about that answer—of conjuring paranoia out of Neo's skepticism and existential vertigo out of his discoveries—to be pretty damned cool.

But The Matrix did more than just pose The Question. Even after Neo learned the truth about the Matrix, he had a few things to learn about himself, the ostensible One. Denby is correct, in a strictly empirical sense, when he identifies traditional sci-fi elements in The Matrix, but the movie actually takes the form of a bildungsroman, an old-fashioned quest for understanding. Luckily for the audience, in the first film Neo's epiphanies occur not in contemplation but in action. Every action sequence in The Matrix—from Neo's training fights with Morpheus to his final destruction of Smith—is also a step in Neo's process of discovery. These scenes are not only streamlined and thrilling, but revelatory. The long action sequences in the sequels have no point at all, which the Wachowskis try to compensate for by drawing them out and cramming them with more digital bad guys. One result of this is that Reloaded contains the most spectacular chase scene that you will ever check your voice mail during.

Another thing that the original got exactly right, and that the sequels lose control of, is style. The overcooked grooviness of Trinity's fetishy patent leather and Morpheus' pince-nez shades was a guilty pleasure, no doubt, but it was part of a weirdness that had yet to be explained. It signaled their status as demigods: Whatever the hell the Matrix was, it had something to do with the fact that these people, in some vague but objective sense, were way cooler than everybody else. The sequels use the leather-clad bodies of Neo and Trinity, within the green-filtered Matrix palette, to generate some striking compositions, but they feel like just compositions, art photography. There is nothing left for these style riffs to signify, which makes them feel not just inert, but, when viewed as expressions of Zion's hippie earnestness, kind of dorky.

The Matrix—the conceit that most of the human race was living in a virtual dream-state, awaiting deliverance from a rag-tag gang of hackers and visionaries—is an extremely fertile dramatic device. It is the question that Neo had to answer and the obstacle he had to overcome. It is the cosmic basis for both early-Neo's groggy alienation and late-Neo's unique brand of whoop-ass. It provides a narrative structure in which some giddily convincing sci-fi pathos emerge: paranoia, dread, existential bravery, transcendent romance. It affords plausible-enough background explanation for some of the most inventive, deftly realized action sequences ever shot. And it offers a pleasing pretext for draping this whole cluster of effects in really cool clothes.

But what it doesn't provide—and what, until the sequels, I didn't think it pretended to provide—was philosophical insight. It seemed fitting that, by way of signaling their philosophical influences in the original, the Wachowskis had Neo pulling from a shelf not Plato's Republic nor Descartes' Meditations, Western philosophy's signal treatments of the appearance/reality problem, but Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard is the French postmodernist who comes closest to the stony spirit (and the philosophical sophistication) of the freshman dorm: "Dude, what if this all isn't, like, really reality, but instead it's, like, a simulation of reality?" (And, yes, Neo's copy of Simulacra was itself merely a hollowed-out hiding place, the appearance, so to speak, of a Simulacra. Sigh.)

But in the sequels the Wachowskis drop the enduring but pleasingly simple appearance/reality problem, which is where the Matrix's real buzz comes from. They instead treat Morpheus' incoherent and New Agey murmurings about Fate as the central issue, which is a real buzz-kill. First, it leads to a series of numbing litanies on human agency. Reloaded airs out four distinct theories of causality and action: Neo's insistence on free will, Morpheus' benign fatalism, the Architect's malign fatalism, and the Mervingian's scientific determinism.

This is boring enough, but worse is that, with Fate displacing Reality as the central pseudo-philosophical issue, the Matrix loses its central place in The Matrix. Though Neo and his crew continue to nose around the nooks and crannies of the Matrix's program, both sequels ignore the fate of people still trapped. We no longer get to participate in the giddy, awful process of enlightenment and emancipation, and the fragile semblance of logic that drew from the original's tidy dualism totally collapses. (Reloaded signals its abandonment of even the pretense of coherence when Neo, head bowed and hand extended in the stance of a Pentecostal faith healer, stops several real-world machines in their tracks. By this time, the audience's response is, "Ah, what the hell. Why not?")

