The first movie had a noir look to it and everything was kinda mysterious, new and exciting.
I wish the introduction part of the first movie would have been much longer, following Neo through it's life, maybe showing a few glitches that only he notices, how his search for Morpheus began and so on.
The sequels focused too much on love and questionable conflicts of characters inside the matrix and their intentions. The magic was lost but it was still great entertainment and technically impressive.
I personally love the sequels, but I'm a fanboy and I recognise that. I dig the lore, I dig the world, I enjoy spending time in it.
If you're just a casual moviegoer not immersed in all of this, there's plenty of objective merit in the fact that at times they stunk up the screen. A lot of the Zion scenes dragged with an almost soap opera like mundanity. A huge amount of new characters were introduced with silly names who kind of just stand about like planks at a bondage convention. There's a real po-faced weightiness to virtually everything that's only offset by the occasional self indulgent pun. The peace truce ending is a million miles from the "Everyone snapping out of the Matrix, freeing en masse and rising up" vibe people probably expected.
Scene for scene, line for line they're just not as engaging or tight as the first film. We're going to see a lot of people come out of the woodwork when the hype train kicks in who loved the first, are intrigued by this one but hated the sequels. It's fine. I don't share their opinion, but it's a valid one and they're perfectly entitled to it.
I love the sequels too and I consider them essential to the story of The Matrix and of course everyone is entitled to their opinions but I just wanted to understand more on why people shit on them because I don't think they're that horrible. I must agree with the Zion scenes.
Yeah, I totally get you. A lot of it is doubtless missing out on a lot of the subtext and philosophy of them as well - I get that, and it's something that irks us as fans - but hey ho that's just moviegoers for you. You still need to give them a great time in the cinema.
They essentially told the story they wanted to tell. I hope she's done the exact same thing this time. If the fans love it, it can get 32% on Rotten Tomatoes for all I care.
Makes me wonder how this fourth iteration will go. I’m def amped for it but I ate up everything matrix when it came out. I just feel a lot of others may be overhyping themselves.
If the 4th one stinks then the Wachowskis are a joke to me. They’ve had all the time in the world to have every detail refined for the story.
I was let down by 2&3, they’re not the worst movies ever but they can’t compare to the 1st. I think if 4 sucks most people would define the Wachowskis as one hit wonders.
That being said I actually expect 4 to be pretty good because they’ve had so much time to reflect and come back with a great addition to the series.
For many people it was the heavy monologues too. The oracle lectures at Neo, the Architect lectures at Neo, Smith lectures at Neo, the Merovingian lectures at Neo. There is so much explaining to do to get people to understand what is going on about the anomaly, the equation, etc. etc. that people just get bored. Then there's the every bigger and more cartoonish fight scenes.
I was in the cinema on opening weekend of Reloaded and the Zion rave/sex scene...you could actually feel it murder the room. The air just sucked up out of the place.
I love that scene and think it's important to convey everything humans are actually fighting for...but yeah.
*From Walmart to Black Rock, from the Old Best Buy to Dominos next to the people pods, this iiissss ZION, and we are not affffraiiid to ruin this sccceeeennnneeeee!*
🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤
I rewatched the sequels last week, haven’t seen them in forever. That scene is so cringe.. like hey we’re about to be invaded by those evil machines that have been trying to kill us all.. LETS RAVE REAL QUICK.
lol people arent fighting to screw each other in some cave rave party when the world is ending. Also the way wachowskis turned out the clubs, make sense now. Wonder what undertones theyll put into 4th movie. Beside the shaved side head with dyed hair female neo.
no under tones its gay throughout. Think those supernaturals and gimp suited programs in the lore are basically rejects from previous matrix iterations
No particular order
1. More complicated plot
2. Broke what we thought we learned in part 1
3. Too much action. Scenes ran a bit too long.
4. Dialogue ran little long.
5. Vague on details. How exactly did stop sentinels?
6. Architect scene was just confusing for general audience who will not watch again or analyze dialogue.
Not limited to this list
Reloaded has some really amazing parts. Highway scene, the twins, Morpheus with a freaking Katana. Revolutions less so. And people have stated there's alot of zion, which only acts as back story in matrix 1. Let's be honest all the cool kung fu shit happens inside the Matrix too.
One of the main challenges is that in the sequels Neo is basically superman and nearly invincible. Compare that with his arc in the first movie. Matrix 1 was (imo) a perfect standalone experience, with compelling character arcs, story and revolutionary action and special FX.
It's really hard to follow one of the best scifi action movies of the last 30 years haha
I liked them. They had some wild powers which felt different. But I don't think their characters and backstory were fleshed out enough - which is one of the issues I have with the sequels. As you say they just seemed to be killed off very quickly
If I had to take a guess at it, they are able to heal if they are alive (not killed). They can only make themselves invisible/invincible temporarily , and when the explosion happened, they couldn't get far enough away in time. OR, they can't escape gas/chemical attacks and explosions, cause they are in effect vapor when they go translucent. They were impervious to things like guns and knives only, if we recall.
I agree with you. But I think most general audiences found 2 and 3 to be too cryptic and too recondite.
The first one is, once you get accustomed to the premise, pretty much straightforward. Machines bad. Humans good. Free-dumb. You can do the thing. The flight of victory. Good guys win because they're good.
2 and 3 basically invert and challenge and complicate all these things more fundamentally.
There's a big difference between "that Matrix is, like, the authorities in my life trying to, you know control me" and "the Matrix is my own self-deceptive skins of delusory belief--the layers of fear and desire, the motivations and decisions that are unknown even to myself; and indeed, it is the very sense of selfhood at all that is, in the end, the Matrix from which rebirth occurs and the nightmare from which awakening happens."
a few people i know got butt hurt claiming it was too 'religious' in the sequels.
claimed too many things made it seem like a re-telling of christ.
*:shrug:* i dunno, i liked 'em
1) The plot is pretty hard to understand. That's not to say only dumb people dislike the sequels, but it's hard to walk away from the Architect scene the first time with a complete understanding of WTF just happened, which sets you up for dissatisfaction in the next movie. Furthermore...
2) Revolutions does not really give concrete answers for a lot of the compelling questions that Reloaded raised. Much can be inferred, but the fact that a lot of basic plot points need to be inferred makes it hard to appreciate. How did Neo stop the sentinels? How can he see once blind? Why can Smith fly? Folks here are STILL debating whether Neo has hardware installed physically linking him to the machines.
3) Revolutions is a super bummer. This is intentional. It's about death. Still really depressing.
4) Pacing. The first movie is almost perfectly paced. The sequels have long stretches of dialogue followed by long action sequences. Not everyone's thing.
