dhmac

It's been a decade since Newsweek proclaimed that 2003 would be the "Year of the Matrix" due to the two sequels to the original film being released that year, roughly 6 months apart ("The Matrix Reloaded" was released wide in May 2003, "The Matrix Revolutions" was released wide in November 2003).



Of course that proclamation was pretty absurd for that magazine to make even before anyone saw the sequels and was just more absurd afterwards, when most people found them to be disappointing (at the very least). But that was the hype back 10 years ago. How do you think the movies have held up watching them again more recently without all the hype surrounding the time when they were originally released?

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PatD

The Matrix sequels are prime examples of movies being less than the sum of their parts. There are some amazing action and FX sequences in both of them...but, the films as a whole? There's a reason why there have been not so much as a prequel and or reboot in the works after a decade. In fact, the only Matrix-related thing in the last 10 I've seen was this:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/y0Ixn_Y2bIo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The Antipodean

Some movies just don't need sequels. Matrix 1 was open-ended but if they just left it as is it would've been regarded as a classic standalone science fiction film like Blade Runner.

Solid Snake

I love The Matrix much more for what it brought to filmmaking than what it brought to it's narrative. The Matrix is a great film as it is. The sequels were not as good. Though somewhere in Reloaded there is a very fucking good film. Revolutions was excess and to fail as a whole.

Saying that, I love the franchise flawed as it is. A lot of imagination just wish the narrative was as strong. I still think the Burly Brawl could have been so much better but I do admire it.

B.A.

I remember enjoying part two. then thinking, "what was the point of part two?" after I saw part three.

bluetoast

Haven't seen either of them since the "Year of the Matrix."

Guru Askew

There's a sequel that is superior to "The Matrix" buried somewhere in this but you have to put up with too much pretentious pseudo-intellectual pothead philosophy nonsense to get to it. There's a certain kind of person who will put up with three movies worth of nonsense (including Animatrix) plus a terrible video game to get to the worthwhile content. It's called an insane person.

The impressive special effects and setpieces also hurt the original film which seems small and dated by comparison.

People bash on George Lucas and Star Wars but The Matrix was in the position to be a real epic sci-fi contender in 1999 and people don't really even talk about the first film anymore. The world has moved on from The Matrix. There's no merchandise. No video games or comics or books. The home video releases were non-events. No real buzz or demand of any kind for any Matrix continuation.

PatD

Man, you should listen to the "Philosophers Track" on the Blu rays (or SE DVD sets). Ken Wilber and Dr. Cornel West do some pontificating and reading things into these movies to beat the band.

Guru Askew

I always picture the Wachowskis smoking pot with Donald Sutherland's character from Animal House whenever they try to be philosophical. The first movie is guilty of this too, there's just more of it in the sequels. The scene in the original with the spoon boy is a groan-inducing embarrassment.

But then again there's also the scene where every sentence that comes out of Col. Sanders' mouth features the word "ergo."

RocShemp

I still feel if you were to edit down Reloaded and Revolutions to one movie, while adding the two or three scenes from Enter the Matrix that mattered at all, you'd have one rock solid sequel to the first movie.

And, yes, the philosophers track is hilarious.

Did he issue a long winded complaint against this acting gig as well?

Solid Snake

For me...I pretty much consider anything to do with Zion in Revolutions....shit. I think the Mech suits are neat but it's pretty much all shit. Hate the Kid, hate the predictability of dialogue, etc.

PatD

The Animatrix was pretty cool. In fact "The Final Flight of the Osiris" and "The Second Renaissance" parts I and II annihilate both of the live action sequels.

Why is there such a disconnect in quality?

Guru Askew

I still think The Animatrix is wildly uneven too, and for the most part the better segments were the ones the Wachowskis wrote. I know a lot of fanboys jump at the chance to over-praise stuff that isn't written by the original creator (see the inevitable "better than the prequels! BLANK gets Star Wars more than Lucas!" comments that pop up in any expanded universe discussion) but its true.

I'd probably incorporate a large part of Final Flight of the Osiris into a fan edit of the good parts of the sequels if I were inclined to make one.

Spottedfeather

There WERE video games for the Matrix.

Enter The Matrix
Path Of Neo
The Matrix Online

And there were comics.

The Matrix Comics

FRwL

Was there a Gameboy game?

Troy Stiffler

They alluded to too much in the first movie. Because it made lots of money, the sequels had to be made. If they weren't, there would still be a large amount of people today begging for it.

Guru Askew

I'm well aware. I have both volumes of the comics. They're largely comprised of print versions of webcomics that predate the 2003 multimedia project anyway, and the 2nd volume is still like 8 or 9 years old.

They burned the video game bridge themselves. Their level of involvement on all 3 was a big selling point and even so all 3 were colossal failures. Path of Neo was supposedly decent but it's been doomed to obscurity by being released literally days before the 360 launched with no backwards compatibility support.

inri222

Matrix - 4/5
Reloaded - 2/5
Revolutions - 1/5

Rockmjd23

Well, to be fair, I do remember the sequels cleaning up at the following year's Academy Awards.

inri222

Those back to back best actor Oscars that Keanu Reeves won were quite an achievement.

PatD

No kidding. The film noir segment ("A Detective Story") of The Animatrix was utter horseshit. However, the one called "Matriculated" had some of the trippy, out of the box stuff the sequels were bereft of.

RocShemp

My favorite Animatrix segment was Beyond. It had no grand story to tell and had no real bearing on anything in the movies. It was just an interesting look at how those plugged in would perceive and interact with a glitch in the Matrix.

moviefan2k4

I like the story behind all three films, but the content issues really bothered me, especially the nudity and increased language in the sequels. The violence wasn't very bloody at all in any of them, so I was cool with it.

Michael Corvin

It's been awhile since I've seen them but, nudity?

Rockmjd23

I think there was a bit of nudity in the bizarre multiracial dance party that went on forever in part 2.