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The Matrix Resurrections [SPOILERS]


SpaceChampion

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This movie isn't a reboot ... and it doesn't tell the same story as any of the earlier versions. It plays around and references some of the themes from the first movie in the first act where Neo himself is 'freed' from the Matrix again ... but that's a continuation of the story. He is *never* the same guy he was back in the first movie.

This is not the Star Wars ST ripping off plots/redoing characters from the OT.

One can certainly say it might not be a 'necessary movie', that the story was over, needn't a continuation, etc. ... but as it is, it is still a continuation, not a reboot.

You also have to keep in mind that a Matrix movie must deal with the Matrix. And the way to do that is very limited. It is a virtual prison/zoo, and everything in there isn't real, so it doesn't *really matter*. And if you want to have Trinity and Neo back - which was the entire point of that movie - then you have to go back to the Matrix.

The way they referenced the first movie is actually pretty clever since we have a character who has to *remember* that he is the Matrix ... and he tries to remember himself that this is the case by replaying the old shit. And the guys who want to get him out jump on that and use it to get him out. But it isn't even remotely the same plot.

Insofar as the old movies are concerned, I realized I really like 'The Matrix Reloaded' after rewatching it in part. It really deconstructs a lot of the themes in the first movie, fucking with the concept of 'the One', turning Morpheus from this cool know-it-all to a misguided fanatic/cult leader. The thing with Niobe not believing in 'the One' nonsense but ending up believing in Neo, personally, the guy she knew, is also a rather interesting take on things.

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34 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Also:

 




This is particular complain is especially odd since a week or so ago you were tearing into The Last Duel for saying something you didn't think its setting was appropriate for it to say. 

And sure, there are a lot of big production line blockbusters now, more than there were then, but there are also still lots of meaningful films with messages and things to say. Some good, some bad, some meh, but they haven't gone away. Even a film as obviously designed primarily as a good time as The Harder They Fall was saying things.

Also you've managed to make a grandad 'get orf my lawn' post and a teen angst 'craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawling in my skin' post in the paragraph so props to you for that. 

 

'Especially first half' is doing an awful lot of work here, but even there, the very fact that it is winking at the audience means it can't be the same structure. Like okay, if you simplify it as broadly as 'ship captain tries to get Neo out of the Matrix', you could make that case, but what the film allows the audience to know is a big part of the structure and it's just completely differently set up here. 

Well I purchased Last Duel for the precise reason that I thought it was a movie that deserves support for being a big budget movie that wasn’t completely dumb and was well made. That I didn’t like the movie after watching it is besides the point. It still seems like an outlier in a landscape of dumb big budget movies that have nothing of worth to say.

And I mean the first half of resurrections has liberty fighting off police ( in a scene I thought suggested the movie had potential, but also demonstrated that they had recreated a scene but made it worse on every technical level) , Neo is stuck in a dull job and life, gets attacked in his office , he doubts his sanity, Morpheus offers him a pill choice and he wakes up from the matrix.. blah blah blah. Sure there are some twists on the original structure and story but it’s still taking that original plot and doing it again but doing it a little differently ( worse). I’m sure some can stroke their chins and nod along and think it’s clever, and on paper it could have been, but in practice all it did was cheapen the first movie and demonstrate that this is a sub par facsimile of what came before.

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Guys, ultimately any movie that has a more woman focused viewpoint is not going to be HoIs cup of tea, and the rest is just justifying that in some other way. 

There are plenty of reasons not to like the movie - though my favorite so far was from WiC saying that it wasn't a good standalone movie after they had never watched the originals at all - but the idea that this is just a remake is absolutely idiotic criticism when the beats that are similar are done so specifically to ape the original by design. The whole point is to make the audience and bugs think it is just a remake but slightly different and confuse us by using our knowledge against us. 

And ya know, that might not work for you - but saying that it is done out of laziness or is just a retread is an obviously wrong view on its face. 