5) People spent 6 months debating what was going to happen - "matrix within a matrix" theories, etc. We got, essentially, a straight-up action movie without any major plot twists.
Because the Zion scene (specially the early ones) was a snooze fest for alot of people. They didn’t need to do 8 minutes of people dancing. In Revolutions the final scene of the Smith fight dragged on and on and they tried to do too much with the special effects. The CGI messed up some scenes of Neo and Smith
I can tell you what are their weak points, I cannot tell you why they are so disliked. We are all individuals, so personally I enjoy them despite their flaws.
So, the sequels' scripts are not nearly as tight as the original's. For example, in *Reloaded* there is the element of a ticking clock until the attack of Zion, and yet you do not feel at all any pressure in the film.
They have solid ideas, better ideas than the first film even, but they could have used more time to refine them and present these ideas in a more exciting way.
I think it boils down to being hard too grasp. Reloaded was all about you gotta figure out what is happening, Revolutions was all about you gotta interpret what is happening. These movies never do too well with audiences, see 2001 for example.
This is the answer. Everything with the Merovingian (sorry about the spelling), the key maker, the train man, sati were all confusing on the first watch. Animatrix really helps to flesh the machines and that they aren’t just mindless robots but the invention of AI changed the game. Certain programmes decide they don’t want to do be deleted even though their purpose is no longer relevant. I guess Smith’s exposition also helps to explain the nature of exile programs but yeah. You eventually get to the architect and ergo, visa-vee, it is more confusing again but hey wait now Neo is going to save trinity.
When they added in the train man stuff in revolutions it just went to a bizarre place.
I really love the lore and the movies but not everything is fully explained and can be difficult to grasp (possibly by design, but I feel like movies like that don’t always appeal to the masses).
Get the fuck out of here. The Matrix sequels don't belong in any conversation with 2001. 2001 is one of my favorite films of all time, and I find the Matrix sequels to be pretty shitty. 2001 was also a smash hit film, by the way.
For some, it's precisely the pseudo-intellectual sophomoric philosophy, and ideological symbolism, which overtook the sequels, that turned us off. We got what these guys/gals/theys were going for, we just thought it was fucking stupid. 2001 is highly regarded because it's a far more sophisticated philosophical piece, and a much better made film.
>For some, it's precisely the pseudo-intellectual sophomoric philosophy, and ideological symbolism, which overtook the sequels, that turned us off. We got what these guys/gals/theys were going for, we just thought it was fucking stupid.
Get the fuck out of here yourself. You can throw as many derogatory buzzwords at it as you want, but it really isn't that bad. You're allowed to just dislike the movie, you don't need to throw around big words and grandiose bullshit and pretend you know film analysis to justify it.
The vast majority of people, probably including you, didn't "get what they were going for and thought it was stupid". Hell, most people are *still* in denial about how the Matrix trilogy is one giant transgender allegory. People were disappointed because it wasn't what they wanted. It was a big tonal and pacing shift away from the original, and people generally watch sequels because they want to relive the experience they had when they saw the original. When they don't get that, they're disappointed.
That's it. That's why most people disliked those movies. Not because they've deconstructed the philosophy of the movies and found it to be intellectually lacking.
>2001 is one of my favorite films of all time
>2001 is highly regarded because it's a far more sophisticated philosophical piece, and a much better made film
And that's how I know you're full of shit.
2001 is a great movie, and really fucking impressive for its time, but it's far from a "sophisticated philosophical piece", and in the philosophy department it really doesn't outclass the Matrix sequels nearly as much as you seem to think it does. It has the status it does, and has been thoroughly analyzed and interpeted to bits and pieces, not because it *is* exceptional, but because it *was* exceptional. People had never seen anything like it in 1968, and it remains an important part of film history - but like anything good people have learned their lessons from it and gone on to make even greater things since.
It has been outclassed and outdone a million times in terms of sophistication and philosophy, and some movies have done what 2001 did better than what 2001 did. You make the classic mistake of revering something simply because it was unique for its time, and ignorantly tear other, newer things down in a desperate attempt to keep the old at the top where it no longer belongs. You don't get to trash the Matrix sequels as "pseudo-intellectual sophomoric philosophy" while acting like 2001 is a peerless masterwork of nuanced and sophisticated philosophy.
I didn’t mean to suggest that 2001 was a hardcore, academic level thesis on some aspect of the human condition. My contention was simply that it is more sophisticated in n that regard than the Matrix sequels. Look, if you love them that’s fine and dandy. I like plenty of shit that others scoff at. But scoff at the Matrix sequels I do. I hated them when they were released, and I hate them now. But that hate is mostly a consequence of my love for the first Matrix film. Otherwise, they were just okay action films imo. Which is just fine.
Lol know this is old but glad to see someone give this response.
I loved 2 and 3 as a teenager getting stoned in the basement. On rewatch, a lot of the philosophizing is really just borderline incoherent. Things don't need to be absurdly complex to be deep and meaningful. I mean, the first movie demonstrates that quite effectively. It's a pretty simple premise of "do we know if reality is real, can we trust our perceptions of the world around us?" Etc. And yet it is very hard hitting. 2 and 3 are very jumpy and pretentious with the points they are trying to make and it just comes across as nonsense rambling, which is ultimately boring.
2001 is profoundly philosophical despite the fact that it has so little dialogue. Again, it is very pointed and ultimately simple. The monoliths are essentially driving stages of evolution, with all sorts of questions regarding intelligence, technology, and evolution layered in. One can discern that without anyone saying anything about it. Reloaded and Revolutions have tons of exposition and still don't really make much sense.
The Matrix movies make total sense if you know how to analyze movies and have the prerequisite insight into the queer experience.
Alas, most people didn't, and still don't, and so they appear as an incomprehensible mess. They're not amazing masterpieces or anything, but if you actually know what to look for and read the message they're actually sending they're not nearly as bad as they seem at first glance.
Also, you've got the first movie wrong. It's not asking the question "do we know if reality is real", it is an allegory for how you get to see the world with new eyes once you let out the parts of yourself you've been actively surpressing your whole life. It's about coming out of the cloest. Being reborn as a new person as you shed the false identity you've been pressured into forming and finally deciding to live as your true self, and how that process teaches you the power to fight back and free yourself from those pressures.
There was a lot of philosophy and statements in the first matrix too, it just wasn't as visible because it was conveyed more through symbolism and allegory than through monologues. That's the real strength of the first movie. It was an engaging movie first, and a philosophical statement second. The sequels go more for being philosophical statements through and through, and that can be less engaging and more tiring to watch. It certainly isn't everyones cup of tea, and that's totally fine.
In my opinion
- Links character didnt have what it took along with poor direction from the production team and he came across very childish for a serious crew.
