Top Reason I Hate the Matrix

Remove all ads!

Hmmm, Neuromancer. I've never read the book but the game kept me awake for weeks in the late 80's.

 

If you don't like The Matrix, and want some spiffy arguments to impress your friends, check out the devastating review by Stuart Klawans, film critic for "The Nation". It's in "Left in the Dark", a collection of his reviews. Basically, he concludes that it's anti-human, and gives good reasons for doing so.

It's also on the internet. Sorry, I'm a klutz and can't give you a link, but go to Google, Stuart Klawans, The Nation (1st listing), then scroll down the reviews to "The End of Humanism", 4/26/99, and you've got it. If some computer literate person would like to replace all this with a link, please do.

[ October 27, 2004, 07:11: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

Cernak
I must confess to being in a mode of lazyness right now, and, umm... do you have a link to that? The prospect of seeming mentaly superior when arguing the Martix with my friends is appealling, but right now google is so far away.

[ October 26, 2004, 05:51: Message edited by: Celesialraven ]

 

You know, there were only a few things I didn't like in all three movies:
#1: Seeing Neo's butt
#2: The fact that those big robo things in Revolutions don't have any protection for the human inside...I mean they could have had a metal cover with a small window...an old cartoon on TV comes to mind which had a similar contraption, but I can't remember it's name.
#3: The fact that Trinity dies.
#4: Seeing Neo's butt

 

Oh, Kitrax, I so agree.

I would have preferred seeing Smith's butt.

 

I wish I could say I liked seeing Trinity's butt, but... I can't. She's TOO UGLY!

Monica Bellucci, on the other hand...

 

...and it took about 6 to 8 minutes of talking before she finaly dies.

 

I just saw the DVD on my computer, found it somewhere. It took me at least 2 minutes FAST FORWARDING to get past the Trinity death scene because I couldn't see it fast forwarding, I could only see the timer. So I would press play every 30 seconds or so thinking 'she must be dead by now' but lo' and behold, she still speakith!

The bullets in the guns kill the movie because The Matrix films seek to explain everything yet they can't seem to remember that they're not using caseless ammunition. Another question: why ONLY pistols and rifles? There is one scene with Neo and a chaingun so why not bring a chaingun to every fight? You can't say it's too heavy because, heck, there is no spoon remember? I know it's not there, but do THEY know it's not there?

They rig EMP blasts into ships yet they don't have them setup throughout Zion? The hell? Could be a very simple defence mecanisim. Shut down everything, throw out an EMP charge, machines die, restart everything, wait for next wave, shut down everything, throw out... etc.

BIG SPOILER
Why would the machines honor the deal with Neo at the end? They ruthlessly destroy human resistance then all of a sudden they agree to stop AND release ALL of the human captives?

On the human captives providing energy, why not just use nuclear power? It'll provide more energy AND you won't need to set up some big pesky Matrix thingie.

 

** ANSWER TO BIG SPOILER **

** SPOILER **

Have you seen Animatrix? The machines never wanted to go to war against man. The machines simply evolved to a level of self-awareness and were repeatedly offended and destroyed by humans. They pleaded for peace and co-existence, and for a place to live. Yet the humans would attack them with the intent of permanently destroying them. In the end the machines had no alternative but to return the favor, so that they themselves could survive.

When the war had started and humans were sorely losing, humans used a weapon that would blacken the skies to deny the machines the solar power they used. So the machines developed a system to start using humans as their power instead.

Now I don't know the power ratio between human bio-energy and nuclear power. But assuming that the machines did not want to kill all the humans, but to capture them instead. And assuming they did indeed have a sort of "sense of irony", the choice of making a Matrix would be the most obvious one. It would power the machines, imprison the humans with least chance for suffering and complications for either side, as well as serve to teach them a lesson in a way by reversing the situation humans and machines were in before the war.

As for sparing the humans, I explained a part of it there already. The machines never wanted to destroy the humans, they only wanted to exist. The reason Zion was such a threat to the machines was because they actively sought to damage the machines and the Matrix. In Animatrix, it is made clear (in some way, been a while since I saw that so I can't remember the details) that the machines wanted a symbiosis of sorts but could not trust the humans to hold their end of the bargain.

So the events in the end of Revolutions finally convince the machines that they (humans) are ready for a peaceful living, as both sides effectively understand that war is not the answer for neither side could win. I assume that by human captives you do mean the "captives"? Because all humans were not released, only those who did not want to be in the Matrix.

I have to say, I do understand Cypher's comment in The Matrix. "Ignorance is bliss", he says. I know that given the alternative of a world like that, I'd rather live in the Matrix. Of course, a little extra-ability and income would not be objected here.

 

@Ziad, Yes Gibson invented the terms of 'Matrix' (though it means something completely different in his books) but The Matrix isn't a complete rip-off of it. It draws on a lot of different ideas not just Neuromancer.

 

the one thing i hate about the matrix is the fact keanu reeves has the acting ability of a brick.

an old cheap brick thats falling to pieces.

 

@Lady Bonzo: Right, so Matrix is a ripoff of Neuromancer AND lots of other things

Seriously, the concept of the Matrix itself isn't that different (well, Gibson's is more interesting I think), the only major difference being that it's consensual in Neuromancer. It's still virtual reality, there's still billions of people connected to it, and it's still a compilation of raw data... I know, this is the definition of cyberspace in almost every cyberpunk book/movie/game/whatnot since Neuromancer, but The Matrix is the first to take so far as to use the SAME word for cyberspace.

In fact, I found many other things in The Matrix to be very similar to Lain, a Japanese animation series that came out a couple of years before Matrix. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the writing crew hadn't seen that series... though both could be mining ideas from a common third source.

@Septic Yogurt: You've got it right on!
Truth to tell, I find them ALL to have pretty poor acting. Reloaded was even worse in this regard. Lambert Wilson was simply pathetic.