That wold be the one point that I keep refering to. That is the one thing that was left very vague. However, all things concidered, it's easily overlooked.
Neo probably realises that the only way he could defeat all the thousands of agent smiths was to sacrifice himself. Ive liked agent smith since the first movie, but in revolutions he goes absolutely INSANE. His acting was brilliant. My favourite line in the movie - ''what do you think i am - human?'' Matrix rev. gets 5 thumbs up from me. Brilliant movie. btw - the return of the king trailer before the movie, looked seriously amazing.
Haven't seen Revolutions yet. Oh no! more smith vs neo fight scenes? Haven't we had enough of that? I was hoping smith and/or neo would evolve, disolve or switch sides. oh well, I'm going to watch it anyway and hopefully the action will be great. You guys are scaring me with the "open ending" discussion. That is one of the most annoying things for me. After investing 2 or 3 hrs, we're not rewarded with closure. I'm not expecting anything "revolutionary". Matrix 1 was revolutionary.
Can we agree that we should celebrate the fact that the filmmakers are trying to create a world and that films do have great ideas and great action. After all, some Hollywood films just insult your intelligence. Just enjoy the ride folks, stop worrying about desired effects on your soul. :m:
*Warning spoilers below* ------------------------------------ Amen to that. 2 was a tad disappointing...but this one was a big letdown for me. Nothing revolutionary about it. Actually, it seemed to take the most watered-down cliched approach possible. The christ-like metaphors and appeals to the human condition were, in retropect, to be expected I guess. The first movie was full of twist and turns, full of revelations. Who didn't fill a chill when you first saw the fields? It came out of nowhere. Nothing like that in this 3rd installment. I truly expected a higher explanation to the matrix. Anyone could have written the script to the third one. Oh well it wasn't all bad. Action sequences didn't live up to 1st two overall...but the final fight was good in parts. The zion battle was excellent minus the rambo-like lines from the humans. The most enjoyable aspect was agent smith by a longshot. More scene and time spent on him would have helped. I truly hoped for an ending where smith took over. That would have been cool.
I a'polar'gize... Reloaded was tedious in far too many sequences for me to give it a hearty thumbs-up. I do give it a thumbs-up, though. The martial arts scenes were great and transferred well over to DVD; during the Burly Brawl you can see Neo's CGI foot stepping onto the side of Smith's facequite humorous! The scene with the Architect took some discussions to muddle through. Was I afraid they'd opt for a Matrix-within-a-Matrix (e.g. 13th floor) ending? You betcha. Did they? You betcthey didn't. <pirate voice>Arr, there be spoilers ahead!</pirate voice> <font color="grey"> Yes, there was much symbology with Christianity, Buddhism, and Transcendental Meditation. The directors've always acknowledged that. When Agent Smith called the Oracle 'Mom' I immediately thought of two references: Oedipus & Lucifer. In Reloaded the Architect admitted to being the father of the Matrix and alluded to their being a Mother. The Oracle seems to fit this category (even though the Architect said "Please" to Neo when Neo asked this question to him. I think the Architect was saying more like, "Uh, that's a given.") So, if Smith was her son, then it could be that Neo was also her son. Cain & Abel. Cain's offering to his parents was not what they wanted (spreading himself throughout the entire Matrix and beyond). Abel's offering (Jesus-like ultimate sacrifice) was to intervene for the masses. His proposal was accepted. Also, Neo was intervening not only on behalf of Zion, but two other interdependent races. The sentient programs within the Matrix and the Machines without. If he had freed everyone from the Matrix then it would have killed all the programs within. Also, the Machines were still dependent on humans for energy. So it satisfies them as well. 99% of people will not wake up from the Matrix. Granted, if you had Neo fly around and alert everyone to how he was superhuman, you'd get a lot of converts. But is that really the right way to go about things? Wouldn't it better if they questioned on their own and came to their own conclusions? Apparently Neo thought it was. By leaving those (like Cypher) still encased in the Matrix, he wasn't forcing anyone's hand. Yes, that meant that there would still be humans who were nothing but batteries for the great Machine, but it would also mean that at least they all had the choice. Which was the deal struck with the head machine guy at the end. In that part where Neo makes his offer to destroy the Smiths in the Matrix, there was more Christian-specific symbology. When Neo was invigorated by the machine, there was an undeniable cross-shape emblazoned on his chest. Also, after he died, the machine said, "It is done." Which is what Christ was supposed to have said on the cross before he gave up the ghost. It's my belief