Comment by wishfish
7 days ago
To me, the sequels were worthwhile just for one solitary scene. In the third movie, Trinity is piloting the ship and has to gain higher than usual altitude for some reason that I've now forgotten. This takes her above the black clouds permanently enveloping the Earth. Sunlight pours into the cockpit. For the first and only time in her life, she sees the real sun with her own physical eyes. She's overwhelmed. It's just a brief golden moment before the black clouds swallow her again.
#3 was not a good movie. But that scene has stayed with me longer than many scenes in much better movies.
When I went to see Terminator 3 I was the only person in the theater, as a result of that I really got that end of the world and being stuck in a bunker atmosphere from the end of the movie.
Likewise, the highway chase in the first non-existent sequel is pretty epic.
I also like just the idea that Neo being The One and his powers don't quite matter.
Sure, he couldn't have done the things he did in the second movie, escape the Merovingian, steal the Keymaker, rescue everyone, etc, without his powers in the Matrix, but at the same time, they don't actually solve the problem of the War.
And it isn't just a power escalation cycle, like Lensmen or DBZ -- he doesn't level up in each movie to become Even More Powerful to defeat Even Greater Threats.
The moment when he picks them up off the mid-explosion truck gives me chills every time. The build-up is so good.
Except diesel doesn't explode like that. (I don't know what's wrong with me that I can't just enjoy movies.)
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Whether or not you enjoy the stories, the action scenes and visuals in the sequels were groundbreaking use of CGI in action films. Around the same time the LotR trilogy came out which did something similar.
I rewatched the first one the other day and for the most part the visuals and CGI have held up over time, barely any "oh man this is bad CGI lmao" moments. Which somehow got worse with later films, e.g. the Hobbit having a lot of "this is obviously cgi lmao what is this".
I think the main trick is that they set out to make the best and most impressive movie(s) they could with every tool available -- practical effects, old-school camera angle tricks to make the hobbits look small, hordes of extras and well-crafted props, as well as groundbreaking CGI.
Same with Jurassic Park, come to think about it -- there's famously more animatronic dinosaurs in that movie than CGI.
As opposed to relying on one shiny new tool to take care of everything. I think with The Hobbit they got over-enamoured with the notion that you can do anything with CGI.
More recently, Andor is a good example with its mix of CGI and massive sets; The Mandalorian is a bad example with its over-reliance on the "Volume" LED stage.
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> the action scenes and visuals in the sequels were groundbreaking use of CGI in action films
Well, the innovative scenes vary from the incredibly good highway chase to the boring and ridiculous fight between Neo and Agent Smith. Those movies were groundbreaking in "bad uses of CGI" too.
I didn’t think lotr used cgi
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Honestly my only positive from the films was the way that they flawlessly melded with the plot from the videogame.
Niobe/Ghost covering important plot on my ps2 that just fit around and into scenes from the film. For me that was a complete first.
Animatrix also had one of those iirc
A hint at subverting the Cyberpunk genre with Solarpunk. Too bad there hasn't been any genre defining Solarpunk movie yet.
>Too bad there hasn't been any genre defining Solarpunk movie yet
Twilight! did you see Edward's skin in the sun!? you do realize the fact that you omit this marks you as Team Jacob, so much for your opsec.
The most genre defining solarpunk media we have right now comes from pharma television commercials pitching antidepressants. Which I think is quite cyberpunk.
So not the yoghurt commercial then?
https://youtu.be/z-Ng5ZvrDm4?si=FfRDccxr6aOqumQ9
Which commercial are you thinking about?
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> genre defining Solarpunk movie yet
Brief moments at the start of Interstellar
They are flying over the cloudbs because thats only way to avoid defenses of the Machine City.
Matrix 4 introduced „good machines” but didn’t do much of anything with them :|
Matrix 4 did not do much of anything with, well, anything.
Maybe except for the meta-commentary in the first act where the lead character is hesitant to make a pointless sequel to a popular franchise, but is forced to by his corporate abusers.
I thought the first act was clever. In fact, I kind of wish the entire movie was just neo sitting in a therapist office trying to unpack what happened to him and you never know if he is just a crazy person or real. Then you get action sequences from flashbacks or whatever. After the first act matrix 4 stops being a movie and just becomes a collection of unrelated scenes.
The Wachowskis weren't forced to, they, as humans, have the power to say "nu-uh". But I suppose they were made an offer they couldn't refuse.
Or worse: WB owned the franchise and were going to make a sequel with or without them (or the actors). I'm sure the franchise will get a "hard" reboot at some point.
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I love how that scene looks but it doesn't work for me story-wise. They go up that high to get away from the machines but why wouldn't the machines build up to that level and put in giant solar collectors up there? Seems a lot easier. But it ruins the world they've built up to then so I understand why they didn't go farther with it.
The machines would easily destroy a city up there. A single ship though could escape
In the right hands (Christopher Nolan?) the Matrix would be an amazing reboot.
It's always sunny above the clouds.
Unless it's night.
Or an eclipse, but night and eclipses move on as expected.