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The Matrix Resurrections [SPOILERS]


SpaceChampion

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4 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

The child program who inspired love from her father.

Ummm… that’s not new.  That was an explicit reference to “Matrix: Revolutions” where Sati was introduced and Neo questioned her Parents (programs) about their love for their “Child”.

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21 minutes ago, DMC said:

...and then unforgivably married a Jonas brother.

You had hopes and dreams too, huh?

 

So what do people make about Neo and Trinity seeing their older selves in the mirror in quick shots?

Also, @SpaceChampion, I think at this point you've got to make this a spoiler thread.

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Wtf did I just watch. 

The whole meta 'sly wink to audience', middle finger to the studios, jokey vibe was simply horrible. I guess internally they thought that was a good idea, but it really felt like 'oh yeah that thing you liked, well we are laughing at it now'. 

And that isn't good when the thing you are making is clearly inferior to the original on every level. It just seems like such a mistake to literally remake scenes from the original but somehow manage to make them worse. The literally redo the opening scene, amongst others, and in every instance its a downgrade from a 20 year old movie.
The whole movie feels low budget.. Netflixy, like it should be a tv show. 

Just thinking back to how that original movie made me feel. That sense of 'holy shit, that just blew my mind' and not just the story, but the visuals, the sense of style, everything about it was absolutely world changing coming out of the cinema that first time. Even the crappy sequels which I kind of hate had a sense of panache and felt like an event.

I dunno what this is.

So with the meta thing, is this actually a movie they didn't want to make but got forced into it? Thats sort of how it feels at times. There are some cool ideas floating around here, and maybe if it was a tv show, which somehow felt 2 steps disconnected to the movies I could have liked it. 

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17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You had hopes and dreams too, huh?

Not really, more just making fun of the Jonas brothers.

On Sati, I will say I'm very happy the character returned - indeed I was expecting her to play a big role.  In the third one it was heavily hinted at (or simply outright stated by the Oracle) that she would be important in the future.  Now I understand if you hate the sequels that might not matter, but Resurrections was just as much expanding on what they did in 2 and 3 as the original.

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15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

So with the meta thing, is this actually a movie they didn't want to make but got forced into it? Thats sort of how it feels at times. 

I suspect that's the case. The movie as a continuation doesn't really make sense or adding anything to the Matrix universe. I don't think Lana Wachoski is a good storyteller- the original Matrix being the exception - but even she had to have enough artistic sense that the story was complete with the trilogy and that this movie wasn't necessary. 

I liked the first half, but I agree with you that it came off as someone forced into a project they weren't interested in, and so were using the narrative to be pissy about the situation.

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To be clear, Lana definitely wanted to make Resurrections.  While Thomas Anderson being hounded by the studio to make another sequel in the first act is undoubtedly (and nakedly) self-referential, she conceived the story on a sleepless night dealing with grief over an annus horribilis where she lost a close friend and both her parents.

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@DMC

Thanks for that bit of info!

I'm glad for her that she wasn't forced into making something she didn't want to make. 

That she thought this movie was a good idea independent of a money grab I guess does align with my estimation of her abilities as a filmmaker, too.

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13 hours ago, Kalsandra said:

On the agents - keep in mind that agents didn't exactly exist in the new matrix. The only agents we see are in the modal at the start. 

Yes, I didn't think about that.

If the Analyst's bragging is correct then his iteration of the Matrix is so stable that pretty much nobody wants to get out ... in fact, the only folks who want out seem to be the people who saw Neo-Trinity in their 'true selves'. Bugs, for instance, reveals that she wanted out first when she saw one of Neo's earlier stunts. And if it is true that only folks who are willing to get out can survive the extraction process ... then the liberation project cannot really work that well with the new Matrix iteration.

As for Smith - he is Neo's alter ego thanks to the weirdo flaw in the Oracle-designed Matrix. The system eventually creates one guy who can bend and break the rules and that also causes an evil alter ego to develop. If Neo is still himself with his super powers then they also have to have Smith.

Thus we also see Smith regain his true identity when Neo figures out who he is ... just as 'evil Smith' was created when Neo, at the end of the first movie, realized who and what he was.