that the Oracle was playing on Neo's desires for her own benefit. (Duh, of course.) But get thisin Reloaded, the Architect said that Neo's love was for Trinity instead of Zion. The Oracle knew that Trinity had a great affinity for all of Zion, so she would be a great pawn to get Neo to make the ultimate sacrifice. The Oracle's ulterior motives weren't all that sinister though; she wanted Zion to live as well as the Matrix to continue. So she needed an interlocutor between the Matrix and the Machines. Neo fit the bill. And, finally, by her saying to Sati that they'd see Neo again someday, it doesn't lend itself (necessarily) to another sequel, but to her beliefs. Seraph asked if she knew all along; she didn't, but she believed. Since she also believes that they will see Neo someday, it stands to reason that, in her mind, she knows it will come to pass. Because, hey, she is the Oracle. And when the Architect is asked whether he will honor his word about freeing all those 'that want to be freed' he replies, "Of course. Do you think I am human?" This is not him giving a vague answer so he can have a way out and just kill Zion tomorrow morning. This is him, as a machine, governed by 1's & 0's, saying that when he makes a decision he sees it through to the end. Which is not the case with humans, naturally. </font> So, yes, I did enjoy this movie quite a bit. Perhaps I've read far too much into it than should be. But I'm under the impression that's what the directors wanted anyway.
I've just watched the film last night and I wish it was a better film: 1. It still hadn't explained how Neo could use his power in the real world over the sentinels. 2. The way the war was brought to an end was, to me, a big let down. After all the blood that's been spilled, Neo walks up to the supreme machine and offer a deal - peace in exchange for Neo fighting the out-of-control Agent Smith. Is that all the humans want - peace? I thought a large part of their struggle was to free the humans still cluelessly hooked onto the Matrix. Are they going to settle just for peace and forget about the rest of their fellow humans? 3. From the machines' cold and calculative point of view, there's no reason not to screw the humans after Neo delivered his end of the bargain and destroy Agent Smith. The machines have nothing to lose by completely destroying Zion. Heck, it's not as if the machines has a guilty concsience. The machines however, have everything to risk by trusting the humans to honor the peace deal and co-exist peacefully. Haven't they learned their lessons in the Animatrix? It was the human that first drove the machines underground from which they struck back. 4. Also, no one in Zion knows that Neo struck a peace deal with the machines. And from the looks of it, Neo was dead at the end of the movie. So how do the people in Zion know they have a peace deal to honor? After they have re-built Zion, they are just going to go into the Matrix and free more humans and start the struggle all over again. So the machines should have really screwed Neo and went after everyone after Neo's gone. 5. Just what happened in the final showdown between Neo and Agent Smith? Agent Smith struck Neo, converts him into another Agent Smith only to disentegrate from the inside along with other copies of Agent smith as well as the original Smith. After the dust settles, we see Oracle's body on the ground. So who destroyed Agent Smith - Neo or Oracle? And how? 6. I don't quite get the whole thing with the Indian girl Sati. She's an off-spring of a couple of programs who went to see the Frenchman to get her out of the Matrix so that she won't get deleted. This much is explained early on in the film where Neo meets her in the subway station between the Matrix world and the real world. Subsequently, she boards the train and the next time we see her, she is back in the Matrix at Oracle's home. I though she was supposed to get OUT of the Matrix. 7. In the final scene, the Architect tells the Oracle that those (humans) who wants to leave the Matrix will be released. This, in the long run is in conflict with the Machines's survival. How are they going to survive if they start losing their battery supply? I find it odd and illogical that the machines would be willing to do this. There was no reason to do this after Agent Smith and Neo was gone. I missed about 2 min of the film when I rushed off to the loo (I think it was during the final Zion council meeting when the humans thought all hope was lost after the Sentinels start breaching the city). Did I miss anything important in those 2 min that could have answered my questions? SoLiDus - I like your ending very much. I would have gone for an ending like that. In fact, after watching Matrix Reloaded, I was hoping that Zion was in fact a second Matrix and see how the film-makers follow that up. Too bad the third film reveals that pretty much of what the Architect said in the second film was gibberish...(sigh) Having seen both sequels, I think the intergrity of the whole Matrix idea would have been better served if the film-makers stopped at the first film. I wonder if the two sequels were really after-thoughts.
