That's what I'm saying, though. That wasn't a 2.5 hour story. It needed at least twice that to tell that particular story properly.

TCTTS said:

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That's what I'm saying, though. That wasn't a 2.5 hour story. It needed at least twice that to tell that particular story properly.

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And then Warner Brothers lose more than what they've already lost? Here's another question, will this even play well in China? I mean, to spend as much money as WB have on this film and release it when they did, you'd have to think Warner Brothers thought they'd make something back, but they may not even have the added buffer from the international market with China considering the entire movie's themes are predicated on freedom and free will.

TCTTS said:

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Honestly, I think they should have gone the opposite way and turned this into an HBO Max series. Because it's not a bad story. It was just badly executed.

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Thats actually an interesting way to approach it, I like the idea.

I think they could've done an entire season on Neo's escape from the Matrix and him coming to grips with what was and wasn't real, setting up a reuniting with Trinity that actually had some stakes.

cbr said:

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No one is hating here, other than hating a ****ty movie. Which normally isnt worth discussion, but they happened to waste a 20 year opportunity to sequel one of the greatest franchises in movie history. Get over yourselves.

And by the way, feeling that you should be immune from jokes or humor is a sure sign of mental illness.

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Yeah, Jewish people and black people and gay people have just no sense of humor.

Also, this started as a simple request to lose the jokes in poor taste. Then someone wanted to double down on why it was totally fine.

There's a glitch in The Matrix.

THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS plugged into just $12M in its weekend debut, $22M total.

Sure, let the HBO Max blame game begin, but there's no denying this series is a bit lost in its own mythology...and has been since the original.

— Elf Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) December 26, 2021

The Matrix franchise is turning into the Jaws franchise

Film #1 - all-time legendary classic.

Film #2 - most of the cool stuff was the same stuff in the first one

Film #3 - Tried a few different things, new locations, wasn't terrible.

Film #4 - what the **** were they thinking?

I mean I'm more surprised it took 3-4 pages for the transgender discussion to ramp up. Hard to avoid it given the Wachowskis' err…. "Transformation"

Never change Texags!

Best I can tell, after reading a few interviews and looking up past news, this is the basic order of events that led to this movie being made...

- At some point around 2016, Warner Bros. sets out to make a fourth Matrix movie with or without the Wachowskis, and essentially tells the Wachowskis as much (in other words, "You can be a part of this or not. We of course prefer to have the original masterminds at the helm, but if not, we're going to do what we want with your baby, since we're the ones who own the IP.)

- The Wachowskis tell WB no, do what you must.

- WB explores a couple different avenues; a Matrix prequel and a proper Matrix sequel, both of which are commissioned as scripts by a couple different writers (one of whom is Zak Penn). At one point Michael B. Jordan is heavily rumored to star in one of the projects.

- The Wachowski's parents pass away, not too far apart. In her grief, the plot for what eventually becomes The Matrix Resurrections comes to Lana Wachowski one night, basically in a fever dream.

- Lana asks her sister, Lily, if she wants to revisit the world of The Matrix as a way of honoring their parents/processing their grief (if she can't bring her parents back, she can at least bring back two other "people" she knows better than anyone else in her life - Neo and Trinity).

- Lily, however, tells Lana that she doesn't want to process *her* grief by looking back, she wants to move forward.

- So, Lana sets out to make The Matrix Resurrections on her own (with the help of two writers she worked with in the past). WB drops all current, Wachowski-less plans for the franchise and gives full control to Lana's creative vision.

- Part of Lana's creative vision, however, involves not only processing the grief from her parents' death, but also giving a middle finger to WB for putting her in this position to begin with. Hence the line Jonathan Groff has - as basically a stand-in for the WB suits - that WB is going to make a fourth Matrix game with or without the involvement of the original creator, Thomas Anderson (aka Lana Wachowski). The film ultimately becomes a critique of nostalgia, franchise filmmaking, and the studio system (while also honoring the characters of Neo and Trinity, two ideas that seem completely at odds with each other).

Honestly, this whole thing sounds like a mess from the jump, and the wrong way to approach making a franchise movie, on multiple fronts, from way the studio handled it to Lana Wachowski's misguided intent.

