I'm not promising I'll be able to avoid spoilers here so if you haven't seen REVOLUTIONS avoid this post, but come back to it after you've seen the movie.
Here's the thing: Reloaded and Revolutions serve as two very different flavours, with Reloaded being a film about doubt and Revolutions as a film about faith. This seemed obvious to me. Then again, these films have never confused me and I've never met anyone who could explain to me what was so hard to "get." I've been poking around the web and I'm finding nothing but stupidity being written about this movie. Some reviews are good, some are bad, but no one is getting the heart of what these movies are. I guess critical thinking is defunct in America. Seeing our current political state, this shouldn't surprise me.
Faith, in the non-religious sense, is something you either posess or you do not. If you doubt at all, your faith is sacrificed. You can practice faith in any of a number of ways. Love, is a personal sense, is the very real fashion that most of us do it. You have varying levels you give it and choose to receive it. Your parents' love is something that is hard to shake, in both dynamics. Some parents are so awful at their job that it is possible to lose our love for them, but most of us start there with our level of faith in love. As you age, you learn to have faith in love, or you learn to doubt it, by varying degrees. Trinity dies because her faith in her love for Neo allowed her to give anything for which she believed. Neo dies for the same thing. But their goal is accomplished.
The message of these movies is that nothing improves from doubt, and the more doubt you have (Smith), the more you are destroyed. The more faith you have (Neo) the more you open minds to possibilities. When I saw the first movie in 99, I wept like a big ol' baby right there in my seat. Because I understood that this was what they were trying to communicate. And they were taking this message to the public in the only spectacular form people would be willing to hear it.
This May, I saw the movie that functioned on a treatise on doubt leave all who saw it filled with it. We are too quick to question what is possible. Even the strongest of believers (Morpheus), is left doubting what can be at the end of it, so everyone walked away with a terribly sour taste in their mouths. Never mind that the next movie was around the corner. Never mind that the middle act in any drama sets the conflict in motion that the protagonist must overcome. People were set up to believe that nothing good could come from these movies and they bought it. The audience were told exactly what they needed to hear. The makers played the viewers like a violin.
Now here's the third movie. And people still want to bitch about it without even trying to understand it. There is something frighteningly brilliant in these films, and I pray those who see these films get the honest and, I believe, potent message in them: We can do anything in this world as long as we believe we can. The forces that stand in front of you can be conquered if you believe you can put your foot down on the other side of them. Nothing will keep us from our will, so long as we have faith in our own will. The only question is what you wish to do with your will. Is it to something benevolent, or something malevolent? We've seen impossible attrocities leveled at our society because the of the will of singular individuals. Why can't you accomplish something of equally unending beauty? You need only extend your will to it and you can.
You just have to believe you can make the jump. You just have to free your mind.
Spoiler-Friendly MATRIX thread
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Rocketdork
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AsaJay
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Miftah, man am I glad you wrote that.
All I've read so far, are gloomy reviews of the movie. It's like they were all looking for some kind of deeper meaning but just couldn't find it. Like they've all boiled "deeper meaing" down to a simple good vs. evil thing. Sometimes, there is just more to a movie than good and bad. Sometimes there is the in-between, situations and circumstances that reflect life, or how it should be. (or shouldn't be)
I've read all the "Neo was Christ" stuff, and all the BS about it not wrapping up all the Zen and crap. Okay, so maybe they -missed- something. Maybe they missed the really -deep- part. I can't help but think some people have become so shallow they want the gratification handed to them on a silver platter. It's like they wanted a voice-over to help explain the movie.
Did you ever see Dune in the theater? Way back, like 20 years ago? If you hadn't read the book, you were lost, and I mean LOST. I remember a screening I went to, and I thought it was a brilliant film. It lacked a few key things, but overall, it looked pretty good. I remember that myself and a couple of others who had read the book, sat for almost an hour trying to explain the movie to those who hadn't read the books. Dune is probably a bad example of my point, as it was first a book, and second a movie.
The Matrix however was first a movie. A movie, a theatrical work of fiction. The Matrix, in it's first incarnation, provoked thought, and hinted at some deeper meaning. It also pointed us in the direction of freeing all the slaves. Okay, so that doesn't work out in the end, but that second plot-line may not have been the primary. So what were they screenwriters of The Matrix trying to tell us? That is for us to consider and engage as we watch the movie. I feel some just didn't get that point, and wanted someone, maybe a character in the film to just come right out and say "blah". Oh, but from the reviews I've read. . . that just didn't happen. Gee, the movie had to make your -THINK-!
I've been kind of sitting around dumbfounded, thinking that the movie can't be that bad; thinking that maybe the reviewers missed the real point, or deeper meaning of the film. And I think you, Miftah captured a part of it for me, re-engaging my desire to see it.