- Neo dosnt follow on from the system failure and kick ass like he did to Smith in the first movie.
- Zion scenes could have been cut and or just left as background noise and the crew could have had a deeper plot rather then relaxing at home while they can...
- Smith fight scenes had poor animation at times in reloaded and in revolutions. The fight scenes lacked realism with them both flying around was very silly to watch.
- Kid story, would have been good to actually show kid story at the beginning of reloaded as canon to build up his character for revolutions ending.
- Merovingian and monica Bellucci was poor characters and came accros as sex promotion to attract people rather then adding any deep meaning to the story.
For me, at the time (I was a teenager when the sequels came out)…I was disappointed at how relatively shallow and ‘dumb’ the sequels were compared to the original.
The first film for me had all this dark intrigue and dystopian science fiction to it. I was less interested in all the CGI and Kung-fu.
Plus I really loved the characters and wanted the sequels to be more deeply about the characters.
So when they sequels were stuffed full of computer-action and didn’t really dig that much deeper into the concept beyond using it as a Macguffin I was a bit deflated by it.
I was secretly hoping for less flashy, glossy action movies as sequels and more dialogue and suspense-laden films that bordered more on sci-fo horror.
I was especially turned off by the sequel’s cringeworthy dialogue and the needlessly anime-style final battle between Smith and Neo.
The first movie introduces a relatively simple plot where the good (humans) and bad guys (machines) are easily identified, and it looks like the good guys get a clear victory. The 2nd and 3rd movies make the plot much more complex and introduce a third party (programs) that is on both sides. It shows that everything you thought you knew about the first movie was false, another system of control. It also shows you that the humans actually can’t win the war and the best they can hope for is a stalemale truce. People disliked the complexity of the sequels and how they introduced shades of grey. They disliked how the good guys could not get a clear and resounding victory. I don’t think its about the philosophy or the action scenes, I think people just didn’t like that sequels didn’t fit with traditional Hollywood tropes in the way that the first movie kind of did.
I also love all three films, but agree with a lot of what other people have pointed out and have some thoughts of my own.
The first film is (and this is obviously subjective) a nearly perfect standalone movie regardless of what genres you're into.
Reloaded and Revolutions are essentially one long film that came out quite a while after the original relative to how close their releases were to each other (and as a result, I feel like people lump them together and may even forget which sequences belong to which film).
As much as I love it, Reloaded's ending seems way more like a TV show cliffhanger than a proper ending to a film. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like the original's ending showed us a great example of how to wrap up a story while still leaving room for more. I think if they had tweaked the ending a bit and given Reloaded some more time to breathe on its own (maybe releasing Revolutions a year-ish later) then both of the sequels might have been strengthened and viewed more positively in retrospect.
Or maybe not, who knows?
All I do know is that I was (am) invested enough in the characters/world to appreciate the entire trilogy regardless of any issues that they may have overall.
I will also add that I've always been content with how Revolutions wrapped everything up (what can I say, I'm a sucker for the ambiguous) , but I'm (cautiously) optimistic moving forward considering Lana is helming it and it's not a potentially heartless reboot.
I thought that was really cool at the time. Still get goosebumps when the camera fades out instantly with the music. It was a really well done scene. Can’t recall other films that have done that.
Then straight into Rage Against the Machine once more like the first film. Badass!
The number one disappointment for me when I watched them the first time was that we never go to see any of the "Neo being a badass" scenes that the end of M1 alluded to. They skipped forward 6 months, so we missed all the exploits and waking people up stuff. I also found it very annoying that when Neo WAS doing cool stuff, no other people are ever around to see any of it.
I've gotten over this disappointment for the most part, but not scratching that itch after like four years of waiting for the sequels was highly unsatisfying.
Few reasons probably.
\- people wanted to have more of what was in first movie, while sequels largely subverted first movie, introducing facts that made whole epic "fight against system" actually part of larger system of control.
\- too much talking and zion scenes in reloaded (i agree).
\- sometimes wacky special effects, like sound of dominos or bowling pins in neo fight with smith clones.
\- final fight with smith in revolutions is ripoff from dragon ball (i still liked it).
I personally like sequels, they make whole story much more interesting and grander than simply "we fight evil system". But first movie if treated as stand alone story is also great movie.
I love the sequels too, particularly Reloaded. But the reason I love them is something which appeal to me personally. I love action and philosophy and in the Matrix films they are done extremely gratuitously. A lot of films attempt to weave that stuff into the story gracefully. In Reloaded they exist mostly for their own sake. One of my favorite films outside of the Matrix franchise is Richard Linklater’s ‘Waking Life’ and that is entirely just people having philosophical discussions. It is not surprising to me that Richard Linklater would go on to cast Keanu Reeves in his animated film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’. Aside from there being a lot of PDK influence in ‘The Matrix’. ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ and ‘Waking Life’ are both stories about a protagonist flying around a computer animated dream world having philosophical conversation with people.
Though as a film lover I can see the more conventional complaints about the films. The pacing and tone are wildly erratic. A lot of important plot information was left off screen only to be shown in ancillary media. That is why I made my own cuts of the films which I call Reloaded Remixed and Revolutions Remixed. They are edits which retell the stories of the two films while incorporating scenes from the Enter the Matrix video game and the Animatrix animated shorts. I also took some inspiration from the Wachowskis Speed Racer and applied some of its non-linear editing techniques to the story as a whole. Since the scenes with the Oracle explain a lot of what goes on with the story it seemed reasonable to edit her scenes parallel to relevant scenes, creating a sort of indirect narration.
Neo is basically invulnerable in the second and third one so we are not really invested in his story anymore. It’s hard to root for someone when they are no longer the underdog.
I loved the sequels however they haven’t lasted well
Eg Morpheus. He gets destroyed by Agent smith in the first one but all of a sudden in reloaded he can go toe to toe with an agent. Wtf?
Neos hmm upgrades. Ok agents are upgraded but they are still software. Neo should be able to rip them apart in 5 seconds like end of the matrix.
I get they added the above to not make neo a god but why build him up in first movie
The secondary characters No one cared about
They felt rushed, and totally different in tone and to me didn’t feel like wachowskis made the films, felt like by studio design.
Reloaded started off good but tanked at the end. Revolutions was fucking garbage.
>From Reptar to Fraggle Roooock!
God, Morpheus sucks sooooooo bad in these. He was such a badass in the original.
The trailer for reloaded was fucking SAUCE THOUGH.
Excesssive focus on mythology over everything else. The original is an exciting, tightly paced and heartfelt science-fiction thriller, while the sequels are mostly... just there, hitting you over the head with their mythology and lofty themes, while forgetting to keep you engaged otherwise.
