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The Matrix Resurrections [SPOILERS]


SpaceChampion

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10 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

Eh, might check it out on HBO Max if I’m bored. The sequels are wildly terrible (fuck the recent online attempts to reevaluate them as “masterpieces actually”, dummies did the same with the Star Wars prequels), and the Wachowski track record is pretty poor in general, so even if there weren’t a plague and the trailer were more exciting, I don’t think I could get myself out the door to see this.

In my mind the original Matrix movie is one of those happy accidents, where all the elements came together and produced something unique and brilliant. They haven’t come close to replicating that, I think I’ve kind of hated everything they’ve done since, which isn’t very much, but still. 
 

Reminds me of the Donnie Darko guy, one happy accident and shit ever since.

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6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

In my mind the original Matrix movie is one of those happy accidents, where all the elements came together and produced something unique and brilliant. They haven’t come close to replicating that, I think I’ve kind of hated everything they’ve done since, which isn’t very much, but still. 

Cloud Atlas, the book, is very good but was rightly called unfilmable ever since it was released. Considering the challenges they faced, I think Cloud Atlas the movie came out about as well as it could have. That isn't to say it's a great movie, but I don't think any other director could've done better. So that speaks to them still having some level of talent.

I also think Speed Racer is underrated.

Everything else since the original Matrix has been bad. Although I can't speak to Sense8, I never saw it.

Despite all that, I am cautiously optimistic about this movie. I think the trailer looked good. And I think there must've been the core of a good idea or Reeves wouldn't have come back. He's career has been going great the past few years, he has no need for another Matrix movie as a cash- or nostalgia-grab. So that gives me hope too.

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It's been a long, long, long time since I watched the Matrix sequels, so please correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't the third movie end with Neo sacrificing himself to make peace between robots and humans, with the idea that the cycles/Matrix would end? How do we get from there to whatever's happening in this trailer?

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Okay, first time I watched it was with no sound.

The sound made it SO much better. I got chills when I heard the Matrix theme at the end, and the remix was amazing. 

I don't know if it'll suck or not, but it is totally what I want. 

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17 minutes ago, Fez said:

Cloud Atlas, the book, is very good but was rightly called unfilmable ever since it was released. Considering the challenges they faced, I think Cloud Atlas the movie came out about as well as it could have. That isn't to say it's a great movie, but I don't think any other director could've done better. So that speaks to them still having some level of talent.

I also think Speed Racer is underrated.

Everything else since the original Matrix has been bad. Although I can't speak to Sense8, I never saw it.

Despite all that, I am cautiously optimistic about this movie. I think the trailer looked good. And I think there must've been the core of a good idea or Reeves wouldn't have come back. He's career has been going great the past few years, he has no need for another Matrix movie as a cash- or nostalgia-grab. So that gives me hope too.

I know the book is complex but lots of that movie is comically bad, and I get the sense they don’t really know the difference any more.

Speed racer is based on a pretty bad tv show ( I had the cartoon on vhs as a kid and would cry laughing at its crapiness with my mates ) and even then I still don’t get what they were going for with that movie.

I think I saw 2 episodes of Sense8 and kinda hated it. 
 

So yeah to me all bets are on this being garbage. Even Reeves coming back doesn’t prove much

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I guess the Wachowskis have to be treated similarly to George Lucas as idea guys and visual directors, but in dire need of having a great writer who will focus their settings on a tight script. I second the notion that Sense8 was absolutely fantastic, visually mesmerizing and with very strong protagonists, even if it sometimes veered into too bizarrely cartoonish territory despite taking itself so seriously. I have a feeling that the tightness of the script was in large part thanks to J. Michael Straczynski reigning them in.

I see in the credits that David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon as cowriters. Is that a hint for something good or bad?

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The Matrix was absolutely brilliant - I'm so glad it's finally getting a sequel.
TBH I'm amazed Hollywood didn't do this earlier, it usually only takes 2-3 years to get a sequel out.

I just hope it can live up to the legacy of the original, after all this time

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I actually loved the plot progression of Reloaded, although it had plenty of other problems, but Revolutions just didn’t explain those progressions well at all. I’m worried Resurrections will just be more of the same, philosophical musings that don’t amount to anything material.

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6 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I actually loved the plot progression of Reloaded, although it had plenty of other problems, but Revolutions just didn’t explain those progressions well at all. I’m worried Resurrections will just be more of the same, philosophical musings that don’t amount to anything material.

Agreed, Reloaded wasn't perfect, but it had some good action (the highway scene was very well done) and some interesting ideas they were introducing.  At the end, they are outside of the Matrix and about to get killed by the HKs, and then Neo holds up his hand and shorts them out with his mind.  The clear implication is that even after being unplugged that they were still in the matrix. 

My theory was that what the Architect said was somewhat true, that The One was an anomaly that the machines could not remove, and thus their solution was to bury him deeper in a matrix within a matrix to better control the situation.  Neo's ability to manipulate the Upper Matrix would be a new phase of the same war.  Which has real potential. 

But instead...it was just a bunch of bullshit that never went anywhere, a boring CGI fight with Agent Smith, a different boring CGI fight inside Zion, and some heavy-handed Christ allegories. 

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32 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

My theory was that what the Architect said was somewhat true, that The One was an anomaly that the machines could not remove, and thus their solution was to bury him deeper in a matrix within a matrix to better control the situation.  Neo's ability to manipulate the Upper Matrix would be a new phase of the same war.  Which has real potential. 