Though I've not seen it yet, and in fact haven't had time to see the second one (am I the only one on the planet?) I've always felt there was a progression to the underlying theme. Sure, most of the movie is a big special effects fest, but underneath, the films have tried to weave some unconscious thought to get your mind working.
Oooo, the big one was "what if we are all living in a real live matrix?" Haha, like that was really deep? I think that was the "easy" plotline, the rest of it gets more complicated. There is belief, in self, in others. There is love, love of others. There is the theme and idea of something greater, and in today's society, that -greater- is sometimes hard to find among all the -have it now- instant this and that we currently live in.
So, without trying to get into a philisophical conversation of what the movie represents, let me just say that I'm glad to hear from someone, that there --is-- something to it, and that I'll need to see it, to try and understand it.
Not that all the reviews would have kept me from it. Most of them just seem to rattle on about not much of anything. When a review doesn't appear to contain meaningful insight, it just doesn't carry any weight, at least with me. I'm more happy to see a comment that digs a little deeper.
Thanks,
Asa Jay
PS, your post did give a couple of spoilers, but you did warn.
I figured I might not get to the film for a while anyway, so I'm not really spoiled.
Oh yea, and if you didn't already know.... Gollum dies at the end of Lord of The Rings: Return of the King.
All I've read so far, are gloomy reviews of the movie. It's like they were all looking for some kind of deeper meaning but just couldn't find it. Like they've all boiled "deeper meaing" down to a simple good vs. evil thing. Sometimes, there is just more to a movie than good and bad. Sometimes there is the in-between, situations and circumstances that reflect life, or how it should be. (or shouldn't be)
I've read all the "Neo was Christ" stuff, and all the BS about it not wrapping up all the Zen and crap. Okay, so maybe they -missed- something. Maybe they missed the really -deep- part. I can't help but think some people have become so shallow they want the gratification handed to them on a silver platter. It's like they wanted a voice-over to help explain the movie.
Did you ever see Dune in the theater? Way back, like 20 years ago? If you hadn't read the book, you were lost, and I mean LOST. I remember a screening I went to, and I thought it was a brilliant film. It lacked a few key things, but overall, it looked pretty good. I remember that myself and a couple of others who had read the book, sat for almost an hour trying to explain the movie to those who hadn't read the books. Dune is probably a bad example of my point, as it was first a book, and second a movie.
The Matrix however was first a movie. A movie, a theatrical work of fiction. The Matrix, in it's first incarnation, provoked thought, and hinted at some deeper meaning. It also pointed us in the direction of freeing all the slaves. Okay, so that doesn't work out in the end, but that second plot-line may not have been the primary. So what were they screenwriters of The Matrix trying to tell us? That is for us to consider and engage as we watch the movie. I feel some just didn't get that point, and wanted someone, maybe a character in the film to just come right out and say "blah". Oh, but from the reviews I've read. . . that just didn't happen. Gee, the movie had to make your -THINK-!
I've been kind of sitting around dumbfounded, thinking that the movie can't be that bad; thinking that maybe the reviewers missed the real point, or deeper meaning of the film. And I think you, Miftah captured a part of it for me, re-engaging my desire to see it.
Though I've not seen it yet, and in fact haven't had time to see the second one (am I the only one on the planet?) I've always felt there was a progression to the underlying theme. Sure, most of the movie is a big special effects fest, but underneath, the films have tried to weave some unconscious thought to get your mind working.
Oooo, the big one was "what if we are all living in a real live matrix?" Haha, like that was really deep? I think that was the "easy" plotline, the rest of it gets more complicated. There is belief, in self, in others. There is love, love of others. There is the theme and idea of something greater, and in today's society, that -greater- is sometimes hard to find among all the -have it now- instant this and that we currently live in.
So, without trying to get into a philisophical conversation of what the movie represents, let me just say that I'm glad to hear from someone, that there --is-- something to it, and that I'll need to see it, to try and understand it.
Not that all the reviews would have kept me from it. Most of them just seem to rattle on about not much of anything. When a review doesn't appear to contain meaningful insight, it just doesn't carry any weight, at least with me. I'm more happy to see a comment that digs a little deeper.
Thanks,
Asa Jay
PS, your post did give a couple of spoilers, but you did warn.
I figured I might not get to the film for a while anyway, so I'm not really spoiled.Oh yea, and if you didn't already know.... Gollum dies at the end of Lord of The Rings: Return of the King.
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eddiecanuck
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Just read a review of the movie at Ain't It Cool News, they guy loved it. He writes a pretty good review of it too. Closely related to what's been posted here. There are some spoilers in it so read at your own risk.
Matrix Revolutions review
Matrix Revolutions review