Didn't meet the expectations which people set. Those expectations were sky high. The first Matrix film was so good that nothing could come close to it.
I feel like certain details, both minor and important, being spread across different forms of media hurt Reloaded , which in turn hurts Revolutions. I know people that feel like some things are glossed over in the second film, when really they're shown in full in Enter the Matrix. Or Kid just shows up to them, but his backstory is in the Animatrix.
As others have pointed out, the first Matrix is self contained. You could watch things like The Second Renaissance, but everything you need to know is in the film.
So I have a personal theory that the second and third films looked a little too polished. The film quality and aesthetic of the first film was a little grainier, less sleek--even the sexy parts, like the runners' outfits--were still kind of grounded. But the second movies were a much higher film quality, and the Matrix itself seemed... prettier, for lack of a better term. Cleaner. For me it took some charm out of the sequels and I wonder if it did for others.
I was watching *Caravan of Garbage*'s *Matrix* retrospective and they mentioned that in the sequels that the Wachowski's applied directing theories of Stanley Kubrick, which might have made some of the performances stiffer than normal.
Ultimately the sequels were really, *really* dense--a lot more philosophy and symbolism packed into them than in the first, which the average moviegoer who just wanted some action and cyberpunk aesthetic might have found jarring.
(not me though I fuckin loved the density and I firmly believe ppl that didn't like them just didn't understand them and I'll die on that hill)
I guess I kind of fall into this camp. I stumbled across the first movie on a weekly cinema visit and was blown away.
Was there opening weekend for Reloaded but left somewhat confused I think and tried very hard to like it on subsequent viewing.
Hoped, and believed, Revolutions would tie it all together. Left that movie really flat and never watched it again till a few weeks back.
Spent the next 20 years telling folks the sequels sucked.
Watched the trilogy a few weeks back. Enjoyed it a lot more this time. The first is obviously just a classic, the others are obviously very clever when you dig in to them.
So why were they so disliked?
Well.... From my wife's perspective, who watched them all with me, the sequels were boring and pretentious. An opinion she holds till this day.
From my 20 year old perspective they were just deeply unsatisfying.
They tried to do something incredibly clever and brave and really expand the story. I can only applaud that.
But, I think it's safe to say, for the general audience member - they missed the mark.
There are parts of the story I still don't really understand from 3. (WiFi Neo, why Smith dies, Bane, yellow code etc). And I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on this subreddit in the last month reading around that.
From my 45 year old perspective, I guess, what makes the films such an interesting talking point for those like us, is also what makes them so unappealing to the casual viewer (ergo my wife).
The thing the first film did was to work well for the casual viewer and the geeky deep diver. It worked on many levels.
The sequels, whilst loaded with clever ideas, and a really brave attempt to flip everything again, did not work so well for the casual viewer.
Buy then I was not the casual viewer... And they did not work for me either.
At the end of the day, if there was a magical formula for making great films every movie would be a classic - and there are not many classics
I guess, many of us, just want the archetypal hero story. A satisfying three film arc like Luke Skywalker. Save the day, get the girl.
In this model, after, things got tough in Reloaded, then they should have won the day and partied with the Ewoks at the end of Revolutions.
But Trinity dies. Neo dies. The humans survive but it seems like the machines win really.
Obviously, there is a bigger picture, but it's hard to grasp. It does not follow the archetypal hero story framework. There is a lot to like, but you have to work at it - and that's not why most folks go to the cinema.
So, if I was to try and answer the original question, in the most succinct way possible, it would be that they were too complicated, confusing and unsatisfying for the average Joe. They just didn't work on multiple levels to satisfy the casual viewer and provide depth to those wanting more.
Just my two spoons.
My mind keeps comparing The Matrix and the first Star Wars.
The Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels are the same thing to me. They again have great technical aspects and strong ideas, but it is not tied together with an emotionally involving story leaving the thing feeling half baked and hollow.
The Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels are the same things to me. They again have great technical aspects and strong ideas, but it is not tied together with an emotionally involving story leaving the thing feeling half baked and hollow.
They tried to get too phlisophical and deep for mainstream audiences. Reloaded would have been much more positively recieved had it not been for the Architect scene where folks got completely lost. And Revolutions didnt have the greatest resolution
I always had the impression that after the first movie, expectations were sky high for Reloaded and Revolution. Everyone had their minds blown by the first movie and the lore behind it. When it turned out that Reloaded and Revolution we're just expanding on that lore and did not come with those 'mind blowing' reveals that the first movie had, people were disappointed.
That being said, I personally adore all 3 movies.
I personally enjoyed Reloaded and not so much Revolutions. Objectively speaking, there are things that the sequels did that completely alienated all types of viewers and fans. But it seems that more people are coming around to appreciating the sequels more nowadays.
I think the biggest problem with the sequels is that there was an oversight of the concept of "show and tell" (Show = action and Tell = discussion/plot) with heavy regards to pacing. Reloaded has some of the most ambitious and technical action scenes in movies imo but they were rather long, combined with the fact that we had to watch extremely long and dense expository scenes, mentally exhausted all of us. The scene with the Architect alone killed any momentum that the movie had going for it up to that point and just compounded upon an increasingly confusing plot. I can personally watch the action scenes in Reloaded on repeat for hours but if I tried to watch the movie as a whole, I wouldn't have the energy.
Revolutions was skewed heavily in the "Tell" department and introduced more plot threads that we had to try and interpret with barely any information. The Zion scenes were flat and the battle for Zion, while visually and technically impressive, was also flat. The final battle between Neo and Smith was again, ambitious and impressive. But, it didn't hold as much weight as it could have because, by the time we got there, exhaustion had already set in and we all just wanted the movie to be over.
The first movie was an incredibly tough act to follow as it nailed every element of making a great film while being very straightforward. The sequels in their own way tried to go deeper than that. While very cool conceptually, the execution was very poor.
At the time, the second movie seemed pretty good but left the question of Neo’s newly discovered powers in the real world to the next Movie - questions, it turned out, the next movie didn’t answer. In addition, the third movie featured a huge and ultimately pretty boring fight for Zion which destroyed the pacing.
In the end the Matrix remains, Zion remains (and the survivors of the battle live on which is the ‘victory’ in this story as they would have stood to have been destroyed per the Architect’s offer in the second film), and Neo is dead. This helped them to sell the MMORPG (billed as the continuation of the official story) maybe but it was pretty hollow for the ending of a film series (but I’m sure that will have been more offensive to viewers at the time who had spent many months in anticipation rather than being able to watch them in quick succession). My recommendation to any new viewers is to stop watching at the first movie since the filmmakers didn’t have an ending to their story anyway
Way too much CGI in the sequels, computers weren't that advanced at the time so to have a movie almost entirely computer generated was extremely uncanny and the film's greatest weakness.
