http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005 by the authors Sat, 8 Nov 2003 14:37:22 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/21/201821.php#comment-27775 The Matrix and Matrix reloaded were absolutely fantastic in every was possible. The Matrix revolutions?- not so much... I wanted to see a fab film, not a lord of the rings and terminator rival. Not top noch at all. the only way to remedy the faults of the 3rd matrix, is to make a better 4th one, rounding up all the unanswered questions. 27775@blogcritics.org Sat, 8 Nov 2003 14:37:22 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/21/201821.php#comment-10004 1. No argument there. I can understand in theory the idea that somebody might die if unplugged abruptly - though even that is a stretch, but the internal bleeding stuff is a little silly. 2. Have to disagree with you here, though. Within our world, déją vu is a wholly mental phenomenon. In fact, I recently read an article that said some researchers believe that it is caused when one ear hears something a fraction of a second before the other and the brain doesn't sort it out as the same sound, providing an instant of disorientation and a vague feeling that we've experienced the moment before. However, the general idea within the framework of the movie is that when Agents change things, they do so by essentially making a copy of things as they are, tweaking them however they wish, and then overwriting reality by putting that copy back into place. Things like a cat would be part of what they made a copy of, and would therefore be repeated when they overwrote the original. It's not exactly what we think of as déją vu, but one can easily see how it might be seen as such by the inhabitants of the matrix. 3. And yet, most multiplayer network games have exactly the same "poor" design you criticize, leading to cheating by devous clients. There are technical concerns, after all. However, even assuming a relatively well-designed system, the general idea so far (might be ruined by the 3rd movie) is that there is something special about Neo. He is able to somehow access the server routines where others can't. I'm a geek, so I don't like brushing this stuff off, but I can see how this might work. Let's postulate that there are reasons why the matrix is bendable, starting with the fact that this isn't a truly client/server system, and run with it. 4. People did freak out, as I remember. The lady who spotted the burly brawl dropped her groceries in shock, before she was... well, I won't spoil it. People on the freeway might have easily been oblivious to action happening behind them or above them, and many of the people I see on the freeway would have taken even rather strange behavior like a motorcycle driving the wrong way not as something supernatural or odd in a life-changing way, but just as a crazy idiot trying to kill herself. In fact, I remember noting that cars did react to Trinity weaving in and out by swerving away from her, and the scene with the crushed car did in fact stop pretty much all cars behind it, no? I'll watch it again with this in mind, but I think traffic did react pretty reasonably. Remember that most people would have missed the moment of the jump, and seen it as a normal, really bad, pileup. As a semi-unrelated point that also addresses your point #4 just a little bit, remember in the first movie's agent training program where Morpheus and Neo were walking along a crowded sidewalk? People walked around Morpheus, but bumped into Neo. Apparently Morpheus knew how to tweak their awareness just a little. In this movie, people walk around Morpheus, Neo and Trinity. He's learned the trick. That could also help to explain why three people in dark leather (or a cassock, in Neo's case) walking into a nice restaurant didn't raise too many eyebrows. 10004@blogcritics.org Sun, 25 May 2003 13:03:34 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/21/201821.php#comment-9999 Oh yes, I'm quite familiar with fiction. The thing is, even in a fictional world, there has to be both internal consistancy and interal logic. Without them, the story itself won't hold together. Sadly, there are too many places where "The Matrix" and "Reloaded" both tend to fall apart in those areas. 9999@blogcritics.org Sun, 25 May 2003 08:14:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/21/201821.php#comment-9996 ever heard of a little thing called fiction, it aint meant to be real you bunch of geeks 9996@blogcritics.org Sun, 25 May 2003 06:28:34 EDT