The closing theme song is actually a Sanskrit closing prayer or chant if you will as follows asato ma sad gamaya tamaso ma jyotir gamaya mrtyor mamrtam gamaya Translation: From delusion lead me to truth From darkness lead me to light From death lead me to immortality. I could not hear the rest... The Indian family touch was nice. After all, probably over half of the software programmers in the world are Indians....
The movie sucked, guys. The action was cool, but it just sucked. The only good scene was the beginning, in the train station--the little girl was cool, and her parents were nice and interesting. They're the only goddamn people in the movie I actually cared about, and I have no idea what happened to them. As for everything else, it was just bland bland bland bland bland. The people were fake, they were so, so fake, during the battle the guy either said "what the hell is going on?" or "goddamnit!" during virtually every scene he was in. I just wanted to stand there and say "I don't know what's going on, sir, they're fucking machines." Beyond that, it didn't really resolve the franchise at all for me. It just didn't end. Goddamnit. It's so fucking lame, the action was cool but I didn't care about who won because the human characters could have been blocks of cardboard with mean faces painted on them and it wouldn't have made any difference. Hell, I wanted the machines to win, they looked just awesome, way cooler than the lame, struggling humans whose vocabulary didn't seem to extend beyond "what the hell is happening?" or "goddamnit!"
I liked the movie. It didn't disappoint me, but I wasn't completely blown away either. I enter a movie hoping to be entertained. If it happens to be spectactular, so much the better. However, I think we have to make our own decisions regarding how phenomenal a movie is. Don't let hype and public opinion sway you then be surprised when it wasn't everything you thought it should be. *SPOILER BELOW* Moderator Warning: Please mark your spoilers. I completely agree with pragmathen. I thought his post summed up the movie brilliantly. stopwatch, here's what I saw (just my opinions): Not everyone will be released. Just the ones that want to be, like the Oracle and the Architect discussed. The majority of the people will remain plugged in because they don't want to accept the real reality. They want the steak like Cypher in the orginal. The machines will risk nothing by trusting humans. They can still wipe out the humans at anytime, which they would have done without the intervention of Neo. This just shows that machines are willing to forgive and give humans a second chance and life and coexistence, which the humans didn't give the machines in the Animatrix. When they make a promise, they keep it. I think the whole Sati situation shows that loves is not indicative to the human race. Machines can love as well (within the context of the movie) which shows that we are more alike than we care to believe. Love is the most powerful thing, stronger than death (having saved Trinity once), and since machines can have it we have no more right subjugating them than they do us. I do have one issue with the movie. The new Agent Smith is the direct result of Neo's intervention. So, he's just cleaning up his own mess and this save's Zion?
This may not be entirely corect, but makes sense with the architect's speach from two and some of the dialogue from three. From the A: (to neo)You are the remainder of an unbalanced equation. Someone in 3: Systems want ot balance themselves. Smith was neo's opposite and equal. It was the system's way of balancing that inequality. If either of the two had persisted, the matrix would die in one way or the other. The architect said as much. If we consider what he (A) said to the oracle at the end of 3, we can assume he wouldn't lie. The only way for the matrix to survive was the mutual destruction of both of them. *SPOILER BELOW* Moderator Warning: Please mark your spoilers. In the end, neo returned to the source as the architect said he must. The difference being how he did it. He held out and forced the machines into a deal. That deal being beneficial for both parties.
