First off, there are obviously going to be spoilers in this thread, so read no further if you don’t want to see them.
Second off, I absolutely loved the movie, so I’m not trying to bash it here.
Third off, I have, alas, only seen the movie once. The new wife says if I want to see it again I have to wait for it to come out on DVD (long story, but it was part of the negotiation that allowed me to purchase the 47" wide screen TV I wanted). And I say that only to acknowledge that some of the apparent plot holes I found may simply be due to my not watching carefully enough.
Anyway, having said all that, here goes:
In the original movie, I distinctly remember the sockets being removed from Neo’s back while he was lying on the table. In the second movie, however, the sockets are all there.
Trinity, Morpheus and the Keymaker steal a rather nice-looking Cadillac for the climactic highway chase scene. During the highway chase scene, the side of the car is repeatedly peppered with bullets, as evidenced by the huge number of holes on the doors. The riders within, however, remain absolutely unscathed. I don’t recall any mention that it was a bullet-proof car.
Neo flies through the city so quickly that a huge building-destroying shockwave is created in his wake (totally cool effect, by the way). While still traveling many hundreds of miles per hour, Neo then scoops up Trinity seconds before she would have hit the ground. Why doesn’t the shock of instantly being accelerated to a velocity of hundreds of miles per hour kill her on the spot?
The two guys from Zion are leaving the Matrix. One is captured by Agent Smith and “infected.” The other makes it safely out of the Matrix, bearing an envelope that presumably holds the message from the Oracle for Neo. How does somebody carry anything out of the Matrix? I suppose the information could be downloaded along with the person’s consciousness and then printed out in the real world, but there’s no mention that this is possible within the constraints of the movie.
Vampires, Ghosts and Werewolves are all “rogue” programs. The Merovingian’s two bodyguards are presumbaly werewolves that are “extremely hard to kill.” Persephone, however, kills one of them with silver bullets. Why would a rogue program be susceptible to silver bullets? Unless, of course, “silver bullets” are just a metaphor for some arcane ability that Persephone posesses to destroy other programs.
I’m sure there were plenty of other holes, but these were the ones that I noticed and which made me go “wait a minute…” Does anybody have explanations for them that don’t require making assumptions that are not supported by what is shown onscreen?
The sockets were definately still there in the first movie. Neo has a conversation with Tank about the fact that he has no “holes.” We do see all the cables pull out of Neo’s sockets when he is freed, but the sockets themselves were never removed.
It’s an action movie.
It’s an action movie.
This is definately a mystery. Since we never hear anything more about the first guy we must assume that it will be explained in the next movie.
Everything in the Matrix is a simulation for some code. Remember that the Keymaker says the code for getting to the source is hidden in the tumblers in the locks, and only he knows how to make the key that fits. Same thing, I would imagine. Persephone knows that the code to kill the werewolves is hidden in the silver bullets.
I can see him slowing down at the point when he catches her to a speed that wouldn’t crush her. Sure the physics are funky, but aren’t they the rules that can be broken? I don’t see you complaining about him stopping bullets in mid air.
1 - I just re-watched the first one, since I thought the plugs had been removed too. They just show them sticking some forceps in them, not actually removing them. Then he’s wearing a burlap sack through the rest of the movie, so you only see the one on his head.
2 - That was stupid and broke my suspension of disbelief for a bit too. The bullet hole indicates that the bullet went through the metal without much of a problem. Are we to expect that the bullets went through the metal but were stopped by the inner door plastic?
3 - He’s a superhero, he can do things like that. She’s also go superhero qualities about her as well, mostly involving being able to get into extremely tight PVC pants, but also jumping and such.
4 - That didn’t make much sense either, but then again, the whole getting into/going out of the matrix isn’t really explained, so it’s not clear what mechanisim for data transfer they may have.
5 - I think anyone with silver bullets could potentially kill them. It’s just that finding silver bullets falls into the category of hard things to do before the task of actually killing the werewolf. There must be something in the werewolf codebase that says:
//we're going to need a way to kill these if they get into deadlock
if (projectile.getMaterial() == GlobalMaterials.silver) {
werewolfMainThread.kill();
System.gc();
} else {
// if there's time in the schedule we'll put better kill code here - TA
}
Yes, he did have that conversation. On the other hand, it was expressly stated in the first movie that all the implants save the one at the back of the neck had been removed. I just chalked it up as a desire to change the style of the film a little since it didn’t really ammount to anything and ignored it.