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10 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

Guys, ultimately any movie that has a more woman focused viewpoint is not going to be HoIs cup of tea, and the rest is just justifying that in some other way. 

There are plenty of reasons not to like the movie - though my favorite so far was from WiC saying that it wasn't a good standalone movie after they had never watched the originals at all - but the idea that this is just a remake is absolutely idiotic criticism when the beats that are similar are done so specifically to ape the original by design. The whole point is to make the audience and bugs think it is just a remake but slightly different and confuse us by using our knowledge against us. 

And ya know, that might not work for you - but saying that it is done out of laziness or is just a retread is an obviously wrong view on its face. 

Red Pilled.

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I don't know, the first half hour of this film is just rather painful for me. I'm sure some of you found it funny, but the whole writers room scene, where everyone was talking about how awesome the original Matrix was for reasons, x, y and z, just took me out of the movie. It was like the movie was telling us, it was a joke. In a lot of ways this film reminded me of The Force Awakens, with the constant use of nostalgia to tell its story and I really, really have a hard time liking movies that frequently remind me of much better films, which this movie did in spades, when it frequently would cut to scenes from the previous films. More often than not, it made me wish I was watching one of them, instead of this new film.

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Got to see it on HBO MAX and...better than I expected. Like some, I was initially wary of the 1st act retread but the way they subverted all that was pretty great. The explanation on why they brought them back to life I guess makes sense, productivity and all that.

Not sure I cared for any of the supporting Io cast, no one really stood out though that might be because so much of the story was centered on Trinity and Neo. The eventual sequel should sort that out. 

The one part I did not like was Smith. Again, with Smith. He had almost wiped out the Matrix and the Machine world. WTF would they keep that program active? The machines delete programs all the time, look at Sati's parents. If it was the Analysts idea of LOL, he's a huge idiot.

Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss continue to have great chemistry. They definitely carried the movie. My favorite moment, though was the crazed Merovingian ranting about the uptick of tech with text messages and blaming Neo for "Face-Zuck" or something. He was great!

ETA: Another thing I liked is that The Analyst seems to be a combo of the Architect and The Oracle. Maybe the faction that won the machine civil war were not happy with A and O's terms? Combining their jobs seems smart.

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46 minutes ago, Trebla said:

The one part I did not like was Smith. Again, with Smith. He had almost wiped out the Matrix and the Machine world. WTF would they keep that program active? The machines delete programs all the time, look at Sati's parents. If it was the Analysts idea of LOL, he's a huge idiot.

Well, one wonders if Smith truly was ever a danger to the Machine City. Neo claims - and thinks - that Smith might spread to the Machine City but how can he or we, the audience, know that this was ever true?

This whole Matrix thing is the management program for the human zoo which serves as a power plant. Would the machines ever set up a system which could potentially destroy them? Does't strike one as very likely.

If Smith had hacked, say, one of the squids or other machines, demonstrating that he can do that like he demonstrated that he could hack the brains of people then we could say this was a big problem.

But the way it is the machines may have just jumped on the chance to allow Neo to restore order to the power plant program. If Smith had destroyed the Matrix then this would have caused massive problems for them without them having to fear this weirdo virus from what's basically an entertainment software.

46 minutes ago, Trebla said:

ETA: Another thing I liked is that The Analyst seems to be a combo of the Architect and The Oracle. Maybe the faction that won the machine civil war were not happy with A and O's terms? Combining their jobs seems smart.

Well, if one looks at the thing one really wonders whether the Architect and the Oracle even 'exist' as entities ... or whether they are not just expressions or features of the environment the machines created to control the humans and manage the power plants.

The way the Oracle 'predicts' stuff - if we ask ourselves how this could work - seems to be that she assess the data the Matrix provides her about any individual connected to it, allowing her to make very, very good guesses about what will happen next. It is the same with Neo's own prophetic dreams. He can foresee stuff in the Matrix because the Matrix as a system has enough data about the people connected to it that *it knows* what will happen.