The Fate we're supposed to care about is, alas, that of gloomy Zion, where Jada Pinkett Smith sets the tone with her scowl. Much of the action in Zion consists of legislative hearings held by ponderous middle-aged counselors dressed not in snazzy leather but in canvas smocks. (Cornel West, the poster boy for dreary academism, plays one of them.) This lends the proceedings a neo-medieval vibe that is totally out of keeping with the original Matrix but weirdly, grimly familiar from other sci-fi franchises. The Wachowski brothers, moved by some inscrutable nerd-muse, apparently decided that the one glaring flaw of the original Matrix, besides the whole superfluous Matrix thing, was that it didn't feel enough like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

[waltersgirl]

this guy is wordy and takes himself too seriously but he's essentially right....kinda like the movie. how appropos.


You are like the Cliffs notes to the Matrix.

I need you sitting next to me when I watch the third one. I really should go back and watch 1 and 2 though first.
:lol:lol you bet.;) seriously though, go back and watch 2, but watch it with no expectations. that's the problem with 2 and 3. everyone's expectations are for it to be like 1, and they can't be, because, they aren't. you're waiting for "it" to happen so much, even though you don't know what "it" is, and you know that you don't know, and you're afraid you'll miss it when "it" comes and you're hyperalert because of it. just let Reloaded flow over you when you watch it again. yea, it's still about 10 or 12 minutes too long, but it's much better the more you watch.

i do agree with WordyWriter (tm) above in that what's missing is the central question.

Trinity:"It's the question that drives us....It's the reason you can't sleep. Why you stay up night after night..."

Neo: "What is the Matrix."

Neo's reply was a statement, not a question. he understood that the fundamental driving force *was* the question. Reloaded and Revolutions leave the question behind. the end in Revolutions dismisses those still trapped in the Matrix because the "real" world was the agenda. it's what always drove them. to save their "real" world. so in a sense, the ending is appropriate to life, but incomplete to the film.

i'm still gonna go with "glorious failure" for $500, Merv. :smokin:

[grinner]

But didn't the Architect say to the Oracle that those that wanted out would be let out?

[waltersgirl]

yes, but that's on the machines' part, not on Zion's. the problem with that is what drove the first film.

they never free a mind after a certain age because the mind has trouble letting go.

so what were they gonna do? go knock on their pods? there's no reason now to leave the Matrix necessarily. many, many, many people are no different than Cypher, which was why Cypher's betrayal was so understandable. he didn't want to suffer if he didn't have to.

[grinner]

ah... I see your point. That is why I didn't like the end... Neo should be alive to make the machines live up to their side of the deal.

[waltersgirl]

i don't believe that Neo's dead. i agree with whomever above said that the switched vision was indicative of Neo still living, but they still removed him from the Matrix. which wouldn't be a big deal if there was going to be another film, but since there isn't apparently....

[grinner]

aaaah... I see.

Well that leaves it even more unsettling to me.

[vhsiv]

waltersgirl - Like your comment in the BSG thread, I think that the fundamental problem of the 'Trilogy' is that the Wachowskis changed the premise of the story between the 1st and 2nd films - the central question changed from "What is the Matrix?" and by extention 'reality', to "What is fate?".

Unfortunately, the two questions do not correspond to one another.

[kechara420]

I guess I'm one of the few who wasn't overly impressed with Revolutions, but I guess it's because of what waltersgirl discussed ... I kept waiting for "it" ... for that interesting twist, that thing that would make the film stand out like the first one did. To me, it ended up being ... predictable. That's what I didn't like about it. It was too predictable, right down to Trinity's death. You *knew* as soon as she chose to go with Neo that she would die. Am I the only one who feels this way?

[NYPinTA]

I've got a dumb question:
In the second movie, the Architect tells Neo that basically Neo was programmed to be The One and come to him and make a choice, which is how the Oracle knew everything that was going to happen, it was programmed that way.
So, does that mean Trinity was programmed to love Neo?

