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Details are a little sparse now on what exactly it will look like, but a deal has been cut to produce a new Matrix movie.

Kind of mixed feelings about this. For one, I think the Matrix started off with one great movie, then rapidly descended into a bleh movie, and then culminated in an objectively bad movie.

Also, I feel like that loop is closed - those characters are done. Are they going to be flashbacks into an expanded story, or brought back somehow? That latter seems terrible.

On the other hand - I do love the Matrix universe! The Animatrix showed that is a world that bears further exploration. If the new movie is set during the events of the trilogy and the 2 actors are minor characters... I think that would work well.

Finally, not sure why only one Wachowski sister is working on this. What percentage of the world-building and talent belonged to the now-absent Lilly? I don't know. Does it matter? I don't think they have exactly covered themselves in glory recently either - I thought Jupiter Ascending and Sense8 were both pretty bad. Cloud Atlas wasn't much better but at least had some interesting ideas.

So, lots of questions, not many answers yet.

What do you guys think of a continuation of the Matrix series?

No need to see old folks zipping around in latex. Even if they are good actors I dare say the series was more relevant when it came out, now not so much. But as Ouze said, the animatrix was decent. Will need a lot more info before I decide if I want to see it in cinema

Pretty much the same as you. I figure that they might be going with a “ghosts in the machine” type idea to bring back Neo and Trinity and I really don’t know how that is going to work without feeling dumb (although the Matrix has always had a large portion of dumb, even the beloved first film).

It’s a trilogy that started strong and went bad FAST. To the point where I wished I didn’t see the last one because it tainted my memory of the franchise.

I liked Cloud Atlas, And Jupiter Ascending was very pretty, if full of bad acting and plot holes. I think there is a lot of potential, at least at the visuals level for a nice epic popcorn movie.

But I’ll not be paying theater prices to see it.

Kind of mixed feelings about this. For one, I think the Matrix started off with one great movie, then rapidly descended into a bleh movie, and then culminated in an objectively bad movie.

Yup exactly.

Similar to the news of Event Horizon, I have to reiterate: whats the point in this?

 Ratius wrote:

Kind of mixed feelings about this. For one, I think the Matrix started off with one great movie, then rapidly descended into a bleh movie, and then culminated in an objectively bad movie.

Yup exactly.

Similar to the news of Event Horizon, I have to reiterate: whats the point in this?

Easy way to try and cash in and get back in the game for the W's? Not sure about Moss and Reeves though? They are still pretty relevant and working.

It also didn't live up to the ending of the first, and what it teased.

As Morpheus said 'when you're ready, you won't need to dodge (bullets)'. Yet Neo never gets there.

Implication? Once you can consciously process it's all a simulation, it's rules can't affect you.

Neo taking flight to expose the lie. Then nothing comes of it.

I'm not terribly enthused for this I'm afraid. And normally I'm very easily enthused.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


As Morpheus said 'when you're ready, you won't need to dodge (bullets)'. Yet Neo never gets there.

Um... He gets there at the end of the first movie. He stops the bullets in mid air.

In response to the OT, I can't see this going well. I think the way forward, if they had to do another installment at all, would have been to use an entirely new cast in an entirely new iteration of the Matrix - either one before or after Neo's time, though after would be more difficult considering how the trilogy ends.

Got to love Hollywood's pursuit of rehashing junk.
Another 'hope it bombs' film, so we can clear out the garbage and maybe make new things for a change.

 Ouze wrote:
Details are a little sparse now on what exactly it will look like, but a deal has been cut to produce a new Matrix movie.

Kind of mixed feelings about this. For one, I think the Matrix started off with one great movie, then rapidly descended into a bleh movie, and then culminated in an objectively bad movie.

Also, I feel like that loop is closed - those characters are done. Are they going to be flashbacks into an expanded story, or brought back somehow? That latter seems terrible.

On the other hand - I do love the Matrix universe! The Animatrix showed that is a world that bears further exploration. If the new movie is set during the events of the trilogy and the 2 actors are minor characters... I think that would work well.

Finally, not sure why only one Wachowski sister is working on this. What percentage of the world-building and talent belonged to the now-absent Lilly? I don't know. Does it matter? I don't think they have exactly covered themselves in glory recently either - I thought Jupiter Ascending and Sense8 were both pretty bad. Cloud Atlas wasn't much better but at least had some interesting ideas.

So, lots of questions, not many answers yet.

