My Insights

First of all … boo you people who are complaining about the Matrix trilogy. Now before answering some of the -negative- comments about the movie, I’d like to say this: The Only reason that people liked Matrix 1 was because of the mind shattering revelation stating that what we see around us could all be fake. It entices you because it is so plausible. Apart from that, Matrix 1 was just a good movie that would have made a little more than average money at the box office if it only had the action and lack of emotions.

(from gocool.org): “it lacks the originality and creativity that the Matrix 1 had”
You’re right but think about this. In any type of composition, be it a written, oral or visual, there are 3 main parts: A beginning, a body cum climax (climax is more common in visual and oral forms of compositions), and an End because ‘Everything that has a beginning, has an End.’ Now, putting our 3 movies together as a composition, we have Matrix 1 as an Introduction that captures the attention (does that very well) of the audience. That movie sets the plot and you get a good feel about what is coming next. In Matrix 2, the story is explained in bulk and is taken to its climax by the abundant action and the hopeless and evident destruction of Zion by the machines. In Matrix 3, the directors are faced with the challenge of bringing closure to all the material. Introducing any new material now would not be a sensible thing to do because it would leave questions in the minds of the audience that would remain unanswered. Therefore, they try their best to settle the conflicts which arose in the previous 2 movies.

I think that the Wachowski brothers did an excellent job with their composition. I think that most people went into Matrix 2 and Matrix 3 expecting their minds to be challenged by another revelation that would sound so plausible that it would cast doubts on its existence as just a hypothesis. But since doing so would be utterly out of place and the Wachowski brothers realized that, most people came out disappointed because their hopes were shattered instead of their beliefs about their own existence. However, since the movie business is still a money making business, the Wachowski brothers did try to raise some conflicts that might need some answering later on. For example, what happened to Neo? Are all people going to be released from the Matrix? If so, then how will the machines survive without humans to feed off of? and the list can keep increasing. But the point is, they did raise some conflicts in the end so that they could still attract an audience that would come back to settle these conflicts when and if they do get resolved.

(from gocool.org): “In a movie with such deep philosophy, it seems dumb that machines need to gather up a face to talk.”
Well, what you are saying is that in a movie with deep philosophy, machines with faces makes the whole thing seem very dumb and less sophisticated. However, go deeper into philosophy my friend, and think about this: We have no idea about how the machines are or what they think about. All we know is that they are self-conscious beings who are smarter than humans in many aspects. Answer this, why do you do something because you think it is cool? I mean would you dress up for halloween because you think it’s cool? Follow the same philosophy and think about the machines. We don’t know that the machines are emotionless sentient beings. For all we know, they could be trying to ’show-off’ their coolness by coming toghether in the formation of a human face in front of this representative of the human race.

(from karthik): “The Wachowski Brothers, probably recuperating from the criticizm heaped on Reloaded for it’s total lack of philosophy tried to make up for it in Revolutions, and kind of screwed up.”
Are you saying that Matrix 2 lacked philosophy? I think I was wrong then. The white dude in the big TV room must be talking about something else then because I always thought that he was philosophizing (like prophecizing). And they didn’t screw up with the philosophy. Their conflicts were really great because it quickened the pulse of almost every person watching Matrix 1. However, they did not really think hard about resolving these conflicts and it seems like they either got lazy or just wanted to get the movies done because their resolution of most conflicts in the movie is non-insightful. So I do agree that Matrix 3 was just thrown together for the sake of putting together a movie but I wouldn’t have minded waiting a year for them to make it more interesting.

Overall, I have very little to offer in terms of criticism because the Matrix trilogy never disappointed me. I guess it may be because I watched Matrix 1 fewer than 5 times or maybe just because I walked into the movie theaters without any expectations. Who knows … but the Wachowski brothers do deserve the money I spent on their movies and will spend on the DVDs.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 9th, 2003 at 1:53 am and is filed under Movies, Recovered Entries (01/19/2005). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.