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Matrix -- eh

 
Sheriff
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Blasphemy I know... I just got back from The Matrix: Reloaded. *eh* WAY too much hype. Interesting story-line, I'll give it that, and the special effects were cool (the scene with Neo fighting the 100 Agent Smith's looked pretty CGI'd at points, but the highway scene was neat).
My opinion: They spent WAY too much money trying to create giant hype around the movie. The Today Show, Dateline NBC, or was it 60 minutes... come on. Previews - fine. A few cast interviews - cool. But a movie should be good enough to stand on its own without this giant media-blitz.
Anyway, that's my initial reaction -- curious to see what other folks think. I really liked the first one, and like I said, the story line for this one was pretty interesting, but overall I wasn't impressed. X2 is my favorite sequel so far for the year.
[ May 15, 2003: Message edited by: Jessica Sant ]
 
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Do I HAVE to rent the first movie to enjoy this one. ... I know, I know! I'm the only geek on this side of the planet that hasn't seen it. I have rented it like 4 times though.
 
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I have to wait till next week for M2, but fortunately I don't watch TV here and I've only seen the internet trailer once! I know what you mean though, too much expectation always ruins a film ....
Saw X2 last night; much better than the original film I thought. Better story and character interaction. Maybe partly due to missing all the hype again but a great no-brainer nonetheless
 
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my ex-girlfriend like Matrix very much, but to me, it is just so-so......
 
Richard Hawkes
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Originally posted by Don Liu:
my ex-girlfriend like Matrix very much, but to me, it is just so-so......


I was sooo disappointed after the first viewing of Matrix, the story was so full of holes ... but then I realised I was taking it far too seriously and now I really like it for what it is, a neat what-if idea dressed up with cool fighting and gun-porn. Agent Smith is my favourite. (btw, did anyone else LOL when he appeared in Lord of the Rings?!)
 
John Lee
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Originally posted by Richard Hawkes:

I was sooo disappointed after the first viewing of Matrix, the story was so full of holes ... but then I realised I was taking it far too seriously and now I really like it for what it is, a neat what-if idea dressed up with cool fighting and gun-porn. Agent Smith is my favourite. (btw, did anyone else LOL when he appeared in Lord of the Rings?!)


yes, it is a good movie, the first time i saw it, i can't even understand it! that is all.
 
Richard Hawkes
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This should clear things up for you:
Neo wakes up in a vat of baby food after his mouth gets sewn up and learns to play Tekken in his head with that guy from Apocalypse now. Then they go to fight the evil pacmen ghosts who are like, really good at Tekken and then there's this big Oracle that makes cookies who's like this big database of things that might happen, and, wait hang on errr, yeah, then the spider things try to get to the submarine because they can smell the EMPs (or do they just think they can smell them...). Then Neo falls in love and gets sucked up a telephone. And there's some shooting.
 
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I was sooo disappointed after the first viewing of Matrix, the story was so full of holes ... but then I realised I was taking it far too seriously and now I really like it for what it is, a neat what-if idea dressed up with cool fighting and gun-porn.


Gun porn.
 
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I am still only seeing the trailer...
 
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Originally posted by Jessica Sant:
I really liked the first one, and like I said, the story line for this one was pretty interesting, but overall I wasn't impressed. X2 is my favorite sequel so far for the year.


Ah no dont say that Ive been looking forward to this film for ages since the first teaser trailers came out.
I expect I will like it. Its just a shame that Ive read quite a few reviews that claim it doesnt live up to the hype.
And yeah X-Men 2 is brill, Im going to have to see it again though as the first viewing I was at I was in the front row and it was difficult taking in all the fight scenes
Mark
 
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M2: Lots of eye fodder. Some moments of good script. The plot is crap. They take all sorts of time to introduce characters and ideas that never do anything later. Near the end the plot just turns into gibberish and then the screen says "TO BE CONTINUED".
Overall, fun to watch, but the original had a plot.
 
John Lee
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Originally posted by John Dunn:
Do I HAVE to rent the first movie to enjoy this one. ... I know, I know! I'm the only geek on this side of the planet that hasn't seen it. I have rented it like 4 times though.