Ugh, that sounds soooo much better. It completely ruins that scene that it was basically nothing but a cliffhanger, and if I recall correctly the best we got was ‘The One’s powers extend beyond the Matrix’ or some shit.

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I think what they went with in the end was basically that Neo had wifi/Bluetooth somehow and could use that to manipulate the code running the machines. He couldn't fly or stop rocks from falling or anything like that, but could affect machines.

Which isn't a terrible plot point, but is way less interesting than the idea that Zion is just another level of the matrix.

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30 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Ugh, that sounds soooo much better. It completely ruins that scene that it was basically nothing but a cliffhanger, and if I recall correctly the best we got was ‘The One’s powers extend beyond the Matrix’ or some shit.

It was extremely weak sauce.

8 minutes ago, Fez said:

I think what they went with in the end was basically that Neo had wifi/Bluetooth somehow and could use that to manipulate the code running the machines. He couldn't fly or stop rocks from falling or anything like that, but could affect machines.

Which isn't a terrible plot point, but is way less interesting than the idea that Zion is just another level of the matrix.

Right, but that explanation makes no sense.  The machines like HKs aren't on or part of the Matrix, they're totally independent.  Why should Neo's mastery of the Matrix extend to them?  I guess if you reach really far you could say that Neo's mastery isn't of the matrix, but all machine systems, but frankly that just sounds impossible.  A human able to manipulate the matrix with his mind is odd, but does not seem immediately ridiculous, lots of programs allow you to cheat if you know where to look.  But you cannot manipulate the real world that way.  Unless you're Neo I guess. 

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I'm not saying I thought that Neo-controlling-machines plot point was handled well, but in looking for sense in it, I think you're overlooking that for all it's an SF story, the Matrix is also, and always was, a religious story too. Ultimately Neo can handle the machines coz he has miraculous powers. 

That's why I also think explanations for Trinity and Morpheus involving clones or programs or stuff might not be right- they could well be, especially with that one shot of Trinity in the trailer, and another weird one of what I think is Morpheus in the teasers that didn't make the main trailer, but they could also just be angels or something.  

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The "reality is just another Matrix" idea I think was always a non-starter, because of how extremely confusing that would get to a general audience (and the question would be what is the real reality like; if it was just like the fake upper Matrix, it'd be pretty pointless). If you want to do that idea justice, you need to be Philip K. Dick, and the Wachowskis wisely realised their limitations there.

I think the film's premise looks reasonably straightforward: Neo survived the events of Revolutions (you can even see his post-Revolutions body, complete with burned-out eyes, near the start of the trailer) and was plugged back into the Matrix as a reward by the machines for his help in stopping Smith and finding a new solution to the systemic instability (for all the Architect's bluster about destroying Zion and rebooting being the only way, it looks like the reboot-and-truce idea held some appeal for them as well), with his memory erased either deliberately by the machines or as a side-effect of rebooting the system. It looks like they tried to save Trinity as well, but given she was dead for longer, it might not be as straightforward in her case. The Trinity we see in the Matrix might be more of an AI recreation of Trinity rather than the real thing (hence why she glows green with Matrix code in one shot), and the scenes of Trinity outside the Matrix might be fantasies or hallucinations.

Twenty years later, Neo "wakes up" with the help of Jessica Henwick's character and what appears to be Morpheus, although I suspect that might not be Morpheus per se but a Machine-derived recreation (that ties in, perhaps, with Morpheus's fate in the The Matrix Online); note we don't see new-Morpheus outside the Matrix 

Spoiler

apart from in one still, where he appears to be a holographic display of some kind on what might be a hovership, so maybe a rebel AI based on Morpheus?

Where the film does leave things up in the air is why the Machines/Agents seem to be at odds with the free humans again. I suspect the Merovingian and the "third side" of independent programmes has gotten bored with the truce and decided to fuck things over.

I will say that Jessica Henwick looks extremely badass in this.

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15 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Right, but that explanation makes no sense.  The machines like HKs aren't on or part of the Matrix, they're totally independent.  Why should Neo's mastery of the Matrix extend to them?  I guess if you reach really far you could say that Neo's mastery isn't of the matrix, but all machine systems, but frankly that just sounds impossible.  A human able to manipulate the matrix with his mind is odd, but does not seem immediately ridiculous, lots of programs allow you to cheat if you know where to look.  But you cannot manipulate the real world that way.  Unless you're Neo I guess. 

As well as the Matrix, there appears to be a cloud-based network which connects to the Matrix but also all the Machines in the real world, including the Sentinels and all the systems at Zero-One (the Machine City). The One's source code allowed Neo to interface with that system, allowing him to "see" and affect Smith-in-Bane, the Sentinels and the Machines.

After Smith effectively kills (or at least defeats) Neo, he tries to interface with Neo, who acts as a bridge between the source code and the main Machine AI, which allows it to effectively reboot the Matrix and flush Smith out of the system for good. The assumption was that Neo died in the process, but it was left ambiguous.

I'm actually glad that Weaving declined to return; bringing Smith back after everything they did to defeat him would have been pretty lame.

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Yeah, Jessica Henwick and some of the stunt moves of super gymnastic awesomeness really made me just wow and geek out. That kind of dynamic action was exactly the thing that I've been missing. 

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