[La Bomba]

You know, I walked out of the film disappointed. My wife walked out angry. She said that the ending was so disappointing that she has lost interest in the whole trilogy, and will probably never watch any of the movies again.
While I'm not that upset by it, I couldn't completely disagree with her. The writers and cast made such a huge point that this was the end, there would be no more. Then END IT! Don't leave us hanging.
I get what they were trying to do. Leave it vague and open to interpretation so that everyone would be talking about it, as we're doing here.
But in doing so, it really did taint the whole Matrix experience.
I ended up telling my wife to imagine a 5 minute segment at the end of the film where they go back to Neo's "body" in the machine world. They show the scene with the bright light that Neo sees. Neo's voice says, "What's happened? Where am I?". The computer mind replies, "You are fully integrated now. You have shed your mortal coil and joined with us. And at last, now we understand. We will live in peace."
Then a shot of Neo's mind travelling through the computer city, and coming to his crashed ship, with Trinity's body inside. He pulls her mind from her body and they are together in their new state of consciousness.

Anyway, I guess if nothing else, they did give us room to imagine what happens next.

[Digger]

I like your ending La Bomba. Much better than theirs.

[ipimen]

So, does that mean Trinity was programmed to love Neo?

I believe that everything or almost everything was planned and beautifully orchrestated (sp?) by the Oracle. Maybe at puting the idea in Trinity's mind she actually made her believe it or at least she set things in motion for it to happen, like when the Oracle tells Neo not to worry about the vase, and Neo asks "what vase?" at the same time he breaks it, she then says that he will be worrying later wheter he would've broken it if she hadn't said anything.

What if Neo wasn't The One at the time he talked to the Oracle on Matrix 1, she tells him so, but she told Morpheus that he would find the One. So i'm guessing that Neo starts to become the One when he decides to rescue Morpheus, that's when he actually starts doing amazing things. I've read that maybe it was the cookie that the Oracle gives Neo on M1, see that she offers another cookie on M3 but he refuses it. The cookie was the upgrade to Neo's matrix code.

The debate between the Oracle and the Architect is similar to that of Emotion-vs-Logic. With logic you try to balance the equation and account for every variable, but emotion unbalances it and kicks reason out the window. So i think that love is the trigger for the new code in Neo, first love for Morpheus, that's when he starts to develop, but the big bang and the great development comes with "I love you" by Trinity, you see that this is what wakes him up and makes him THE ONE.

Love was also necessary for The Choice, the Oracle's plan was that this iteration of the Matrix should have love and compasion so the ppl that want to be free can be free. The Choice that Neo makes at the Architect's "office" is what makes this iteration different, all the others have gone with logic, Neo chooses emotion, again this is the upgrade made by the Oracle.

Now the ending of Revolutions, i believe that Neo was not killed, the machines at the end were taking him to The Source. You can see that the glow is the same as the machine's glow, same color but much more intense, so all that is left of Neo is his code (or conscience). After that shot, you see how The Matrix is reloaded, this iteration has Neo's code inserted in it, this iteration has love, so Sati is kept alive and given something to do (Photoshop or something like it) and she can make beautiful sun rises, the Oracle is also restored and everything else but this time The Architect agrees to free the ones that want to be free.

Trinity had to die so Neo didn't feel he had any conections to the Zion world and he could do what it needed to be done without regards for the consequences.

So that's what i think and i really liked the 3 movies a lot, each one has many details and need to be watched and rewatched and discussed to be completely understood.

