Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions Synopsis + Explanation

movie fact

bill paxton is the only person in the world to get killed by a terminator, an alien and a predator.

 

lol, where do you get these facts?

 

cuz i watched the films, duh

bill paxton was:

punk who got killed by terminator

space marine who was killed by an alien ( or was it the grenade suicide scene......cant remember)

goofy show off cop who tried chucking a grenade at a pissed off predator in the subway .

 

Oh, ok. I thought you were one of those movie maniacs/tabloid readers that are crazy about movies/celebrities. Ok then.

 

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Vith_Dos said:

All you have to do is edit your post to add more information to them. You dont have to post 5 times in a row Liquid Max . Its annoying as hell.

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In which case, you have my sincerest appologies - I was under the impression that giving each poster's comments their own reply post was both the respectful thing to do as well as making it easier to track whose reply is located in which post. Nevertheless, thanks for letting me know and I'll try and use less posts from now on /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif


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KS_Vanessa said:

akiraph, its not that i dont understand it, heck the films were kinda easy to follow for me, its just that i found the movies to be really boring. Thus resulting with me just not liking the entire series.

i can see why people do like it, but i just hate it when people go on about it like its the best thing since sliced bread.

dont be quick to label people mentally retarded if they dont like the same things you do

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I'm sure that PH wasn't specifically referring to you, but from my conversations with a lot of ex-Matrix and non-Matrix fans / Matrix haters, the common problem seems to be a genuine lack of understanding of the content in question. That's all.

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Akira_PH said:

Max: Yeah, I too dislike it when people tend to think that you are a nerd if you are intelectual over things. It does get annying at times but you get used to it and if you want you can show off a bit. But hey, I am intelectual and I also work out and stay in shape to look good. And if being intelectual makes me a nerd even though I do things that people would consider "normal", then fine, I am a nerd.

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Hehe...yeah /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif I work out pretty much every day, have a very healthy social life and it's not like I spend all my time on this stuff...but what's a guy to do on Summer vacation when all of your friends are either still at uni or living far away from you? /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

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space marine who was killed by an alien ( or was it the grenade suicide scene......cant remember)


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Yeah, Bill paxton actually got killed by loads of Aliens (they came up from underneath the floor and dragged him down, the last sight you see of him is an Alien's claw wrapped around his face). Grenade suicide was the new guy in charge (Gorman or something?) and she-man Vasquez (I think that's her name). LOL I was watching it the other day.

As for the Predator death, which film was that in? Predator 2 or Aliens vs Predator? (I've seen neither but I know for a fact that it's not the first Predator film).

 

it was predator 2. the scene where predator decides to crash a packed subway train.

a good death scene for paxton.

he tries to take it on in a dark train car

predator lets him fire his entire clip at him, and then paxton throws a grenade at him but for some reason this doesnt work, and then predator walks up to him and fillets him.

still the best scene in this film is when predator is about to kill the voodoo gangleader. man, i loved that scene.

 

not a grenade...he chucked a golf ball at the predator when he ran outta ammo...

'PR IS MY SPECIALTY!'

 

...here we go...

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I understand, but the sad truth is that most people are like that in the US. And I know that sounds like a generalization, it's true. I am not saying all are like that, but most people aren't as intelectaully open-minded as some.

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Where as stupid (or maybe, the nicer 'non-intellectual' is better) people don't exist in your own country? There's one thing that the whole world has in common, there are stupid people of every nationality, living in every country.

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Yeah, I too dislike it when people tend to think that you are a nerd if you are intelectual over things. It does get annying at times but you get used to it and if you want you can show off a bit. But hey, I am intelectual and I also work out and stay in shape to look good. And if being intelectual makes me a nerd even though I do things that people would consider "normal", then fine, I am a nerd.

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I just find it so funny that you wrote 'I am intelectual'. What exactly does that mean? Do you read books or something? Does that make you an intellectual? A higher elite? I know it's rude pointing it out, and I don't mean to be particularly mean by this, but take a look at what your posting?

Responding to the long rebuttle from LIQUID MAX ... (love the name =P)

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Actually, the 'humanisation' of the machines (I used inverted commas because there are essays of text that have been written on the debateability of the meaning of this term) is something that was introduced in Reloaded - starting with the Oracle and Seraph and leading to the Merovingian.

