rachel on 8/9/2021 at 08:11
Oh yeah! This and Dune are the two flicks I'm most looking forward to this year... Exciting!
demagogue on 8/9/2021 at 08:21
I don't know what they can do with the Matrix at all now. It got so garbled in the last two movies.
I don't know that it'll be bad. It might be great. I just can't imagine what they want to do with it.
And I guess it's not a flick, but the thing I'm most looking forward to watch this year, actually starting this month, is Foundation.
Reading the first book now in anticipation. Still holds up.
[video=youtube;GCtQ70knyeo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCtQ70knyeo[/video]
rachel on 8/9/2021 at 11:05
I rewatched this trailer last weekend! I also have it on my to-read-again. I don't have Apple TV but I'm very curious to see what it'll be like, it does look promising. I have yet to see Jared Harris in something I don't like, this man never misses.
Starker on 9/9/2021 at 00:11
Huh, time for mirrored katakana to rain down again? I remember watching the original movie in the cinema and being more than a little awed, but I watched it again a couple of years ago and even with fairly thick nostalgia glasses I couldn't help but notice that it didn't really age all that well in more than a few aspects. The CGI looks a bit dated now, the main characters have the chemistry of a preschooler's first science kit, and some of the aesthetics run from a bit too edgy for their own good to plain ridiculous.
The way I see it, the movie lives and dies by two things: the action and the rule of cool. It works as long as you just sit back and enjoy the show, but when you start to think about the plot and character actions and the world more deeply, it falls apart real quick. Like the use of humans as batteries instead of literally anything else. Like how data is presented and read in a way that makes no sense. Like how, for no other reason than the sake of plot contrivances, they have to go to see the oracle with seven people and leave someone to guard a phone when they need to move quick and can use other phones.
And I think that's the reason the sequels were destined to fail right from the start -- all those moments that strained credulity in the first movie would have to be either explained or dismissed as a lie once you started expanding on it, because there's nothing to build on when the characters are paper thin and the worldbuilding is crap. And as for the cool action, when you do a cool trick once, it's impressive. When you repeat it over and over again, it becomes trite.
rachel on 9/9/2021 at 12:51
The first movie aged beautifully imho. Then again, I also went through stuff in the twenty years since it came out, so it's a special movie for me in many aspects. I'll just reshare what I posted in the other thread in 2019:
Quote Posted by raph
(
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/)
The Matrix, (
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328832/)
The Animatrix, (
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234215/)
The Matrix Reloaded & (
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242653/)
The Matrix Revolutions - Need no introduction. I've been wanting to revisit the Matrix universe for a while, especially after the sisters came out, and boy this is fascinating. Of course, there's the whole messianic Jesus parallel that's obvious, but it's very interesting to see all the discourse again about living two lives and killing one to become the other through the trans lens, right from the first movie, and that obsession with mirrors and reflections that don't always show what they seem. The end of the subway scene, when paralleled with Lana's personal struggle, is probably the most powerful trans affirmation statement in cinema. I totally have a newfound respect for this movie, it's so subtly layered it blew my mind again, twenty years after...
Animatrix being a compilation is a different beast, but it's interesting that
Program has two characters called "Cis" and "Duo" battling each other, and I wonder if that's intentional. My favourite remains
A Detective Story, I just love the noir aesthetic and the
Alice in Wonderland references that call back to the first movie.
I cannot not take
Reloaded and
Revolutions separately as they're so clearly two halves of the same movie, and they pretty much abandon the whole identity angle to focus on the themes of choice vs determinism, without daring to go all the way. It's very frustrating. I still absolutely love the Merovingian, can't help it but this pompous fuck is a goddamn gem, sadly underutilized in the third. Great themes, lots of questions but in the end they pull a
Lost and barely answer anything...
Interestingly, I didn't dislike the sequels as much this time around, though I wouldn't go so far as calling them good. They're certainly very flawed, and
Revs is much more linear and shallow. Maybe because this time I knew what I was getting into, I don't know. They're a missed opportunity for sure.
As the Ws are a bit hit or miss, I do wonder if
Resurrections will be more like the first or more like the sequels... I hope it's the former.
henke on 9/9/2021 at 14:29
It's... kinda unexpected!
[video=youtube;9ix7TUGVYIo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ix7TUGVYIo[/video]
I'm intrigued.
Starker on 9/9/2021 at 16:27
If they are bringing back Trinity, wonder why they didn't resurrect Morpheus too. Or is the black guy supposed to be a younger version of him?
Renault on 9/9/2021 at 17:10
The Matrix trailer looks interesting, although its a bit disappointing to have anything Matrix without Laurence Fishburne. And they went a bit overboard with the Alice in Wonderland references too. But yes, this definitely has potential.
Starker on 9/9/2021 at 22:46
Alice in Wonderland / Wizard of Oz references are mandatory. As are edgy outfits and fighting The Man whose agents in suits are repressing you. Although the sequels took it in a bit different direction, the original movie is fundamentally about escaping the white-collar corporate ennui. That's why they are killing cops and all kinds of innocent bystanders left and right. They are all part of "the system" that's keeping you down. At any point one of them could turn into an agent of oppression and tell you to sit at your desk from 9 to 5.
In a way, thematically it was more in line with Fight Club and Office Space than with Existenz or Strange Days or Dark City. The latter two being movies that have IMO actually aged well despite of their flaws, because they didn't rely so heavily on gimmicks and cool-sounding lines a la, "Unfortunately nobody can be told what the Matrix is".
Starker on 9/9/2021 at 23:45
Btw, that reminds me there's a not entirely implausible comedic take on how the Matrix came to be:
[video=youtube;DQvjl-Z_V6s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQvjl-Z_V6s[/video]