The Matrix

Surprised that such an awesome film hasn't gotten its own thread yet, so might as well create one.

Still my all-time favorite film, what with its excellent blend of philosophy, action, visuals, symbolism, story, characters, and fun. Not to mention that it is arguably the first example of an Animesque work in mainstream media. Especially in the action scenes:

What do you guys think of the film? Do you like it or not, and why?

And what say you of that story that it was plagiarized from some African-American writer?

edited 21st Sep '13 9:23:02 PM by LDragon2

The first Matrix was amazing. Second one was watchable, but a significant step down from the first, I feel. I never did see the third, but I hear it was awful.

I still think the original is a biting satire of governmental and corporate control, where people (blue pills, Cypher, and even the Agents) are made to act against their own interests and blind themselves to the fact that there's an alternative. Worst you can say about it is that Neo's a boilerplate Joseph Campbell character.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

Yeah it does draw on a lot of sources, such as Ghost In The Shell, Total Recall, John Woo films, the hero's journey, and more.

And again, what say you on that rumor that the movie was stolen from African-American writer Sophie Stewart?

The second and third suffered from Two-Part Trilogy, but personally, I didn't find them so terrible.

I do, however, find the entire trilogy to be unwatchable without mentally replacing all instances of "humans used as batteries" with "human brains used as processers"*

.

edited 22nd Sep '13 6:47:40 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

So the Wachowski Brothers and the studios went with the usual plan of deciding All Viewers Are Idiots?

That's good to know.

The studios did. The Wachowskis wrote the original explanation.

It's unimportant, really. I do like the imagery of humans as crops.

It's another reason why the sequels are unnecessary. The more you see of Zion and the Machine World, the less sense it makes.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

It actually is kind of important, because "humans as processors" justifies an awful lot of the Matrix's mechanics. First, the idea of the human brain as a processor justifies why the Matrix itself needs to exist; the machines need your brain to be active and doing things, they can't just put you in a coma and call it good. It eliminates all kinds of Fridge Logic associated with the fact that humans are a terrible power supply - the machines would be better off running on thermal energy, which is exactly what Zion does - and it explains the superpowers in the Matrix.

We're all familiar with the fact that your only limitations within the Matrix are perceived, but why is that so? We've all played video games before. If you can hack the system, that's one thing, but you can't just decide that Mario has an AK-47 by willing him to. You have to actually crack into the code and program one in, because a virtual simulation is bound by the rules programmed into it. The Matrix? Not so much. Your mind makes it real.

This is because your mind is the processor. The Matrix is run off your very brain. You are the code, and hacking the system is a matter of telling the simulation to do something else. If we're willing to accept that the machines installed wifi for some reason, this can even justify Neo's bizarre neutralizing of the drones at the end of the second film; because as one of their processors, his brain is an access point to their entire system. But that's a stretch.

edited 23rd Sep '13 7:53:00 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Animesque? You mean Blade and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with The Invisibles plot(replace demons with machines and there you go, remember, these were still popular at the time of the first movie rather than the ?Huh? reaction you get nowadays)?

And yes, the human mind wetware CPU makes much more sense. The animatrix (which is kind of the opposite of Animesque) efforts to explain it only made the humans and machines look stupid.

edited 24th Sep '13 8:16:50 AM by Cider

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

I've noticed the whole reason WHY the Matrix is used is kinda dropped in the sequels. I suppose the Wachowskis decided to just leave that ambiguous whether it's for processors or batteries, either because it didn't really matter at that point, or because they were sick of that whole business.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Those are indeed inspirations for the film, but anime is also a huge influence on it. This will help to explain how:

I honestly wasn't that bothered by the messed up way the film portrayed why the Machines used the humans. I was honestly more interested in what happened outside the Matrix.

The Animatrix' Second Renaissance made me afraid to go to sleep at night though.

"What a century this week has been." - Seung Min Kim

Anyone know why the Wachowski Brothers picked "Matrix" as the name of the virtual-reality world (and thus, by extension, the movie franchise's title)?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

"Computer Matrix" used to be a common term. I think that's probably it.

Not Three Laws compliant.

It's at least as justified as calling a movie about going back in time "Source Code" (somewhat based on an idea that was once called "Quantum Leap").

One thing I never quite got. Why get out of the Matrix? The real world sucks, nothing but a sunless desert and you eat nothing but disgusting slop. In fact, why fight? To free humanity? What's so good about this so called freedom? It's not like anybody is being hurt by this energy consumption. Seems like a fine symbiotic relationship to me.

Because the word makes sense

Matrix is a term used to refer to several things that "contain and develop" something else - In Mathematics a Matrix contains an array of numbers . In microbiology, Gel matrices contain the genetic samples one decodes, etc...

In the context of the movie, this makes sense, the Matrix contains the human mind. Calling it the Matrix makes sense because its what it is.

edited 2nd Jun '14 11:04:49 AM by CobraPrime

Ideally, the perfect end-goal is not that everyone leaves the Matrix, but that everyone is allowed the choice to. The Matrix is a wonderful lie, but it is a lie nonetheless, and some people would prefer a harsh reality to a pleasant illusion.

As long as people are kept prisoner with zero regard to their right to free will, they are slaves of a gilded cage. That doesn't mean it's impossible to enjoy the cage, and if people want to stay, that's their prerogative, but it should be their choice. It is not a symbiosis as long as one party is forced to participate and put to death if they try to resist.

edited 2nd Jun '14 11:08:14 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

I believe that's the way the story developed in the MMO. Most people chose to stay, but were aware of the illusion. You had terrorists on both sides, some who wanted to free everyone from the Matrix despite objections, and some who wanted everyone to forget again.

Yes. It's continuity from the end of Revolutions, where the Architect and Oracle agreed that as a consequence of the truce Neo's actions brokered with the Machines, anyone who wanted to leave would be permitted to go.

edited 2nd Jun '14 11:54:47 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

I imagine that if they had kept the "humans as processors" idea, Morpheus would have held up a processor chip instead of a battery during his speech. I wonder what Switch would have called him instead of "copper top".

Also, another translation of Matrix is "Womb", which is again a perfect choice of words. When people are freed they are "born" into the real world, naked, helpless and covered in goo, and they need to be taught everything about how the world works.

I remember reading somewhere, maybe either here or on Cracked, that originally Switch was going to be a woman in the Matrix but a man in the real world.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

"Copper top" would have likely been something about silicon. Or maybe "circuits," since silicon doesn't roll off the tongue so well as a nickname.

That reminds of at least one Ranma ½-Matrix crossover fanfic where Ranma is revealed upon getting out of the Matrix to have been a girl all along (because it was part of an experiment by the machines in creating a Human Weapon; said Human Weapon's body kept suffering brain death during the "mind reconstruction" stage unless they used a living human's mind to temporarily keep it "alive" — no idea why the Machines picked a female to do so, as the Jusenkyo curse thing happened long after that choice was made). You can imagine how well she and Akane (who joined her in getting out) took that revelation.

edited 3rd Jun '14 12:31:18 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Mandy's Law of Anime Gender Bending in action. If there is one thing the fandom loves more than involuntarily turning Ranma into a girl, it's finding ways to reveal that he was secretly a girl all along.

edited 3rd Jun '14 9:04:02 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.