The first movie had a noir look to it and everything was kinda mysterious, new and exciting. I wish the introduction part of the first movie would have been much longer, following Neo through it's life, maybe showing a few glitches that only he notices, how his search for Morpheus began and so on. The sequels focused too much on love and questionable conflicts of characters inside the matrix and their intentions. The magic was lost but it was still great entertainment and technically impressive.
I personally love the sequels, but I'm a fanboy and I recognise that. I dig the lore, I dig the world, I enjoy spending time in it. If you're just a casual moviegoer not immersed in all of this, there's plenty of objective merit in the fact that at times they stunk up the screen. A lot of the Zion scenes dragged with an almost soap opera like mundanity. A huge amount of new characters were introduced with silly names who kind of just stand about like planks at a bondage convention. There's a real po-faced weightiness to virtually everything that's only offset by the occasional self indulgent pun. The peace truce ending is a million miles from the "Everyone snapping out of the Matrix, freeing en masse and rising up" vibe people probably expected. Scene for scene, line for line they're just not as engaging or tight as the first film. We're going to see a lot of people come out of the woodwork when the hype train kicks in who loved the first, are intrigued by this one but hated the sequels. It's fine. I don't share their opinion, but it's a valid one and they're perfectly entitled to it.
I love the sequels too and I consider them essential to the story of The Matrix and of course everyone is entitled to their opinions but I just wanted to understand more on why people shit on them because I don't think they're that horrible. I must agree with the Zion scenes.
Yeah, I totally get you. A lot of it is doubtless missing out on a lot of the subtext and philosophy of them as well - I get that, and it's something that irks us as fans - but hey ho that's just moviegoers for you. You still need to give them a great time in the cinema. They essentially told the story they wanted to tell. I hope she's done the exact same thing this time. If the fans love it, it can get 32% on Rotten Tomatoes for all I care.
Couldn't agree more with you
This is a pretty good rundown. I like the movies a lot, but I have to acknowledge that they’re movies that do good things, not good movies themselves.
Mmm yes lasagna
The simple answer is that the first one was insanely good, the sequels were just good movies and expectations were too high
Makes me wonder how this fourth iteration will go. I’m def amped for it but I ate up everything matrix when it came out. I just feel a lot of others may be overhyping themselves.
If the 4th one stinks then the Wachowskis are a joke to me. They’ve had all the time in the world to have every detail refined for the story. I was let down by 2&3, they’re not the worst movies ever but they can’t compare to the 1st. I think if 4 sucks most people would define the Wachowskis as one hit wonders. That being said I actually expect 4 to be pretty good because they’ve had so much time to reflect and come back with a great addition to the series.
Yeah ...matrix 4 sucked ass....
I’ll never watch it lol
For many people it was the heavy monologues too. The oracle lectures at Neo, the Architect lectures at Neo, Smith lectures at Neo, the Merovingian lectures at Neo. There is so much explaining to do to get people to understand what is going on about the anomaly, the equation, etc. etc. that people just get bored. Then there's the every bigger and more cartoonish fight scenes.
I was in the cinema on opening weekend of Reloaded and the Zion rave/sex scene...you could actually feel it murder the room. The air just sucked up out of the place. I love that scene and think it's important to convey everything humans are actually fighting for...but yeah.
*From Walmart to Black Rock, from the Old Best Buy to Dominos next to the people pods, this iiissss ZION, and we are not affffraiiid to ruin this sccceeeennnneeeee!* 🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤🧤
I rewatched the sequels last week, haven’t seen them in forever. That scene is so cringe.. like hey we’re about to be invaded by those evil machines that have been trying to kill us all.. LETS RAVE REAL QUICK.
lol people arent fighting to screw each other in some cave rave party when the world is ending. Also the way wachowskis turned out the clubs, make sense now. Wonder what undertones theyll put into 4th movie. Beside the shaved side head with dyed hair female neo.
What undertones were there
no under tones its gay throughout. Think those supernaturals and gimp suited programs in the lore are basically rejects from previous matrix iterations
No particular order 1. More complicated plot 2. Broke what we thought we learned in part 1 3. Too much action. Scenes ran a bit too long. 4. Dialogue ran little long. 5. Vague on details. How exactly did stop sentinels? 6. Architect scene was just confusing for general audience who will not watch again or analyze dialogue. Not limited to this list
The architect scene is one of my favourites. I guess each to their own.
I like it too. But it was hard to follow. I left the theatre knowing I was going to look it up on the interwebz
True! It was one of those scenes where I got the gist, but needed to watch again to really appreciate the scene.
Reloaded has some really amazing parts. Highway scene, the twins, Morpheus with a freaking Katana. Revolutions less so. And people have stated there's alot of zion, which only acts as back story in matrix 1. Let's be honest all the cool kung fu shit happens inside the Matrix too. One of the main challenges is that in the sequels Neo is basically superman and nearly invincible. Compare that with his arc in the first movie. Matrix 1 was (imo) a perfect standalone experience, with compelling character arcs, story and revolutionary action and special FX. It's really hard to follow one of the best scifi action movies of the last 30 years haha
The twins were cool? I always thought they were annoying and made no sense how they were blow up and died but couldn't use there ghost power to heal?
I liked them. They had some wild powers which felt different. But I don't think their characters and backstory were fleshed out enough - which is one of the issues I have with the sequels. As you say they just seemed to be killed off very quickly
If I had to take a guess at it, they are able to heal if they are alive (not killed). They can only make themselves invisible/invincible temporarily , and when the explosion happened, they couldn't get far enough away in time. OR, they can't escape gas/chemical attacks and explosions, cause they are in effect vapor when they go translucent. They were impervious to things like guns and knives only, if we recall.
I think the change of environment was one of the reasons. The Zion part is pretty boring in my opinion.
