I loved all 3 films but I have to say that the rave scene in Reloaded was totally useless. In Revolutions Trinity's death scene was too long and melodramatic.

This was my thought exactly. I have seen the director's cut, and now I want to see the studio cut.

If you had a good editor (like the person doing Kill Bill), you could probably make Reloaded and Revolutions into one pretty good 2-3 hour movie.

Cut out all the ridiculous plot holes, leave in the cool fights, and make a fun popcorn movie.

man the attention spans of people these days. if you don't like the movie don't watch it. that's pretty simple. but going on about it on an internet board pretending you can make it better than it was and that you have all the answers is stupid.

i for one enjoyed them, they wheren't great movies by any means but they where entertaining. they make perfect sense to me. they are SCI/FI movies for gods sake. you guys can believe all other aspects of the genre but you can't believe that neo can shut down sentinel's outside the matrix. deal with it

These threads do depress me to no end as well. I do hope these 3 films age better because I thought there was really good stuff within the films, and the amount of film-making involved was very impressive to me. I think people take it for granted how hard it was to achieve the effects in these films, especially in the last 2 films.

I agree with some of the posters in that you should watch the movies all the way through first and determine for yourself which scenes were unnecessary.

I strongly agree with the last 3 posts.

might want to add a spoiler tag there.

Yea. I agree. There was good stuff in all three; especially the first two. But just because it can be done doesn't mean it should. Does it make sense to say that they were 'over-conceived'? I think they really hit the capacity of what CG can do nowadays. But that doesn't mean that I have to like what they've done. Revolutions had the confidence to be good, and I dig that. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

The Matrix Trilogy will be one of the coolest-looking films when it is remade in twenty years.




As for the "Kill Bill Editor" comment... I think the movie would have been a bit different with Tarantino helming. Whoa.

Just curious: how many of you who said "skip parts 2 & 3" bought Revolutions yesterday?

I'd venture a guess to say you all did.

Its meant to show how strong a voice Morpheus has become in Zion and how many believe what he's saying...and its the one last night that everyone has to have time with their loved ones and make love...this scene is something you dont see very often and I was very happy to see it...

Well, I didn't say that, but I'm not going anywhere near 2 & 3 on DVD. And "skip parts 2 & 3" is probably going to be how I watch the series in the future.

I also haven't bought Indy on DVD because I don't like "Temple of Doom."

I also haven't bought Back to the Future on DVD because I only want to own the first film.

Say what you will about the Matrix and its sequels, at least they're available seperately.

I don't care how hard the effects were to acheive, if they either look bad or exist in a bad film the amount of effort put into them means little to me. If I want cool FX, I'll watch and FX studio demo reel. What I wanted from the Matrix sequels were good films.

Okay, I see this complaint way too much, so I have to say something. The rave scene might have looked stupid to some people, but it did have a purpose, and it achieved it pretty well. It wasn't the completely useless scene that everyone keeps bitching about.

The entire scene is very symbolic. It's the opposite of the perfection and heaven that is the Matrix. The people of Zion have eaten the fruit and have rejected (or been cast out) of heaven. They're dancing right in the depths of hell, or maybe not in, but certainly at its gates. Those long shots of feet and bodies moving in the dirt really show the difference between the dirty earth and the clean matrix. It's also a very warm, womb-like place, meant to represent the birth of human life (that's why so many Zionites are of African heritage). This is a place where people are born, not grown like in the world of the matrix.

Life in the real world is hard, and dirty, but these people are able to be free. This is a world of flesh and blood, not the cold perfection of the matrix, devoid of passion, where people must have "purpose" and do "only what they're meant to do." The people of Zion are really in touch with what makes one human, and the sexualized dancing and the sex scene really drove this in. Like Mouse from the first movie said, "to deny our impulses is to deny what makes us human," and the people of Zion are reveling at the ability to be human. One of my favorite shots of symbolism from the movie is the focus on Neo's plugs on his back during the sex scene. It just strengthens the concept that these people have fallen from heaven, keeping the scars of their "wings."

Ideally, this scene should've made the fight for Zion even more resounding, because Zion was the very last symbol of human freedom/life, and these people were fighting to keep that small last bit from getting wiped out forever.

I'll tell you my suggestion. Watch Reloaded and Revolutions TOGETHER at the same time. Just back to back. The films work really well togther, and a lot of the seemingly useless stuff in the beginning of Reloaded actually is quite relevant to Revolutions. In fact, as a 4 and a half hour movie, it works quite well.