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In my humble opinion, it's not done effectively enough. These 'programs' weren't made out to love/hate/lust etc. like human beings. They were following their own programming, according to the movie. A program can do whatever the programmer tells it to do, including emulating the emotion of 'love'. However, the AI in the programs was never explained to have that kind of potential until the third movie, where all of a sudden the machines became something we had to empathize with. It's very difficult to empathize with the machines if their character isn't developed in that way. That is one way, IMO, that the movie failed. You can't suddenly have the machines eyes turn green... BOOM they are humanistic. If those machines are human-like, where they can love/hate, etc. I would want to see evidence of it. For example, the machines never HATE human beings, but rather see their mission as one of self-preservation... you don't see 'human-hating' machines, you don't see any of the machines rebelling against the core because they dislike human beings... the concept wasn't fully developed, in my opinion. If parts of the previous movies focused on the machines interacting with eachother, programs discussing their position in the war, how they feel about human beings, then I could see this connection. I really feel like this concept was rushed and it didn't fit the film.

I appreciate that the directors were trying to use lots of philosophical references, references to religious texts, etc. The two brothers are very well studied and obviously know their stuff. However, they didn't present these concepts in the movie effectively enough to capture the audience. It's not because the audience is 'stupid', it's because the audience isn't a group of philosophy/religion majors. The way you describe the film, it's like it was made for a graduate school class in the philosophy department.

Now, there's nothing wrong with making a philosophically deep film, with religious/philosophical references, etc. One of my favorite RPGs, Xenogears, is chock full of these references. However that same RPG also has very compelling characters who you truely care about when you're playing the game. In Revolutions, the characters become people that the audience is unable to empathize with, unable to care about anymore. That's why people didn't give a crap when Trinity died; the love between Neo and Trinity didn't feel real. It's too symbolic. You can't empathize with a symbol.

Just to sum this up, because it's getting long, the Matrix trilogy might have a lot of interesting references to different philosophical concepts, religious concepts, etc. which merit further study. However, in my opinion (this is ALL my opinion), it fails as a movie. It didn't bill itself as a documentary, but as a movie. Therefore if the audience can't care about the story, the characters, even understand the concept (perhaps the concept could have been explained better?), then the film's mission of expressing something to the audience is moot.

One more note: Just to clarify, a movie shouldn't require someone to study for it. I shouldn't be expected to go from the movie theater to the library (although it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do). Again, this isn't a philosophy lecture.

I'm done...

 

Re: ...here we go...

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KTallguy said:Responding to the long rebuttle from LIQUID MAX ... (love the name =P)

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Heh...thanks /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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Actually, the 'humanisation' of the machines (I used inverted commas because there are essays of text that have been written on the debateability of the meaning of this term) is something that was introduced in Reloaded - starting with the Oracle and Seraph and leading to the Merovingian.

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In my humble opinion, it's not done effectively enough. These 'programs' weren't made out to love/hate/lust etc. like human beings. They were following their own programming, according to the movie. A program can do whatever the programmer tells it to do, including emulating the emotion of 'love'. However, the AI in the programs was never explained to have that kind of potential until the third movie, where all of a sudden the machines became something we had to empathize with. It's very difficult to empathize with the machines if their character isn't developed in that way. That is one way, IMO, that the movie failed. You can't suddenly have the machines eyes turn green... BOOM they are humanistic. If those machines are human-like, where they can love/hate, etc. I would want to see evidence of it. For example, the machines never HATE human beings, but rather see their mission as one of self-preservation... you don't see 'human-hating' machines, you don't see any of the machines rebelling against the core because they dislike human beings... the concept wasn't fully developed, in my opinion. If parts of the previous movies focused on the machines interacting with eachother, programs discussing their position in the war, how they feel about human beings, then I could see this connection. I really feel like this concept was rushed and it didn't fit the film.

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I actually thought that the Merovingian's scenes in the middle act of Reloaded were pretty effective in establishing programs acting outside of their programming. Exiles are obviously unauthorised by the machine officials, and yet the Merogingian harbours them for greedy purposes. Merv also gets his knob polished from the afrodisiac cake-eating blonde, exhibiting what I thought was an obvious display of lust. Persephone is also acting on impulse - she helps Neo of jealous rage in the wake of her husband's promiscuity. These are but a few examples, and I think that their emotional implications were all rather evident. As for programs hating humans, I think it's important to realise that the programs in their own world have no real reason to 'hate' humans. This, of course, is an exception in the case of Smith - he does hate humans. He exhibits the emotions of hate, sense of ego, and greedy lust for power.