These two tweets basically sum it all up for me...

Unfortunately it signals the unhappiness of it’s creation when in the conversation in the initial brainstorming session the boss says Warner’s owns the rights and is going to make a sequel whether the makers want it or not. What a weird line to be in the movie,a deliberate slap https://t.co/RMi9WRm3r9

— cassian elwes (@cassianelwes) December 26, 2021

I groaned when it was said. Yes, I know Lana, you didn't want to make this movie. It's all over the screen that you didn't want to make it. My bigger question is for WB, why they'd even want to spend $100M+ to make something that doesn't want to be made.

— Craig Barron (@imamacguffin) December 26, 2021

I really think the first act, even with the very obvious FU to the studio, for the most part worked pretty well (or at worst had the makings of something that could work really well).

You got in your dig and have set this really interesting stage where Neo both knows and doesn't know that the Matrix is real. The second act Neo could meet Bugs and a series of other events start to make him doubt more (conversation with Trinity/Tiff, other glitches in the Matrix, deja vu feelings that lead to more discussion with his analyst) and Morpheus/Bugs and crew pull Neo into the real world, then the third act he meets Niobe in Io, has some sort of confrontation with Smith/the analyst or needs to do something to save Io that sets up a reason they have to go get Trinity (hello Matrix 5).

Edit: looked it up and apparently the city is "io"

Anything to have more time to tell the story that was told. And if we have to stick to movies (as opposed to an HBO Max series), that would have been a cool way to do it. Same, basic story we saw, but across two movies instead of one, with a lot more context/explanation/dot connecting/coherence.

TCTTS said:

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In complete agreement with you on this, and that's a great way to put it; a middle finger to the studio also meant a middle finger to the fans.

That said, I *still* think this basic story could have worked, if Lana didn't just yada yada over so much of the plotting and action. Like, get your dig in on the studio with that line by Jonathan Groff, but then give us a REAL movie you actually care about, make the effort to provide the proper context, explain the stakes, give us some legit, well-choreographed action, etc.

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If only Chad's role was played by Lana and Chad instead directed this film. John Wick meets the Matrix would have been outstanding. Instead, we are left with selfish decisions conjured by infinite sadness and spite. I feel bad for the other Wachowski. This poison pill may have done in both of their careers.

And to your point about this movie being stretched into more, I seriously wonder if WB would pony up the money for em, but hey, they spent 175 million on this without batting an eye. Sheesh.

My giant post disappeared before I could hit "post".

Overall:
My emotional arc was intrigued>confused>bored. The movie felt like it was about five kinds of movies crammed into one, with one main plot told from the wrong point of view and several subplots that were done really poorly.

On the kinds of movies:
We opened with an interesting sci-fi thriller prologue, which is what I expected.

The first act crossed the line from meta commentary to hamfisted parody, which kicked me out of the movie.

The heist movie was to heist-y, and also I don't understand why all the complicated bead-man stuff when Bugsy just flew in and met him there.

Maybe the zombie movie and dystopian nightmare count as part of sci-fi thriller? In any case, I don't have a problem with meshing styles, it's very common in sci-fi. It's really the parody portion where they cheapened the whole thing and turned on my "now I'm going to find everything wrong with this" switch.

Subplots:
Smith plays a major part, but we complete the movie without understanding his backstory, motivation, arc, or whether he succeeded at whatever it is he was trying to do. This was probably my biggest issue with the movie. Maybe he's the Ex Machina of the game studio and it's all a big joke, but that's still a bad move if you want a coherent story.

The Merovingian scene was interesting, but served as a microcosm of a lot of the flaws of this movie: cool premise; too heavy handed and became parody; boring fight scene unconnected to character or plot drags on; realization that we don't know how these people knew where to be; Smith shows up doing badass things for inscrutable reasons.

It's not clear why Barney Stinson was able to get so much power out of Trinity and Neo; in the first movie the battery concept is pretty normal biology, but now apparently there's a psychic component to it? Also, I know NPH is a good actor so this isn't fair, but he's Barney Stinson.

The state of affairs between humans and machines is clearly explained in the first half, but the second half takes place under different assumptions, maybe?

A plot line for the bird robot is clearly set up, but I guess all the scenes got cut.

