“Watchmen looks like it’s going to be The Matrix all over again.”
So says Alex at FirstShowing.net. And the weird thing is, he intended it as a compliment.
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So he’s saying the movie could be really good, with mindblowing FX and a great premise, but any sequels will be so awful they erase any goodwill the original film engendered?
Yeah and each version of the Matrix gave me a headache. I suffered though the religious overtones and was almost sick. I don’t know how so many people miss the religious connections with this movie. Yeah three times and you’re out no more repeats please.
So does that mean owl costumes will be the new trench coats?
Just the thought of this makes me so happy.
I’m really looking forward to gangs of sullen teens hanging around street corners, all wearing owlsuits.
—Myca
I loved the Matrix and I loved the sequels more, so you can all go to hell. :)
Wait. Which movie are you talking about again? :-P
I’m going to totally blow my credibility by saying this, but I liked the second Matrix better than the first.
I hated the first Matrix film; I thought it was overdone, pretentious, and morally horrible. (Morally horrible both for the blowing away of dozens of innocent civilians, and for the ultra-ultra-ultra elitist mindset.) (Albeit with mindblowing FX.)
The second film, I enjoyed a lot more, because at least 75% of it was brainless action sequence, with nice choreography and special effects. So I enjoy it on that level.
The third one was unwatchable for being boring.
I can see that. Though I found the second movie so totally boring that I turned off my parents’ rented copy after 15 minutes. But I’m not really into action scenes, nicely choreographed or otherwise.
I am so excited about Watchmen, although also fearful because I didn’t like most of 300.
I unintentionally pissed off a lot of New Yorkers laughing my ass off at Matrix: Revolutions at the Lincoln Square IMAX. Oh, sorry, this was supposed to be serious?
Wait, why are people even mentioning the possibility of sequels to Watchmen? Do…do people not know how Watchmen ends? Or is the assumption that this movie is going to be so bad that it’s the (probably much safer) equivalent of punching Alan Moore in the face repeatedly?
Anyhow, I could see how Matrix comparisons could be a compliment: The first one was widely accepted as good, the effects were fantastic, and didn’t it make like a ton of money?
Wait, why are people even mentioning the possibility of sequels to Watchmen?
Because if the movie makes a lot of money, Hollywood will find a way to defile it. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
I hated the first Matrix film; I thought it was overdone, pretentious, and morally horrible. (Morally horrible both for the blowing away of dozens of innocent civilians, and for the ultra-ultra-ultra elitist mindset.) (Albeit with mindblowing FX.)
Did this attitude develop over the ensuing years? I ask because I don’t remember our conversation after seeing it going along those lines. It seems to me that we both thought it was morally horrible for not only blowing away scores of innocents, but for blowing them away when it was explicitly unnecessary. But, I also seem to recall that we liked the FX, liked the storyline & thought that that was the best job a director could do with the current version of K.Reeves. Overall enjoyable with some major points of dislike.
I’ve never been able to watch the sequels, though.
I’m not sure if my current attitude is one that evolved, or if it was my initial reaction. But I don’t recall ever liking The Matrix.
but for blowing them away when it was explicitly unnecessary.
It was explicitly necessary within the context of the Matrix because any nearby person was a potential conduit for an Agent. If even one Agent appears, everyone dies, and the human race remains enslaved forever. It was a thin “How can we justify killing lots of innocent people?” contrivance, but it wasn’t unnecessary.
It was explicitly necessary within the context of the Matrix because any nearby person was a potential conduit for an Agent.
No, it was explicitly unnecessary because it had been established that they could move so fast that they couldn’t be seen. Instead of using that ability to get through the building’s lobby, they used it to blow away dozens of innocents. I was even thinking pretty much that exact thought as I watched the scene for the first time. Hell, it wouldn’t have been disgustingly cruel if they had even tried to sneak through and been caught out. Nope. Instead we’ll just kill everybody in the lobby even though we could get through the lobby so fast that nobody would ever know we were there.
Either the movie lacked internal consistency or our beloved protagonists have morals that qualify them as “evil.” I think it was the latter.