I don't think that it could have been made much more obvious.

Then, as I said before, we have the Oracle and Seraph who just seem so damn 'normal', and are characters that could be easily liked.

If there is any reason why it may be a little harder to relate to the programs, it's probably the simple knowledge that they are programs, which perhaps incites a little sub-conscious prejudice as to their 'validity' as living beings since they are completely virtual after all! That's a pretty cool issue for me!

You also talked of the different programs having different views on teh war: the Oracle is obviously advocating a peaceful revolution through her scheming ways, the Merovingian is entirely indifferent ("it is only a game") and simply wants to cling to his materialistic powers, and then there is the Architect who views the 'war' as a mere one-sided extermination that is a requisite of a mathematical process and nothing more. There are other bits and bobs in there too, but I think that's enough to show how the various programs relate to the grand scheme of things.

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I appreciate that the directors were trying to use lots of philosophical references, references to religious texts, etc. The two brothers are very well studied and obviously know their stuff. However, they didn't present these concepts in the movie effectively enough to capture the audience. It's not because the audience is 'stupid', it's because the audience isn't a group of philosophy/religion majors. The way you describe the film, it's like it was made for a graduate school class in the philosophy department.

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And yet, I had hoped that my plot synopsis would have proven that you don't need to know all this stuff to appreciate the movie on its most basic level.

Nevertheless, I don't think that one can blame the director's artistic vision as being 'faulty simply because they're being alternative. They're expressing something artistically, and if the audience can't be fucked to go any deeper, that's their perogative and takes nothing away from the directors' goal.

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Now, there's nothing wrong with making a philosophically deep film, with religious/philosophical references, etc. One of my favorite RPGs, Xenogears, is chock full of these references. However that same RPG also has very compelling characters who you truely care about when you're playing the game. In Revolutions, the characters become people that the audience is unable to empathize with, unable to care about anymore. That's why people didn't give a crap when Trinity died; the love between Neo and Trinity didn't feel real. It's too symbolic. You can't empathize with a symbol.

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But that's just it - not all movies have to be a soap opera. There are some films that try and do things a little different - believe me, if you read my synopsis, you'll see just how and why Neo and Trinity's love is forced, fabricated and nothing more than a device on the Oracle's part...the love never felt real, even in the first movie, and this is due to both the narrative manifestation of the love as well as the fact that cyberpunk/noir has a tendancy to be relatively emotionally detached.

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Just to sum this up, because it's getting long, the Matrix trilogy might have a lot of interesting references to different philosophical concepts, religious concepts, etc. which merit further study. However, in my opinion (this is ALL my opinion), it fails as a movie. It didn't bill itself as a documentary, but as a movie. Therefore if the audience can't care about the story, the characters, even understand the concept (perhaps the concept could have been explained better?), then the film's mission of expressing something to the audience is moot.

One more note: Just to clarify, a movie shouldn't require someone to study for it. I shouldn't be expected to go from the movie theater to the library (although it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do). Again, this isn't a philosophy lecture.

I'm done...

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Cool.

Well, I don't see why people shouldn't read for or after a film.

As I said, the movies work on a purely superficial level - the plot is nice and thick, and gets increasingly more twisted with each movie, which is wonderful.

But I don't see why all films have to be brainless endevours - why can't artistic movies demand more from its audience and exist outside the realms of the opening and closing credits? I think that it is precisely this Hollywood 'studioism' culture that we have all got so used to that has stunted film's growth in artistic realms.

Luckily for the Wachowskis, they made a relatively mainstream movie in the first Matrix which allowed them to utilise a huge budget to see their artistic creation bear full fruit - a great acheivement for independent filmmaking as they subverted a lot of what the studio would have asked for due to their success on the first movie.

Everyone to their own, eh? /versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

(P.S. Philosophy lectures are rather entertaining - and then you have that juxtaposed with The Matrix and I fail to see how someone couldn't like it, but then, that's just me /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif ...oh, and the trilogy actually makes thematically philosophical statements as well as its literary references, the former of which is often overlooked /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif)

 

Re: ...here we go...

The dictionary says that it's someone who is philosophical, etc.

IMO though, it means that it's someone who is always trying to learn something. And the truth is that that's how I am, I am always just happy to learn something new. It's interesting and it makes you aware of what's going on around you. Plus it helps you solve problems.

