The Matrix Reloaded...was it always so horrible?

Batutta said:
I hadn't seen it since it first came out on dvd. My opinion of it then was that it was a mess, but intriguing, with some good sequences in it. Seeing it again now, it was damn near unwatchable, a jumbled collection of half baked ideas swirling in a sh*tstorm of dated cgi enhanced wire-fu and endless philosophical digressions. Most of all, it's just a terrible story that is close to being incomprehensible to anyone who didn't see the first movie. I watched it just after the first movie, so the gulf in quality between the two was even more pronounced. I really have no idea what the Wachowski's were thinking with those sequels. I don't think they know either.
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I've always liked the whole series... but then it is easier to take than a semester of Schoppenhauer's "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung"... so, there you go...

I also liked the recent Wachowski effort with "Cloud Atlas"(2012), but again easier to take than a semester on Nietzsche's "Der ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen".

I've not seen "Speed Racer"(2008)...
 
I hated Reloaded so much that I never watched Revolutions. As others have said, I just pretend the Matrix is a stand alone movie.


-Andrew
 
Nektonic said:
I think they missed an opportunity with the sequels, especially with Reloaded, in not having the regular populace (the plugged-in citizens) seeing Neo as this awesome superhero. If one wanted to change the perception of people still tied into the matrix, showing them all these great powers and being a champion for the people would be one way to do it. Start showing them not only who the enemies are (Agents of the machines), but that their world is an illusion. Or maybe the machine overlords can wipe everyone's collective memory so they don't remember seeing Neo doing some heroic act? That would have been really interesting though, to see how the machines were trying to continue putting up the illusion.
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I think the fundamental flaw was building the whole story around saving Zion. Zion is a craphole that wasn't worth saving, and the scenes that occur there are among the weakest (save the climactic battle). They should have focused on actually defeating the machines in the real world and trying to take the planet back while Neo works from the inside trying to bring down The Matrix, and ultimately, whatever intelligence governs the machines. As is, humanity is not much better off at the end with the machines still in charge.
 
The world outside of the Matrix was never all that interesting to begin with. All the soap operas, intrigue, politics -- who cares? It's inside the Matrix that matters, story-wise. Or ought to.

It's a pretty good example of what I said above about telling the backstory -- the entire concept of Zion, the hover ships, etc., doesn't even make sense and it breaks down way too easily if you try to explain too much. Give it a couple of words, stay in the Matrix, explain as little as possible about things outside, and go from there.

The more you're forced to think about Zion, the more pesky little things pop up, like, where does all the food come from? Where does the fabric? (Were there children? I don't remember.) Why is everyone's dental work so good? WHERE is Zion? Etc., etc.
 
I can't remember the stories of those films... I only ever bought The Matrix. It stands alone as far as I'm concerned.
 
David Jimerson said:
The world outside of the Matrix was never all that interesting to begin with. All the soap operas, intrigue, politics -- who cares? It's inside the Matrix that matters, story-wise. Or ought to.

It's a pretty good example of what I said above about telling the backstory -- the entire concept of Zion, the hover ships, etc., doesn't even make sense and it breaks down way too easily if you try to explain too much. Give it a couple of words, stay in the Matrix, explain as little as possible about things outside, and go from there.

The more you're forced to think about Zion, the more pesky little things pop up, like, where does all the food come from? Where does the fabric? (Were there children? I don't remember.) Why is everyone's dental work so good? WHERE is Zion? Etc., etc.
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I agree. The whole draw to "The Matrix" is... well, the Matrix. NOT Zion. What we wanted to see from Neo and sequels is cool mind-bending Matrix conquering and such. Instead, we got this post-apocalyptic world that is meh and that we barely care about. The movie banks on us sympathizing for Zion based solely on "preservation of the human race" that is just assumed.
 
What's clear is that the Wachowski's must have had some other chefs in the kitchen for the original Matrix, and or were given far less time to refine the story of the sequels.

It wasn't because Neo was invincible. That wasn't the problem.

It was just plain sloppy. The characters, which had a life to them in the first movie, were now a shell of the characters they once were. The stories had no pacing, and there were far too many b-stories that never came together very well. The whole Agent Smith storyline, while it had some potential, was just terrible and a big distraction to the whole mess. Worse of all, they just kept adding more and more elements, characters, and side stories as it went along. The frenchman!? The ghosts!? The train man!? The coat check people!? What was going on!? Why was Neo and the man with Agent smith in his mind still connected to the Matrix!? Is it magic!? It was exactly the reason why I hated the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, it wans't a clear story, it was just a mess of things, characters, and elements coming together in some sort of 'adventure'.

Batutta said:
Neither of them are worse than The Phantom Menace. The Matrix sequels at the very least don't have atrocious child acting and Jar Jar Binks. A case can be made that Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith are marginally superior, though. But thinking of all five of these movies at the same time is making me sad.
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I gotta say, out of all sequels between the matrix and the star wars prequels, I have to disagree. I argue that phantom menace was the best of them. Out of all the movies it was the one that had a nice clear storyline. Yes it had jar jar binks, an annoying kid... and well everything else... but the two other star wars sequels just never came together as a cohesive storyline. It was more like 'moments' of a war. Even the third one, it just jumps into a story where the emperor is already captured and a whole story had happened, making us pick up the pieces. Then they save the emperor and then it just keeps going with stuff. No real story.
 