I agree with you about the overall moral qualities of the Matrix (low), I was just under the impression that being unseen wasn’t good enough. I don’t remember why they had to get into that particular building, but I do remember that once the Machine was aware something was afoot, anyone nearby would be transformed into Agents and land on them like a ton of bricks, so if they knew they needed time to do whatever it was they were doing they couldn’t just bypass the staff. That the nature of their enemy made the mass killing of innocents a necessity was far too contrived for my taste, but it makes sense from the character’s POV.
I mean, I don’t know why the Machine couldn’t just spawn an Agent anywhere it likes. If it could do that there would have been no reason to kill the lobby staff.
Maco, it was an office building in the middle of a metropolis, wasn’t it? Regardless of if they killed all the officers on the ground floor or not, there would be thousands of people available to be transformed into Agents, on all the other floors of the building, and in the buildings next door to it.
Frankly, I don’t remember how it played out well enough to feel assured of anything. I don’t even remember what their objective was at that moment, but I gathered it was a high security lobby with limited entry and egress, and the Machine used living people as its security cameras to see what was going on. Once the people on the inside were taken out the machine would take longer to deduce what was happening, and Agents would be forced to come at them from outside. I thought they did it because they needed to buy that small amount of time for whatever it was they were doing.
I didn’t care for the scene, but I generally accept the writer’s premise that good guys are good guys and wouldn’t kill so many people if they had a realistic choice.
At the risk of ruining your fun, I’m going to point out that you’re having a moral argument about a movie, the premise of which is that human neurons are used as electrical generators to supplement nuclear reactors.
The “A wizard did it.” line keeps running through my mind.
I am genuinely confused as to why giant piles of imaginary dead people are of such import. Moral purity does not make a film good. I can analyse to death the things I morally loathe about works I adore – don’t get me started on LOTR, Iron Council, etc. Whether I morally support every scene of the Matrix films is an irrelevance; they’re still made of awesome. If Amp approved of everything, everything would be boring, I regret to say.
edit: and, I just realised how much fun the Alas threads will be after Watchmen comes out. Oh dear god I can’t wait. I can already stack up all the things we’ll rip into here, especially from a feminist pov. I just hope that Watchmen will be made of awesome, too.
second edit: xposted with Bjartmarr, who, as usual, is made of awesome.
Thene, big piles of imaginary dead people wouldn’t have mattered in a different movie — for instance, in Kill Bill, which I loved.
But a movie which wants to be taken seriously, both morally and philosophically, is asking for something different from the audience than a fun, ridiculous slugfest is. They can’t be held to the same standards.
Also, the implication that I’m some sort of moral puritan who never approves of anything fun is not only insulting, it’s kind of bewildering.
Bjartmarr, what’s your point?
Maco, I just rewatched the end of “The Matrix” on some cable channel. They didn’t even attempt to justify it in the way you describe.
What was going on, is that the two pretty young white heroes were breaking into a big secure building in which three Agents were guarding the pretty but not so young black hero.
There were security guards on the bottom floor and limited access — but there are any number of ways two superpowered people could have gotten past that, not least of which was running really really fast. The building seemed to have dozens and dozens of soldiers who were attracted by the shooting, so it’s not that they were trying to keep their assault on the building a secret. Nor was there any apparent hope of killing absolutely everyone in the building.
It’s a bit mysterious, actually, why the agents didn’t take over more and attack in force. Maybe because the head agent didn’t want to admit that he’d lost control of the situation? Who knows. The agents in the first film definitely seem more hesitant about calling in reinforcements than agents in the second film.
I think what really happened is, the writers wanted to show Neo in a big black trenchcoat whipping out many guns and shooting a huge number of guards and soldiers in a building lobby. And they wanted this to be moral. But they didn’t know how to plot this so that Neo actually had no choice but to blow all those civilians away.
But a movie which wants to be taken seriously, both morally and philosophically, is asking for something different from the audience than a fun, ridiculous slugfest is. They can’t be held to the same standards.
