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The New Comic Thread for Friday, December 19, 2008
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I have a little difficulty in believing that the Wachowski brothers have the skill needed to come up with the idea I came up with in 30 seconds. Yes, I realize how totally ridiculous that sounds, but in light of the second Matrix movie (I didn't even watch the third)...seems possible. Other than that chick who claims they outright stole the movie from her script "The Third Eye" (I think she lost the court case?), I have trouble understanding how the first movie could be so good and the second one be such a shitpile that I refused to see the third at all. I mean, seriously, everything that made the first movie good was gone by the time they did the second one. Now, to my knowledge, this isn't like Pirates, where they weren't planning to make multiple films. So what explains the quality drop?
in the first film, the wachowskis don't have to get that deep into their retarded philosophy for the Matrix universe, it's all barely explained and you can just enjoy the action and not think that much about how stupid a lot of it is
however, that's precisely why the sequels suck because they had to then explore those elements further and it was no longer possible to hide just how rotten the foundation for the whole concept was because they were forced to focus on them much more and they aren't smart enough to figure out how to improve on their armchair pop philosophy or perhaps even realize how lame it was
Did anyone watch the Matrix and go "well this is pretty good but where are the vampires and ghosts"
I don't think this is quite fair. The first movie maybe wasn't oh my god the deepest thing ever, you guys. But it was interesting and valid. It was, what, basically just existentialism? Maybe a metaphor for the possibility of planes of existence outside of our comprehension? It was inherently about subjects that outside of the reach of human knowledge. And then they put in some awesome special effects that nobody had ever seen before.
The sequels, I felt, did neither of those things. The special effects weren't new by that time. The "360" effect had been done to death in parody films. And they didn't go into the philosophical aspects at all, as far as I could tell (referring to the second movie here, didn't see the third)...they just went into different characters with different superpowers. Like, they were no longer talking about how the entire world could be a fabrication that you just accept because it's all you know. They don't discuss reducing human minds/souls down to binary data. There's none of that. It's just "this guy can walk through walls" and "that guy can manipulate other people's 'programs' in real-time" and all that shit. It's like taking superhero movies and removing the alteregos; the powers lose their metaphorical meaning and the characters lose their depth. They're just fighting-game sprites at that point, not actual people who happen to be both superhuman and heroic. I feel like they totally abandoned metaphor and focused on the literal entirely, replacing anything remotely thoughtful with extended action scenes.
in the first film they didn't have to get into the existentialism all that much, it was pretty shallow and you could just go, "ok that's pretty cool I guess"
and they totally did get philosophical in the sequels, they just did a terrible job of it because they're not that smart
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I have to say I found almost all of those fights just dull as shit. I know that I did because I ceased to be entertained to the point where I started thinking about other things. Also at one point I looked at my wrist to see how much longer this would go on (during the freeway scene), and I haven't worn, or even owned, a watch since about sixth grade.
Yeah, there was some of that. But not a whole lot, whereas there were things like the freeway fight scene, which clocks in at around 14 straight minutes. What really sold me on "there's too much fighting for no reason in this movie" was when he fought the keymaker dude. The guy just goes "in order to know someone truly, you must fight him," and I guess we're all supposed to go "yeah, that sounds right." Then they have this long, pointless fight where Neo basically does the same three moves over and over again. Once enough time has passed, the guy goes, "OK, I guess I know you now, here's the plot stuff you need to continue on."
I can kind of see why you didn't see it as such because it's so stupid and poorly handled but that's exactly what I mean
I actually think a game where you could choose to sacrifice yourself (and then continue as another character) would be pretty neat.
Amazon Wishlist: http://www.amazon.com/BusterK/wishlist/3JPEKJGX9G54I/ref=cm_wl_search_bin_1
I was running through one of the cities last night and there were a few people having a snowball fight ingame.
revolutions was just bad all around
but it sucked anyway
also whenever Hugo Weaving showed up for the most part, because he is rad
oh, and the Machine God in the third movie had a cool design
I've always wanted to unmake it if that counts
what you don't like dressing up in drag while singing and dancing in public places