What do you guys think of a continuation of the Matrix series?

You can bet that the recent meme popularity of Keanu has something to do with this. Hollywood has learned the power of memes and they're eager to cash in any chance they get.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
Got to love Hollywood's pursuit of rehashing junk.
Another 'hope it bombs' film, so we can clear out the garbage and maybe make new things for a change.

With the infinite power of storytelling, I really wish we'd see something akin to a D&D movie, that instead of being a light hearted "hurr durr nerd jokes" film would actually be a serious fantasy film, in the likes of the Lord of The Rings. The Elder Scrolls could easily transfer to the big screen with a unique fantasy story as well.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It also didn't live up to the ending of the first, and what it teased.

As Morpheus said 'when you're ready, you won't need to dodge (bullets)'. Yet Neo never gets there.

Are you sure?

Implication? Once you can consciously process it's all a simulation, it's rules can't affect you.

Neo taking flight to expose the lie. Then nothing comes of it.

Eh... He was near unstoppable within the rules that is the Matrix.

I'm not terribly enthused for this I'm afraid. And normally I'm very easily enthused.

I'm a big fan of how the story developed in Sense8...

I'm actually excited about this, as the only way NEO/Trinity would exists in the Matrix is some sort of Ghost in the Machine, or a shadow copy of themselves...ala Mr. Smith.

How does the story proceed the third movie? Is there meaningful Truce? Does the war startup again?

"Computer, end simulation." --Old, Tired William Riker.

aw hell no

they got lucky once, right time, right tech, right cast resulting in a decent flick with start, middle and end

then the money / coke / hype poison got the Wachowski and we ended up with two fup awful sequels and a couple of pretty but hollow movies that might have worked as streaming shows but far too compressed as films

as ever I blame the Mouse / MCU

I'll watch the trailer when it comes out but not excited. At all

Sure, Neo stops bullets in flight. Then seemingly forgets how to do it.

I want to be excited but I can't help think that this is just a cash grab due to Keanu's big uptick in recent popularlity. The incredible first movie (followed by ever worsening ones in the trilogy) doesn't fill me with home. The only other Wachowski flick that I've watched in the years since was Jupiter Ascending and I only made it about 1/3 of the way through before turning off Netflix and never continuing it. Karie Ann Moss (sp?) was pretty great though in the first season of Jessica Jones though so there is that... I haven't seen any of the John WIck movies so can't comment about Keanu's recent efforts.

John Wick is a very generic revenge movie - its quite good fun in a very well used plot

Bad guys annoy unasuming guy who happens to be super assassin - he kills seemingly unending amounts of them.

the 2nd film is much more average - its like watching a first person shooter and will less characterisation.

The first John Wick is a pretty solid, stylistic revenge\action flick.

Most people like the other 2 just fine, although to be honest I found them a little underwhelming. The worldbuilding was more interesting than the latter 2 actual movies to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jinx!

 Ouze wrote:
The first John Wick is a pretty solid, stylistic revenge\action flick.

Most people like the other 2 just fine, although to be honest I found them a little underwhelming. The worldbuilding was more interesting than the latter 2 actual movies to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jinx!

The assassins hotels are quite good but then the entire population of New York (or wahtever city he was in) turns out to be a assassin .......ok........yeah...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sure, Neo stops bullets in flight. Then seemingly forgets how to do it.

Er... no, he doesn't. End of first film, and again in Reloaded when he's fighting the Merovingian's henchmen. It's only the third film you don't see him do it, probably because hardly any of that movie actually takes place in the Matrix.

I'm surprised at how excited I am at this possibility. The Animatrix and the comics had some fantastic ideas and while the latter two movies were disappointing at best, I think there's enough hindsight and distance now that a follow up could do something really interesting.

Plus, they aren't really bound to try to stick a landing for the story they started in the first movie - I feel like the Wachowskis buckled a little under the weight of trying to create some earth shattering mythological cycle. Now they can just tell a story using the cool possibilities they've already established as the premise.

Total excited about this, as the first Matrix left an impression on me when I saw it opening night.

I never left a theater asking my fellow theater-goers WTF did we just see and how awesome it was.

I'll also echo those that if Sense8 is of any indication of Wachowskis' growth, I'm cautiously optimistic what they have plans for #4.

The problem is they tied up the plot nicely at the end of 1, and then made two more movies that made little sense in light of the original.

They should have left it alone at 1, and they should STILL leave it alone at one.