That came to mind for me as well considdering how full of holes that car became. That one earned an eye roll.
That one can be safely ignored on the “Neo can do cool stuff that doesn’t make any sense” effect.
Again something I noted. And then Neo got a physical message. Okay, I can see that if he located the message in the Matrix then their handler could copy the code to something outside of it but I have no clue how physically carrying the message out of the Matrix would work (maybe stopping halfway and the empty program to copy the message? of course, I hate those fans filling in the potholes explanations so ignore it).
I got the impression that “silver bullets” was just metaphorical. Her gun was loaded with whatever it was that was needed to stop the monstrous program.
(I haven’t seen it, so I’m guessing here) What kind of bullets? A submachine gun? Car doors are pretty effective at stopping pistol bullets — there’s usually another layer of sheetmetal on the inside, not just the plastic of the inside panel, plus all the window-raising/lowering mechanism.
And if that doesn’t work for you, friedo’s explanation was pretty good, too.
I don’t know about the ones on his back, but we definitely see the “extra nipple” ones from his upper chest being removed in the patching up sequence - and yet both he and Morpheus have them in TMR. They’ve also moved down, I think; I recall them being nearer the collar bone.
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Given that their clothes are computer-simulated to taste, there’s probably a Gollum subroutine that analyses what they’s got in their pocketses and stores any anomalies.
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No, they’re just silver bullets. The original programs were written to ignore “bullet impact” signals, but with a check to see if the bullet was made of silver so that the programmer could delete them if it became necessary.
Actually, one of the goofs for the movie is that as they’re walking into Zion, there’s no plug on the back of Neo’s neck.
Did anybody except me keep seeing all those plugs during the sex scenes and say, “Whoa, nipples!”, only to realize a moment later that they’re just plugs?
I don’t recall that ever being explicitly stated. In fact, after Neo wakes up from the post-extraction-from-the-Matrix process, he sits up and pulls a needle out of one of the sockets in his arm. He then reaches up to feel the one in the back of his head.
yeah, i was like “what is with the nipples down his back? And why does she have nipples on her shoulders?” Then i started thinking “Maybe NEO is pregnant and growing nipples all over the place like that guy on Enterprise”
1: Don’t recall seeing the “grommets” (as I always think of them) removed in the first movie. I do remember the scene where they cut away as the forceps were being applied, but they could have been removing some internal componenent, such as a jack, but left the outer part so as not to damage the tissue.
2: The window of the Cadillac Escalade that the Twin was shooting from was about a foot higher than the Cadillac sedan. It’s possible the trajectory of the bullets was at so sharp a downward angle as to pass beneath the passengers - but then again, there were a HELL of a lot of bullet holes. That whole sequence requires a suspension of disbelief - just sit back and enjoy the ride.
3: The building Neo was in was set to destruct in the event the alarms go off, thus the elaborate plan to cut both primary and backup power to the 27-block grid. If you notice, the lights are back on in the building - and surrounding area - as Neo flies by. Obviously, the power was restored just as Neo took off - possibly a consequence of his decision to exit the door on the right, possibly just coincidence.
4: The information given to the guy in the envelope could have been transferred and written to “real” media, as the guy jacked out.
5: Already been addressed - I agree that silver bullets are a metaphor for some unique “kill” switch.
Sorry, and I won’t be able to check for a while. I specifically recall it being that most had been removed and the ones they couldn’t were covered up. And as I said, this was a cosmetic style change that didn’t bother me beyond the “Hey! Didn’t they remove those?” moment when they showed up so I didn’t do much poking at it beyond that.
I just watched the scene in the first movie with Neo waking up, and didn’t see any evidence that any of the sockets were removed. They were just cleaned. When he finally fully regained conciousness, he still had some kind of IV needle in the lowest socket of his arm.
When Morpheus first took him into the construct, he noted that the sockets in his arms and head were gone.
Because no one was gunning for her in the first movie. She was helping the humans, and there appears to be a ‘no shooting the sentient tourist (non-exile) programs’ rule for the agents. Besides, she had the psychic kid’s network.
A better question would be: why does someone who knows everything (well, enough) need a bodyguard? It’s not like someone’s going to spring up and ambush her or something.
