> > > > Which movies did you people vote for?

> > > The Matrix II. Definitely.

> > > Ell"Care to wait overnight for Star Wars tickets, anyone?"myruh

> > Yeaaaaaaaaaah, you know it! I love The Matrix with an almost-scary passion...I love everything about that movie...

> Aw, you should have see it on the big screen! It made it seem more real than watching it on DVD or VHS.

> > *excited* The Matrix is my absolute favorite movie. I just...I dunno, it's great...

> That's the one thing I'm worried about. I'll probably try to talk myself into believing that the Matrix II won't be any good...

> > ~Den-"follow the white rabbit"Kara

> Ell"Insert Matrix quote here"myruh

Here's how I talk myself into believing that Matrix II is going to suck:

Ask yourself, what was it about The Matrix that made it such a great movie?

You might be tempted to respond that the reason that The Matrix succeeded was because of the special effects or because of the kung fu. However, I believe that such an analysis would be wrong. While the special effects and fight scenes certainly helped, they were not what made the movie. There are many very good kung fu movies that do not reach nearly the audience that The Matrix did. Furthermore, I think it's obvious that the special effects in Phantom Menace were better than those in The Matrix; if The Matrix succeeded primarily because of special effects, then Phantom Menace should have been and even bigger success. Instead, while many people thought that The Matrix was a great movie, people tended to view Phantom Menace as something of a disappointment.

So what was it that made The Matrix a success? The answer, I believe, in the grand tradition of hard science fiction was in the /idea/ -- in this case, the idea that the world we live in is not the "real" world. By exploring this idea, the movie was able to convincingly surprise its audience; furthermore, it was able to make that audience /think/. After Neo entered the "real" world and then came back to the matrix (little "m"), the /audience/ saw reality -- and by extension, the world /we/ live in -- in a different light, even if only for the duration of the movie. The actors behaved in ways (even discounting the bits about flying and suchlike) completely discontiguous with what we normally percieve as reality (if you actually saw someone behaving like that on the street, you'd probably think them insane) -- yet their actions made /complete sense/ when you were watching the movie.

/That/, I believe, is what essentially made up the "core" of the movie The Matrix. In essence, The Matrix was /about/ the matrix. It was not about special effects or kung fu; it was certainly not about the plot or the characters; instead, it was about the /idea/ that the reality that we percieve is wrong.

So, I believe, in order for Matrix II to match the coolness of Matrix I, it must continue to explore this idea. But this is a problem. By becoming "The One", Neo has essentially been rendered all-powerful in the matrix; at least, that's what the movie led us to believe. So my problem is, how can Matrix II have anything to do with the matrix when Neo already controls the matrix? There can be no more exciting fights, or incongruous scenes, or showdowns with the robots in the matrix, because Neo controls it. He can defeat agents without even paying any attention to them, and he can rearrange the entire matrix essentially just by wishing it. So there can be no conflict that actually takes place inside of the matrix, which means there can be no /story/ inside of the matrix. (The only sort of conflict I can think of is if a bunch of agents come and harrass some people when Neo isn't paying attention; then Neo shows up and kills all the agents and saves the day. But what kind of a story is that?)

When I ask people what they think Matrix II will be about, I tend to hear that they think it will be more about the "future" world that we kind of barely saw in The Matrix, the one where the world is destroyed and humans are enslaved by robots. People point out, for example, that we have yet to see "Zion", the last remaining human city. But this is exactly what I am afraid of.

What was interesting about the Matrix was the idea of the matrix -- it was /not/ the future society. Indeed, it seems to me that this future society was kind of silly -- robots fighting humans? People "scorched the sky" to get at the /robots/? Robots are using people to get /electricity/ -- but then what do they feed the people? It said "other people" in the matrix, but you'd run out of people pretty quickly that way. Why don't they just use fusion? Or rocket ships and solar collectors? Or geothermal energy, for that matter? And how can they "collect" energy from people when the people /consume/ that energy to stay alive? For that matter, why are people fighting robots in the first place? Why didn't the people just reprogram the robots (I mean, ahck the robots) -- wouldn't this be just as easy as ahcking the matrix?

I'm not asking these questions because I'm particularily curious -- I'm asking them to show that the future world portrayed in The Matrix doesn't make a lot of sense. That was okay in the movie The Matrix because the future world wasn't really important -- it just served as some justification for the matrix (little "m", again) to exist. But we weren't interested in the future world in this movie -- what we were interested in was the matrix. So if they make a movie about this inconsistent future, I am very afraid that it will not be very good. Furthermore, the "future" special effects weren't very descriptive -- I couldn't even figure out whether the "ship" they were on was supposed to be underground or underwater or what. Again, however, it didn't matter -- all that counted was that they had some sort of justification for the matrix to exist. But this future is not well enough realized to be the premise of a movie all by itself!

So as I see it, Matrix II either has to be about the future world and not about the matrix, in which case the movie will suck, or else they'll have to use some lame plot device to get Neo out of the picture so that agents can harrass other people in the matrix, in which case the movie will suck.

I'm not, of course, saying that I think that Matrix II will /necessarily/ suck -- but I do have fears about it. I know next to nothing about what the movie will /actually/ about. Maybe they'll surprise me. In fact, I can think of a few ways that the movie could actually be good (Neo is tricked into joining the "dark" side, and then everyone else has to fight /him/, etc). However, if I wanted to persuade myself that The Matrix II will suck, this is essentially the argument that I would use.

-SB