The Matrix Revolutions

Mav23

Swabbie
Banned
So... I saw it today... and I was quite prepared to label it on par with the original as I found the intense (more star wars-ish) "real world" action quite dilectable. I also thought that the Neo/Smith fight at the end was AWESOME (until they were in the mud, I liked the feel of the rainy street much more). Anyways, as I said, I was about to like this movie as much as the first, when something terrible happened... the ending. It was just all so unsatisfying. I didn't just sit through three movies with Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity so the final shot could be of Aunt Jemima, some little Indian girl, and Col. Sanders making cryptic speeches about what just happened (which I still haven't figured out). Anyways, I was just wondering what anyone else here (if they saw it) thought of the film.
 
You know how in the trailer when Keanu Reeves says "It ends tonight"? I think he was referring to his career :(
 
Mav, I haven't seen it (can't bring myself to spend money on that franchise after Reloaded), but everyone I know who's seen it has expressed the same sentiments you just did. So no, you're not alone.
 
Well I have to disagree with you Mav23 a bit. IMHO besides some quite nicely done action scenes Revolutions was total crap.
The action was far worse then in Reloaded (even the Smith fight was kinda unsatisfying for me) and there was no story/philosophical element at all. Well there was a tiny bit at the start with the train station and at the end of course. But it was so shallow.
The only thing that was done fairly well was to cover at least some loose ends of #2 (but far not all of them) and the lack of (majoy) inconsistencies.
Personally I'd only recommend to visit the movie if you absolutely want to see how part #2 ends, but in my eye Revolutions is a real shame to the matrix universe.

Addendum: I should add that I actually liked Reloaded. It wasn't the masterpiece then the first movie, but it was a good to great movie for me. Revolutions however...
 
Hurgh. Matrix Little Three was embarassingly awful.

The first movie introduced a completely awesome conflict: robot spiders have enslaved mankind for their energy. It was such a niftykeenscaryawesome idea that we collectively agreed to ignore that it was completely scientifically implausible. So you've got this band of rebels fighting evil spiders to free mankind. That's *great*! That's a wonderful setting!

And then they completely forgot about any of this and made two movies about guys in suits punching eachother to protect a made up city no one cares about.

If 'Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return of the Jedi' followed the same awful design as the Matrix sequels did, they'd be about Luke and company preventing people from breaking into Admiral Ackbars house instead of defeating the evil empire. And at the end the Empire would say "Well, we've still enslaved the universe, but we're going to stop trying to break into Admiral Ackbar's house!".
 
Personally, I'm still traumatised by Reloaded. I think Revolutions was actually an improvement over Reloaded (except for the first thirty minutes, but that part was really the ending of Reloaded, not the start of Revolutions). However, the fact remains that until my poor mind manages to repress the last lingering memories of Reloaded, I won't be able to enjoy even the original Matrix movie because my mind won't be able to look past its association with Reloaded.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Wachowski brothers have mentally scarred me for life :(.
 
Quarto said:
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Wachowski brothers have mentally scarred me for life :(.

LOL. Classic. That's one of the funniest things I've ever read on any forum ever. Congrats.
 
I think the problem with Revolutions is that it's like walking in on the last 20 minutes of Return Of The Jedi: there's a ton of resolution going on but since the meat of the talking happened previously (in this case, the superior Reloaded), it lacks context. So I think I'd like this a lot more of I watched Reloaded and Revolutions back to back.
 
I don't see how so many people can miss the point of the series!
A lot of people keep talking about how unsatysfying the ending was, but what the hell did you expect? Where you expecting that Neo would defeat Smith and the machines would just go off on their own and everybody plugged into the matrix would just suddenly wake up and live happily ever after? There's billions of people plugged in and you can't release all of them, especially not all at once. According to the first film they're not supposed to unplug people after a certain age because their minds usually can't handle it. Don't forget that some people might not want to be unplugged, remember Cypher.
Besides, without the matrix the machines die which, admittedly, was the motivation for the humans in the first film, but the first film wasn't totally written with a trilogy in mind(which is why some things don't jive quite right). But in Reloaded it talks about the humans being reliant on machines for life and vice versa.
Neo's quest in Revolutions is simply to bring an end to the war. The simple fact of the matter is that the machines are too numerous for a small band of humans to overcome on their own. At the end of it all a peace is brought about by Neo's actions and Zion is no longer threatened. The conversation between the Oracle, played by Aunt Jemima, and the Architect, portrayed by Col. Sanders, is the coda to the story that shows that if people want to leave the Matrix the machines will allow them to.
It's rather like Germany at the end of World War II. The Nazi regime fell but Germany did not cease to be. It's relations with the world simply changed. The machines do not cease to be at the end, but their relations with the humans have changed. Are they evil? I don't think so, and you don't want to get into the myriad of reasons and questions that arise from that topic. :) They simply do what is necessary to survive.
My advice for anyone who doesn't understand it all, or doesn't like it, is to go back and see it all again. Watch the Animatrix, which fills in a lot of gaps, and at least see the films a couple of times. Personally, I was really disappointed with Reloaded the first time I saw it but after the second and third time I picked up a lot of stuff I had missed the first time, it was the same for the first film and will probably be the same for Revolutions, for me that is.
Now that I've finished my long winded tirade I shall take my leave. :cool:
 