[La Bomba]

Thanks, Digger! :)

Hey, all those who were dissatisfied with the ending! How would YOU have ended it? What would have made the ending good for you?:think:

[waltersgirl]

Now the ending of Revolutions, i believe that Neo was not killed, the machines at the end were taking him to The Source. You can see that the glow is the same as the machine's glow, same color but much more intense, so all that is left of Neo is his code (or conscience). After that shot, you see how The Matrix is reloaded, this iteration has Neo's code inserted in it, this iteration has love, so Sati is kept alive and given something to do (Photoshop or something like it) and she can make beautiful sun rises, the Oracle is also restored and everything else but this time The Architect agrees to free the ones that want to be free.


so essentially it was all reset again...which negates everything. every sacrifice was a waste.

[ipimen]

so essentially it was all reset again...which negates everything. every sacrifice was a waste

No way! it was not reset, it was reloaded, with a very important upgrade. The Architect agreed to free the ones who wanted to be free, there was compasion this time, love, the upgrade made by Neo's code to the Source. Every sacrifice is what made it possible.

[pilot_lethina]

So bottom line is if The Watchowski (sp) brothers did not end it the way "you" thought it should end it makes it a bad movie?

Personally I get more irritated if an artist sells out buy giving the audience exactly what they wanted without sticking to what their original vision was.

Does anyone here think the W. Bros. sold out?

I many of the reviews I read critics felt parts II and III should have been exact duplicates of part one and hated it because they weren't. The hook to part one was the character’s realization that they were not in the real world. Once that cat is out of the bag you can't put it back in and pull it out again expecting everyone to be surprised.

I guess that is the "it" posters here are referring to. While after part two I felt short changed after seeing III I feel better about it and I enjoyed it much more. Maybe part of the reason I enjoyed them was the having scene the Animatrix and getting more of the back story, but maybe not.

Part one set us up to make us believe the machines were the bad guys, but really they aren’t they just want to survive - just like we do. By humanities actions we put ourselves in the pods and I think this movie was much more sympathetic to the machines.

I think a lot of people’s resentments of these moves come from two things.

One: We wanted humanity to “win” and we were left unsure if they did. Does anybody every really win in a war situation?

Two: We wanted to have more of that Matix bending of reality and these two films spent more time in the real world than in the Martix. These films spent time filling in the wholes that were left in the first film as to why the real world is such a harsh struggle that someone like Cypher would want out.

[waltersgirl]

So bottom line is if The Watchowski (sp) brothers did not end it the way "you" thought it should end it makes it a bad movie?

depends on the movie. there are plenty films that had endings i didn't agree with, but those films had no mythos going so there wasn't really a consequence. i just watched a very entertaining suspense thriller last night, a british film, and they killed off the main character at the end of the film. not the way i would have done it, but a very appropriate ending for a british film, and plausible for the storyline that they'd written.

the Matrix films are a trilogy. they built a mythology. at the end of the third film, and somewhat through the second film, that mythology was betrayed. that makes a not!resolution to a trio of films that are linked together. with one incomplete ending they blew the entire mythology.

No way! it was not reset, it was reloaded, with a very important upgrade. The Architect agreed to free the ones who wanted to be free, there was compasion this time, love, the upgrade made by Neo's code to the Source. Every sacrifice is what made it possible.

except for the part where the status quo was just restored, the humans are back at square one with no technology available to free trapped minds and help them transition and Neo is no longer in the Matrix. that's a reset. Neo may have changed things, but the universe has still been reset.

[vhsiv]

Originally posted by pilot_lethina
[B]So bottom line is if The Watchowski (sp) brothers did not end it the way "you" thought it should end it makes it a bad movie?

Personally I get more irritated if an artist sells out buy giving the audience exactly what they wanted without sticking to what their original vision was.

Does anyone here think the W. Bros. sold out?Actually, it's Wachowski.

I myself have been wondering if a substantial portion of the film didn't hit the editing-room floor, as lots of people were complaining about the complexity of philosophical 'content' in the second film. I've been looking for information about a DVD release and such, to see if there's any extra stuff that's going to be included.

On it's own, 'Revolutions' is a fine film for people who are interested in seeing some 'a## kicken' and watch some stuff get 'blowned up' - actually better than most sci-fi and action movies, in general. However, it didn't live up to it's promise or potential, it felt incomplete - especially given all of the Gnostic philosophy talk that was kicking around after the release of the second film.