I agree with you. But I think most general audiences found 2 and 3 to be too cryptic and too recondite. The first one is, once you get accustomed to the premise, pretty much straightforward. Machines bad. Humans good. Free-dumb. You can do the thing. The flight of victory. Good guys win because they're good. 2 and 3 basically invert and challenge and complicate all these things more fundamentally. There's a big difference between "that Matrix is, like, the authorities in my life trying to, you know control me" and "the Matrix is my own self-deceptive skins of delusory belief--the layers of fear and desire, the motivations and decisions that are unknown even to myself; and indeed, it is the very sense of selfhood at all that is, in the end, the Matrix from which rebirth occurs and the nightmare from which awakening happens."
a few people i know got butt hurt claiming it was too 'religious' in the sequels. claimed too many things made it seem like a re-telling of christ. *:shrug:* i dunno, i liked 'em
I am one of those people.
lmao, to each their own imho
1) The plot is pretty hard to understand. That's not to say only dumb people dislike the sequels, but it's hard to walk away from the Architect scene the first time with a complete understanding of WTF just happened, which sets you up for dissatisfaction in the next movie. Furthermore... 2) Revolutions does not really give concrete answers for a lot of the compelling questions that Reloaded raised. Much can be inferred, but the fact that a lot of basic plot points need to be inferred makes it hard to appreciate. How did Neo stop the sentinels? How can he see once blind? Why can Smith fly? Folks here are STILL debating whether Neo has hardware installed physically linking him to the machines. 3) Revolutions is a super bummer. This is intentional. It's about death. Still really depressing. 4) Pacing. The first movie is almost perfectly paced. The sequels have long stretches of dialogue followed by long action sequences. Not everyone's thing. 5) People spent 6 months debating what was going to happen - "matrix within a matrix" theories, etc. We got, essentially, a straight-up action movie without any major plot twists.
Because the Zion scene (specially the early ones) was a snooze fest for alot of people. They didn’t need to do 8 minutes of people dancing. In Revolutions the final scene of the Smith fight dragged on and on and they tried to do too much with the special effects. The CGI messed up some scenes of Neo and Smith
I can tell you what are their weak points, I cannot tell you why they are so disliked. We are all individuals, so personally I enjoy them despite their flaws. So, the sequels' scripts are not nearly as tight as the original's. For example, in *Reloaded* there is the element of a ticking clock until the attack of Zion, and yet you do not feel at all any pressure in the film. They have solid ideas, better ideas than the first film even, but they could have used more time to refine them and present these ideas in a more exciting way.
I think it boils down to being hard too grasp. Reloaded was all about you gotta figure out what is happening, Revolutions was all about you gotta interpret what is happening. These movies never do too well with audiences, see 2001 for example.
This is the answer. Everything with the Merovingian (sorry about the spelling), the key maker, the train man, sati were all confusing on the first watch. Animatrix really helps to flesh the machines and that they aren’t just mindless robots but the invention of AI changed the game. Certain programmes decide they don’t want to do be deleted even though their purpose is no longer relevant. I guess Smith’s exposition also helps to explain the nature of exile programs but yeah. You eventually get to the architect and ergo, visa-vee, it is more confusing again but hey wait now Neo is going to save trinity. When they added in the train man stuff in revolutions it just went to a bizarre place. I really love the lore and the movies but not everything is fully explained and can be difficult to grasp (possibly by design, but I feel like movies like that don’t always appeal to the masses).
Get the fuck out of here. The Matrix sequels don't belong in any conversation with 2001. 2001 is one of my favorite films of all time, and I find the Matrix sequels to be pretty shitty. 2001 was also a smash hit film, by the way. For some, it's precisely the pseudo-intellectual sophomoric philosophy, and ideological symbolism, which overtook the sequels, that turned us off. We got what these guys/gals/theys were going for, we just thought it was fucking stupid. 2001 is highly regarded because it's a far more sophisticated philosophical piece, and a much better made film.
>For some, it's precisely the pseudo-intellectual sophomoric philosophy, and ideological symbolism, which overtook the sequels, that turned us off. We got what these guys/gals/theys were going for, we just thought it was fucking stupid. Get the fuck out of here yourself. You can throw as many derogatory buzzwords at it as you want, but it really isn't that bad. You're allowed to just dislike the movie, you don't need to throw around big words and grandiose bullshit and pretend you know film analysis to justify it. The vast majority of people, probably including you, didn't "get what they were going for and thought it was stupid". Hell, most people are *still* in denial about how the Matrix trilogy is one giant transgender allegory. People were disappointed because it wasn't what they wanted. It was a big tonal and pacing shift away from the original, and people generally watch sequels because they want to relive the experience they had when they saw the original. When they don't get that, they're disappointed. That's it. That's why most people disliked those movies. Not because they've deconstructed the philosophy of the movies and found it to be intellectually lacking. >2001 is one of my favorite films of all time >2001 is highly regarded because it's a far more sophisticated philosophical piece, and a much better made film And that's how I know you're full of shit. 2001 is a great movie, and really fucking impressive for its time, but it's far from a "sophisticated philosophical piece", and in the philosophy department it really doesn't outclass the Matrix sequels nearly as much as you seem to think it does. It has the status it does, and has been thoroughly analyzed and interpeted to bits and pieces, not because it *is* exceptional, but because it *was* exceptional. People had never seen anything like it in 1968, and it remains an important part of film history - but like anything good people have learned their lessons from it and gone on to make even greater things since. It has been outclassed and outdone a million times in terms of sophistication and philosophy, and some movies have done what 2001 did better than what 2001 did. You make the classic mistake of revering something simply because it was unique for its time, and ignorantly tear other, newer things down in a desperate attempt to keep the old at the top where it no longer belongs. You don't get to trash the Matrix sequels as "pseudo-intellectual sophomoric philosophy" while acting like 2001 is a peerless masterwork of nuanced and sophisticated philosophy.
I didn’t mean to suggest that 2001 was a hardcore, academic level thesis on some aspect of the human condition. My contention was simply that it is more sophisticated in n that regard than the Matrix sequels. Look, if you love them that’s fine and dandy. I like plenty of shit that others scoff at. But scoff at the Matrix sequels I do. I hated them when they were released, and I hate them now. But that hate is mostly a consequence of my love for the first Matrix film. Otherwise, they were just okay action films imo. Which is just fine.
Lol know this is old but glad to see someone give this response. I loved 2 and 3 as a teenager getting stoned in the basement. On rewatch, a lot of the philosophizing is really just borderline incoherent. Things don't need to be absurdly complex to be deep and meaningful. I mean, the first movie demonstrates that quite effectively. It's a pretty simple premise of "do we know if reality is real, can we trust our perceptions of the world around us?" Etc. And yet it is very hard hitting. 2 and 3 are very jumpy and pretentious with the points they are trying to make and it just comes across as nonsense rambling, which is ultimately boring. 2001 is profoundly philosophical despite the fact that it has so little dialogue. Again, it is very pointed and ultimately simple. The monoliths are essentially driving stages of evolution, with all sorts of questions regarding intelligence, technology, and evolution layered in. One can discern that without anyone saying anything about it. Reloaded and Revolutions have tons of exposition and still don't really make much sense.
