The Matrix Resurrections [SPOILERS]

[sifth]

19 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Eh, sometimes they're shit and sometimes they're Fury Road or BR2049. 


Okay, I'm not expecting Fury Road, but if it's Trainspotting 2 level I'll be fine with it.

Cobra Kai and Fury Road are the only two examples of 20 to 30 years later sequels, that actually turned out good, IMO. That's just my opinion though.

[BigFatCoward]

18 minutes ago, sifth said:

Cobra Kai and Fury Road are the only two examples of 20 to 30 years later sequels, that actually turned out good, IMO. That's just my opinion though.

Godfather 3 was not up to its predecesors standard but judged on its own merits its a good film. The colour of money? The force awakens was ok? I'm struggling for any more. 

[Heartofice]

The legacy of the original Matrix movie has already been shat on by the sequels so it’s not like they can really ruin it. 
 

Bits of the trailers have me excited, but it’s little things like Keanu shaving his head! Otherwise so far I’m seeing a bit too much over the top CGI ( which looks worse than the ones from 20 years ago) and coffee table philosophy that really ruined the two sequels.

I don’t hold out much hope because really I think the directors might actually be considered a one hit wonder. I know a lot of people rate their other movies, but I’ve found them all to be failures, and not even really interesting failures. Yes they might be ‘different’ but that says more about the cookie cutter movie landscape we live in than any sort of deep creativity.

I anticipate very mixed reviews

[sifth]

41 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Godfather 3 was not up to its predecesors standard but judged on its own merits its a good film. The colour of money? The force awakens was ok? I'm struggling for any more. 

I sort of hated the Force Awakens; granted Abrams has yet to make a film I actually liked. 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Unless I'm thinking of something else entirely, which is quite possible, I thought it was the next 20 years of action film making essentially rather than technology generally. The internet doesn't play a large enough role to claim it predicted technology generally.

I think there looks to be actual plot reason he needed to be played by a new actor, but I'm disappointed that LF wasn't in the loop on it at least - he deserved a phone call explaining that.

I'm also getting pretty excited for it. Given details we know now that we didn't at the time (Lana and Lily's experiences as trans women in the closet and pre any transition activities etc influencing much of the narrative etc) it seems likely to me that the last 20 years has probably given a lot of different perspective to infuse into the new story arc. It's a more substantial change to the creator than would normally be seen in ~20 years.

Possibly I'm mangling the Keanau quote, I'm going off my memories.

Also, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Fishbourne, and Weaving, do show up in the movie and that all the talk they don't is simply misdirection. It wouldn't be the first time actors/studios straight up lied to protect a movie cameo or plot point.

Last, I remember reading that the Wachowski's originally had some very clear allusions to transgender issues in the first movie that they ended up not using; the example given being a character who appears as one gender in the matrix and a different gender in the real world. I wonder if she circles back to any of those now.

[karaddin]

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

Also, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Fishbourne, and Weaving, do show up in the movie and that all the talk they don't is simply misdirection. It wouldn't be the first time actors/studios straight up lied to protect a movie cameo or plot point.

Last, I remember reading that the Wachowski's originally had some very clear allusions to transgender issues in the first movie that they ended up not using; the example given being a character who appears as one gender in the matrix and a different gender in the real world. I wonder if she circles back to any of those now.

Bolded - yeah I'm hoping that will turn out to be the case.

On the latter part - that was where it was meant to be more overt, but there's a lot in the subtext that made it into the movie. Agent Smith's insistence on calling Neo "Mr Anderson" is very reminiscent of people that refuse to accept a name change, and the scene at the train station where Neo beats Smith the first time in particular was influenced by a dark moment Lana (I think, could be wrong and it was Lily though) had at a train station.

I don't bring all that up to insist people see that reading of the first movie though, just to say that there's plenty of what went into it that will have been sufficiently updated by another 20 years of her life to justify having more story to tell now than there was then.

[Leofric]

Hugo Weaving's character/program was destroyed, so I can see not having him back.    Laurence Fishbourne would be good.  Maybe they are lying about his participation.  Have any of the trailers shown Morpheus in the real world?  I think they have only shown his avatar in training simulations and inside the Matrix, so possibly they are holding back scenes of him in the Machine world played by an aged Laurence Fishburne, who uses a younger avatar out of vanity or because the Agents have locked on to his old avatar so he needed a new one.  

[Corvinus85]

Why would you hide Fishburne's involvement?

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

Why would you hide Fishburne's involvement?

Possibly to protect some big twist; which would be the case if their keeping the canon of the video games, where he was killed.

[Corvinus85]

42 minutes ago, Fez said:

Possibly to protect some big twist; which would be the case if their keeping the canon of the video games, where he was killed.

ah, didn't know that.