It's almost as if Bonnie Hammer herself sent a memo down from the front office...

I'm reluctant to think the erudition was all just marketing hype.

[waltersgirl]

you know, i hate the term "sold out". i hate the implications of it. that something has to be counter to what is popular for it to have any artistic merit. that's utter bullshit.

reread what i first wrote. the film is entertaining. i agree with vhsiv, it's a kickass film on its own. it's visually beautiful. the flaw is in their articulation of their own ideas. i don't believe they did it on purpose. i think their vision of it was just too ambiguous to feel satisfying.

[Zantar]

Well think of what they had to accomplsih. Hollywood investors are not exactly pulling for complicated good movies. They probably had it working just fine until producers and the like insisted they dumb it down, and include more of those love scenes.

[waltersgirl]

the Wachowski Bros had immense creative control.

[pilot_lethina]

Okay maybe I came of a little strong in my defense of the "Wachowski"(thank you vhsiv) Bros., but some of the reviews (and post here) I have read to date crossed the line of criticism and entered into the territory of "If I made this movie, blah, blah, blah..." And I really abhor that line of criticism because it isn’t valid unless you are approaching it from a technical perspective and criticizing and artist’s technique and not whether they were doing their very best to relay their vision.

Unless Larry and the other brother’s name that I can’t remember care to join our debate of whether or not this was their original vision we'll just have to guess.

One thing that has been highly overdone is comparing Neo to Jesus (can you spell Messiah). I personally don’t think Neo was so much a Messiah as a Prophet along the lines of Moses (“Let my people go”). As a prophet/martyr Neo’s path was fairly predetermined despite the film's misleading statements about “Choice.”

The film begs the question - what is choice? And, does anybody really have it?

Did Neo really ever have a choice? Or was he simply manipulated from beginning to end by everyone around him?

What I get from the ending was the Neo was never anything more than a tool.

[Under A Dying Sun]

i have been busy. thanks a lot for taking the time to write up that explanation WG. :)

[waltersgirl]

Under,
you're quite welcome.;) i really do recommend seeing the film, if only to make up your own mind.



Originally posted by pilot_lethina
Okay maybe I came of a little strong in my defense of the "Wachowski"(thank you vhsiv) Bros., but some of the reviews (and post here) I have read to date crossed the line of criticism and entered into the territory of "If I made this movie, blah, blah, blah..." And I really abhor that line of criticism because it isn’t valid unless you are approaching it from a technical perspective and criticizing and artist’s technique and not whether they were doing their very best to relay their vision.


on the contrary. art, and by extension film, is wholly subjective. individuals make film to tell a story in moving pictures, hence the term motion picture. the entire validity of film is the ability to convey ideas visually. that's the point. the Brothers, however valiantly they tried, failed to do that for me....and apparently for many, many others.

One thing that has been highly overdone is comparing Neo to Jesus (can you spell Messiah). I personally don’t think Neo was so much a Messiah as a Prophet along the lines of Moses (“Let my people go”). As a prophet/martyr Neo’s path was fairly predetermined despite the film's misleading statements about “Choice.”

the film intentionally invokes the Messiah metaphor. maybe you noticed the Christ-on-the-Cross visual in the end sequence of the film...Neo stretched out, arms spread out, legs straight together, jacked back into the Matrix by the machines, all outlined in golden light? it's fairly blatant. the only way it could have been more pronounced was a flashing neon sign.

the problem with invoking that metaphor is the incompleteness of the metaphor. The Savior was both God and Man, like Neo was both of the real world and of the Matrix. God sent His Son, born as a man, to save the world from its sins by His own death and resurrection. the movie forgot the resurrection part. ooops.

the resurrection would have been Neo, evolved into something else, back inside the Matrix.