Just why? The series started with a pretty stupid premise but enough awesome (for the time) action shots to make you forget about it, and then descended into pretentious pseudo-philosophical garbage and action shots that weren't nearly as cool after the 9999th repetition. Am I missing something that really justifies another movie, other than more milking of the fanboy cash cows?

It was pretty pretentious pseudo-philosophical garbage in the first one, too. And ground that had been heavily covered and re-plowed since Asimov, to boot (if you're looking only at the robot aspects. If you're looking at the philosophical aspects, its literally older than dirt, and didn't grasp them well at all).

But for the time, the effects were pretty good for the time, and it was a turning point for Keanu, from idiot side-kick to someone at least some of the audience would taken seriously as an Action Guy.

Other than that, its nothing special, really.

It was definitely a self contained story that didn't ever need more and still doesn't.

I mean what is there left to tell? The story wrapped up entirely on the final film. No questions left to be answered at all. I don't trust the original directors at all and am cautious

 Peregrine wrote:
Just why? The series started with a pretty stupid premise but enough awesome (for the time) action shots to make you forget about it, and then descended into pretentious pseudo-philosophical garbage and action shots that weren't nearly as cool after the 9999th repetition. Am I missing something that really justifies another movie, other than more milking of the fanboy cash cows?

I mean, there probably isn't some objective argument as to why another Matrix movie is necessary, but frankly I find that argument absolutely baffling. Literally everything we produce as a society except for food, shelter, clothing, and medicine(and the things necessary to support the production of those things on the required scale) is "unnecessary".

A film/show/game/whatever doesn't need to bring in a new audience, or make some grand new statement, or anything else of the kind. If a new film in a franchise gets made and the only people who care are the ones making it and however many fans end up watching it, why would that be a problem for you? I have my suspicions why, given the old siggy-diggy you have there, but I'm curious if there's some actual reason behind the sentiment that actually makes some sense.

I probably won't watch this unless I eventually run across it on a streaming service, but I'm not affronted that it exists. In fact, I'd argue we'd be a lot better off if the entertainment industry was more focused on making material aimed at the fans of the existing versions, rather than chasing perpetual growth or Culture War Points or snobby awards.

 Yodhrin wrote:
I mean, there probably isn't some objective argument as to why another Matrix movie is necessary, but frankly I find that argument absolutely baffling. Literally everything we produce as a society except for food, shelter, clothing, and medicine(and the things necessary to support the production of those things on the required scale) is "unnecessary".

You are massively over-thinking this and trying to turn it into some kind of weird philosophical argument that has nothing to do with my skepticism. It's a question of good storytelling, not allocation of society's resources. Sometimes you have a movie/tv show/etc that has unanswered questions for its story and/or characters (often deliberately so, to set up a sequel) and a sequel is good storytelling. For example, Star Wars after ANH: the rebels won a battle and ended the movie in a satisfying way but the Empire is still out there, the love triangle is still unresolved, Vader is explicitly given a "I'll be back" scene, etc. ESB and ROTJ answer these questions and bring the story and character arcs to their natural ends. Contrast this with Star Wars after ROTJ: every major plot and character element is wrapped up and there really isn't anything left to say. That's why the old EU quickly ran out of interesting things to do and descended into mediocrity (when it wasn't utter trash), and why the sequel movies are an aimless mess with no apparent reason for existing other than "Disney paid a ton of money for the IP and needs to make a profit".

As I understand it the Matrix movies were firmly in that second category: everything that needed to be said had been said, and nobody was really asking for another movie.

A film/show/game/whatever doesn't need to bring in a new audience, or make some grand new statement, or anything else of the kind. If a new film in a franchise gets made and the only people who care are the ones making it and however many fans end up watching it, why would that be a problem for you?

Because movies that have no reason to exist are often bad movies. You can get into philosophical arguments over why we should criticize bad movies instead of just letting their fans (few as they may be) enjoy them in peace, but in a world where movie critics exist it's entirely fair to wonder why they seem to be setting up to produce a bad movie.

I have my suspicions why, given the old siggy-diggy you have there, but I'm curious if there's some actual reason behind the sentiment that actually makes some sense.

Err, what? I have no idea what criticism of "leave politics at the door" attitudes has to do with a potential Matrix sequel. If there's any real-world political connection with the potential sequel or a movie from literally 20 years ago then I honestly have no idea what it is.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
I mean, there probably isn't some objective argument as to why another Matrix movie is necessary, but frankly I find that argument absolutely baffling. Literally everything we produce as a society except for food, shelter, clothing, and medicine(and the things necessary to support the production of those things on the required scale) is "unnecessary".

