Reflections on the Matrix

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

1: How well does the first story structure hold up on its own devoid of the later installments of several media?

2: What are the strengths of the trilogy as developed after the first movie?

I personally still really liked the universe they set up, but just thought the third movie was kinda boring.

[RobbyB1982]

The story as a whole hold up better if you assume the original version of why the humans were plugged in, because they serve as memory banks and processing units... rather than the "huans are batteries" thing that made no sense at all.

First movie was fine but it was definitely tainted by the other two.

[clearspira]

1 - The core of the story and the questions of reality that is raises is still sound, but it is nevertheless a dated film. The soundtrack, the fashion, the old cellphones, the wire-fu, the (lets be honest) pretty shitty CGI by today's standards. You asked for an analysis devoid of other media but imo that is impossible as its cultural impact is its greatest weakness. It has been copied and surpassed to the point that it is impossible to watch this film in the way I once did.

2 - There are no strengths of the sequels. Literally none. They are stories that simply did not need to be told as The Matrix was a strand alone film with a definitive ending. But it made money so of course there was going to be a sequel.
That said, the sequels whilst pointless, did not need to be crap. And they are crap in so many different ways. The fight scenes that last too long, the overlong car chase, the introduction of vampires and werewolves and then doing NOTHING with them, the Architect's bullshit speeches, the Merovingian's bullshit speeches, the Oracle's bullshit speeches, the Merovingian's irrelevant wife who had no point beyond being a pair of tits, Zion being some generic and unimaginative anthill city where people have boring raves, the fact that EVERY CHARACTER now wears sunglasses and trenchcoats ALL THE TIME (go back and watch the first film, they have a more diverse wardrobe than that).

Yeah, not a fan.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The story as a whole hold up better if you assume the original version of why the humans were plugged in, because they serve as memory banks and processing units... rather than the "huans are batteries" thing that made no sense at all.

First movie was fine but it was definitely tainted by the other two.

Which actually makes sense considering it's the human conscious that can manipulate it.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

1 - The core of the story and the questions of reality that is raises is still sound, but it is nevertheless a dated film. The soundtrack, the fashion, the old cellphones, the wire-fu, the (lets be honest) pretty shitty CGI by today's standards. You asked for an analysis devoid of other media but imo that is impossible as its cultural impact is its greatest weakness. It has been copied and surpassed to the point that it is impossible to watch this film in the way I once did.

Devoid of later installments I said. Apart from.

[GreyICE]

I rewatched the Matrix for the 20th anniversary after not watching it for a decade, and it still stands up. Like many good movies, the use of CGI is actually fairly limited. Many of the stunts are wirework and cameras, which make it amazing. The famous lobby scene, for instance, is all practical effects and it stands up amazingly. The helicopter gunship was great, the scene in the office was great, Hugo Weaving was given an absolutely iconic role and nailed it to a T.

The acting and script are fantastic. I LOVE the "Morpheus is fighting Neo!" bit. Hell yeah everyone wants to watch that. It's a wonderfully humanizing moment. The ship was actually well done as a whole - showing the difference between the human lives, and their Matrix "avatars".

The battery part was studio meddling, and got the movie made. Apparently the idea of computers that were a combination of hardware and wetware was too science fiction for them. It still grates, and it's amazing how the entire plot revolves around that one point, the studio axed it, and then it got made anyway. Kind of hilarious. Neo is the One because he can manipulate the code itself, he can manipulate the code itself because it's running in his own head, and he can change what's running in his head. But... batteries! That also killed the entire interdependence theme - the machines depend on us to survive, but we depend on them to survive. Ah well, easy enough to ignore.

Snappy dialogue, great sense of timing, good music, good visual effects, a story that still holds up, there's nothing not to like about the Matrix. I imagine it will age like The French Connection - some parts of the movie is dated, sure, but the sheer quality shines through. Undoubtably one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. You could practically do a scene-by-scene breakdown on what makes this film amazing.