Niobe was set up as the stodgy out-of-touch non-visionary, so it was odd when all the captains volunteered sight unseen for the mission and it was a teary-eyed moment for everyone as they all acknowledged their deep admiration for this general. Also, what ever happened to those three ships? Did I forget? I know it's a callback to the original trilogy but I don't remember what they did with the ships. Was it just to get more people to the showdown with the analyst? If so, why not ten ships or all the ships?

Tibbers said:

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TCTTS said:

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People used to refer to being gay as a mental illness too. Yet we've moved far, far past that. This really is no different. And even if it were purely due to mental illness, it's incredibly insensitive to mock people suffering from something like that.

Grow the hell up.

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A sex change is different than being gay, but ok. Live your life however you'd like, makes no matter to me. Lighten up however. Life is too short to take it so seriously.

Comedy is surprises. So if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.

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Apparently it does matter to you since you had to bring it up.

TCTTS said:

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There's a glitch in The Matrix.

THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS plugged into just $12M in its weekend debut, $22M total.

Sure, let the HBO Max blame game begin, but there's no denying this series is a bit lost in its own mythology...and has been since the original.

— Elf Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) December 26, 2021

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Those are absolutely brutal numbers. Damn.

I mean after the first Matrix, they haven't really made anything that has been good.

MBAR said:

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TCTTS said:

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There's a glitch in The Matrix.

THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS plugged into just $12M in its weekend debut, $22M total.

Sure, let the HBO Max blame game begin, but there's no denying this series is a bit lost in its own mythology...and has been since the original.

— Elf Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) December 26, 2021

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Those are absolutely brutal numbers. Damn.

I mean after the first Matrix, they haven't really made anything that has been good.

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I liked V for Vendetta but I also liked speed racer so maybe I don't get an opinion on it.

Oh did they do V for Vendetta? I guess I forgot that. That film was pretty good.

They wrote and produced it. Didn't direct, though there's a lot of talk that they helped out quite a bit in that regard. Maybe kind of shadow directed in a way.

I thought the whole movie was cheesy as hell and tried to be fancy but fell flat.

The final eye roll for me though was when I heard the RATM cover start, that's when I said **** these people.

I didn't know what to think of this other than it was a mess. I had to sit on it a while. The sad thing is it could have been so much better and really redeemed the trilogy. After reading the articles afterwards, Warner has a right to be pissed at Lana and themselves for letting this happen this way.
1) taking shots at Warner in the movie. Seriously. That's the act of a 11 year old, and the fans don't care. Leave that out. If you don't want to do the movie, don't do it.

2) not rehearsing. Really. You have some of the most amazing fight scenes in cinematic history, and for this go around you just say screw it, let's just wing it. It showed.

3) after filing for a few months and COVID strikes and you have to be talked out of quitting and just abandoning the movie mid way through. No passion. It's you have already thought about quitting, you have.

This just all sounds like someone who didn't want to do the movie, but didn't want anyone touching their stuff. I hope Warner gets rid of her and goes with someone else for a 5th. The Matrix was such a great film, I still want to see this redeemed.

When Neo and Trinity were falling, and suddenly Trinity could fly, all I could think of was Scott Pilgrim VS the World :

Cool announcer voice...
Trinity has earned the power of love!

Just sooooo lazy.

Split it into two movies, or a series, and breaking-Neo-out could have been its own cool sequence. Instead, it took less time for him to escape than it did for them to escort him to his cell.

Forced myself to watch as I knew it would be bad but I am just too big of a fan of the first 2 to give up without a fight.

Tried to get into it. Was confused after but it all made sense after reading this thread and seeing some interviews Lana gave. This was her personal "therapy" project and a FU to the studios. The line Bugs says in the movie is exactly what happened. "They took your story, something that meant so much to people like me, and turned it into something trivial."

I was really saddened how cheap they made the Merovingian cameo.

The saddest feeling is just from all the potential for great stories that exist in that universe. I'm sure it's way easier to say than do. Terminator certainly tried to get every last drop out of that sponge.

Gonna try to keep this one out of the memory box and just live with the original trilogy and try to remember some of the great stories and ideas that the video games, Animatrix and Matrix Online contributed to the overall story.