Yes, yes, they can. I could even use that vile word ‘postmodernism’, if you like. There’s a spectrum between the seriously-intended and the funly-intended, and with Kill Bill and The Matrix – well, I don’t think they’re even particularly far apart on that spectrum. Neither’s in the arthouse and neither is a video-nasty. Both have pretty rich underpinnings in other artistic works, and in cultural metaphors. (Nemesis in her veil, anyone?) As a viewer/reader/fanrat, I always try to chase both sides – the serious and the literary in the most lowbrow pulp fantasy, the fun, pointless and libidinous in the supposedly srs stuff. I try not to ask for too much, or too little. And I only unpack, criticise, rip something to bits if I adore it.
Ever read The Theatre And Its Double by Artaud, Amp? I’m reading it atm. The first article ends with a passionate defence of ‘Tis A Pity She’s A Whore – the infamous 17th-century incest play. ‘Thus all great Myths are dark and one cannot imagine the great Fables aside from a mood of slaughter, torture and bloodshed, telling the masses about the original division of the sexes and the slaughter of essences that came with creation. Theatre, like the plague, is made in the image of this slaughter, this essential division. It unravels conflicts, liberates powers, releases potential and if these and the powers are dark, this is not the fault of the plague or theatre, but life.’ Gender essentialism aside, win.
Also, the implication that I’m some sort of moral puritan who never approves of anything fun is not only insulting, it’s kind of bewildering.
I think you read my insult less charitably than it was meant. If I approved of everything, everything would be boring. As I said, I love far, far more things (and people) than I approve of.
I think what really happened is, the writers wanted to show Neo in a big black trenchcoat whipping out many guns and shooting a huge number of guards and soldiers in a building lobby. And they wanted this to be moral.
First sentence truth, second sentence irrelevance. Most people write heroes who want to, or pretend to, be moral in every moment of every scene of mass slaughter. Just look at the Old Testament.
The problem with The Matrix, in terms of morality, consists entirely in the movie’s rules & story – not in black & white or real world terms. The writers set out to create a world in which the poorly acted protagonist character is both the saviour of mankind and supposedly good. His saviour helpers are also shown to be good & moral. Then they establish that matrixy goodness allows Neo & pals to move so fast that they can’t be seen. Then the writers provide an opportunity to use that matrixy goodness to easily zip through an area w/ some security and dozens of innocents who, after all, they are trying to save from their enslavement by matrixy badness. Instead of using that matrixy goodness to zip by unnoticed, they use that matrixy goodness to blow away as many innocents as they can. This shows a lack of morals within the world of The Matrix.
Why can’t we discuss a movie’s internal moral inconsistencies w/o it being understood to be a judgement of the morals of the movie’s message? That’s what I don’t get.
Also, my braces were tightened today and my head hurts and I’m grumpy.
Thene, no time right now, but I wanted to respond to this:
Oh, okay. Thanks for clarifying that. And I agree with your sentiment. :-)
Amp: I think what really happened is, the writers wanted to show Neo in a big black trenchcoat whipping out many guns and shooting a huge number of guards and soldiers in a building lobby. And they wanted this to be moral. But they didn’t know how to plot this so that Neo actually had no choice but to blow all those civilians away.
That’s exactly how I feel about the writer’s motives. But the in-character reason is what I was referring to. The only in-character reason I could think of for Neo and Trinity to be going postal was because it kept the number of Agents down.
Jake Squid said:
This keeps getting reiterated in this discussion. There is absolutely no point in the movie where I recall this being established as even possible (at least by anyone who is not “The One”… and Neo doesn’t know that he is yet).
The closest thing I can think of is the moment when Morpheus is moving so fast that he creates a blur of multiple fists. That is nowhere near the same thing as moving so fast as to be invisible… I suspect that many of you are conflating Interview with the Vampire and the Matrix in this regard.
That being said, though I recognize that some of the things the protagonists in the Matrix did seem extreme, it was, in my mind, satisfactorily explained by the movie’s paradigm (which Maco has done a pretty decent job of summing up). But that was also the case in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
And I might have to verbally dropkick (well, attempt to, anyway) anyone that suggests that THAT movie was bad or in bad taste on “moral grounds.”