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space clam
Joined: 11 Oct 2003
Posts: 636
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 7:29 pm
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Who else is fully stoked for this movie?!! I'm actually writing this from the "lobby" of the movie theater. I can't wait to see how many more over-the-top action sequences are in this movie. So much of the Matrix trilogy seems to be rooted in anime, I want to hear some people's opinions. This movie is a prime example of how anime should be transferred to the "big screen," if/when some do.
[EDIT - Topic adjusted. I'll let it stay unlocked for now. -C]
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ShellBullet
Joined: 20 Mar 2003
Posts: 1051
Location: I hit things, with my fist.
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 7:48 pm
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I'm looking forward to it, but I won't run out and see it the first day. The Wachoski's have demonsrated that they can create just about whatever eyepopping action sequence they want; but the question remains - should they? Personally, I found some of the action sequences in Reloaded to be a bit too long. Like the scene where Neo fights off a gazillion agent Smiths; it would have been better if it were shorter. The bottom line is that no amount of CGI will make up for poor storytelling (ahem, Hulk). Nevertheless, I have no reason to complain because The Matrix delivers on both counts.
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Zenitram
Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 88
Location: Washington
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:00 pm
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uh, I hate the matrix. How exactly does it seem to be "rooted in anime" anyways?
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v1cious
Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6229
Location: Houston, TX
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:05 pm
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this movie's getting some horrific reviews. i might see it for the hell of it though.
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Kagato
Joined: 15 Dec 2002
Posts: 156
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:26 pm
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I hope it's not as bad as reloaded.Tell us what you thought of it when you watch it.
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animegmr01
Joined: 31 Jul 2003
Posts: 88
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:45 pm
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It was that little scene with Neo and Trinity and the whole boyriend Girlfriend thing between them that ruined reloaded.
There are too many movies with that going on these days
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Tenchi
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4548
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:58 pm
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Sadly, I found some of the Animatrix shorts, especially Beyond and Matriculated (no, I don't care much for Peter Chung's style, but it's the one which got me thinking the most), a fair bit more interesting than The Matrix Reloaded itself, which I waited to rent before seeing, and I've read all of the alleged spoilers for The Matrix Revolutions and... well... I'll definetely be seeing Elf this weekend and wait to rent Revolutions. The revelations fail to excite me. (Yes, I will check my favourite spoiler site just to make sure the spoilers I've read before are legit.)
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trigunner
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
Posts: 173
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:15 pm
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I'm seeing it tonight. Through fire and water and into hell itself.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:45 pm
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I liked Reloaded. I find most of the problems people have with it are very superficial ( "Too much CG", they didn't make this movie how I would have, why doesn't Neo do the things I think he should do, etc) and mostly pretty lame. People seem to just want to dislike it for some reason; I've had so many people say they didn't like it, and then when I ask why, they just say "eh, I dunno." and then tell all their friends not to see it because it was horrible, etc, but they have no clue why they thought it was bad.
I think people just turned their backs on the franchise for some reason. What really gets me is the people complaining that the effects were CG and that there were too many effects. People, they do special effects on the computer now. It looks a certain way, and we're all used to it, and yes, it sticks out like a sore thumb in most movies, but special effects have ALWAYS stuck out like a sore thumb in movies because, uh, what you're seeing isn't real and you know it. Watch Alien again. The Alien is clearly a guy in a suit. Does that make it a bad movie or the effects crappy? Uh, no. Just because you know the effects were done on a computer does not make them bad. You can see the strings, but you need to suspend disbelief for a moment to enjoy movies with big effects in them. Yeah, a lot of the effects in Reloaded were a little too obvious; it was very clear when Neo was Keanu and when Neo was a CG character. Eh. I dunno. Didn't bother me that much. Maybe it's because I don't expect it to be some kind of mind-blowing ultra-realistic experience that surpasses every other effects movie I've ever seen.
The movie was fun, entertaining, had good special effects in spite of some weak moments (outside of LOTR you won't find "realistic" effects in anything, at least nothing good enough to please perpetually malcontent fanboys). It was infinitely better than nearly everything else over the summer. I liked the Architect scene, I thought the movie flowed well, I liked most of the characters, and in all, I thought it wasn't as slow or pretentious as the first one. I have tickets for an AM show tomorrow. Ms. Answerman and I will be there with bells on.
And for the guy who said that the 'boyfriend girlfriend stuff' ruined the movie, you are clearly too young to watch it anyway. The film is rated R. Do your parents let you watch this stuff?
They have romance in movies. It's usually a required component for a successful film.
-Z
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Burner
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
Posts: 121
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 10:03 pm
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It's all going to end with neo waking up and seeing "Wake up neo" on his monitor.
