I didn’t follow this. If Seraph is supposed to represent Judas, who is he betraying? The Oracle? By not protecting her from Smith? I was expecting a big fight scene where he bravely fends off wave after wave of Smiths, only to succumb at the last. Instead he and the little girl hide in a little room. I always thought the “Cypher-as-Judas” from the first movie was a more apt analogy.
You have to be pretty thick not to see the “Neo-as-Christ-figure” symbolism, but I think it breaks down under its own weight. The Architect and Oracle as Mary & Joseph? Personally, I don’t believe that everything represents something. I agree with Bryan Ekers that the Wachowski’s (or whoever ended up writing the final script) thought that all they needed to do was provide enough mindless violence to get butts in the theater seats. Plot discussions are more interesting and creative than the movies could have ever been.
Oh, and “spiky machine man face” shall henceforth be known as “MCP,” in which case he should have said, “end of line.”
Well, I hope you’ve got a frickin’ huge wide screen TV and an awesome sound system. After all, the movie is all about the spectacle after all. I suspect the Wachowski brothers were rather surprised at all the “deep meanings” that people read into the first movie. They were just having fun, you know?
I saw the first movie many, many times and enjoyed it because it successfully (in my opinion) mixed two genres that I really like (sci-fi and kung fu) and had awesome eye-popping special effects to boot. I never forgot that it was primarily eye candy, though.
Sadly, I think all the “deep meanings” that were read into the first film caused the Wachowski brothers to feel like they had to come up with some additional “deep meanings” of their own for the next two films. In this respect, they failed, but since I don’t care about any of that in the first place, my enjoyment of the second two films isn’t diminished.
I was a bit disappointed in the second film, but only by (a) the obvious CGI work during the “Burley Brawl” and (b) the obnoxious “rave” scene that served no purpose as far as I could tell. The third film, however, has much improved SFX and no obnoxiously out-of-place scene like the rave, and therefore I think it is an excellent film on par with the first one.
So, my advice is to see it once on the big screen for the spectacle and enjoy it for what it is. Then, if you must, get it on DVD so you can watch it over and over again and try to analyze the “deep meaning” that may or may not be there.
My useless theory: EMPs take out everything. Even other EMPs. They could only set off a few depending on how big Zion was (one would totally wipe out the dock). But eventually, they would run out and fresh machines would come in and wipe them out.
Which is why they had to tunnel. The tunnels leading to the doors could be lined with lots of EMPs that are out of each others range. They might have enough time to recover and recharge them and possibly take out enough of the machines to win.
This was they’re sixth destruction of Zion. As the Architecht said, they’ve gotten pretty good at it.
Thankfully, I do.
Actually, now that we have the 57 inch Sony and the surround sound system, I prefer watching DVDs at home to going to the movies…I only go to see movies at the theatre that I just CAN’T wait to see, like ROTK or perhaps Spiderman 2. Others can wait for DVD now.
So LOTR wins as how to do a trilogy right.
And the Matrix falls sadly into the Lucas-trap of eyecandy/story imbalance.
The guys at PIXAR also know how to do it right: story first! eyecandy second!
You’re right about cypher as a better Judas figure. But they were TWO judas that were apostoles. Judas Iscariot and Judas . By the way, Judas Iscariot felt so guilty he killed himself. Neither Cypher no Seraph do so. When I posted above I apparently didn’t make it clear that I thought that the whole movie was a mix of different religions. I saw the catholic angle because that’s the one I know. I’m quite sure people of other religion will find other similarities. In fact I, as I believe I mentioned, found similarities with the Aztec religion, in the fact that they believed the world had to be destroyed and made anew in cycles, and that we are now living in the fifth cycle.
On a side-note: yes I liked it, no I don’t take it too seriously, yes the effects are cool, no it’s not an original or grounbreaking plot.
It’s clear that the Bros. built a great deal of religious and philosophical references into their movie. I disagree with your claim that it was never anything more than a smokescreen, although you’re entitled to your opinion about the significance of the hidden meanings.
And once again the SDMB spends more time discussing the movie than they did writing it.
My take on the ending was that Neo realizes that Smith’s purpose is to kill him, and when Smith says “Every purpose has an end” Neo realizes that once Smith kills Neo, Smith’s “purpose” has ended - the Smith program is completed and now the Matrix can reset.
I’m still unclear how Smith could have gotten to the machine world and threatened them.
And I’m still pissed that the ghost twins weren’t used.
I spent the last three days slowly reading through that 11 or 12 page thread on Reloaded. Some of the ideas were interesting, but at times I found myself saying, “how the hell are people reading so much into this?” Like someone else said, these are stylish sci-fi kung fu movies. Yes, there are messages, but not to the point that some seem to want to believe.
Remembering that these are stylish sci-fi kung fu movies helps answer a lot of these questions. Why didn’t Neo go all “Scanners” on the Agent Smith copies in the Burly Brawl scene? It’s pretty easy to see why Neo didn’t use other powers. That wouldn’t fit in a kung fu movie, would it?
Some (all?) of the fight scenes may have been over done if you are looking for realism, but since when are the fight scenes real in these kind of movies? In some ways, the Matrix movies had the most inoffensive fighting by wires that I have ever seen on the big screen. The characters were in the Matrix. They could defy physics. Say that about any other Jet Li movie.
I will agree that there were plenty of holes in the plot. That’s the case in most sci-fi, be it Star Trek, Star Wars, Blade, or any other action type movie.
Still, I can’t help but think that I lot of the people who don’t like this movie were going in hoping to find the meaning of life or something. I went in hoping for a good, stylish, sci-fi kung fu movie. I wanted to be entertained. To me, it delivered. I enjoyed just about all of this movie. I definitely enjoyed it better than Reloaded.
And it’s people like you who caused the Wachowski brothers to feel like they had to come up with some additional “deep meanings” of their own for the next two films. Too bad they weren’t up to the task.