And if you're saying cut the battle scene down...NO! I lvoe watching shit blow up, why don't you? What sort of action movie fan are you?

I bought Revolutions the day it was released - but I said skip parts 1 & 2 - there's no techno music or did I just use a spoiler tag for that nonsense??? ;-)

Also, It's getting kind of boring hearing people complain about the rave scene - what was so bad about it? it's not like our hero trio busted out the electric slide before dicussing important matters - and if you really hated it well then it's even creepier because the scene is so short - I don't know, I just don't know why people are so uptight about it - were you this angry with the techno scene in the first Matrix???

These movies do get slammed way too much and no, I'm not defending them - I bash them here and there in certain areas just like I do with a lot of other films - but It always seems like the Matrix films don't only bother people, but it really gets them angry, it's kind of wierd but oh well.

Beefjerky -- I understand your interpretation of the rave scene. For the most part I agree with it. However, I still think that the sentiments that you expressed were pretty self-obvious and we didn't need a five and a half minute segment from Soul Train to achieve it.

and if we're gonna have a love scene between Trinity and Neo, at least show somehthin for the guys.

I agree with Jay G. While the effects are what brought the first "Matrix" to the fore-front of popular culture, the movie would have been nothing without the layers upon layers of an intelligent script and solidly made film. I'm not trying to piss on the work of special effects artists, but we have reached a level where special effects can no longer be expected to carry a movie critically (although the box office may say different). Special effects are becoming blaise. I'm not saying that they are bad (well, in some films they are), but that they are so well done these days that there is very little that can be done to make a movie stand out on special effects alone.

Perhaps I missed a lot of the layers of the second and third films. I watched the first and second back to back last night and did gain a better appreciation for Reloaded. Unfortunately I fell asleep shortly into Revolutions, so my "Matrix-athon" was cut short.

That would be nice, but didn't the matrix seem to have a pretty active rave scene as well (though with more of a goth twist)? Also, look at the first movie again and tell me the matrix is a clean, heavenly place of perfection.

That is one aspect of the first movie that was completely lost in the sequels; the dirty, timeless weirdness of the matrix. Like how the 'bug' was a like an old transistor tub, the buildings were decaying and thick with dust and debris, the land lines were rotary phones, the oracle's apartment was outdated. Sure, some of these things were brought back in the sequels, but only those present in the first film. Nothing of that type was added. If you go back and watch The Matrix you will be surprised just how much style it has. Not just in props and atmosphere, but direction, cinematography, sound. The sequels seem to be missing these things in my view.

EDIT: I'm refering to beefjerky's comment, I was just to lazy to quote it and i got distracted so other comments slipped in first.

Another useless scene that was forced. What exactly was the point? I think that we could all pretty well gather that Neo and Trinity are in love. Yes, beefjerky, it does bring a more naturalistic/humanistic feel to a "cold grey" society, but I feel that it was a forced statement that wasn't needed. I hope I'm not missing this one as bad as Ebert missed the end of Spiderman.

I woudln't say it had a rave "scene." It had a scene set in a rave (as does the third movie). The point of the scene was not the rave itself. I do completely agree with everything else you said though!

Compared to the real world, the matrix is heaven. True, the first film had it's share of gritty environments, but there were also many clean, slick environments in it also. Compared to the real world, the matrix is heaven, Cypher even says it in the first film more or less. It wasn't so much that the film was trying to tell you that the matrix itself is gritty, but the rebels, the "serpents" spreading the fruit of knowledge, choosing to run in the grittier underworld rather than the cleaner parts of the matrix.

Throughout the trilogy, there's a lot about the symbolism of the heaven of the Matrix and the machine world, and the god-ness of the machines.

As for the sex scene again, it does add more to Neo's character, how Reloaded tried to drive in the point that he was still human, only a man.

also what was the "point" of the kissing scene between Neo and Monica Belluci? it got a big laugh at my showing (opening night at the senator theater btw) but there didnt' seem to having this in except to bring back the "dodge this" line in 1, excpet she said something else similar,

I would say just to enforce the concept of love.

She's supposed to be a vampire of emotions. It's an artificial life trying desperately to understand/feel human emotions, and she does so by literally sucking them out of people. Also, yeah, reinforces the love that Neo has.