P.S. The CGI for the "blotted out the sun" bit was terrible, but most of the CGI stands up due to the fact that they're literally computer effects in a computer system. It's much like the Terminator 2 CGI - Cameron asked what it's good at, got told "make stuff that looks liquidy and metallic" and used liquid metal monster. The Matrix uses it for stuff that looks computery, and is in a computer.

Also the blot out the sun CGI was in the D-cell battery bit, which you could tell the Wachowski's hated. My headcanon is that Morpheus didn't have a clue why the machines needed humans, and since they harvested heat and electricity from the pods, concluded that that must be the primary purpose of the pods. A bit like someone seeing a cell phone shining light might conclude "that's what future flashlights look like"

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

It's obviously a pretty bold film stylistically, which puts it more at risk for dating itself than a more muted film might be. But it's distinctive enough to mostly get away with what it does. It also helps that there's often a plot or thematic reason for what it's doing.

From a story and structure perspective, yes you can nitpick about a couple of plot details, but I have a hard time faulting it for that. Thematically it's a rich, dense film that can be approached from a ton of different angles. Any "philosophy and sci-fi" book is very likely to feature The Matrix heavily, and there's good reason for that. It's much more intelligent and literate than the vast majority of genre films to come out since, which might sound like faint praise, but the point is that it's top-notch in that regard and really is deserving of its reputation.

There's been a ton of great action scenes since The Matrix came out 20 years ago, particularly if you count non-English films. Obviously the CGI has aged, and some of the slow-mo stuff that was considered revolutionary at the time has lost a bit of luster simply because it's not so unique anymore. Unsurprisingly the practical effects are the most impressive at this point. With that said, the action absolutely holds up in my opinion, particularly the big setpieces. Subjectively, the lobby and subway scenes look/feel as exciting and awesome as ever to me, but a big part of that is that they're actually very well integrated into the story. I have a hard time imagining anyone with a modicum of investment in the story finding those action scenes less than effective. The action in the sequels is a more mixed bag- some of it still looks great and is maybe more technically ambitious, some of it doesn't hold up as well, but none of it feels as impressive because it doesn't have the same thematic weight as the fights in the original.

The sequels generally, I wouldn't call Reloaded all bad, but they do pale in comparison in every way. On the one hand I don't really think they hurt the original's reputation, but they did kill the notion of The Matrix as a franchise. If the sequels had never been released and the movie currently in production were The Matrix 2, the hype and speculation would be off the charts.

[Beastro]

1: How well does the first story structure hold up on its own devoid of the later installments of several media?

2: What are the strengths of the trilogy as developed after the first movie?

I personally still really liked the universe they set up, but just thought the third movie was kinda boring.

First one is still great. I still enjoy it.

The sequels were unneeded, and worse, they tried to add twists that ruined a nice, archetypal story. That last bit is especially so, since we didn't need to see how things went after the end of the first film. That's the kinda thing that should be left to the audiences imagination as the flying Neo bullshit and working around his powers spoiled him.

The "great deception" thing is something thrown into the second that I feel is now the standard thing in too many stories. Even worse is how they added things, then got wobbly. I hated how in the second they showed Neo lightning the drone in the sewers, implying "reality" was just another layer of the Matrix, only to double down on it to avoid the problems that would arise from such a predicament (The humans lose because they can never tell if they're ever free) by having Neo be so awesome he can free his mind in reality in ways (admittedly, they avoided him doing such further antics in the third).

The soundtrack, the fashion, the old cellphones, the wire-fu, the (lets be honest) pretty shitty CGI by today's standards.

Shitty is a strong word. I still really like it, but I come from a mindset that factors in how that era developed and loathing the truly shitty CGI that has been vomitted out since then.

It's much more intelligent and literate than the vast majority of genre films to come out since,

Sadly true, but it's just Gnosticism. Gnosticism is an intellectual puddle masquerading as a profound ocean.

[hammerofglass]

It's much more intelligent and literate than the vast majority of genre films to come out since,

Sadly true, but it's just Gnosticism. Gnosticism is an intellectual puddle masquerading as a profound ocean.

Worse, it's a postmodern take on Gnosticism (more so in sequels). It's a photograph of a puddle with the word "ocean" misspelled on it in crayon.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah it's a sound story though.