You are massively over-thinking this and trying to turn it into some kind of weird philosophical argument that has nothing to do with my skepticism. It's a question of good storytelling, not allocation of society's resources. Sometimes you have a movie/tv show/etc that has unanswered questions for its story and/or characters (often deliberately so, to set up a sequel) and a sequel is good storytelling. For example, Star Wars after ANH: the rebels won a battle and ended the movie in a satisfying way but the Empire is still out there, the love triangle is still unresolved, Vader is explicitly given a "I'll be back" scene, etc. ESB and ROTJ answer these questions and bring the story and character arcs to their natural ends. Contrast this with Star Wars after ROTJ: every major plot and character element is wrapped up and there really isn't anything left to say. That's why the old EU quickly ran out of interesting things to do and descended into mediocrity (when it wasn't utter trash), and why the sequel movies are an aimless mess with no apparent reason for existing other than "Disney paid a ton of money for the IP and needs to make a profit".

As I understand it the Matrix movies were firmly in that second category: everything that needed to be said had been said, and nobody was really asking for another movie.

It's not a "weird philosophical argument", it's an attempt to gently steer you towards the conclusion that your argument is nonsense by applying it in a broader fashion.

As to the EU and the like, putting aside that your opinion of it is just that, evidently there were plenty of people out there who were enjoying it given it sold enough to keep trucking along and kept the brand popular enough for Disney to want to buy it at all, so again, I ask what the problem is?

A film/show/game/whatever doesn't need to bring in a new audience, or make some grand new statement, or anything else of the kind. If a new film in a franchise gets made and the only people who care are the ones making it and however many fans end up watching it, why would that be a problem for you?

Because movies that have no reason to exist are often bad movies. You can get into philosophical arguments over why we should criticize bad movies instead of just letting their fans (few as they may be) enjoy them in peace, but in a world where movie critics exist it's entirely fair to wonder why they seem to be setting up to produce a bad movie.

But - once again putting aside that your opinion of what constitutes a bad movie is exactly that - you're not criticising a bad movie, or advocating that bad movies should be criticised even if there's a fanbase who enjoyed them. You're questioning whether a movie that might be bad should even be made at all despite the people making it clearly believing there will be an audience out there for it. If they make Matrix 4 and it turns out to be trash, by all means criticise away, but the mere possibility that it may be trash combined with your own personal disinterest is not actually an argument against it being made in the first place.

To refer back to your point regarding Star Wars - I despise TLJ, I found TFA tepid and unsatisfying, I like Rogue One quite a lot, and Solo has grown on me from something I enjoyed well enough to perhaps my favourite of the Disneywars films. All four of them were "unnecessary" by your standards, but despite not caring for two of them I still wouldn't argue they should never have even tried making them.

I have my suspicions why, given the old siggy-diggy you have there, but I'm curious if there's some actual reason behind the sentiment that actually makes some sense.

Err, what? I have no idea what criticism of "leave politics at the door" attitudes has to do with a potential Matrix sequel. If there's any real-world political connection with the potential sequel or a movie from literally 20 years ago then I honestly have no idea what it is.

Oh, it doesn't have anything to do with a Matrix sequel per se, just the argument I expected you to make in response to my question - I've noticed a correlation between the type of people who'll criticise others for wanting one single thing in their life they can just enjoy as sheer escapism, to take a break from our utter hell reality once in a while without having to endure an amateur sociology lecture or the po-faced judgement of those who're incapable of laying down their Culture Warrior arms for even a single moment, and the type of people who seem to really dislike things existing if they personally don't find them appealing and for no other real reason.

 Peregrine wrote:
Just why? The series started with a pretty stupid premise but enough awesome (for the time) action shots to make you forget about it, and then descended into pretentious pseudo-philosophical garbage and action shots that weren't nearly as cool after the 9999th repetition. Am I missing something that really justifies another movie, other than more milking of the fanboy cash cows?

Broadly agree with this, though if they said that the earlier sequels were non-canon and had a new idea on where to go after the first one, I'd have a little more interest.

But this falls into the 'let sleeping franchises lie' mindset I seem to have adopted over the last 20 years, because I can't offhand think of anything that's been improved by going back to the well.