I doesn't make sense to watch the good movie just to prepare yourself to see the not-as-good movie. Instead, you should watch The Matrix just because it was a great movie.
There is far more to The Matrix than gratuitous "gun porn". I think that it would still be a great movie if all of the shooting was removed. In fact, it might even be a better movie.
 
John Lee
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John Lee
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I have never seen "Matrix" and I have no plans to.
 
Dan Chisholm
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Originally posted by Richard Hawkes:
Agent Smith is my favourite.


I agree. Agent Smith is great. I thought that his unique accent was a great way to create a character that is clearly different from all of the others. I wondered how they came up with that idea, but later I realized that Agent Smith's accent is the result of an Australian actor attempting to fake an American accent. His flaws were perfect for the role.
 
Dan Chisholm
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I saw an interview recently where Reeves was asked what attracted him to the role of Neo. He responded with a line from the movie, "What truth?" One of the more interesting concepts of the movie was the question of which truth is the real one and which is the illusion. For example, Christians view the physical world as reality but Hindus view it as the illusion. Which is correct? Which do we prefer? Does it make a difference?
Are there any Hindus here that saw The Matrix? Any Bhuddists? What did you think?
 
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We are going this afternoon it's compulsary viewing in our household. My son is a Matrix "freak" he is playing it on the GameCube as I type this.
I will report back what I thought of it.
ps I liked the 1st one by the way
[ May 17, 2003: Message edited by: Johannes de Jong ]
 
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TP: I have never seen "Matrix" and I have no plans to.

JJ: I liked the 1st one by the way
I saw the video and cannot understand what people like about it!
 
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I saw the video and cannot understand what people like about it!
People like "Matrix" for different reasons, most notably special effects, action style, and cinematography.
I like it for its philosophycal ideas, -- free will and determinism, individuals and societies, reality and illusions, truth and perceptions. Granted, you can find great movies that explore this subjects in depth, but this movie organically mixed the entertaining and the intellectual aspects together. The original Matrix was better in this respect, I think the "Reloaded" lacked a bit.
 
Dan Chisholm
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Originally posted by Johannes de Jong:
I will report back what I thought of it.


As soon as you get in the threater you should post the following message from your cell phone--"I'm in." Of course, you should also be wearing some really cool shades.
 
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I will see Matrix Reloader, it contains 1.4G, I am grateful that my brother help me to download it as soon as possible......
hahahaha.....
Of course,I had seen Matrix which contains beautiful computer graphics and combines the slow bullet sound effect....It is really attractive.And it contains very nice content too.
"Neo begin to believe"
Did you see Matrix Reloader?
Do anyone knows when it started in US cinema?
 
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I saw the movie yesterday - the fights are slick, but nothing new. The best action sequence is the the highway chase scene - it's spectacular. (I heard they build the entire 2-mile highway in an Alameda, CA naval air base - and that 15-min scene took 3 months of filming!)
Btw, don't walk out when the end credits start rolling - after all the credits, there's a preview of what happens next - in Matrix Revolutions.
>Christians view the physical world as reality but Hindus view it as the illusion
Er, I am not an expert in Hindu philosophy - but would like to correct you here. This "viewing as an illusion" is just a theory of Shankara, the founder of the Advaita (Non-dualism) school of thought. This theory has been proved to be illogical by Madhva (aka Anandathirtha), the founder of the Dvaita (Dualism) philosophy. The article here has a good discussion comparing the two philosophies.
 
John Lee
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Originally posted by siu chung man:

Do anyone knows when it started in US cinema?


May 15, 2003
 
John Lee
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Matrix III - The Matrix Revolutions willcome out in November, 2003
 
Dan Chisholm
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Originally posted by Nanhesru Ningyake:
...This "viewing as an illusion" is just a theory of Shankara, the founder of the Advaita (Non-dualism) school of thought. This theory has been proved to be illogical by Madhva (aka Anandathirtha), the founder of the Dvaita (Dualism) philosophy. The article here has a good discussion comparing the two philosophies.