[DMC]

6 hours ago, Fez said:

the example given being a character who appears as one gender in the matrix and a different gender in the real world.

Yeah the character Switch was supposed to be male in the real world and female in the matrix but Warner Bros axed the idea.  Instead, Switch will be remembered for this:

 

2 hours ago, Leofric said:

Hugo Weaving's character/program was destroyed, so I can see not having him back.

Rumors abound that...

Spoiler

Jonathan Groff's character is a rebooted version of Agent Smith.  There's also reports that Weaving was going to be involved but had to pull out due to scheduling conflicts.

 

[polishgenius]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Rumors abound that...

Those rumours are given pretty heavy fuel by the latest trailer, in which Groff repeats several of Smith's lines and is intercut with old footage of him. Very clearly even if it isn't true, Wachowski and the editors want us to think it is, at this point.

[Trebla]

I don't have high hopes for this and I'm one of the few people who LIKED the sequels. I think it would have been better if this movie(ormovies if the grosses are good) had been a continuation of the conflict between humans and machines with The One, Vol. 7 (played by a new actor) rather than a rehash of Neo/Thomas Anderson and Trinity. And preferably with an everntual ending that sees mankind leave Earth forever for a new world. Because if you saw the Animatrix, you know that humans were the real villains of this saga.

[Inkdaub]

It's all the weird 'something's not right' stuff at the beginning that has me excited for the film. I always love shit like that.

[Darryk]

Seeing Neo gradually rediscovering his powers and his identity as The One could be an interesting journey, just wonder what happens next.

Will he truly liberate humanity this time? Seems like a lot of stuff would need to happen, too much to fit in one movie.

Has Lana Wachowski mentioned anything about there being more sequels after this one, or is this supposed to be the ultimate resolution?

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Darryk said:

Has Lana Wachowski mentioned anything about there being more sequels after this one, or is this supposed to be the ultimate resolution?

I don't know, but I'd like the answer to that, too ... although I cannot expect them to bring the franchise back only to finally end it. The Matrix Revolutions pretty much finished the story, so they will need considerable screentime to establish the new setting.

It is good to know that the character of Sati is back as an adult since she was basically one of the only dangling plotlines from the last movie. And the Merovingian, too, although some people might also consider his plot a dead end ;-).

[Fez]

On 12/7/2021 at 8:10 AM, karaddin said:

Bolded - yeah I'm hoping that will turn out to be the case.

On the latter part - that was where it was meant to be more overt, but there's a lot in the subtext that made it into the movie. Agent Smith's insistence on calling Neo "Mr Anderson" is very reminiscent of people that refuse to accept a name change, and the scene at the train station where Neo beats Smith the first time in particular was influenced by a dark moment Lana (I think, could be wrong and it was Lily though) had at a train station.

I don't bring all that up to insist people see that reading of the first movie though, just to say that there's plenty of what went into it that will have been sufficiently updated by another 20 years of her life to justify having more story to tell now than there was then.

Not that it's any of our business, but I wonder to what extent either/both sisters were "in the closet" versus still figuring themselves out (sorry if that's not the right terminology) when making The Matrix. What I mean is, did they already know they were transgender and were making intentional choices in the subtext that you highlight? Or was that subtext a coincidence/their own subconscious thoughts bubbling up?

According to wikipedia, the earliest story that Lana was transitioning was in 2003; 4 years after the movie came out and who knows how many after it was written. Not that that necessarily means anything of course.

[karaddin]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

Not that it's any of our business, but I wonder to what extent either/both sisters were "in the closet" versus still figuring themselves out (sorry if that's not the right terminology) when making The Matrix. What I mean is, did they already know they were transgender and were making intentional choices in the subtext that you highlight? Or was that subtext a coincidence/their own subconscious thoughts bubbling up?

According to wikipedia, the earliest story that Lana was transitioning was in 2003; 4 years after the movie came out and who knows how many after it was written. Not that that necessarily means anything of course.

The way I'd normally talk about it in a trans community is that they were "eggs" at the time, as closeted is too simplistic and could mean multiple mutually exclusive things. I'm pretty sure I've read that Lana knew she was trans consciously but was still trying to avoid facing it, I'm less sure on Lily but think she still knew subconsciously but may not have been aware of it yet. I existed in that subconscious state for over a decade, it's not at all a dig at her - just can be part of the process of self discovery.

So yeah, I think some elements were intentionally included and the intent for Switch would have been coming from that awareness, but a lot of it is also just coming from thematic beats that can apply more widely and were resonating with where they were at.

[karaddin]

I already thought Jessica Henwick was the main good thing from Ironfist and was frustrated she didn't get more of a chance to shine, but this is looking like a pretty excellent career boost.

[Kalbear]

So from what I've seen so far critical acclaim is really, really good and the most surprising thing to me is that it is apparently really funny.