Mostly on topic, I remember that summer of 1999 my friends and I were so excited for The Phantom Menace. Looking back, it was The Matrix that was the real gem, (absolutely unknown to me until I saw it in the theatre) and has stood the test of time.

As for the Matrix sequels, I'll echo all the negative comments. I also did enjoy the highway chase sequence, but have not seen that film in years.
 
Jon Starr said:
I gotta say, out of all sequels between the matrix and the star wars prequels, I have to disagree. I argue that phantom menace was the best of them.
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No...hell no. I literally watched all six a few weeks ago. Phantom Menace was so awful I could barely sit through it. As awful as the other two are, they weren't as painful to watch. Every second the kid and Jar Jar is on screen, which is a considerable chunk of the running time, is nails on a chalkboard horrible.
 
Did anyone see Revolutions? It was far worse then Reloaded IMO. I'll take Phantom Menace over Clones almost any day as well too. Clones to me was the low point.
 
Batutta said:
No...hell no. I literally watched all six a few weeks ago. Phantom Menace was so awful I could barely sit through it. As awful as the other two are, they weren't as painful to watch. Every second the kid and Jar Jar is on screen, which is a considerable chunk of the running time, is nails on a chalkboard horrible.
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In this era of reboots... someone should reboot Star Wars I-III... just simple stuff... like making the hints in episodes IV-VI really closely match up with the prequels... have 'young' Anakin, like 18-20' in Jedi training, clouds of the dark side forming... and cut all of childhood crap...

Oh yeah... get some one who can actually act...
and last but not least PG-13 to R target rating.

I'm getting really tired of Ultimate Battles Between Good and Evil being packed into the PG/PG-13 ratings for 'action' films.
 
Yeah, three things which would be vast improvements over the prequels --

Make Anakin's history match what Obi-Wan says (kinda what jclark said above) -- make him an adult when he and Obi-Wan meet, and already an accomplished "star pilot."

Make him the epitome of bad-ass villainy much earlier, and for an extended period of time before he goes into the armor.

Then make sure you don't retcon the whole series into the story of Anakin's fall and redemption. Vader's a villain.

Wait, wasn't this about the Matrix?
 
Batutta said:
No...hell no. I literally watched all six a few weeks ago. Phantom Menace was so awful I could barely sit through it. As awful as the other two are, they weren't as painful to watch. Every second the kid and Jar Jar is on screen, which is a considerable chunk of the running time, is nails on a chalkboard horrible.
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Perhaps. I suppose it depends on how much you hate the kid and jar jar. The others had the young boba yelling "get him dad!", the emo anakin crying that he killed them all, some random 50's dinner, the scene where padme cries and says "not the younglings!" and then when the Darth Vader we all love finally shows up on screen he yells, "Nooooooooo!"

I suppose the action scenes were somewhat more enjoyable. However this feels like a pointless debate, what it comes down to is people's preferences. I think we can all agree they were all terrible.

One thing they also share with the MAtrix sequels, I personally believe, is overly long and soulless fighting scenes. They just went on and on, but weren't interesting at all. It's like the Wachowskis and Lucas wanted to scale up the action to ridiculous proportions, but didn't put any emotion or thought into it.
 
David Jimerson said:
Wait, wasn't this about the Matrix?
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Yeah... well... I liked the series, and while I've not watched the series in the 100's of times... I don't find the latter 2 installments so bad as to give rise to pages of critique.

I do think there' should have been more on the issue of 'return to Egypt'. In the first installment there was a character who 'chose' to go back, didn't quite make it, but did get the group betrayed. He was a 'swarmy' character, so, in later episodes it would have been better that perhaps someone 'close' to Neo were to turn.

(For those who don't know... after Moses lead the Children of Israel( headed for Zion...) out into the desert from Egypt, there was some amount of gnashing of teeth, and discontent over only having 'manna' to eat... and generally discontent with wandering out in the desert... the god sent 'quail', many ate, became sick and died (Numbers 11)).
 
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David Jimerson said:
Yeah, three things which would be vast improvements over the prequels --

...

Make him the epitome of bad-ass villainy much earlier, and for an extended period of time before he goes into the armor.

Then make sure you don't retcon the whole series into the story of Anakin's fall and redemption. Vader's a villain.
...
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It depends on understanding of the story. From my perspective such (and similar) suggestions would destroy it. It's about the origins of evil. Anakin's fall and redemption or Vader as a villain or "endless philosophical digressions" (that's from the original post) are just various devices that serve the purpose. So, in way, you are right saying, Wait, wasn't this about the Matrix?

I am not trying to suggest that my interpretation and understanding of stories in this thread are the only possible ones. What I am saying is that suggestions to improve the film often result in an attempt to change the story - and this thread illustrates this. I do not see such suggestions as an "improvement." It's a departure from what the original story was meant to be. It's like saying "that's not what this film should be about."

If someone does not like the story - fine. Invent and narrate another story, your story.
 
I'm not worried about merely improving the films as they exist -- that's a lost cause. Everything gets tossed, as far as I'm concerned, in order to make a better series of prequels.

That is as true of the Matrix sequels as it is the Star Wars prequels.
 
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