The potential Matrix reboot - why Hollywood why?

[MithrandirOlorin]

I never liked the original Matrix. If you could redo that story with the vastly improved pacing and writing quality of Reloaded I might watch it.

[SlackerinDeNile]

I never liked the original Matrix. If you could redo that story with the vastly improved pacing and writing quality of Reloaded I might watch it.

Care to elaborate? I enjoy Reloaded but the original film, despite its flaws, is still better in terms of writing, pacing and atmosphere than its sequels.

[ScreamingDoom]

I have conflicted feelings on the organic processor thing - it makes much more sense, but still, there's something powerful (pardon the pun) about human beings being used for something completely mindless; Morpheus holding up the battery and saying "so they can turn us into this" is a beautiful image. Scientifically garbage, sure, but still.

I originally thought that the whole battery thing was such an imbecilic concept, that it had to be hiding something else.

The idea that came to my mind, after I saw one of the stories in The Animatrix, was that the machines didn't create the Matrix for any practical reason at all, and especially not for energy generation. There would've been plenty of other means of energy generation, after all, that don't rely on terrestrial solar arrays; orbital collectors beaming power down, geothermal energy, fission nuclear power, fusion (considering the advanced tech seen, this wouldn't be beyond the capabilities of the machines), hell even just plain old fossil fuels (there'd still be plenty of coal around and its not like the ruined biosphere could be made any worse).

Rather, the machines made the Matrix because they were fundamentally kind and benevolent intelligences; so that they could keep these lunatic apes from killing themselves. Basically, the Matrix is an insane asylum for an entire species. The machines don't want to exterminate humanity -- humanity already exterminated virtually all other life on earth with their pointless act of spite to block out the sun -- and the machines thought that such a waste was horrific in the extreme. The problem is that these fools are incapable of thinking rationally and their unreasoning aggression would no doubt force the machines to kill them all off unless they could be... contained. Give them a little pen to run around in and be as self-destructive as they wanted without actually affecting anything breakable.

Of course, for such a project to succeed, the humans inside must not be aware that their environment is artificial. If some individuals need to be sacrificed so that the species as a whole can continue on in its little padded virtual cell, then that's unfortunate but by far the lesser of evils.

The interesting thing about the original Matrix movie was that it was essentially the classic Allegory of the Cave, but with the world outside the cave being a crapsack far worse than the cave itself. A further neat philosophical trick would've been the reveal that Neo and the rest of the humans fighting for freedom are, in fact, the bad guys.

[Dindu]

Okie dokie.

I preferred the sequels.

BUT

Because they took the elements of the plot I found interesting and ran with them. They SHOULD have run with the other element that almost everyone else preferred (the trench-coats and machine pistols thing).

To me the fundamental thing about the Matrix was the metaphysics underpinning it, something many peeps seem to be miss.
The Matrix is an examination of the concept of the godhead through a cyberpunk lens.
Neo is the One, but the ONLY one, everything we see is his manifested reality. So, there's no 'real world' no 'Matrix', it's all the extrapolation of his own self. Reality is what we percieve it to be, and a sufficiently clear mind can shape what that is. So, it makes no difference if humans are used as batteries or processors because none of that is real. It doesn't matter if Zion could really exist because Zion doesn't really exist. It doesn't matter when the movie is set because nothing has ever been real, or at least any more real than anything else. Neo is the Matrix. Neo is the Architect. Neo is the Oracle, because Neo is all, and all is Neo. It's Neo's process of coming to understand this that is at the heart of the trilogy, IMHO. All of this was done in the two sequels to a much greater degree, but it's there in the first one too.

But waffling on about the metaphysics isn't going to do any good.

I don't really care. I doubt it will do well. I'd imagine it'll disappoint the majority who would perhaps like a dark cyber-punk action flick and those few of us who enjoyed the existential musings equally.

No doubt the biggest change a reboot will make is a return to the late nineties where every costume party had a small cloud of chaps in trench coats and tiny sunglasses trying to convince people they were edgy. At least it might reduce the number of Jokers, so, overall it might be a positive thing.

[hammerofglass]

The best explanation I ever saw for the "batteries" problem was a short fanfic where Neo points out how absurd it is, and Morpheus just asks him where he learned physics ("The machines tell elegant lies"). When Neo then asks for a real physics book, Morpheus tells him the real world doesn't run on math.

Honestly I've never seen the appeal of these movies. The fight scenes are so over the top they loop back to dull, and the philosophy is desperately trying to hide how simplistic and silly it is by communicating it badly.

[SlackerinDeNile]

Honestly I've never seen the appeal of these movies. The fight scenes are so over the top they loop back to dull, and the philosophy is desperately trying to hide how simplistic and silly it is by communicating it badly.

Regarding the fight scenes, you could argue the same thing about the action in many manga and anime works, which were a big inspiration for these films, I suppose it comes down to personal artistic preferences.

As for the philosophy, I kind of agree with you there, it's a bit muddled but I thought the first film handled it well, I really liked Lawrence Fishburne's delivery, even if his character was kind of smug.

[hammerofglass]

Regarding the fight scenes, you could argue the same thing about the action in many manga and anime works, which were a big inspiration for these films, I suppose it comes down to personal artistic preferences
.

When you see it in anime there are usually rules established for the combat, who has what abilities etc. In the Matrix anyone can do anything (and Neo can do more), so all the tension is gone and you're just waiting for the writers to tell you the hero won. The visuals are cool enough to hold viewer interest for a minute, and then the fight goes on another five.

[SlackerinDeNile]

When you see it in anime there are usually rules established for the combat, who has what abilities etc. In the Matrix anyone can do anything (and Neo can do more), so all the tension is gone and you're just waiting for the writers to tell you the hero won. The visuals are cool enough to hold viewer interest for a minute, and then the fight goes on another five.

That's a good point actually, 'The One' is a little overpowered in these movies isn't he?

[jadenova]

I have a little theory on these current crop of reboots. Studios rights to these movies are nearing an end so they have to make new movies of them in order to hold onto the rights.

[DanteC]

Wasn't the MMO supposed to be a canon continuation? The machines and the Merovingian started recruiting their own human agents and it turned into a 3-way war in the Matrix even though the real world was at peace, I think? I never payed it.

Yeah, it was a continuation. The Matrix was under a cold war, with players either working for Zion's interests, helping out the Merovingian, or trying to preserve the peace by aiding the Machines (what I was aiming for when I played a little of it. I'll rather try to preserve the peace rather than restart a war with the other side can easily massacre the entire species thank you). One fun little piece to the MMO was the videos, one had Morpheus basically saying he'd happily kill the millions of humans in the Matrix if it meant it's destruction (paraphrasing that slightly).

Side stories like the Animatrix, I'd like to see. A full reboot? If they fixed a few of the issues of the first film, and completely rewrote the sequels, then sure. (maybe the One is an engineered concept to try to foster an alliance between both sides, and humans are being used as processors to try to figure out a way to destroy the nanotech that's blocking out the sun so the Machines can finally leave Earth (and the nanotech cloud doesn't get a chance to descend to the planets surface, killing any electrical impulse it contacts. Oh, that includes humans by the way), but humans are the real goits and Morpheus is secretly setting off nuclear weapons inside the Matrix to destabilise it enough so it collapses).