Matrix 4: The Search for More Money

jason10mm wrote: This trailer seems REALLY derivative as well, I can only hope it is deliberately deceptive.

its funny, because I think an extremely derivative retread of the first movie is the best case outcome for this movie, based on the quality of literally everything else the Wachowskis have ever come out with. do the easy fan service with modern fx and call it a day and id be happy. i do not think thats what this movie will actually be, and i think it will be much worse for it. but hey, maybe i'll be pleasantly surprised.

Gary Sax wrote: Literally the only thing I've heard is that the premise is a huge plot twist and that's a positive to me.

I saw Jupiter Ascending and it was a terrible film (sky rollerblades!) but it has more visual and story creativity in its pinkie than most sci fi has in their entire three movie trilogy. So I will probably see this, bad or not.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I just wanted to say that Jupiter Ascending is my kind of garbage. It's like the Wachowskis didn't think they could get away with another messy trilogy, and so they just smooshed a whole trilogy worth of content into a two hour movie. It's totally bonkers and I really enjoyed it.

In general, the Wachowskis have never let me down in terms of something memorable. A few times they've produced genuine brilliance. Speed Racer comes to mind.

As for a new Matrix movie and the trailer, I dunno, I think it look cool. But I like the sequels as well, so maybe I'm the primary target anyway.

The thing about the sequels is that they are anything but safe. They totally poke a whole in the "chosen one" narrative of the original movie, and they have all these weird digressions into philosophy and overwrought plotting, that I think they circle back around to compelling. They are not nearly as marketable as the first movie though, and not nearly as clean a narrative. By that I mean that the pacing is kind of terrible, and they leave main characters off the table for huge stretches. Like, they basically forget about Morpheus by the end. But they are bold and unafraid to do something different, and I frankly could do with more sequels like that. More compelling messes, less focus-tested pablum.

The Wachowskis rank among my favorite filmmakers. How ironic that it’s two trans sisters that have the fucking brass balls to make a movie like Cloud Atlas or Speed Racer. Or to follow up one of the seminal action films in history with two movies that absolutely refuse to play to audience expectations.

My “Unified Matrix Theory” is that the films form almost a genre bible. I mean, like, everything is in there. The second film spends the first half referencing ZARDOZ and 1970s science fiction, but then had a massive car chase scene and introduces vampires and ghosts. The third film is all 80s action bluster and a film version of arcade shooters like Space Invaders. Along the way there are call outs to westerns, Fist of the North Star, Neuromancer, Superman, and a fight scene that has an entire Player’s Handbook worth of medieval weapons. I believe they set out to put it all into one unified story…but the problem is that all the groundbreaking (for Hollywood) HK influenced stuff is in the first film and that set expectations. But they didn’t want to just do that again, they had other ground to cover and I’m glad they did, because the other films are passionate and messy and genius in other ways.

Thinking about it, they really succeeded at what Ready Player One absolutely failed to do.

The action scenes in Reloaded blew my mind back in 2003. It felt like a movie gift. These days I feel like all of the most exciting stuff is all crammed into a roughly a forty-five-minute-long stretch halfway through the movie.

I think the last two movies are mostly unwatchable bullshit but I still admire the filmmakers a fair amount for refusing to be bound by their success to do stock standard extensions. I like the John Wick sequels a lot more by contrast to the Matrix sequels, but they are also vastly safer.

Michael Barnes wrote: Thinking about it, they really succeeded at what Ready Player One absolutely failed to do.

Tickle you in your particular nostalgia zone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNpvWBuTfrc

Remember when Neo first entered the Construct? Remember when Neo touched the mirror? Remember when Neo learned kung fu? Remember when Neo had no mouth to speak? Remember when Agent Smith said, "Mr. Anderson."? Remember The Matrix?

This is going to make The Hangover Part II look like an original story.

Ironically, despite all the lifts from the original, the plot appears closer to Reloaded in that Neo only cares about Trinity, and she appears in a dream in a very high place.

I mean, same problem as the first film having sequels. You create a perfect ending with a superhero origin story (inside the matrix) with limitless power, and then you have to create some sort of dramatic tension in future fights and conflict in the matrix since you have rightfully made the outside of the matrix as grim but also boring as possible. It just doesn't work.

Just bought tickets for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

I find it interesting the way people retroactively hate the second Matrix movie. I distinctly remember that it was well-received when it came out, but then there was a subsequent backlash after everyone was disappointed by the third movie. And that backlash was so strong that people denied ever liking the second one, even though they totally did like it. If nothing else, the second movie had a good fight scene in that mansion which lead to a great chase scene on a highway that was actually built for the movie.

ChristopherMD wrote: Just bought tickets for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

I'm still hanging on to my tickets for Pandemic: No Way in the Theater.

Shellhead wrote:

ChristopherMD wrote: Just bought tickets for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

I'm still hanging on to my tickets for Pandemic: No Way in the Theater.

That's cool. I didn't get vaccinated so I can stay at home.

Shellhead wrote: I find it interesting the way people retroactively hate the second Matrix movie. I distinctly remember that it was well-received when it came out, but then there was a subsequent backlash after everyone was disappointed by the third movie. And that backlash was so strong that people denied ever liking the second one, even though they totally did like it. If nothing else, the second movie had a good fight scene in that mansion which lead to a great chase scene on a highway that was actually built for the movie.

I could be fooling myself, but Matrix: Reloaded left me pretty underwhelmed from the start. Too plot heavy. Yeah, it has Monica Belucci and the fight and car chase scenes, but the rest of it is mediocre. But since I've sprung for HBOMax anyway, I'm going to watch Resurrection.

It's entirely possible that you personally didn't like the second movie. But it did $700+ million at the box office, compared to $400+ million for both the original Matrix and the third movie. The critic/audience scores at Rotten Tomatoes for the three movies were 88/85, 73/72, and 35/60, in order. The critic reviews were generally recorded back when the movies came out, while the audience scores can include people even recent reviews.

I didn't feel like burning the theater down when Reloaded was over, but I was a bit disappointed. I do still watch it again, but only because of the scenes going from meeting the Merovingian (Monica!) to the end of the car chase scenes. Which at that point you're so close to the end that you might as well finish it.

It's kind of like Return of the Jedi. Did it utterly suck? No. Was it a disappointment? Absolutely.