 

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KS_Vanessa said:

movie fact

bill paxton is the only person in the world to get killed by a terminator, an alien and a predator.

[/ QUOTE ]Actually, he's one of two, the other being Lance Henriksen (one of the cops in Terminator, Bishop in Aliens and the millionaire guy in Alien vs Predator).

 

aliens vs predator

this film is a very insult to everything that james cameron and ridly scott ever worked towards.

i like lance. hes brilliant. a very unique actor.

but this film was waaaaaaaaay too bad

the only good thing to come out of it was the slogan, which has been used to describe every other VS films or games.

'whoever wins, we lose'.

they hit it on the nail there

 

Whoever wins, we lose.

I felt that way after the movie . Bishop is a cool actor, definitely looks the part for a lot of sci fi movies.

 

Actually, Bishop wasn't killed by an alien. He was ripped in half by the alien queen at the ends of Aliens, but he survived because he was an android.

/movie dork off

 

LOL

Very true. He died by Ripley's hands in Alien 3.

He'd never have been top line again... /versus/images/graemlins/tear.gif ...so asked her to essentially finish him off and put him out of service. /versus/images/graemlins/tear.gif

 

Re: ...here we go...

I look at the film in a manner that is far different from that of most of the posters here. I tend to focus on the simple realities, and only complicate the issue when it is necessary in increase my understanding.

Trinity and Neo's love felt more real than what passes for love in many other movies I see.

1. Neo willing to risk all humanity to save Trinity.
2. Trinity willing to risk her life to save Neo.
3. They are one another's exclusive sex partners
4. Trintiy went to machine city to help Neo even though she knew she would die.

I don't need to see anything else to call that love. That's as real as it gets. It's the very definition of 'Ride or Die'.

All the religious mumbo-jumbo is fine, if you go for that. But, it is not worth my thought because it is irrelevant to the main quest of the characters. The reality in the film is that people are living their entire lives in cans being fed a web of lies as they are consumed by machines. The matrix is one big lie. Peoples lives are being stolen. Every human in the matrix is a slave. Everything and every one loyal to that system is an enemy of humanity. The goal of the protagonist should have been....

1. to release every human without killing them
2. to eliminate all violent opposition posed by the machines
3. to take control of the planet from the machines and give it back to mankind.

That Neo didn't do any of this makes him a failure as a character.

I loved all three films up to the very moment of Trinity's death when I was supremely disappointed. My disappointment turned to disgust and hatred at the moment of "I want peace". I thought to myself......

"You want peace???? Peace?? I didn't hear that right, you must have said you want pizza? "

There is a simple recipe of accomplishments that a movie hero must do in order to be successful. I heard them listed in "The Mummy" but is right on the money. They are (in no particular order. )

1. Kill the bad guy
2. Rescue the damsel in distress
3. Save the world.

That Neo did neither of them even though he had ALL the power, makes him a colossal failure. That he had ALL the power and asked for peace at the first moment which humans could have scored a victory, makes him a coward. The machines were attacking Zion at that minute, people were still living in cans, the machines just killed the love of his life; and he wouldn't fight. What does it take to make him fight? Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, Neo died anyway.

So after all the symbolism, explosions, close calls, heroics, and sacrifices, people still live in cans being lied to as they are consumed; while machines still rule over the earth. We are back to where we were before the movie started .

My biggest disappointment with the trilogy was that I spent 3 movies watching the story of a coward.

I think the writers in the midst of putting all the symbolism and special effects in the trilogy, lost site of the audience and forgot who they would empathize with. I think most viewers sympathized with the humans. The writers forgot the first rule of show business.....

"Give the people what they want."

 

Hateful Sgt.

Spoken like the true Alpha-Nerd, Max.

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Liquid_MAX said:

Oh, and if you want pretention and self-importance, look the oher way towards Kill Bill. Yeah, that's "dick up the director's ass" for ya.

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Well, I am not really a Tarantino fan, now that I'm more grown up. I was entertained by Kill Bill, but the ending was bad. Still better than the Matrix.

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That's the way the dude talks. He prepared for the role by nderstanding about all those different things because - as a God-like messiah figure - he has to radiate a sense of calm, confident 'enlightenment' in his relatively monotonous role.

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Wrong. Keanu talking about his mastery of French post-structuralism is laughable. For one thing, that body of theory is the most esoteric, obscurantist load of shit that ever dare call itself "philosophy." I guarantee that if Keanu read Fench post-structuralism extensively, he would exude, not enlightenment, but befuddlement. In short, his falsely claiming an understanding of philosophy is so transparently pretentious, it truly proves that he is the best possible guy to star in the Matrix trilogy.