cff said:

The exact word I use to describe the last two films.

Also, I feel the same way LOAF does. It seems to me like they totally forgot about the first one when they made Reloaded and Revolutions. Ah well.
 
The first one is a fairly self-contained story for the post-Cold War era. The other two are meandering-if-well-meaning attempts to give philisophical meaning to everyday ideals.
 
Short answer: Enjoyed it, but was a little disappointed in the end. Can't please everyone, I guess...

Mav23 said:
...prepared to label it on par with the original as I found the intense (more star wars-ish) "real world" action quite dilectable.
The Battle of Zion was nice, but I missed the action inside the Matrix. Kinda ironic watching a movie about the Matrix and not seeing much of it. The Matrix, I mean. The original was all about moving into, around, and inside the Matrix with agents on your tail, etc. Revolutions? They slip into and out of the Matrix so easiliy. Understandably, they didn't want to repeat action that's already seen in the original and Reloaded, but I still felt it was badly missing.

Mav23 said:
I also thought that the Neo/Smith fight at the end was AWESOME (until they were in the mud, I liked the feel of the rainy street much more).
Rainy street had a good atmosphere. Believable combat inside the building: also good. Superman manoeuvres in the sky? That seemed a little silly to me. A friend described it as coming straight out of DragonBallZ (I wouln't know). Also the showdown seemed too short, and Neo just gave up at the end (even if he knew "it would be over"). Neo was such a wuss in Revolutions, not that I expect him to be much better, given that we have to balance his super-hero status in Reloaded, but again, it was something I missed in this one.

Mav23 said:
...I was about to like this movie as much as the first, when something terrible happened... the ending. It was just all so unsatisfying.
I agree. It didn't feel like the humans accomplished anything with that cease-fire / 'peace'. Until the superman moves with Neo and Agent Smith, I was actually enjoying it quite a lot.

dextorboot said:
(can't bring myself to spend money on that franchise after Reloaded)
I liked Reloaded. I know not many did, but I'm happy to say I'm one of them. Much more Matrix action than Revolutions in any case.

cff said:
...even the Smith fight was kinda unsatisfying for me...
Agreed.

cff said:
...at the start with the train station...
Was there any point to the Trainman character?

cff said:
Personally I'd only recommend to visit the movie if you absolutely want to see how part #2 ends, but in my eye Revolutions is a real shame to the matrix universe.
Oh, I'm still recommending my friends see it, but I do tell them that I was disappointed with it, just to prepare them.

cff said:
I should add that I actually liked Reloaded.
Oh, great! :)

Bandit LOAF said:
And then they completely forgot about any of this and made two movies about guys in suits punching eachother to protect a made up city no one cares about.

If 'Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return of the Jedi' followed the same awful design as the Matrix sequels did, they'd be about Luke and company preventing people from breaking into Admiral Ackbars house instead of defeating the evil empire. And at the end the Empire would say "Well, we've still enslaved the universe, but we're going to stop trying to break into Admiral Ackbar's house!".
A little more biting than how I would put it, but that's essentially how I feel as well. I don't like how there wasn't much of what made the original so good in Revolutions. And as I said before, the humans really didn't win that much, did they?

Quarto said:
Personally, I'm still traumatised by Reloaded.
Wow, that's harsh. But an opinion you're entitled to, of course.

Quarto said:
(except for the first thirty minutes, but that part was really the ending of Reloaded, not the start of Revolutions)
I think they rushed through tying up Reloaded's loose ends, namely returning Neo to consciousness. I heard that Reloaded and Revolutions was always meant to be one movie. Now it seems that the only reason why they knocked out Neo at the end of Reloaded was so they could have a cliff-hanger to tie to Revolutions. It would have been possible to have Reloaded and Revolutions separately, I think.