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I've seem a bunch of people make comparisons to The Force Awakens, but I think the true Star Wars comparison is The Last Jedi. This is a movie that tried to do something different with the franchise, at least for the first act, and a lot of people who want the comfortable nostalgia of a franchise playing it safe react poorly to that.

To be clear, I do think the movie had problems, but I think a lot of the vitriol stems from this.

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@Lord Varys

The Oracle talks to Neo about Smith in the third film, she says "very soon he's going to have the power to destroy this world, but I don't believe he'll stop there; he can't. He wont stop until nothings left at all". She also says this awesome line; "tonight the future of both worlds will be in your hands or his". So I honestly think Smith in the third film was a massive threat to everyone, machine and human alike. That scene still gives me chills, even after all these years.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The way the Oracle 'predicts' stuff - if we ask ourselves how this could work - seems to be that she assess the data the Matrix provides her about any individual connected to it, allowing her to make very, very good guesses about what will happen next. It is the same with Neo's own prophetic dreams. He can foresee stuff in the Matrix because the Matrix as a system has enough data about the people connected to it that *it knows* what will happen.

tbh I think this is leaning too much on science in what is at the end of the day a heavy religion-and-myth allergory too. 

 

That was one thing I noticed the film leaned in on with the power reasoning for the resurrection - in the original, they'd never intended for humans to be batteries (it was gonna be a linked neural network where the machines used parts of our brain to compute while we dreamed) and it really makes no scientific sense as an explanation. It was a studio mandated change on the basis audiences wouldn't understand the original idea in 1999, but here Lana really leaned into it and added even more non-science stuff for story purposes. 


On Smith and being a threat to the machines- it's never elaborated on, but there's some implication in the sequels that there's a 'source' beyond the Matrix where the programs actually come from, right? One can infer it's connected to a wider machine network. 

 

2 hours ago, Trebla said:

ETA: Another thing I liked is that The Analyst seems to be a combo of the Architect and The Oracle.

It's kinda fun coz for practical terms of function in the Matrix that's what he is, but in story terms he's the Architect-meets-Smith (part of why Groff not being Weaving didn't hurt the film that much for me, Smith was never the main man here). 

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19 hours ago, sifth said:

@Lord Varys

The Oracle talks to Neo about Smith in the third film, she says "very soon he's going to have the power to destroy this world, but I don't believe he'll stop there; he can't. He wont stop until nothings left at all". She also says this awesome line; "tonight the future of both worlds will be in your hands or his". So I honestly think Smith in the third film was a massive threat to everyone, machine and human alike. That scene still gives me chills, even after all these years.

Yes, but isn't the machine world basically gone once (or if) Smith were to use his control over the Matrix to kill all the humans connected to it, resulting in the machines losing all their power? He doesn't need the ability to also hack them all

That isn't really stressed all that much ... but I think the Architect may actually talk about 'the Smithokalypse' back in the second movie.

He gives Neo two choices:

1. Door 1 leads to the Source where he should pass on his code and enable them to reload the Matrix. If he does that, the machines will destroy Zion as planned and Neo would have to free a couple of people from the Matrix to rebuild it.

2. Door 2 - the one Neo takes - leads back to the Matrix where he can and does save Trinity.

But the Architect told him if we were not to take door 1 this would result in a catastrophic system failure, killing everybody connected to the Matrix.

My interpretation always was that *this* is what would happen as soon as Smith gained complete control over the Matrix. Which would be very soon after Neo decided not to go to the Source.

After all, it makes no sense to assume that the Architect had no clue that Smith existed and what he was doing.

And in the end Neo does go through Door 1 - just a day later, and by going to the Machine City rather than just virtually. But when Neo and Smith merge, the machines restart the Matrix like the Architect wanted to do earlier. It just happens in a slightly different manner and with Neo actually deciding to do this on his own and sacrificing himself in the process of it ... which I guess is why the machines agree to the peace.

Also, we can assume that the Oracle originally set up this weird flawed system based on choice culminating in the two anomalies fighting it out because she was a program who wanted to create a new status quo between humans and machines ... which she finally accomplished with Neo.