Thanks for the interesting link. So now we have a new question: Were the Wachowski brothers followers of the Advaita or the Dvaita school of thought? One could argue that since the characters of the movie trained hard for success inside the Matrix then they must--to some degree--respect the reality of the Matrix. Therefore, they must be followers of the Advaita philosophy. On the other hand, one could argue that difficult training is required to break free from the illusion even though the illusion is not real.
There is no doubt that a third alternative exists. It could be argued that the Wachowski brothers made a movie about shooting people and there is nothing more to it than that. I suppose we will all continue to see only what we want to see. That's it! Now we have proof! The Matrix is real!
We're in!
 
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I haven't seen M2 yet, but wanted to add: aside from Buddhism, many key ideas in the Matrix movies seem to come from Gnostic traditions. And The Matrix was not the only movie to explore them - very similar ideas were present in The Thirteenth Floor and Dark City for starters, and have been appearing intermittently (in more varied forms) in science fiction for some time. E.g. the works of Philip K. Dick, Tron, various Star Trek hologram episodes. Of course, most of these other treatments weren't as successful at "gun porn" as the Matrix was, so it's understandable they might be overlooked in comparison...
 
Mapraputa Is
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I like Philip K. Dick. Read a couple of his novels, and I got an impression he had some experience with drugs. Usually it's easy to separate "realistic" prose and "made-up" stories, drug-induced prose is somewhere between. It's not "real", but it's more than "made-up", it has some weird sort of "reality". Like dreams - we do not make them up, they are real in some sense.
[ May 18, 2003: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]
 
Johannes de Jong
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We saw the movie. Not to bad but the 1st one was better. My son hopes the twin will be back in the 3rd "episode".
 
Jim Yingst
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I like Philip K. Dick. Read a couple of his novels, and I got an impression he had some experience with drugs.
Quite a bit of experience, I think - LSD and amphetamines in particular. His later writings were also influenced heavily by a series of mystical experiences in the mid-seventies which may have been caused by temporal lobe epilepsy.
 
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the matrixreloaded. have not seen it .but i think
x2 was the bomb.looking forward to it.
 
Mark Fletcher
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Has anyone tried the animated Matrix films at the Animatrix?
Of the ones that are available, Id recommend "The Second Renaissance" parts 1 and 2. These two movies cover the war between man and machine prior to the creation of the Matrix. Pretty good!
Ive decided Im going to hang off going to see Matrix Reloaded until I can get the chance to see it with the girlfriend; she hasnt seen the first one yet, so we'll rent the first on DVD and then go to the theatre afterwards.
Cheers,
Mark
 
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EK: I like it for its philosophycal ideas, -- free will and determinism, individuals and societies, reality and illusions, truth and perceptions.
There are several books exploring philosophical and religious ideas in Matrix, I saw this book in "Borders":
The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real
But Amazon said there are more:
The Reality Within The Matrix
Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix
The Gospel Reloaded: Exploring Spirituality and Faith in The Matrix
[ Tom: Fixed links ]
[ May 19, 2003: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]
 
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Originally posted by Mark Fletcher:
Ive decided Im going to hang off going to see Matrix Reloaded until I can get the chance to see it with the girlfriend; she hasnt seen the first one yet, so we'll rent the first on DVD and then go to the theatre afterwards.
Cheers,
Mark


Channel 5 , 9pm if you're interested.
 
Mark Fletcher
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Yeah I caught that in the newspapers this morning.
Tis a shame really that our household is one of the few that has really bad reception on Channel 5.
 
John Smith
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:

There are several books exploring philosophical and religious ideas in Matrix, I saw this book in "Borders":
The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real


This one looks good, I think I'll get it, thanks Map.
[ Tom: Fixed links ]
[ May 19, 2003: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]
 
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Thanks for fixing links, Tom
When will I memorize it
 
John Dunn
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Please don't anyone get too caught up in this movie!!!
Matrix Murder Spree
 
paul wheaton
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So what's the deal with the architect? Is he suggesting that the matrix is in a matrix?
 
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