Shaggy said:
There's billions of people plugged in and you can't release all of them, especially not all at once.
And there is one of the biggest problems. I don't think there could have been a decent conclusion where Neo and Trinity remained alive, either. It would probably take more than a few movies to free humanity (and where would they live? Earth is destroyed), it'd probably take an entire TV series. Oops. Hope no one gets any ideas. :(

Shaggy said:
...some people might not want to be unplugged...
Given that the war is 'over', the real world is a wasteland, and you can't force the machines to give up their power supply, I don't think many people would mind returning to the Matrix.

Shaggy said:
...but the first film wasn't totally written with a trilogy in mind(which is why some things don't jive quite right).
Why many things don't feel right...

Shaggy said:
...if people want to leave the Matrix the machines will allow them to.
I wonder how that might be brought about. Are the machines really that benevolent?

Shaggy said:
My advice for anyone who doesn't understand it all, or doesn't like it, is to go back and see it all again. Watch the Animatrix, which fills in a lot of gaps, and at least see the films a couple of times.
I still want to get the box set when it comes out, so I can see it all again and maybe enjoy it a little bit more. And I have the Animatrix, but I don't think it helps that much. Except maybe the Renaissance and the Osiris. I don't see why people would scorch the skies anyway, it was essentially global suicide, but I suppose it was necessary for the Matrix to come about in the first place.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It was such a niftykeenscaryawesome idea that we collectively agreed to ignore that it was completely scientifically implausible.

Not scientifically impossible however.

LeHah said:
there's a ton of resolution going on but since the meat of the talking happened previously (in this case, the superior Reloaded), it lacks context.

OTOH the left so many things completely unattended. For example why did the woman of the french guy have to kiss Neo in Reloaded? I expected something like Neo introduces love into the Matrix that way. Why did that youngster who admires Neo give him the spoon from one of the kids in Reloaded? I expected something like 'you can also bend the reality here'. There are surely more such examples, but it is a while since I watched part #2.

Shaggy said:
I don't see how so many people can miss the point of the series!
A lot of people keep talking about how unsatysfying the ending was, but what the hell did you expect?

I am not so much complaining about the principal ending. But the way there was bad and also
the visual representation of it was (while maybe really not that bad) extremely unfitting to the matrix theme.

Shaggy said:
Where you expecting that Neo would defeat Smith

Well actually yes. He did in the other two movies.

Shaggy said:
and the machines would just go off on their own and everybody plugged into the matrix would just suddenly wake up and live happily ever after?

No. I actually didn't even expect that the war would end peacefully. I expected a human victory. Note that I don't think the movie is bad because it didn't follow what I expected. Surprises are a good thing.

Shaggy said:
Besides, without the matrix the machines die which, admittedly, was the motivation for the humans in the first film, but the first film wasn't totally written with a trilogy in mind(which is why some things don't jive quite right). But in Reloaded it talks about the humans being reliant on machines for life and vice versa.

Reloaded also says (the Architect does IIRC) that the machines could survive without the humans. "There are certain levels of existance we are willing to accept" or something like that.

Shaggy said:
Are they evil? I don't think so, and you don't want to get into the myriad of reasons and questions that arise from that topic. :) They simply do what is necessary to survive.

Accordin to the Animatrix the machines at least had been good.

Shaggy said:
My advice for anyone who doesn't understand it all, or doesn't like it, is to go back and see it all again.

How much you pay? Shudder...

Shaggy said:
Watch the Animatrix, which fills in a lot of gaps,

Did so. Didn't like it all that much. Flight of the Osiris was good, also the two parts as to how the matrix came into existance was good. The rest wasn't worth viewing.

Col.Dom said:
>shallow
The exact word I use to describe the last two films.

Reloaded actually had a lot of plot going on IMHO. You hast had to look for it more carefully then in the firt movie where it was pushed into your face.
I tend to think that those who didn't like Reloaded didn't understand it, while for Revolutions there simply wasn't anything to understand. There was only medicore action.

Wedge009 said:
The Battle of Zion was nice, but I missed the action inside the Matrix. Kinda ironic watching a movie about the Matrix and not seeing much of it. The Matrix, I mean. The original was all about moving into, around, and inside the Matrix with agents on your tail, etc. Revolutions? They slip into and out of the Matrix so easiliy. Understandably, they didn't want to repeat action that's already seen in the original and Reloaded, but I still felt it was badly missing.