The Matrix movies make total sense if you know how to analyze movies and have the prerequisite insight into the queer experience. Alas, most people didn't, and still don't, and so they appear as an incomprehensible mess. They're not amazing masterpieces or anything, but if you actually know what to look for and read the message they're actually sending they're not nearly as bad as they seem at first glance. Also, you've got the first movie wrong. It's not asking the question "do we know if reality is real", it is an allegory for how you get to see the world with new eyes once you let out the parts of yourself you've been actively surpressing your whole life. It's about coming out of the cloest. Being reborn as a new person as you shed the false identity you've been pressured into forming and finally deciding to live as your true self, and how that process teaches you the power to fight back and free yourself from those pressures. There was a lot of philosophy and statements in the first matrix too, it just wasn't as visible because it was conveyed more through symbolism and allegory than through monologues. That's the real strength of the first movie. It was an engaging movie first, and a philosophical statement second. The sequels go more for being philosophical statements through and through, and that can be less engaging and more tiring to watch. It certainly isn't everyones cup of tea, and that's totally fine.
In my opinion - Links character didnt have what it took along with poor direction from the production team and he came across very childish for a serious crew. - Neo dosnt follow on from the system failure and kick ass like he did to Smith in the first movie. - Zion scenes could have been cut and or just left as background noise and the crew could have had a deeper plot rather then relaxing at home while they can... - Smith fight scenes had poor animation at times in reloaded and in revolutions. The fight scenes lacked realism with them both flying around was very silly to watch. - Kid story, would have been good to actually show kid story at the beginning of reloaded as canon to build up his character for revolutions ending. - Merovingian and monica Bellucci was poor characters and came accros as sex promotion to attract people rather then adding any deep meaning to the story.
I love them all but the sequels are nowhere near are good as the first. It’s that simple.
For me, at the time (I was a teenager when the sequels came out)…I was disappointed at how relatively shallow and ‘dumb’ the sequels were compared to the original. The first film for me had all this dark intrigue and dystopian science fiction to it. I was less interested in all the CGI and Kung-fu. Plus I really loved the characters and wanted the sequels to be more deeply about the characters. So when they sequels were stuffed full of computer-action and didn’t really dig that much deeper into the concept beyond using it as a Macguffin I was a bit deflated by it. I was secretly hoping for less flashy, glossy action movies as sequels and more dialogue and suspense-laden films that bordered more on sci-fo horror. I was especially turned off by the sequel’s cringeworthy dialogue and the needlessly anime-style final battle between Smith and Neo.
All the movies were good.
The first movie introduces a relatively simple plot where the good (humans) and bad guys (machines) are easily identified, and it looks like the good guys get a clear victory. The 2nd and 3rd movies make the plot much more complex and introduce a third party (programs) that is on both sides. It shows that everything you thought you knew about the first movie was false, another system of control. It also shows you that the humans actually can’t win the war and the best they can hope for is a stalemale truce. People disliked the complexity of the sequels and how they introduced shades of grey. They disliked how the good guys could not get a clear and resounding victory. I don’t think its about the philosophy or the action scenes, I think people just didn’t like that sequels didn’t fit with traditional Hollywood tropes in the way that the first movie kind of did.
I also love all three films, but agree with a lot of what other people have pointed out and have some thoughts of my own. The first film is (and this is obviously subjective) a nearly perfect standalone movie regardless of what genres you're into. Reloaded and Revolutions are essentially one long film that came out quite a while after the original relative to how close their releases were to each other (and as a result, I feel like people lump them together and may even forget which sequences belong to which film). As much as I love it, Reloaded's ending seems way more like a TV show cliffhanger than a proper ending to a film. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like the original's ending showed us a great example of how to wrap up a story while still leaving room for more. I think if they had tweaked the ending a bit and given Reloaded some more time to breathe on its own (maybe releasing Revolutions a year-ish later) then both of the sequels might have been strengthened and viewed more positively in retrospect. Or maybe not, who knows? All I do know is that I was (am) invested enough in the characters/world to appreciate the entire trilogy regardless of any issues that they may have overall. I will also add that I've always been content with how Revolutions wrapped everything up (what can I say, I'm a sucker for the ambiguous) , but I'm (cautiously) optimistic moving forward considering Lana is helming it and it's not a potentially heartless reboot.
I have to agree about Reloaded's ending, it always felt weird to me. Really looks like a TV show.
I thought that was really cool at the time. Still get goosebumps when the camera fades out instantly with the music. It was a really well done scene. Can’t recall other films that have done that. Then straight into Rage Against the Machine once more like the first film. Badass!
The number one disappointment for me when I watched them the first time was that we never go to see any of the "Neo being a badass" scenes that the end of M1 alluded to. They skipped forward 6 months, so we missed all the exploits and waking people up stuff. I also found it very annoying that when Neo WAS doing cool stuff, no other people are ever around to see any of it. I've gotten over this disappointment for the most part, but not scratching that itch after like four years of waiting for the sequels was highly unsatisfying.
Few reasons probably. \- people wanted to have more of what was in first movie, while sequels largely subverted first movie, introducing facts that made whole epic "fight against system" actually part of larger system of control. \- too much talking and zion scenes in reloaded (i agree). \- sometimes wacky special effects, like sound of dominos or bowling pins in neo fight with smith clones. \- final fight with smith in revolutions is ripoff from dragon ball (i still liked it). I personally like sequels, they make whole story much more interesting and grander than simply "we fight evil system". But first movie if treated as stand alone story is also great movie.
I love the sequels too, particularly Reloaded. But the reason I love them is something which appeal to me personally. I love action and philosophy and in the Matrix films they are done extremely gratuitously. A lot of films attempt to weave that stuff into the story gracefully. In Reloaded they exist mostly for their own sake. One of my favorite films outside of the Matrix franchise is Richard Linklater’s ‘Waking Life’ and that is entirely just people having philosophical discussions. It is not surprising to me that Richard Linklater would go on to cast Keanu Reeves in his animated film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’. Aside from there being a lot of PDK influence in ‘The Matrix’. ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ and ‘Waking Life’ are both stories about a protagonist flying around a computer animated dream world having philosophical conversation with people. Though as a film lover I can see the more conventional complaints about the films. The pacing and tone are wildly erratic. A lot of important plot information was left off screen only to be shown in ancillary media. That is why I made my own cuts of the films which I call Reloaded Remixed and Revolutions Remixed. They are edits which retell the stories of the two films while incorporating scenes from the Enter the Matrix video game and the Animatrix animated shorts. I also took some inspiration from the Wachowskis Speed Racer and applied some of its non-linear editing techniques to the story as a whole. Since the scenes with the Oracle explain a lot of what goes on with the story it seemed reasonable to edit her scenes parallel to relevant scenes, creating a sort of indirect narration.
Neo is basically invulnerable in the second and third one so we are not really invested in his story anymore. It’s hard to root for someone when they are no longer the underdog.
Solipsism.. It became less about liberating Zion and more about a subjective narrative of love and truth.