Unless Larry and the other brother’s name that I can’t remember care to join our debate of whether or not this was their original vision we'll just have to guess.

his brother's name is Andrew. and again, film, like all art, is subject to interpretation. that's the point. the better artists intentionally choose some level of ambiguity, allowing the viewer to see the art through the filters of the viewer's mind. there is no other way to perceive.

The film begs the question - what is choice? And, does anybody really have it?

Did Neo really ever have a choice? Or was he simply manipulated from beginning to end by everyone around him?

the original question is choice and the metaphor used to examine that question was the Matrix itself. you can't, then, abandon the metaphor halfway through the story and pick another. just as how in the spoken word mixing metaphors makes for poor grammar, so in film it makes for bad storytelling.

What I get from the ending was the Neo was never anything more than a tool.

as valid an interpretation as any other, simply one that i disagree with.

Neo made a choice that no one expected him to make. the Oracle hoped he would make it, but even she wasn't sure, because Neo wasn't sure. not until he understood the choice, because if he didn't understand it, he could choose something else. choice is not predestination. choice negates the notion of predestination. remember also what the Oracle kept saying, "You cannot see beyond the choices you do not understand."

i'd say that statement applies just as easily to the Brothers, as it did to Neo. even they didn't fully understand the creative choices that they'd made, and thus the vision was incomplete in its translation. the first film is crystal clear, crisp, economic in its storytelling, sharp in its dialogue, because they knew where they were going with the story. in the second and third films they simply got lost. and given the enormity of the story they were trying to tell, it's easy to see how that happened.

[waltersgirl]

and that, folks, was probably the longest post i've ever written. :smokin:

[Under A Dying Sun]

yes, but also one of the coolest. ;)

[waltersgirl]

aw shucks...now i'm all blushy.

[grinner]

here is a blushing smilie for you wg...

http://www.tarzantheseries.com/forums/images/smilies/blush.gif

[waltersgirl]

thanks muchly :smokin:

[grinner]

not a problem... but... could you snurch it and add it to our growing list of smilies... that would be :cool:

[waltersgirl]

i don't manage the smilie menage, but i'll forward the suggestion for ya. ;) look for it after Burbank.

[grinner]

:cool:... no wait... that'll be :smokin:

btw... who is in charge of the smilie brigade?

[waltersgirl]

if i told you, i'd have to cancel you. :bond:


somebody snurched my hat smilie. i am vexxed.

[grinner]

uh... that is ok... I would rather not be cancelled...

[Kerrigan]

Once Farscape is saved we can always start a grassroots "Save grinner" campaign. :rollin:

[grinner]

:lol

save me Popeye... save me.

[ipimen]

except for the part where the status quo was just restored, the humans are back at square one with no technology available to free trapped minds and help them transition and Neo is no longer in the Matrix. that's a reset. Neo may have changed things, but the universe has still been reset.

Well as you said film is subjective, and my opinions of what happened are different of yours. For example what you call square one, for me would've been if all we had been left with was a destroyed Zion with X men and Y women chosen by Neo, and with the job of repopulating and reconstructing Zion. The fact that a high percentage of Zion's inhabitants survived is not square one, it is square two :D it is one step ahead.

Neo IS in the Matrix, we were not told what did "inserting the code of the one in the source" meant, it could mean to become fully integrated and not really absorbed, it is different.

The humans do not have the technology to free other humans, but the Architect does, and he is willing to do it. That is almost square three for me :D

And the fact that they are a lot more than just X+Y humans, could mean that they can rebuild Zion more easily. They don't have to worry about choosing leaders, establish a society and learn everything from square one, they already have that, and they already have part of Zion since it was not completely gone.

I don't get what you mean by "the universe has still been reset", the Zion universe (that is the one that matters IMVHO) is still there, a little shaken up, but still there; if you mean the Matrix universe, it hasn't been reset either since it is different also. I see a reset like a reformat of the same computer with the same software, just without the corruption and clogg. In my eyes and by own subjective opinion the Matrix was upgraded, same computer with a new version of the code, one that is supposed to be better, that is NOT a reset, it is an upgrade.