How Many Cliche one-liners can you get into a single 2 hour film................. Yes, oh yes, I have asked it and I wish the Wachowiski Brothers could tell me if they reached their goal, which was undoubtedly to make every other line something cliche, yet idiosyncratic. I am going to see the movie again so I can count the number of times someone said something that was supposed to be profound and epic, yet was merely a cliche line twisted from its use in an innumerable amount of other movies. Moreove their philosophical enlightenment saga turned into the "Bible on Acid" as the sequels were pumped out of every orifice the writers could handle. The script was poorly written, many times throwing in some pun or play on words that failed to be funny followed by someone saying "goddammit" which also failed to be humorus. The Plot, decent(used generously), yet wavared from its apparent original tone, is what was supposed to be the grand end to an originally great story. The characters, ingeniuously shoddy and unrealistic, if not utterly moronic. The only chracter I truly thought was worthy of paying 8.50 to see and hear is Agent Smith. But to add to that, he was in the 2+ hour movie for 25 minutes max. Ending.... *SPOILER BELOW* Moderator Warning: Please mark your spoilers. Well it ends like this... Neo/Jesus Christ "our" Savior is sacrificed by his father the source/God/a mechanized sea urchin to save man and machine from sin/agent smith. As neo dies a giant cross is made in his chest and around him, then for some reason what looked like(from a glance) a menorah pops out of nowhere in a pattern of light. Then he is carried off by the sea people/machines, outstreched as if just crucified. Nerdy kid with a high voice proceeds to run about zion screeching in a defeaning 10 year old boy's pitch "the war is over!" because everyone is too dumbfounded by the fact that the sentinels took all the time to get down there to simply stop attacking because Neo said "hey we lowly humans just want peace man(referring to the sea urchin), no need for you crazy machines to be so mean" consequently stopping a 100 year war. They were in such a bewildered state that they didnt even realize that in effect to the fact that the sentinels had stopped attacking it inevitably meant it was over.... even though something similar had happened less than 2 hours before(relative to them of course), and the senitels just came back and attacked again fourfold. Denouement... Little girl asks oracle where Jesus is and if they will ever see him again, seeing that he was carried away by the sea people in such a great haste. Oracle says "He'll come back one day" which could have also been said as "read Revelations in the bible and you will see he is coming back to take his children". Philosophy... Life is meaningless, emotion is a construct of the human mind, and faith and choice are all that matter, and most importantly a movie isnt good unless its as subtley cliche as possible. To be conitnued....
*SPOILER BELOW* Moderator Warning: Please mark your spoilers. With Sati, they were trying to get her out of the machine world mainframe and into the matrix. Its kinda like, you have something on your computer that you want but if your parents see it they will delete it, so you load it up onto the internet so that even if it is deleted on your computer you can still go back to it in cyberspace. thats how I see it anyway. i dont think that they could do a sequel unless they leave Neo out. He has no reason to live. He came back in the first movie because of the love between him and trinity. but trinity is now dead, so he has no reason to come back to life. Love is everything to him and without it he has no reason to come back. I thought the Oracle said that they would see "the One" again. Well the matrix was rebooted in the end, therefore I think its plausible that its a "new"matrix like the architect was talking about in the 2nd film. Therefore if thats true, then there is a different algorithm or equation, and therefore a different anomoly to that equation/algorithm so that there is a possibility for another "one". Thats how I see it. Good movie though....inspired me to actually buy the second one...so that I have it when the third comes out.
Who knows. Perhaps Neo was resurrected, and will come back on judgment day. *SPOILER BELOW* Moderator Warning: Please mark your spoilers. This is a load of gar. You must be insane to even come into this thread before watching the movie thinking that you will not see any spoilers. I don't watch any ads for movies I already know I am going to see. I didn't see a single preview for this movie. Nor do I see any preview for most movies I watch. Previews are spoilers. Any form of discussion related to the movie is a spoiler. If you are planning on watching this movie, I suggest you get out of this thread period. No. I guess you neglected to mention that the machines still use humans for batteries. The only way there will cease to be an enemy is when they truly live in peace, and no human is being used in such a manner. I liked the love scenes. Maybe you are reading too much into it. The Oracle is just the Oracle. Nothing more. My point exactly. My friend that I went with said that he didn’t like the movie at all. He’s really a big fan of the first one. I myself thought the first one had much more of a structure to it. He understood some of the Indian that they were chanting during the credits. It was something like everything being an illusion. Which Indian girl?! Not once in the movie was there a mention of anybody from India.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30293 Read it. Until then I will put spoiler edits in for you.
Sigh....maybe this is more politically correct: the programme that resembles a little girl of Indian origin. The one who was waiting at the train station together with her parents where they met Neo early on in the film. If I recall correctly, they even introduced themselves with Indian sounding names. But you're right, they never said they were from India.