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37 minutes ago, DMC said:

To be clear, Lana definitely wanted to make Resurrections.  While Thomas Anderson being hounded by the studio to make another sequel in the first act is undoubtedly (and nakedly) self-referential, she conceived the story on a sleepless night dealing with grief over an annus horribilis where she lost a close friend and both her parents.

I actually liked that part well enough since it is a very good way to portray a Neo trapped in the Matrix dealing with his past experiences. We even have this kind of thing foreshadowed in a way with Cypher wishing that he be 'famous', 'an artist or something' back in the first movie.

One imagines that if that had happened they would also have had him as an artist who lives off the real experiences he didn't know he had.

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Not sure I understand why that scene about sequels and Warner bros is in there if it isn’t a massive dig as having to make the movie in the first place? Feels very odd if this was the movie they wanted to make. That bit is like a cry for help to the audience.

I'd imagine if they had severe differences, etc. then the studio would not have permitted that kind of humor.

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5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Not sure I understand why that scene about sequels and Warner bros is in there if it isn’t a massive dig as having to make the movie in the first place? Feels very odd if this was the movie they wanted to make. That bit is like a cry for help to the audience.

I liked it.  I liked the self referential nature of the new Matrix and the way the self-reference was used to contain Neo and Trinity.  It made sense, to me, to use recursion as a trap for the Characters and ennui as a web.

This was a clever film.

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5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I liked it.  I liked the self referential nature of the new Matrix and the way the self-reference was used to contain Neo and Trinity.  It made sense, to me, to use recursion as a trap for the Characters and ennui as a web.

This was a clever film.

I really liked that dig at incels by naming Trinity's husband 'Chad'. That was priceless ;-).

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I guess I don't get the argument that this doesn't need to be done, or it is a cash grab. Maybe it's that I was a fan of sense8 and see it's DNA here as well, but there are a lot of specific themes that made this pretty interesting to me. And no, it isn't going to be like the first matrix - but it is a good piece. 

As stated earlier the story is about love and its ability to transcend death. In that it is an inherently positive story, with radical empathy being a key value. 

Another big theme is how things don't end, and creations go beyond you. There's some obvious parenting views there, as well as some obvious comments on how redpilling is now something anathema to the creators of the Matrix, but it is something that is significantly more interesting than most static formulaic sequels.

It is very meta, but the actual plot does something very few works do well, which is start with what worked and then extend it without duplicating. There are a lot of beats here that are hugely difficult to predict which also end up being entirely reasonable and almost obvious in hindsight, and that is pretty awesome - at least to me. 

And it is also very woman centered. I get how this will immediately turn off some people and that isn't surprising, but that was clearly a part of this. Trapping trinity as a mom, making her be responsible for these kids when she clearly didn't have that as her dream - that's a pretty radical theme most movies won't touch. Resurrection's biggest flaw for me is not making trinity the star here for more of the movie. Neo being gaslit into thinking he was insane isn't nearly as emotionally appealing as trinity being gaslit into thinking she was a bad person for not wanting a family. 

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14 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Not sure I understand why that scene about sequels and Warner bros is in there if it isn’t a massive dig as having to make the movie in the first place? Feels very odd if this was the movie they wanted to make. That bit is like a cry for help to the audience.

Per interviews it was a joke, written specifically with WB's blessing and preying on the idea that people would think this is a naked cash grab. 

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

To be clear, Lana definitely wanted to make Resurrections.  While Thomas Anderson being hounded by the studio to make another sequel in the first act is undoubtedly (and nakedly) self-referential, she conceived the story on a sleepless night dealing with grief over an annus horribilis where she lost a close friend and both her parents.

To add on to that, apparently WB had been asking Lana and Lilly to make another Matrix movie for years, and they always said no. And there was never an attempt to make a movie without them, either because WB thought they needed them or possibly the Wachowski's somehow directly retain some of the rights to the franchise. This movie only happened because Lana finally said yes, for the reasons you say, and because Keanu and Carrie were on board.

And, from some interviews, it sounds like the main thing she wanted to accomplish was to give Neo and Trinity a happy ending. Which, since now have that, possibly means she never had any intention of making any further sequels.

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I'm starting to think we had Lilly to take for all of the amazing action scenes in the original film. The action in this film is filled with constant quick cuts and Neo apparently using force push moves, to escape tight spots. Heck some of the action scenes in this movie, are copied right out of the older ones, as if they weren't even trying to make them new and original. 

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