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Nagisa
Moderator
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 6128
Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 11:28 pm
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Zac wrote: | I liked Reloaded. I find most of the problems people have with it are very superficial ( "Too much CG", they didn't make this movie how I would have, why doesn't Neo do the things I think he should do, etc) and mostly pretty lame. People seem to just want to dislike it for some reason; I've had so many people say they didn't like it, and then when I ask why, they just say "eh, I dunno." and then tell all their friends not to see it because it was horrible, etc, but they have no clue why they thought it was bad. |
I think there were three other reasons people didn't like Reloaded. Firstly, it wasn't AS impressive as the first film. When the original Matrix came out, the bullet-time and spectacular effects just wowed the hell out of people, and now (thanks to so many other films ripping it off, partially) most of those effects are just...there. People expected to be as incredibly impressed by Reloaded as with the first, which is stupid for obvious reasons, and they're just pissed that it didn't turn out that way. Secondly, this film was the second in the trilogy, the middle of the story. But unlike other trilogies like Star Wars, where each film has a definitive beginning, middle, & end, Reloaded just starts abruptly at the start and stops abruptly at the end, so people may have gotten the impression the film was "mindless action with no story." Thirdly, this was a much more cerebral part of the story, too. Most people (sadly) don't like to have their brain teased by movies, and Reloaded did that more than even the first film did (you could just SEE people's eyes glaze over at the Architect). So the thought that one has to put into this series probably put them off after the first.
Zac wrote: | I think people just turned their backs on the franchise for some reason. What really gets me is the people complaining that the effects were CG and that there were too many effects. People, they do special effects on the computer now. It looks a certain way, and we're all used to it, and yes, it sticks out like a sore thumb in most movies, but special effects have ALWAYS stuck out like a sore thumb in movies because, uh, what you're seeing isn't real and you know it. Watch Alien again. The Alien is clearly a guy in a suit. Does that make it a bad movie or the effects crappy? Uh, no. Just because you know the effects were done on a computer does not make them bad. You can see the strings, but you need to suspend disbelief for a moment to enjoy movies with big effects in them. Yeah, a lot of the effects in Reloaded were a little too obvious; it was very clear when Neo was Keanu and when Neo was a CG character. Eh. I dunno. Didn't bother me that much. Maybe it's because I don't expect it to be some kind of mind-blowing ultra-realistic experience that surpasses every other effects movie I've ever seen. |
I actually thought the artificiality of the CG in Reloaded to be somewhat clever. Most of the action is in THE MATRIX, right? The Matrix was revealed as a false world, and these Zion folk are bending that world to their will, right? When you break the rules of a world, you stand out, so the obviousness of the CG kinda makes a bit of sense.
As for CG in other movies, I agree with Zac wholeheartedly. Yeah, it stands out in most cases, but so did O'Brien's & Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures, and you don't hear people bitch about how fake King Kong (1933 version, not that dismal 1976 trash) is, right? Special effects have stood out since film first started, why jump on CG's case about it?
I'm with Zac on this one. I enjoyed Reloaded just as much as the first, and I'm very anxiously awaiting the third. I just know I'm going to love it, because I'm not a prick about special effects and I like to think.
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Syker 07
Joined: 22 Sep 2003
Posts: 149
Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 1:11 am
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Quote: | uh, I hate the matrix. How exactly does it seem to be "rooted in anime" anyways? |
Zenitram, I'm guessing you wrote that question in a more...rhetorical nature, but here's my take anyway. When I watched The Matrix, and also Reloaded, certain subtle things about some of the scenes, some of the angles, some of the shots tickled that part of my aesthetic sense that anime does. You can tell the Wachowski's are fans of anime, and while I don't think it's terribly obvious, I think the films exude a similar...I dunno...energy as anime, they are similar in spirit.
Anyway, I loved the first Matrix, I saw it having not even seen a preview for it, and I had no idea what I was going to see, and I was floored. Period. For Reloaded, I was more prepared, so there was no way that it could match the sheer awe-inspiring experience of the first movie. However, any movie that has me and my boy incessanty theorizing "what's really goin' on" for a good four hours after the credits have rolled, was well worth the watch. I think a lot of people hate on the Matrix because its popular. I can think of at least three people I know off the top of my head that hate anything that anyone but them know about, because its obviously some corrupted "mainstream" tripe. That's crap. The entire Matrix universe has had so much effort put into it, that it is simply unparalleled by any other story or continuity portrayed in movie form. It may be somewhat of a marketing ploy, but if you want the whole story, you need to play the game (Not as bad as some people would have you believe), see the Animatrix and read the webcomics. I think the directors really poured their souls into their baby, and I tend to really admire any form of expression that so obviously has a lot of soul behind it.
Lastly, I am trying not to entertain any unrealistic expectations for Revolutions and I don't think the last installment will dissapoint. I think the whole trilogy was a labor of love for the Wachowski's, and I also think that it shows.
Syker Seven
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GATSU
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15577
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 2:26 am
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Methinks Matrix bashing stems from Star Wars fans who are
frustrated that the last installment was a financial disappointment. And also because certain people think they can do a better job, just because they've been writing fanfiction since the first film.
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Nagisa
Moderator
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 6128
Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 2:33 am
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GATSU wrote: | Methinks Matrix bashing stems from Star Wars fans who are disappointed that the last installment was a financial disappointment. |
Actually, the Star Wars prequels have been very successful financially. They're just disappointments in terms of quality.
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GATSU
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15577
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 2:50 am
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Compared to the money the first trilogy made, the prequels are serious failures. I mean even I'll admit it was lame that a well-done cgi Yoda fight scene was upstaged at the box office by a poorly animated cgi Spiderman fight scene, but Toby McGuire and Kirsten Dunst were still a more believable on-screen couple than Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman.
Edit: But Keanu's acting takes the blame instead of Lucas's writing, because he's an easier target. And then people complain about Reloaded not making sense in an effort to avoid the fact that Phantom and Clones completely screw up the continuity of the first three films.
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