My Analysis Of The Matrix Trilogy.

Cafe Society
1

I haven’t had the pleasure to see The Animatrix, nor play the game, which I understand both were designed to be integral parts of the story line as a whole. So please don’t spoil it for me. This just about the movies.

I liked all three movies. There. I said it. I liked them all for their own reasons. But there was something missing from the second two. It took a rewatching of the first Matrix to figure out what it was. The second two did not suffer from lack of complexity.

The first one was simply magical, simply. You learned about the Matrix as the main character, Neo, did. You saw him at the beginning as this searching and yearning, hapless employee. Then he gets a cell phone delivered to him. It rings as soon as he opens the package. On the other line is a voice directing him how to get out. “What the? How did that happen?” “What the hell is going on?”

From the very first scene, you got the impression that you were discovering something very big, a little at a time. You were never overloaded in the first movie. The second two movies did not have that magical spark of discovery. You were easily overloaded, and everything mysterious and exciting became second nature.

But the biggest difference between the first movie and the second two was something very small but made all of the difference to me.

In the first Matrix there were a lot of scenes of the characters plugging in and unplugging from the Matrix. There were a lot of scenes of the characters having quiet meaningful conversations as they discussed different aspects of the Matrix, usually over a green falling-character screen. There were a lot of scenes of the characters answering phones. It was damn suspenseful just to see the characters answer the phone.

What seeing these simple little tasks did for me was it definitely separated the Matrix from reality. I knew exactly when they were in the Matrix, and I knew when they were not. It blended together too much. It also added an anxious sense of fragility, knowing that the line, and their lives, could be cut at any moment.

This did not happen in the second two movies. There was very little plugging and unplugging. There was very little mentioning of the dangers of just being in the Matrix at all. I had to remind myself in each scene where in fact it was taking place. The characters slipped into and out of it like rooms in a house. No big deal anymore.

But. Kudos to where the second and third movies took us. We met some great characters, saw some great scenes. I guess the makers of the second and third Matrix figured were getting jaded on the idea of the Matrix, so they took what we learned from the first, and simply went over the top with it. We saw all sorts of extremes in the second two movies.

As a whole, I liked the trilogy.

How about you?

2

Wow, you really nailed it on the head in regards to the first movie, very well put. However, I do not share the same level of enthusiasm you hold for the sequels. They were just too far off the mark for me to appreciate.

3

I haven’t seen the last one yet. I liked the first two.
It would have taken a genius the like of which probably does not exist to make any sequel to the Matrix have the same mind blowing effect that it had. Especially if most are like me and have watched the Matrix many many times.

It might have been wise of them to have delayed the release of the first film so that they could show all 3 in the space of 3 (or even less) years. That way people would not have had time to develop a ‘tolerance’ for it (to get used to what they saw in 1.)

4

I agree that a delay of the 3rd movie would’ve been better.

I liked the movies but still think that the Wachowski bros wimped out and did not risk adventuring into new territory with the 2nd and 3rd movies. They gave into marketing and the status quo–something the 1st movie was defiant of and thus was so refreshing. They caved in. They sucked Jerry Brukheimer’s dick.
They double-teamed Jar Jar Binks.
They are damaged now. Rich, but damaged.

5

I think it’s a bit too early to judge them as damaged. The Wachowskis have made Warners gazillions of dollars. They’ll now have the freedom to pursue pretty much whatever they want. Maybe they will come up with something interesting again.

6

I’m still not convinced it was conceived as a trilogy. the words ‘cash’ and ‘cow’ come to mind. as i said in the other threads, editing the 2 sequels into one film would of made it better IMO.

7

Really? I thought it was quite obvious considering that outside the Matrix, they had holes in their bodies, wore shabby, ragged clothes and generally looked like refugees. While inside, they were impeccably dressed, clean-shaven and always wearing sunglasses & leather clothing.

8

Well, here’s MY analysis:
IT’S NOT SCOTTISH!

9

I know the Wachowski bros are into keeping up their ‘wizards behind the curtain’ routine and not doing interviews (which I think will hurt them in the hollywood industry), but I wish they would at least go on some intelligent show (like Charlie Rose) or do some interview in which they explain why their obvious creativity (with the Matrix concept, the multi-marketing, and dividing the story into different electronic media-- a total and true geekfest)…why their creativity fell apart with the movie storyline.
I mean, there is all this talk about how detailed, how well read, how diligent they were in everything, and then you see the last movie and wonder if they ever left the CGI studio to work on a little dialoge or character or, for godsakes, storyline!
It’s like, here’s this cool concept, this cool movie, this super-cool
complicated story with all kinds of meanings…and the whole package is just damn fun and interesting and holds so much promise…and then bam! it drops off into the sludge of pasty-grey hollywood boredom. They shot their wad in the first movie and couldn’t perform anymore.

I’m sorry I get so upset about it, I know it’s just some kooky movies that are fun on a saturday afternoon, but there is something that bothers me about creative people who seem
to give up. It’s the George Lucas syndrome. What the hell is it?
Do they:

  1. Give into the money and marketing?
  2. Lose touch with the storyline because of shiny CGI?
  3. Get scared to take any more risks?
  4. Overhyped in the first place?
    sorry about the semi-hijack, I got all worked up
10

Beaberry, to answer your last question, my opinion is that creative types are often shy, recluse, and introverted. They are very protective of their ideas. So, when an idea they have been working on takes off like The Matrix did, it is probably very easy to get all worked up and try to duplicate your success.

By the way, upon reviewing my original post, I noticed a lot of grammar and punctuation mistakes. I did a lot of cutting and pasting, so I apologize since more than a couple sentences are out of order.

Something else about The Matrix just occured to me. It was very much like Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. The main characters are wandering through a fantasy type of setting, meeting new and eclectic characters who point them off into other directions. Hey, there was even a white rabbit.

It was definitely a journey.

How could I have made it better? I’ll tell you how. No gushy wishy washy scenes. The Wachovski’s are not good at that. Play up Merovingian, Seraph, and the Key Master. Play down the Oracle and General So-And-So. No love story at all. More action from the other ships in the armada, and communications and strategies between them. The guerilla tactics against the Matrix would have been entertaining.

I would not have touched the first movie. It was perfect.

The second movie would have been about Zion, and only Zion. We are introduced into the internal workings of Zion, the population, the lifestyle. The machines arrive, big battle scene. Movie ends in the middle of the battle. The only possible subplot here is the main core group: Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity have to go into the Matrix several times to recruit another prodigy, like Neo. This is someone else they were following when they picked up Neo. It was their backup plan, and suddenly this new person becomes more attractive to them.

Third movie. Opening scene of smoking rubble of Zion. But back to the Nebuchadnezzer. The entire third movie takes place once again entirely on the ship. We have Morpheus, Neo, Trinity, Deck Hand Joe, and this new Prodigy piloting through the tunnels, avoiding the squids and plugging into the Matrix, and avoiding Smith. This is where we meet the Key Master, Merovingian, The Architect, et al. They devise a cunning plan to find the achilles heel of the Matrix. They exploit it. The Matrix falls. The pink pods open up and everyone wakes up and start to rebuild society.

The trilogy should have gone from Nebuchadnezzer, to Zion, and finished back on Nebuchadnezzer.