I have a flair for sarcastic wit? Thank you for the comment Jab1. I think.
Actually, I didn’t intend to be sarcastic. Please notify me where exactly does such sarcasm reside within my posts?
Lucie
The Matrix a RELIGION? WHAT?
If you didn’t like the movie, just say so, but don’t insult it like that. The religious similarities it includes are a satire of the human race’s gullibility. It is used as a form to explain how easily AI tricked us into believing in the reality of The Matrix. It can also be interpreted as critique on religious dogma and the non-reflective, sometimes fanatical way, in which people follow it without stopping a second to question its validity.
And, just to clarify, the movie itself is not being argued about as if it were a religion. Its message, however, is being argued with similar but as not as exalted passion. That being said, I agree that the philosophical implications it posits–nature of reality, subjugation to technology, self-destruction of the human race–are definitely great debate material.
One last note, I previously forgot to mention the 3rd greatest sci-fi movie ever: Stargate.
Every epic story requires 2 fundamental elements, a hero and a cause that justifies the hero’s actions. In the Matrix the heroes are well defined and courageous in nature. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause or their friends. Now, as to the validity of the cause, well, there is precisely were the problem resides.
Yes, as MattTheCroc said, the heroes are fighting the wrong battle. The cause that motivates their actions–escaping from submission–is more founded on idealism than on any pragmatically valid principle. Of course they are better off living inside the Matrix, that is by far preferable to inhabiting the Terminator-like scenario that characterizes Future Earth.
But, since the Matrix is a trilogy, any criticisms following these lines must be postponed until the story is completed. Only then it will be clear whether escaping from the Matrix was a justifiable cause to fight for or just another idealistic and senseless pursuit.
I said that The Last Starfighter was “one of the first”. And, IIRC, the scenes in Tron were all gone over by hand, whereas in TLS they were purely done by computer.
Everything you wrote after that. It seemed to me you were making fun of Equipoise for his analysis of that silly movie, that your subsequent writing was mocking him. If you were being serious in your praise for The Matrix, I guess I’d have to apologize for saying you were being sarcastic, but I’d also have to say you’re dead wrong for taking that computer nerd’s wet dream seriously. (A computer nerd’s wet dream is similar to every other adolescent male’s wet dream [he’s a big, strong, athletic warrior with a compliant female, also a warrior, at his side] with the addition of having access to lotsa cool computer technology that can do ANYTHING and only HE can master it. This can also describe most comic-book super-heroes.) Please note that there is really nothing inherently wrong with filming a wet dream and making it entertaining, but it shouldn’t be taken as anything more than that.
Perhaps, but this message is undercut by the fact that they used these same forms of manipulation (advertising, quoting positive reviews while ignoring disapproving ones) to get people to see the movie so they could turn a profit. (And don’t tell me the filmmakers weren’t trying to make a buck.) Can you say “Hypocricy!” boys ‘n’ girls? I knew you could!