But for that to work she had to convince Neo that he face Smith in the end. If he wouldn't do that then everything would definitely go to hell.

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2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

tbh I think this is leaning too much on science in what is at the end of the day a heavy religion-and-myth allergory too. 

Of course, but there is an underlaying manipulation going on with all that candy stuff. We see the orgasm cake the Merovingian fed his lover ... that was there to show what food can be in the Matrix. And the Oracle constantly offers folks something to eat. That's code for the biotech in their heads.

The Oracle is just a program working through religious/spiritual talk while the Architect is less approachable. But in the end both are just lines of code.

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

That was one thing I noticed the film leaned in on with the power reasoning for the resurrection - in the original, they'd never intended for humans to be batteries (it was gonna be a linked neural network where the machines used parts of our brain to compute while we dreamed) and it really makes no scientific sense as an explanation. It was a studio mandated change on the basis audiences wouldn't understand the original idea in 1999, but here Lana really leaned into it and added even more non-science stuff for story purposes.

That would have actually made more sense. Although I actually like the symbology of humans darkening the sky.

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

On Smith and being a threat to the machines- it's never elaborated on, but there's some implication in the sequels that there's a 'source' beyond the Matrix where the programs actually come from, right? One can infer it's connected to a wider machine network. 
 

Yes, sure, but in the end Smith is just a program in the power plant system running amok. Are we to believe this can *really* threaten an entire machine society? Wouldn't they have very effective security programs dealing with 'bad programs', viruses and the like.

The fact that the Merovingian is a kind 'program-trafficker', helping programs who want to leave the machine world and seek refuge in the Matrix kind of reflects that this system has less rigid oversight than the machine society as such.

And the Oracle isn't necessarily an expert on machine world stuff. She lives in the Matrix and doesn't seem to spend any time outside. The Architect might also spend all his time in his little observer room. These programs are part of the power plant management system, that's their function, that's what they were written for, and that's what would determine most of their thoughts and interests.

Again, it would be kind of weird if they had given the Oracle power/permission to set up a Matrix which would, ultimately and repeatedly, create an unstoppable virus that could destroy them all.

Destroy the Matrix as such and - in connection also the power plants - yes, but all the programs is too much of a stretch for me.

After all, if we think how Smith works then his 'virus abilities' seem to be just his agent ability to possess everybody running amok. But he only takes over people in the Matrix, programs living inside the Matrix, and humans with power plant tech in their heads. Would he even be able to connect with a completely different program?

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I watched it last night I quite liked it. I had tempered expectations and the movie largely delivered. A good blend of nostalgia and moving this universe further.

I thought the first act was really strong and it went on well, but it did get cheezy right at the end. Also Lana decided to make it more optimistic thus giving her Sense8 stars a lot of plot armor. But I was ok with it. There were a few other nods to Sense8 peppered throughout the movie. The world still had its sinister elements, but shown in a different way, and making more direct references to the world in 2021. An example being the bot swarms replacing the menacing agents.

Out of the many possible ways this world could have been evolved post the massive human vs machine war, this was a good choice, but I do have a few questions:

  • Was the Machine civil war covered in the video game released post movie trilogy? The one that also shows Morpheus's fate.
  • If so many people were released at once that caused massive energy losses for the machines, wouldn't that also mean that there was a struggle for the liberated humans, too? A lot of new mouths to feed at the same time, but we don't hear anything about that.
  • Not sure why Smith is still around. Why would the machines still allow his continuation, how was his code not finally destroyed?

On the subject of Smith, yeah I get that the new actor wasn't as charismatic, but there are also differences, too. Smith evolved, too, in some ways. After all, the movie was about any sentient being able to find their in the world and not be persecuted or controlled.

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2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

 

  • Was the Machine civil war covered in the video game released post movie trilogy? The one that also shows Morpheus's fate.

