Well, since I have been somewhat uncharacteristcally quiet recently, and since I’ve been thinking about it it a whole lot since last night, I figured I’d weigh in with some Matrix Reloaded infodump while I’m sitting at work and have nothing else better to do.
Overview of my opinion:
THE GOOD
* Fight choreo was UNBELIEVABLE.
* Casting was still spot on.
* Effects shots and artistic direction were top-notch (again).
* Didn’t over-use Bullet Time like I thought they would.
* Continues the storyline very well.
* Got to see Cowboy Curtis bust out with a katana.
* Pretty much sets the whole movie universe right on its head.
THE BAD
* Pretty much sets the whole movie universe right on its head.
* Too much of the movie took place outside of the Matrix.
* The opening of the movie was WAY too long.
* Some of the metaphysical crap was a real stretch for this kind of movie.
* The related metaphysical dialogue often left me saying to myself, “WTF?”
* Didn’t live up to the hype everyone’s been throwing at it for four years.
* The mosh pit at Zion was just plain dumb.
<lj-cut text=”Spoilers ahead - if you haven’t seen the movie - go see it!!! NOW!!!”>
Okay, I’m going to try and distill some of what I saw last night, just for fun. I’m going to start with the characters and try to figure things out as a go along. This will be a good exercise for me to remember just what I was watching so late last night.
Just FYI, as near as I could tell, Reloaded takes place about 6 months to one year after the events of The Matrix.
NEO (Ted Theodore Logan)
* Neo is obviously uncomfortable with his role as The One. Whenever people approach him about it, he does anything from flatly deny it to passing off his responsibility on other people. The “offering” scene was proof positive of this. He may be the One, but he doesn’t really know what that means.
* Neo can fly at will through the Matrix. At the end of the movie, he ends up flying fast enough that the bow shock of his passage picks up cars behind him and drags them along. Whoa.
* Neo can discern between people and programs when he looks at the encoding while he is in the Matrix. What degree of discernment he has is unclear.
* Neo can manipulate matter in the Matrix, though to what extent isn’t clear. He is able to push himself through at least SOME solid material (in this case, Trinity’s Matrix body), and interact only with what he chooses to.
* Neo has discovered that he has the power to infuse/change things in the Matrix with his own power (e.g. bringing Trinity back to life).
* Neo apparently has the power to affect the Machines in the real world (I’ll get back to this one in a second).
MORPHEUS (Cowboy Curtis)
* Morpheus is largely considered as at least slightly insane, and mostly as deluded by many of the humans in Zion, including Commander Lock. They think his belief in the One is silly and that he’s wasting his time trying to find a solution to the human problem INSIDE the Matrix.
* Morpheus is not used to his beliefs being challenged. The idea at the end of the movie that the prophecy of the One did not come true as he had thought seemed to really freak him out.
* Morpheus does not care if other people believe as he does, only that they follow and trust him in his decisions.
* Morpheus and Commander Lock don’t like each other at all, mostly due to Niobe.
* The loss of the Nebuchadnezzar may affect him more than he realizes.
* Morph has become even more cool since Neo has been teaching him and he has become more confident in what he believes. His belief started out unshakable at the beginning, but it beginning to crumble now that Neo has found the Source and the war has not ended.
TRINITY (Memento Chick)
* Trinity is willing to sacrifice herself for the cause of Neo and Morpheus (and indeed, she did).
* Trinity didn’t show as much development as I had hoped, mostly because she was there as a sounding board for Neo to evolve as the movie went on. I hope they deal with this more in the third movie.
SMITH (Elrond!)
* Neo’s little “fly into you and blow you up” thing changed Smith permanently. He is now MUCH tougher, able to replicate himself at will (into OTHER HUMAN BEINGS!), and his numbers are growing by the minute.
* Smith appears to no longer be a part of the Matrix system itself. He is, for all intensive purposes, a rogue program.
* Smith appears to be motivated largely by a need for vengeance against Neo.
* At least one copy of Smith has infiltrated a human body, taken control of it, and been shifted into the real world. This copy is attempting to kill Neo, and has already severely damaged the humans’ defenses against the oncoming Sentinel force.
THE MACHINES
* The machines have adapted to the humans’ battle tactics. Sentinels no longer approach hovercraft directly, they now create and launch a guided bomb at the ships. They have destroyed the Icarus and the Nebuchadnezzar in this manner. This is a new behavior for them.
* Sentinels can apparently be affected by Neo in the real world.
* There are 250,000 Sentinels approaching Zion via the underground. At the close of the movie, there are 24 hours remaining until they arrive.
