The Matrix Revolutions
Nov. 8th, 2003 05:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aruanNot having read any reviews for fear of spoilers, I went into this movie knowing nothing at all but that lots of people were very disappointed by it. I don't know if this was because of the technical/script/production aspects or people's issues with the resolution itself - all I've got is what I got from seeing it for myself tonight.
I can't disagree that this film was a technically inferior product to its predecessors. The first half hour really had me worried - virtually all of the scenes and dialogue were either entirely ripped off or poorly paralleled with stuff from the other films. It also didn't help much that out of the two-plus hours running time, about 3/4 were battle sequences. There wasn't anything original there besides the story.
To that end, over the past few months I've partaken in a lot of speculation and read even more about just what was going on, where things were headed.
We never even came close.
Now, I can see how people would be dissatisfied with this conclusion - legendary hero, epic battle, but no real victory. The machines weren't defeated - and for that matter, when did they start trusting the humans and honoring promises and such? Aren't concepts like that at least beneath them, if not entirely ridiculous? Smith espoused about the quarrelsome, weak-moraled, repulsive creatures we are when he was still plugged in, which would indicate those are the views of the collective machine AI. The tentative foundations of their agreement and the open-ended nature of what could happen in the future would be my biggest problems with this conclusion to events.
Some of the original, deeper themes were also neglected, though I think raising the issue of programs being capable of love (hence Sati's creation) as well as a having a vendetta (Agent Smith) said a lot about them versus all the exploration of humanity that was done in the first film.
I didn't entirely get the Oracle's role in Smith's demise - did she fight the inner battle somehow while Neo fought him physically? And speaking of which, I loved that fight scene. I was appropriately creeped by the legions of Smiths, oohed at the special effects, thought the rain provided fantastic atmosphere, and cannot adore Hugo Weaving any more than I already do.
Speaking of which, Smith stood to destroy the Matrix and therefore seriously hamper the machines' survival in the same way and as surely as the failed versions of the Matrix that people refused to accept. They needed Neo, who's so far been the only one to beat Smith. It would be fair to call him a virus at this point, and the machines simply had no way of expecting mutiny within their own ranks and had no defense against him. The bargain the machines struck with Neo was a necessary evil for them, but much less so than the threat posed by Smith's taking over and very likely wiping out the AI altogether.
Basically, I was satisfied with the conclusion. I understood what had to happen and why, the connection between Neo and Smith that made him the only one capable of defeating him even if I'm not entirely clear as to how that finally happened.
Other notes:
-Why did Neo see the machine city as being made of light? Are we to believe that the AI is as alive as we are?
-The dub job they did for the guy possessed by Smith in the real world was fantastic and creepy as fuck.
-The battle within Zion was all the things an epic battle should be - the good guys were vastly outnumbered and outpowered, there were underdogs who became heroes, close calls, smart tactics, and the day was eventually, one way or the other, theirs.
-I bawled like the little girl I am during Trinity's death scene. I also cried when she gave her, "Six hours ago I told the Merovingian I would do anything to save your life. Do you know what's changed in the last six hours? Nothing," speech. Neo/Trinity is this sacred thing in my heart. I mean, come on, they're fated and shit! (tm![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wearemany)
People went into this (like they did the second one) expecting the first movie. But there was a story here, beyond all the Deeper Issues, a good story that, no, wasn't entirely satisfying in its conclusion, but was solid and whose themes might be archetypal but whose ideas will be the new foundation of philosophy for our increasingly machine-dependant world.
I can't disagree that this film was a technically inferior product to its predecessors. The first half hour really had me worried - virtually all of the scenes and dialogue were either entirely ripped off or poorly paralleled with stuff from the other films. It also didn't help much that out of the two-plus hours running time, about 3/4 were battle sequences. There wasn't anything original there besides the story.
To that end, over the past few months I've partaken in a lot of speculation and read even more about just what was going on, where things were headed.
We never even came close.
Now, I can see how people would be dissatisfied with this conclusion - legendary hero, epic battle, but no real victory. The machines weren't defeated - and for that matter, when did they start trusting the humans and honoring promises and such? Aren't concepts like that at least beneath them, if not entirely ridiculous? Smith espoused about the quarrelsome, weak-moraled, repulsive creatures we are when he was still plugged in, which would indicate those are the views of the collective machine AI. The tentative foundations of their agreement and the open-ended nature of what could happen in the future would be my biggest problems with this conclusion to events.
Some of the original, deeper themes were also neglected, though I think raising the issue of programs being capable of love (hence Sati's creation) as well as a having a vendetta (Agent Smith) said a lot about them versus all the exploration of humanity that was done in the first film.
I didn't entirely get the Oracle's role in Smith's demise - did she fight the inner battle somehow while Neo fought him physically? And speaking of which, I loved that fight scene. I was appropriately creeped by the legions of Smiths, oohed at the special effects, thought the rain provided fantastic atmosphere, and cannot adore Hugo Weaving any more than I already do.
Speaking of which, Smith stood to destroy the Matrix and therefore seriously hamper the machines' survival in the same way and as surely as the failed versions of the Matrix that people refused to accept. They needed Neo, who's so far been the only one to beat Smith. It would be fair to call him a virus at this point, and the machines simply had no way of expecting mutiny within their own ranks and had no defense against him. The bargain the machines struck with Neo was a necessary evil for them, but much less so than the threat posed by Smith's taking over and very likely wiping out the AI altogether.
Basically, I was satisfied with the conclusion. I understood what had to happen and why, the connection between Neo and Smith that made him the only one capable of defeating him even if I'm not entirely clear as to how that finally happened.
Other notes:
-Why did Neo see the machine city as being made of light? Are we to believe that the AI is as alive as we are?
-The dub job they did for the guy possessed by Smith in the real world was fantastic and creepy as fuck.
-The battle within Zion was all the things an epic battle should be - the good guys were vastly outnumbered and outpowered, there were underdogs who became heroes, close calls, smart tactics, and the day was eventually, one way or the other, theirs.
-I bawled like the little girl I am during Trinity's death scene. I also cried when she gave her, "Six hours ago I told the Merovingian I would do anything to save your life. Do you know what's changed in the last six hours? Nothing," speech. Neo/Trinity is this sacred thing in my heart. I mean, come on, they're fated and shit! (tm
wearemany)People went into this (like they did the second one) expecting the first movie. But there was a story here, beyond all the Deeper Issues, a good story that, no, wasn't entirely satisfying in its conclusion, but was solid and whose themes might be archetypal but whose ideas will be the new foundation of philosophy for our increasingly machine-dependant world.
