Kilgore Trout wrote
Fair question, and I’ll confess that time + memory + lack of desire to remember has dulled my recollection. The big ones I can recall:
All of those seemed silly and illogical. There were others but I don’t recall and refuse to see it again. My bad.
they aren’t teleporting. think more along the lines of virtual reality. they are entering and exiting a simulation. much like today’s internet, the simulation is networked via phone lines. this is how our heroes (well, my heroes at least] are able to ‘hack’ in and out of the matrix.
see above.
huh?
huh?
even if i understood what you were trying to say, i can’t see your examples as plot holes.
go rent it.
what is essential is invisible to the eye -the fox
No. I am simply saying that the energy you put into a fusion is exponentially smaller than the energy you get out.
I don’t think I mentioned thermodynamics, but maybe you saw something I missed.
Why do you ask? I am by no means an expert, and I think I could learn something here, so what’s up? Why do you ask?
“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”
i should really give up on this UBB nonsense.
TheNerd,
I have to agree with CurtC. If The Matrix is one of the best films you’ve ever seen, you probably haven’t seen very many films. I’m dubious when someone tells me that his favorite film is one which came out within the last year. Just how old are you?
Here’s a list of the science fiction films in the list of my 100 favorite movies:
Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
E.T. The Extraterrestrial
The Fantastic Planet
Forbidden Planet
La Jetee
Star Wars
The Terminator
They Live
2001: A Space Odyssey
Go see them, and then come back and tell us what your favorite film is. Go read a bunch of Philip K. Dick’s novels, and then come back and tell us whether The Matrix is original.
<flame warning>
Interesting that you count A Clockwork Orange as a scifi movie. How exactly does that happen?
I’ve seen all but two of these films, and I enjoyed The Matrix more than all except maybe Blade Runner, and count it on the same level as Terminator.
So you’ve handled a lot of Dick, huh? It’s obvious that you love Dick. I’ve personally never tried Dick, but to be honest, I don’t feel driven to do so. I highly recommend you enjoy more Dick instead of watching The Matrix again though, since you didn’t seem to like it much.
(I’m so sorry, I couldn’t resist! hahahahahahahahahahaha)
I don’t recall anybody saying The Matrix was completely original. In fact, there’s almost nothing in the last 100 years or so that is completely original. That statement was almost completely irrelevant, though. Good try.
By the way, how do you pretend to come off as a science fiction expert? Everybody knows Empire Strikes Back was better than Star Wars!! Hell, even Return of the Jedi was better than Star Wars. ¿ET? HUH? I almost believed you knew what you’re talking about until I saw that. Sheesh. Go hug a tree.
Any flames in this post, real or imaginary, stated or implied, are property of their respective owners (me). They are for entertainment purposes only, and SHOULD NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, BE TAKEN PERSONALLY!
All rights reserved.
Joe Cool
I have to agree with Joe_Cool for the most part. I have seen all of the movies listed above and I still think The Matrix is one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen. The rationale that it cannot be as good as these other movies because it just came out is stupid.
According to this theory, Casablanca somehow got better over the years. If someone had said, in 1943, that it was the best film they had ever seen, they would have had to be told that there was no way–it was just released. However, if they were to make the same statement in 1963, many people would agree. Does that make any sense at all?
This is where we are going to have to disagree, Joe!
I always try to do things in chronological order.
I’m in with Joe_Cool as well. Blade Runner was a killer movie, and I’d rate The Matrix in the same slot.
After wading through all of the posts, it seems like, as has been mentioned before, some people can’t just enjoy a movie for the sake of enjoyment, or understand plot development.
As well some folks didn’t really watch and listen to the movie, as most of the supposed plot holes are in fact plugged in the movie itself:
In the first quarter of the movie, the advarsarial roles are hashed out and the explanation of the usefulness of the humans to the machines is made painfully clear.
In the last quarter or third of the movie, the existence of The Matrix is justified from the machines’ viewpoint.
–Kalél
TheHungerSite.com
“If our lives are indeed the sum-total of the choices we’ve made, then we cannot change who we are; but with every new choice we’re given, we can change who we’re going to be.”
The problem I see with this list is that the movies do not really compare to The Matrix because they are not really the same genre (or perhaps subgenre), at least from the ones I have seen, which, while I’m speaking of it, are:
Blade Runner (though that has been so long ago I no longer even remember it)
A Clockwork Orange
E.T. The Extraterrestrial
Star Wars
They Live
2001: A Space Odyssey
Of those, 2001 is perhaps the truest form of science fiction in that Arthur C. Clarke attempted to expand upon (then-)current technological development and logically follow through with where mankind would be in 40 years. But the greatest technological changes are those which are not foreseen because they are so different from the present (even ol’ Art didn’t foresee the internet).