Regarding the Jesus Christ visual, maybe it was the intention to make it blatant. Neo was the savior of the ppl of Zion, that was crystal clear. He made a sacrifice, just like JC did, he gave his "mortal" existence, but you also have all the martyrs, saints and religious figures that have done the same thing (it comes with the job description most of the time), it is just that JC is more easily recognized and portrayed in our culture and many others. That it was incomplete is probably a way of not converting Neo in JC, because then you'll have the church and religious fanatics protesting outside the theaters. So damn if you do and damn if you don't, that's what filmmakers are subjected to in a culture obsessed with political correctnes...blah.

[vhsiv]

Originally posted by ipimen

I don't get what you mean by "the universe has still been reset", the Zion universe (that is the one that matters IMVHO) is still there, a little shaken up, but still there; if you mean the Matrix universe, it hasn't been reset either since it is different also. I see a reset like a reformat of the same computer with the same software, just without the corruption and clogg. Just wait 'til the Borg show up in the inevitable 'Matrix vs. The Borg' sequel. The Matrix (and Neo) are both toast wothout some REAL humans to defend them.

But on a 'serious' note - I have to disagree with waltersgirl here - in the first film, the q. was "What is the Matrix?", the free-will and predestination stuff only came into play in the sequels.

[Spider01]

As to the Architec saying that he will let out those who want out......who and how are the "batteries" going to be told that they can get out?

And yes I also agree with whom ever stated that it would take time to let out the humans in the Matrix because right now the earth could not support them all.



I too enjoyed the movie with the "let down" feeling at the end.

I was wha...wha... wait a second......wha....come on. That isn't an ending. Too many strings left hanging.....you need to sew them back into a final thread!!!!!!

So, if the brothers want to truely finish what they started they may take head to those who have been comenting about the "let down" end.


What I think (or hope) will happend is that when the DVD comes out that there might be some more added to it and/or possibly an alternate or [l]lengthened[/i] ending to bring closure to the trilogy.

[Spider01]

Oh and Sis.
I've think I've seen longer posts from you. :flee:

[waltersgirl]

vhsiv,

i quote myself from 11-10

i do agree with WordyWriter (tm) above in that what's missing is the central question.

Trinity:"It's the question that drives us....It's the reason you can't sleep. Why you stay up night after night..."

Neo: "What is the Matrix."

Neo's reply was a statement, not a question. he understood that the fundamental driving force *was* the question. Reloaded and Revolutions leave the question behind.

[waltersgirl]

and this is me ignoring my smartassed twin.

[Spider01]

:innocent: what?

[T'railmixx]

Okay, I haven't really hashed out this idea thouroughly yet, because I need to see the last two again a couple of times. Maybe you all can tell me what is wrong with my theory.

Zion and the free humans are merely a sub-matrix.

The Architect said that their have always been versions of "the One", and the rebellion has occurred many times because some humans refused to believe the matrix. What better way to controll a rebellion than letting them have one and think that they succeed, after all this is the matrix, everything seems real. The miscontents will think that not only are they free, but they are saving the rest of humanity, they won't want to disbelieve that. Give them a messiah with magical powers, and they will follow him, and believe. Supply them with an insider that "knows the future" and they will call it destiny. Supply them with a "something is different this time" anomoly and it will only add to the belief that it is truly destiny and it is over. To compensate for the "Yeah... too easy!" feeling supply only a de'tente at a heavy sacrifice; a temporary reprieve........and reload till next time the natives become restless.

Anyway... that's my take in a nutshell. There are many things that fit that theory, but like I said I haven't really sat down to think it out thouroughly. eg. Neo can alter the "real" world just as he does in the matrix; how!!? Did he figure how to create an EM Pulse with his mind. Things like that, and the fact that the W. Brothers seem to know how to cover what's really happening , are what make me think this way.....
and maybe it's because by prescription ran out.

It's late and I keep getting interrupted so I hope this makes as much sense as I think it does.