Yup, yup and yup. Completely agree with that.

Wedge009 said:
Rainy street had a good atmosphere. Believable combat inside the building: also good. Superman manoeuvres in the sky? That seemed a little silly to me. A friend described it as coming straight out of DragonBallZ (I wouln't know). Also the showdown seemed too short, and Neo just gave up at the end (even if he knew "it would be over").

Again agree, and yes it reminded a good deal of DragonballZ. I also think that the motivation for Neo giving up wasn't properly explained at all.

Wedge009 said:
Was there any point to the Trainman character?

Didn't seem so. The Trainstation had some point however.

Wedge009 said:
And there is one of the biggest problems. I don't think there could have been a decent conclusion where Neo and Trinity remained alive, either.

Well probably. But at least give them a heroic death. For Neo this somehow worked. But Trinity's was lame. It was just an accident. Let her die while she helps Neo overcome Bane would have been so much more satisfying. (Move the whole Bane thing until after they landed in the machine city).

Wedge009 said:
I wonder how that might be brought about. Are the machines really that benevolent?

The Animatrix did show them as pretty nice folks.
 
cff said:
OTOH the left so many things completely unattended. For example why did the woman of the french guy have to kiss Neo in Reloaded? I expected something like Neo introduces love into the Matrix that way.

She also kisses Ghost and Niobe :confused: in Enter the Matrix.

Will they release additional material (i.e. another game or Animatrix II) to explain the story?
 
cff said:
OTOH the left so many things completely unattended. For example why did the woman of the french guy have to kiss Neo in Reloaded? I expected something like Neo introduces love into the Matrix that way. Why did that youngster who admires Neo give him the spoon from one of the kids in Reloaded? I expected something like 'you can also bend the reality here'. There are surely more such examples, but it is a while since I watched part #2.

Theres a lot more to Reloaded if you take your time and look.

As for Persephone, the story is she was the wife of Hades (if you don't know who Hades is, I'm not talking to you) and in a fit of PMS over her marriage her mother Demeter split the seasons. When Persephone was with her husband, bitter winter was given to Man; when she was freed, we got spring. We could also make a safe judgement on this as her personality: very sexual but very cold about it.

The spoon thing is up in the air. I saw it as a warning; where as the first movie "There is no spoon" and then in Reloaded there is a spoon. A sign of something impending.
 
Starkey said:
She also kisses Ghost and Niobe :confused: in Enter the Matrix.

Will they release additional material (i.e. another game or Animatrix II) to explain the story?
There is going to be the Matrix Online that takes place after Revolutions. From what I've heard it will deal with everything that happens during the peace and affect how the story goes from there, and the Mirovingian is supposed to figure prominently.
At least that's the word on the street. :D
So there may be more to the story than what we currently have.
 
The ending of Revolutions was very open for sequels. I don't think there'll be another movie coming anytime soon, but certainly there will be franchises (games, books, possibly Animatrix II). It wouldn't fit with the Wachowski Brothers' way of thinking by just ending everything at the end of Revolutions.
 
Shaggy said:
There is going to be the Matrix Online

All we know is that Revolutions was left open-ended in that fashion due to the MMPORPG in development, which if you ask me, is really goddamned silly to do.
 
Tetris's Overlong and Probably Irrelevant Review of Matrix 3

Give me the reels of the second and third movies, a pair of scissors, and two days, and I can give you back one awesome 2 and a half hour movie.

Of that 2 1/2 hours, 45 minutes would be from Matrix Revolutions. All of 5 minutes would be from the second half of Revolutions.

The main problems with Matrix 3 was that, halfway through the movie, it completely drifted away from what the Matrix movies did best: The Matrix. The battle for Zion was all well and good, but it dragged on and on and on and on (and on and on) when, in the long run, it was a rather insignifigant place to be spending time. I would have much rather spent the time watching the Matrix disintigrate from the inside, and event that got far too little screentime. I even thought the Neo/Smith fight was too short, or too rushed.

Also, it has the worst deus ex machina ending I have seen since Jurrasic Park 3. I'm not talking about the "Not Resolving Anything" part. I'm talking about the silly, unwarrented, and downright goofy bit after the "Not Resolving Anything" part. Those two minutes to more to undermine the movie than just about anything that came before.

Bad Wachowskis! No cookies for you!

-Tetris Ling
 
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