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It's just the labelling of intelligent human beings under derogatory, one-dimensional and outright obselete terms reserved for shitty teen-coms like Saved By The Bell that gets to me a tad. But, to be honest, that only detracts from your own reputability.

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Ah shit, I've been detracting from my own reputability. That's the worst.

What's really annoying about all your cheerleading for these lame movies is the way that you claim the intellectual high ground and act like the people who disagree with you do so because they are less intellectual than yourself. And yes, to have this attitude about the fucking Matrix is painfully nerdy.

On top of this, the Matrix sequels were universally panned by critics at the better news outlets. Not just the big corporate papers and networks, but the smaller, more intellectually rigorous media outlets all dissed these the movies. To restate, the people who get paid to intellectually analyze and write about movies all saw those sequels for what they were: Celuloid Turds. I am not saying I always agree with critics, but when the smart critics are unanimous, that must mean something.

It's not a crime for you to have bad taste. Your painfully earnest and prolific writing style hurt no one but the reader. I, however, am that hurt reader. Out of habit I read this board,and man oh man have I gotten an eyefull of all that "Max's Mind" has to offer. I'll never get that time back. Cry for me, friends and neighbors.

Is this post mean? Oh dear, maybe it is. For good measure, I think I'll go sodomize a puppy now.

 

Re: Hateful Sgt.

I must correct my earlier assertion that critics were unanimous in their panning of the Matrix sequels. After doing a little searching on the web I discovered that a few critics did actually like the sequels. To my surprise, Salon.com reviewer Andrew O'Heir liked them both, though was closer to neutral on "Revolutions." The NY Times gave "Reloaded" a good review but dissed "Revolutions." More importantly The "Revolutions" review was written by A.O. Scott who may be my favorite film critic.

He wrote:

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''The Matrix Reloaded,'' which has become the highest-grossing movie of 2003 in spite of widespread disappointment among critics and fans alike, tried to extend the first film's elegant mixing of action and exposition, only to bog down hopelessly in portentousness and obfuscation.

''Reloaded'' was certainly a lumpy, gaseous treatise of a movie, but viewers of ''Revolutions'' may find themselves looking back on it fondly. It was at least overstuffed with potentially interesting new characters, plot lines and make-believe metaphysical conundrums. In contrast ''Revolutions,'' which has a roughly equivalent running time, feels padded. The battle for Zion goes on forever and seems designed to justify the picture's enormous military hardware budget. There is very little that is tantalizing or suspenseful. The feeling of revelation is gone, and many of the teasing implications of ''Reloaded'' have been abandoned.



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While I think this is a more accurate critique, I must admit that I was mistaken about there being critical unanimity regarding the suckitude of the Matrix sequels. There was merely wide agreement. Sorry.

 

Re: Hateful Sgt.

But at the end of the day, who the hell cares about what a film critic thinks?

I sure's hell don't.

Are people of such a weak will that reading a bad/good review of a film by a certain critic is going to affect THEIR OWN opinion of a film?

Can't people make up their own minds of whether they liked a film or not without anything to do with a critic?

Being a "nerd" I've got the Ultimate Matrix boxset...on it are 2 commentaries on all 3 films, critics that disliked the sequels and philosophers (Ken Wilber and Cornel West) who liked them.

Considering you're implying that "critics opinion=law that must be obeyed", if you ever get a chance to listen to what they're saying...well, they can't even follow basic plotlines and get too lost in trying to superficially right off every other scene as "meaningless" or say that it's just been taken from another film.

It's quite embarrasing listening to 3 men who can't follow simple, basic storylines of a film, continually patting each other on the back when they think of a snide comment to say.

btw Keanu was reading Baudrillard way before Reloaded anyway...he was told to read S&S even before looking at the script of The Matrix. Besides which, I thought the story owed more to the ideas of Plato than Baudrillard. After all, the story was written with the hope to inspire a Socratic interpretation...the more people write about hating the films, the more they are fueling what the W Bros wanted: Discussion and interpretation.

Also, what makes a critic "smart"? Mark Kermode actually gave the trilogy a blisteringly good review I recall...I like the style in which he writes and he made some good points others seemed to fail to understand but at the end of the day, his opinion didn't affect mine nor should it affect anyone's really.