They Live is more of a social satire which uses a science fiction plot device than a true science fiction movie (John Carpenter said it was his taken on life in the Reagan era). As such, the science of that movie is very thin and used only for convenience of the plot. (Sunglasses?)
Star Wars was fantasy. Everything was pretty much made up with no respect for current realities.
ET, quite frankly, was crap and I won’t even discuss it. It’s a kids’ movie, ferchrissake.
Finally, A Clockwork Orange is a very good flick, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it science fiction just because it was based in the future (where’s the science?). But even Clockwork has its flaws, most notably because it uses the American ending where he’s a good boy at the end and not the British ending where he turns evil again (for the American printing, they left out the last chapter of the book).
If you try to compare any of those movies to each other, you’ll see that you’re comparing apples to oranges. By the same token, The Matrix doesn’t really compare because it’s a member of the fairly recent trend in science fiction – cyberpunk. As such, if you were to compare it to any of the above movies, you might as comparing The Wizard of Oz to Naked Lunch because there really is no comparison between them.
Anyhow, if you were to compare The Matrix to any other movie, at least keep it in the cyberpunk tradition, of which there are very few examples. I can really only think of one – Johnny Mnemonic. I wouldn’t really even compare it to Dark City or, even, The Thirteenth Floor, since those movies are more like The Truman Show than they are like The Matrix.
Of course, there are similarities in theme. The Truman Show explores the idea of alternate realities from a dramatic standpoint. The Thirteenth Floor and Dark City explore alternate realities from a science fiction standpoint. The Matrix, while still a sci fi movie, explores the same theme from the much narrower cyberpunk perspective.
I would say The Matrix is the best cyberpunk movie I’ve seen, since the only other one was Johnny Mnemonic, though I liked that movie as well.
If you have a preference of one genre over another, of course you’re going to like a movie from your favorite more than one from another. You can have a preference, but you cannot really make a comparison.
Off topic: Has anyone heard whether a film verson of Neuromancer is going to be made (or has it already)? It seems like I heard rumors of such a couple of years back, but never heard anything else. That would be one cyberpunk movie I would truly like to see.
To understand the film, you have to be able to comprehend the premise of the movie. It’s called duality, people. Some of the people with whom I watched the movie didn’t seem to get it, either. They kept asking stuff like “So, I don’t get it, I thought he was on the spaceship and now he’s visiting some black woman in the projects. How did he get to the projects? How did his hair get so long so fast?”
Just watch the movie and remember that except for the parts where the baby-faced black guys appear, the entire freakin’ movie is supposed to take place in a computer - reality is suspended. That means that they can pick out their appearances (“What would I look like in leather?”), they can jump from building to building, dodge bullets, all that stuff. The point of the movie is that most humans don’t realize that they’re inside of the Matrix, so they live and act and think as if they’re inside a normal physical reality and the Matrix relies on this. Neo and the others know the truth, they understand the Matrix, so they’re able to go around doing things that seem impossible to people who don’t know the truth.
Wait - this is getting way to complicated and wordy. Just watch the movie, think about the differences between a video game and reality, do it another 50 times, and then you might understand. Either you get it or you don’t.
TheMadHun wrote:
Oh, for heaven’s sake, the word “mangle” dates back to the 15th century and certainly predates automated laundering and steam-pressing machines.
CurtC wrote:
While I haven’t seen “The Matrix,” I certainly question the premise that a movie made in the last couple of years can’t be one of the best ever made. The most modern film you have on your list is “The Godfather,” which dates from 1972. I’d say that, for example, “Schindler’s List” is at least a good a film as that.
Well, it’d be a pretty crappy energy source otherwise.
But, you do put all the energy in, if you look at it properly. You know matter and energy are equivalent (in some ways)? E=MC^2 and all that, right? If you put in matter, you’re basically putting in energy, if the fusion reactor can fuse that sort of matter. (Harder the heavier the atoms get.)
Think of it like a gasoline engine… The only ‘power’ you put into it is from the starter motor and to the spark plugs. But it uses the power in the gasoline, by breaking certain chemical bonds.
The fusion reactor is similar, except it works with atomic bonds, or rather, subatomic, instead of chemical.
On the subject of plot holes…
There’s the energy one, if you get X energy from the people batteries, you require nX, where n is greater than one, by some margin, representing the inefficiency of the human body as a heat generating engine.
This can be explained by saying that the humans were wrong, and didn’t know the whole story, but it seems unlikely. If we assume that the humans are right about the events that happened, they’d know when the machines started farming humans. If the machines did this in response to the blocking of the sunlight, and not before, then it’s unlikely they were doing it for the extra processing power.