Not as such, but The Matrix Online did cover some events that could've been a precursor to the civil war, but the game ended/was cancelled before it could fully explain things. For instance, one early event was the introduction of red-eyed Agents that were attacking humans who were allied with the machines. Also, the Merovingians were a full-fledged independent faction which maybe or maybe not aligns with just how low they'd fallen in the new movie.

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After rewatching the entire trilogy I realized that I also don't really dislike the third movie.

The Zion action sequence is pretty long, but compared to more recent movies it actually takes efforts to portray things in a coherent manner, following the various characters and their tactics in a gripping way.

Although it is very odd that they do not seem to have any EMPs in the city as a kind of last desperate defense.

It could have been better if they had actually focused more on the various machine entitities they introduced in the second movie, especially the Merovingian and Persephone, but also the Architect ... while the latter most likely was never assimilated by Smith, it could have been a crucial plot point that Smith has to have the Merovingian if he were to ever attempt to get out of the Matrix.

Also, it would have been really great to get more info/insight into the Machine City folks and what other people there thought about the humanity thing.

That is also something where the Merovingian could have been interesting as a character considering he actually seems to prefer to live in the Matrix, to revel in what's basically a human zoo. It would be very interesting to know what he was originally designed for, why he no longer follows his function, and how he grew to love the world Smith hates so much.

Insofar as my idea is concerned that Smith might not *actually* have been able to overtake the Machine City:

I think that gets a bit more credence when you consider how the Trainman handles Neo in his own program environment. He is god down there, according to himself at least, and he defeats Neo with ease.

That could be a sign that whatever makes Neo/Smith special is tied exclusively to the Matrix and power plant connected code stuff. That he can deactivate the Sentinels could mean he has power over all machines ... until you remember that the Sentinels are basically instruments of the Matrix system ... to the point that their actions can be directed by the agents as seen in the first and fourth movie (where the Analyst directs the Sentinels guarding Neo/Trinity's prison).

With Neo/Smith being basically the inevitable result of the way the Matrix is set up it really stands to reason that they would have no special powers in a different environment.

On 12/26/2021 at 3:52 PM, Corvinus85 said:

On the subject of Smith, yeah I get that the new actor wasn't as charismatic, but there are also differences, too. Smith evolved, too, in some ways. After all, the movie was about any sentient being able to find their in the world and not be persecuted or controlled.

I'd have really liked to see Weaving and Reeves interacting while they didn't know who the other was. That could have been fun.

Rewatching the old movies I realized that Ian Bliss, the guy playing Bane who gets hacked by Smith, also did a tremendous job at playing him. It wasn't the first time that Smith was played by another actor and I have to rewatch the movie to see how the new performance actually was. I went in blind and only understood that the guy actually was Smith when he figured it out ;-).

At first I thought the whole thing was just a play on Neo's boss from the first movie.

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3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Rewatching the old movies I realized that Ian Bliss, the guy playing Bane who gets hacked by Smith, also did a tremendous job at playing him. It wasn't the first time that Smith was played by another actor and I have to rewatch the movie to see how well his performance actually was. I went in blind and only understood the guy actually was Smith when he figured it out ;-).

At first I thought the whole thing was just a play on Neo's boss from the first movie.

I've been saying for years, how great of a job Ian Bliss did as Smith. He was one of the few things I actually enjoyed in the third film. If anything they should have brought him back to play Smith in this 4th film, if Weaving was busy. The new guy, just felt so boring in comparison and his performance took me right out of the movie.

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I don't feel like it was a waste of time to watch this movie. I'm glad I watched it.

The movie more than anything felt like a patch for the first two sequels...it doesn't erase them like some reboots have been doing, just puts a band aid on them.

The movie felt like things were played as straightforward as they could get for a story set in The Matrix universe. I mean given the canon already established then we pick up with the characters as we see them in the movie, every question I had for what was going on, how did these characters get to where they are...my best guess always seemed to turn out to be the right one or close enough to it. Once I got an idea for how meta they were going for and who the main players were going to be, everything just clicked into place, no big twists no big surprises. 

3.5/5

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