* The machines do not apparently all agree on what should be done with the humans (more on this later).
* It is unclear what the distinction is between “programs” and “machines.” Regardless, programs in the Matrix are highly adaptable and may not need any kind of outside control.
THE HUMANS
* The humans at Zion are much more technologically advanced than I had anticipated. They have power armor, many hovercraft, and weapons of indeterminate numbers and strength.
* Zion is mostly vertical in orientation.
* Zion is governed by a ruling council of elders. They have final authority over every aspect of what happens in Zion and elsewhere. The military also has a command structure, although how they interact isn’t completely clear.
* The vast majority of humans believe that the war against the machines MUST be fought in the real world and not in the Matrix.
* The machines are systematically removing the humans’ opportunities for invading the Matrix by controlling positions at broadcast depth.
OTHER NOTES ON CHARACTERS
* Link is involved with Tank and Dozer’s sister, Zee.
* Niobe appears to still have feelings for Morpheus.
* The only humans outside Zion are now Niobe and Morpheus’s crews, in the Logos. The rest are either civilians, or are taking up defensive positions above Zion.
* Morpheus has not replaced Dozer, Cypher, Switch, Apoc, or Mouse in his crew.
* Note in the French restaurant scene, there is a man led away from French Dude just as Neo is arriving. There is a Matrix-like sound that accompanies his travel, and it’s unclear just what he’s doing there.
* The Twins died way too fast. They pulled a Jango Fett on us. However, they ARE in the IMDB cast listing for movie 3.
Okay, there’s some character dissemination. Now, on to the concepts and plot threads. First, the big one.
IS THE REAL WORLD ALSO PART OF A BIGGER MATRIX?
* The testimony of the Architect would seem to indicate that what is considered the “real world” is, in fact, another projection of the Matrix. That would mean that none of the humans have actually escaped.
* Neo’s control over the Sentinels in the “real world” appears to be an extension of his Matrix powers. This would also corroborate the “Matrix within a Matrix” theory.
* The claim is that this is the 6th iteration of the Matrix, and that the revolution at Zion is intended to give humans hope, something they desperately need. The existence of the One is considered to be an unknown program anomaly. (Most of this comes from the testimony of the Architect, who is the program/machine/human who supposedly built each Matrix iteration.)
* The machines claim to have destroyed Zion more than once.
* Smith constantly tells Neo about “his predecessor.” So did the French Dude.
* This would also explain why Smith is able to infiltrate human bodies in the “real world” - if they never leave the Matrix, it’s really just Smith operating as a program outside of his design parameters.
* There is a time discrepancy on the approach to Zion. It is stated near the end of the movie that they have nine hours, but the Architect tells Neo that they have 24 hours until the destruction of Zion. Maybe the figting will begin in nine hours, and it will just take that long to end it.
WHY THIS MAY NOT BE THE CASE:
* It’s too easy a solution to the whole storyline. I’ve grown to accept that the story will not always be so easy to figure out.
* It’s not clear who the Architect is. It is possible that we can trust nothing of what he has said.
* The secondary sources (The Second Renaissance, primarily) do not support this idea at all. It is the case, however, that the Animatrix shorts are being offered WITHIN the world of the Matrix, in which case the true effect would be that of the viewer being treated as though he was IN the Matrix, which is a weird but cool concept.
SO JUST WHAT DO THEY MEAN BY THE MATRIX “REVOLUTIONS?”
* Note that the title of the third movie is in the plural.
* Smith might actually be the greater threat to the Matrix over and above Neo. He is infiltrating other humans, other programs - everything he can. He might either want to destroy the Matrix, or he might even want to take it over himself. Unfortunately, it’s not clear how the machines are dealing with him. They are either unwilling, uncaring, unable, or unsure as to how to deal with Smith as a rogue program. This doesn’t fully jive, in that they knew EXACTLY how to deal with the Key Maker, who was also a “rogue program.”
* According to the testimony of the Oracle, and considering the behavior of the Key Maker and a few other programs (Persephone, the French Dude, the Seraph, others), it’s becoming at least somewhat clear that the machines are not all in agreement about the existence of the Matrix and the enslavement of mankind. At least some of the machines are actually, directly or indirectly, ASSISTING the humans in their fight against the system. One of those, the Oracle, is considered to be the “mother” of the Matrix, according to the Architect (I’ll write up a whole SECTION on his little chat). Of course, all of that is rendered moot if the “Matrix Squared” theory is true.
* One possible revolution is the human resistance at Zion.
* Another is Smith revolting against his machine overlords.
* Yet another may be the machines engaging in civil war (an internal revolution).
(more to come in an edit)