So, it’s fairly likely that the humans would be correct in their understanding of the AI’s purpose. Especially considering their successes in hacking into the matrix and other efforts that require knowledge of the goings on in the AI/machine system.
There are many ways the machines could get more power… simply burning the food they fed the humans would probably work. Or they could use geothermal power. Or, use space-based systems that beam very concentrated microwave power down, high enough power to make it through the nuclear winter dust clouds. Or, with fusion reactors, or regular fission reactors.
Then there’s the whole VR problem that has never been addressed properly, imho.
Why would you plug something directly into your head if you could die by doing it? Hasn’t anyone heard of fuses, or proxy servers? Instead of actually sending your intellect into the matrix, which seems to suggest that your brain waves are actually moved from your brain into the network, why not have a proxy system in between. Your proxy pretends to be you, and enters the system. You then see a relayed reality from the proxy. If the proxy gets ‘trapped’ in the VR, you simply disconnect safely from the proxy. The proxy would transmit everything, except killing damage, etc. I’ve never heard an even semi-technical answer as to why if there’s a system between you and the net, and the whole process isn’t a magical human-brain thing, you can’t have another machine in there, to protect you from possible overloads. (An example, there are weaknesses, bugs perhaps, in the human brain - the flashing lights triggering epilepsy is an example - a proxy server would watch for this known danger and simply filter it out before sending the information on to you.)
Then, there’s the problem with people being able to influence the matrix. If the computer generates it, why doesn’t it have absolute control? For example, when I play Quake3 online, my character can’t levitate, no matter how hard I will them to.
And, on the same idea, why can’t the computer do anything it wants in its own reality? Why can’t the agents simply snuff out any simulated person? They use miraculous powers to get there, taking over people, yet they then resort to fighting human style, with guns and martial arts, even if they are very good at it. Considering the computer theoretically controls the VR, the agents should be completely omnipotent. If you swing at them, reality is rewritten and they aren’t there. If they ‘shoot’ you, the bullet hits, no travel time, etc.
Then, there’s the idea of people having to be in a certain simulated reality. It’s a neat idea that too much luxury doesn’t work, but that doesn’t explain they had to use the simulation they did, excepting for a moment, the requirement for keeping as many people as possible alive. The vast majority of people in the world will never meet. They could have run a bunch of seperate simulations, either of various parts of the world, or all of the same place, that contained only a small number of people, with the rest of the supporting personalities being AI. This way if there was a problem, they could just shut down the matrix and kill a thousand of so people. Then, going even one better, if they could simulate any time, why not a hunter-gatherer world, where people lived in 50-person tribes. Then simply run millions of these seperate sims. This has the benefit that even if someone does gain the abilities of the chosen, or figure out a way out of the matrix, they’ll have a pre-technical education and be unable to cope with the reality, or help the resistance in a meaningful way. Neo was instantly able to fit into the ship’s crew because he was trained in using computers, the only difference was a newer interface. The concepts were all the same. He was familiar with the idea of a virtual reality, from the same fiction that we’re familiar with. If he had been raised as an ignorant hunter, he’d have been useless to them. Especially if the computer invented a new language for each tribe, so even if they were contacted from outside, they’d be unable to communicate. Very bad systems design.
A fun movie to watch, but with very many plot holes, even if you assume that the characters don’t know exactly what’s going on.
It asked some interesting questions, but nothing I haven’t seen in print for many years in various sci-fi novels, or in older movies. Not that this invalidates the movie, but a lot of people cut it slack because it’s cutting edge, and original, which it isn’t. The only thing new about The Matrix is that the special effects are a lot better.
IIRC, the year 1999 was chosen because that was the ‘peak of our civilization’ before the ‘artifical intelligent’ (of course, by then the Sky Defense system of T2 had already been on line for a few years, but I digress). In addition, you could only use the technology appropriate for that period, so something like Morpheus’s ship (build 2068, I think, although it was a crappy tape copy I saw) would not be allowed.
Of course, this is all ‘technobabble’ by the movie producers so as to allow for a reasonably interesting plot. Groups of hunter-gatherers who can’t talk with each other wouldn’t be too interesting, as neither would an all machine world with a bunch of fusion generators providing the power.
My last post was a little more flaming than I had intended… :o
Oops.
Anyway, good questions, Whitenight.
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::If you see multiposts above, please ignore them, too. I’ll clean them up::
Yes, I know. You are basically stating my point better than I have thought to. Thanks.
What I’m saying is that the energy the reactor expends to convert the energy stored in the atoms to a useable form is less than the yield of said atoms.
So yes, you do put all the energy in.
