Matrix Reloaded
May. 24th, 2003 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyWell, I have to say that despite the negative reviews I've read of this one, I thought it rocked. A bit plot-and-exposition heavy at times, I wouldn't go and see this for the script, but then who would?
As an example of cinematic art, it is excellent - I'd say unsurpassed in some instances (the Neo/Agent Smith fight has to be one of the best - if not the best- fight scenes I've ever seen).
The pedantry of some of the reviews saddens me. Like Star Wars people expected the experience of the first and didn't get it; something is only new and groundbreaking once, so why expect it to be so the second time around? I went in expecting more of the same, but more impressive, more audacious, and more imaginative.
And that's just exactly what I got out of it. Bingo. Four and a half stars.
The over-riding feeling I have having seen this film is the degree to which the storyline has been influenced by Arthur C. Clarkes 'City and the Stars'. Neo is the sixth 'One'; Alvin is the sixth rebel. Both have to choose to leave their comfortable existence because of a feeling of something being 'wrong' that few others can express. Both start in a perfect, sealed system and are designed as rebels that will change things within that system, and both have to leave to an external, less perfect world, (Zion or Lys) to realise the destiny of humanity.
It is useful to bear in mind that City & the Stars was, to my knowledge, the first book to feature a concept of fully 'real' computer generated worlds that were indistinguishable from reality (he wrote this in 1956!) unless one decided to explore beyond the set parameters.
I think it's a homage, and I'll be interested to see if other concepts like the Mad Mind (possibly Agent Smith?) show up from Clarkes novel - and also if the ending is similar.
As an example of cinematic art, it is excellent - I'd say unsurpassed in some instances (the Neo/Agent Smith fight has to be one of the best - if not the best- fight scenes I've ever seen).
The pedantry of some of the reviews saddens me. Like Star Wars people expected the experience of the first and didn't get it; something is only new and groundbreaking once, so why expect it to be so the second time around? I went in expecting more of the same, but more impressive, more audacious, and more imaginative.
And that's just exactly what I got out of it. Bingo. Four and a half stars.
The over-riding feeling I have having seen this film is the degree to which the storyline has been influenced by Arthur C. Clarkes 'City and the Stars'. Neo is the sixth 'One'; Alvin is the sixth rebel. Both have to choose to leave their comfortable existence because of a feeling of something being 'wrong' that few others can express. Both start in a perfect, sealed system and are designed as rebels that will change things within that system, and both have to leave to an external, less perfect world, (Zion or Lys) to realise the destiny of humanity.
It is useful to bear in mind that City & the Stars was, to my knowledge, the first book to feature a concept of fully 'real' computer generated worlds that were indistinguishable from reality (he wrote this in 1956!) unless one decided to explore beyond the set parameters.
I think it's a homage, and I'll be interested to see if other concepts like the Mad Mind (possibly Agent Smith?) show up from Clarkes novel - and also if the ending is similar.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-25 01:51 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-05-25 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-25 03:36 am (UTC)That makes more sense if you know that 01 was the name for the first machine city, before they took over.
More "coincidences"...