But-
The energy is harnessed in the covalent bonds of the atoms that make up the molecules of the reactants in question. But the energy it takes to release the energy stored in the atom is a lot less than the yield.
With simple machines and mechanical advantage (levers and pullies and such) it is impossible to get more out than what is put in.
But with chemical and nuclear reactions, the yield is exponentially greater than the input.
I know the energy is always there, and that it is released (or converted, if you prefer, from potential to kinetic) so you are not technically getting more out than you put in, but I am only talking about yield.
What I was getting at is that it was not a crappy energy source, in the context of the movie, because they used “…a certain type of fusion…” in conjunction with harnessing the energy produced by the living human body.
The only reason I brought it up is because kbutcher said this:
What I inferred from this statement is that he thought it would be a crappy source of energy, and therefore the whole story was not plausible.
I just wanted to point out that a system can yield more energy than the energy expended to cause the reaction in the system providing the energy.
Arrgh! I am having trouble talking coherently again! I am sure you know what I mean.
“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”
WhiteNight: “Why would you plug something directly into your head if you could die by doing it?”
This is a fairly standard (and lame) plot device, not a plot hole. It isn’t the technology killing you, it’s a psychosomatic reaction. It’s similar to other movies, wherein “if you die in a dream, you die in real life”.
“Then, there’s the problem with people being able to influence the matrix. If the computer generates it, why doesn’t it have absolute control? For example, when I play Quake3 online, my character can’t levitate, no matter how hard I will them to.”
Because they’re hackers. That was reasonably well established. If you knew about some bugs in the Quake3 code, you could exploit them (in fact, players exploiting bugs in code or shortsightedness in the design is a problem that the massively multi-player online games, like Ultima Online, have to deal with).
“And, on the same idea, why can’t the computer do anything it wants in its own reality?”
The movie explanation was that the agents “played by the rules” of the simulation. Apparently the machines found it easier to have the agents act from within the simulation while it was running, rather than trying to modify it on the fly (which sounds pretty reasonable to me – except for the fact that they contradict this in the movie by “erasing” the exits to the building…)
“Then, there’s the idea of people having to be in a certain simulated reality. It’s a neat idea that too much luxury doesn’t work, but that doesn’t explain they had to use the simulation they did, excepting for a moment, the requirement for keeping as many people as possible alive. The vast majority of people in the world will never meet. They could have run a bunch of seperate simulations, either of various parts of the world, or all of the same place, that contained only a small number of people, with the rest of the supporting personalities being AI.”
Hey, it’s easy to monday-morning quarterback the machines’ plan now that we know it didn’t work… The machines might have figured that life expectancy was lower in hunter-gatherer societies, and they wanted people to live as long as possible while being as pacified as possible, so maybe they chose the most advanced “safe” time period for humans. As for the supporting personalities being AI, I think it’s reasonable that they machines didn’t think they could play the parts as convincingly as real people. Look at how creepy the agents were, and they’ve had lots of practice. Also, the agents didn’t seem to enjoy interacting with the livestock, why would the machines subject more of themselves to it if they didn’t have to?
“A fun movie to watch, but with very many plot holes”
A agree it was a fun movie to watch, but the only plot “hole” I can see is the implausibility of using humans as a power-source. Lots of lame plot devices yes, plot holes… I don’t see 'em.
Oh, and anybody who thinks it was original is just flat-out wrong… Excellent FX, excellent art direction, well crafted film, sure. Original ideas? No.
Erratum: This is a fairly standard (and lame) plot device, not a plot hole.
I still think it’s a hole in the plot, if the characters do something which is incredibly stupid, just to provide some drama.
I know that the explanation for dying in the matrix causing death in real is emotional trauma, etc. But if you were to rig up a proxy server between you and the real simulation that just didn’t relay any death events, you’d be fine. The technology is there, to not use it, just to add drama, seems to be weak writing, like letting a fictional detective figure something out which isn’t based on information the reader would get. Plot holes.
Erratum: Because they’re hackers. That was reasonably well established.
Sure, the hackers can break some rules, but you can’t just make something happen that the simulation doesn’t provide for, and if you’re found, the server can disconnect you, ignoring all your hackerish antics.
But, yes, this is somewhat realistic, assuming that the AI isn’t very imaginative (given by the agents behaviour) and bad at plugging potential holes. I’ll write this one off as just silly, instead of a plot hole.
I think it comes down to the definition of plot holes… Anything which the plot of the movie depends on, which is obviously flawed, or very unlikely, is a hole in the plot, which hinders the suspense of disbelief. IMHO.
To me a plot device is like having good-cop, bad-cop, who play off of each other, or introducing weak people to be victims to torture the hero with, not unexplainable reasons for the actions of otherwise rational beings.