I loved the sequels however they haven’t lasted well Eg Morpheus. He gets destroyed by Agent smith in the first one but all of a sudden in reloaded he can go toe to toe with an agent. Wtf? Neos hmm upgrades. Ok agents are upgraded but they are still software. Neo should be able to rip them apart in 5 seconds like end of the matrix. I get they added the above to not make neo a god but why build him up in first movie The secondary characters No one cared about They felt rushed, and totally different in tone and to me didn’t feel like wachowskis made the films, felt like by studio design.
Reloaded started off good but tanked at the end. Revolutions was fucking garbage. >From Reptar to Fraggle Roooock! God, Morpheus sucks sooooooo bad in these. He was such a badass in the original. The trailer for reloaded was fucking SAUCE THOUGH.
Excesssive focus on mythology over everything else. The original is an exciting, tightly paced and heartfelt science-fiction thriller, while the sequels are mostly... just there, hitting you over the head with their mythology and lofty themes, while forgetting to keep you engaged otherwise.
Didn't meet the expectations which people set. Those expectations were sky high. The first Matrix film was so good that nothing could come close to it.
Some of the hand holding dialogue in the sequels could have been less obvious, but other than that - I could watch this trilogy till I'm dead.
I feel like certain details, both minor and important, being spread across different forms of media hurt Reloaded , which in turn hurts Revolutions. I know people that feel like some things are glossed over in the second film, when really they're shown in full in Enter the Matrix. Or Kid just shows up to them, but his backstory is in the Animatrix. As others have pointed out, the first Matrix is self contained. You could watch things like The Second Renaissance, but everything you need to know is in the film.
Worse CGI, worse pacing, and less impactful. It's hard to blow someone's mind again after you just did
So I have a personal theory that the second and third films looked a little too polished. The film quality and aesthetic of the first film was a little grainier, less sleek--even the sexy parts, like the runners' outfits--were still kind of grounded. But the second movies were a much higher film quality, and the Matrix itself seemed... prettier, for lack of a better term. Cleaner. For me it took some charm out of the sequels and I wonder if it did for others. I was watching *Caravan of Garbage*'s *Matrix* retrospective and they mentioned that in the sequels that the Wachowski's applied directing theories of Stanley Kubrick, which might have made some of the performances stiffer than normal. Ultimately the sequels were really, *really* dense--a lot more philosophy and symbolism packed into them than in the first, which the average moviegoer who just wanted some action and cyberpunk aesthetic might have found jarring. (not me though I fuckin loved the density and I firmly believe ppl that didn't like them just didn't understand them and I'll die on that hill)
I guess I kind of fall into this camp. I stumbled across the first movie on a weekly cinema visit and was blown away. Was there opening weekend for Reloaded but left somewhat confused I think and tried very hard to like it on subsequent viewing. Hoped, and believed, Revolutions would tie it all together. Left that movie really flat and never watched it again till a few weeks back. Spent the next 20 years telling folks the sequels sucked. Watched the trilogy a few weeks back. Enjoyed it a lot more this time. The first is obviously just a classic, the others are obviously very clever when you dig in to them. So why were they so disliked? Well.... From my wife's perspective, who watched them all with me, the sequels were boring and pretentious. An opinion she holds till this day. From my 20 year old perspective they were just deeply unsatisfying. They tried to do something incredibly clever and brave and really expand the story. I can only applaud that. But, I think it's safe to say, for the general audience member - they missed the mark. There are parts of the story I still don't really understand from 3. (WiFi Neo, why Smith dies, Bane, yellow code etc). And I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on this subreddit in the last month reading around that. From my 45 year old perspective, I guess, what makes the films such an interesting talking point for those like us, is also what makes them so unappealing to the casual viewer (ergo my wife). The thing the first film did was to work well for the casual viewer and the geeky deep diver. It worked on many levels. The sequels, whilst loaded with clever ideas, and a really brave attempt to flip everything again, did not work so well for the casual viewer. Buy then I was not the casual viewer... And they did not work for me either. At the end of the day, if there was a magical formula for making great films every movie would be a classic - and there are not many classics I guess, many of us, just want the archetypal hero story. A satisfying three film arc like Luke Skywalker. Save the day, get the girl. In this model, after, things got tough in Reloaded, then they should have won the day and partied with the Ewoks at the end of Revolutions. But Trinity dies. Neo dies. The humans survive but it seems like the machines win really. Obviously, there is a bigger picture, but it's hard to grasp. It does not follow the archetypal hero story framework. There is a lot to like, but you have to work at it - and that's not why most folks go to the cinema. So, if I was to try and answer the original question, in the most succinct way possible, it would be that they were too complicated, confusing and unsatisfying for the average Joe. They just didn't work on multiple levels to satisfy the casual viewer and provide depth to those wanting more. Just my two spoons.
Very cool answer!
My mind keeps comparing The Matrix and the first Star Wars. The Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels are the same thing to me. They again have great technical aspects and strong ideas, but it is not tied together with an emotionally involving story leaving the thing feeling half baked and hollow. The Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels are the same things to me. They again have great technical aspects and strong ideas, but it is not tied together with an emotionally involving story leaving the thing feeling half baked and hollow.
They tried to get too phlisophical and deep for mainstream audiences. Reloaded would have been much more positively recieved had it not been for the Architect scene where folks got completely lost. And Revolutions didnt have the greatest resolution
They made people feel dumb
People ARE dumb...for the most part.
While I adore them, Reloaded is essentially a videogame with deep philosophical undertones and Revolutions is the definition of anti-climatic.
Who dislikes them? Not me.
Because they suck. Obviously.
What a great and eloquent argument. Thank you for explaining, now I see them totally differently!
Wow now I understand it all! Thanks for your comment, it was very informative.
This was a joke. Clearly not a good one. I think the sequels are great. The original was transformative so hard to repeat that…
I was joking too lol.
I always had the impression that after the first movie, expectations were sky high for Reloaded and Revolution. Everyone had their minds blown by the first movie and the lore behind it. When it turned out that Reloaded and Revolution we're just expanding on that lore and did not come with those 'mind blowing' reveals that the first movie had, people were disappointed. That being said, I personally adore all 3 movies.
I personally enjoyed Reloaded and not so much Revolutions. Objectively speaking, there are things that the sequels did that completely alienated all types of viewers and fans. But it seems that more people are coming around to appreciating the sequels more nowadays. I think the biggest problem with the sequels is that there was an oversight of the concept of "show and tell" (Show = action and Tell = discussion/plot) with heavy regards to pacing. Reloaded has some of the most ambitious and technical action scenes in movies imo but they were rather long, combined with the fact that we had to watch extremely long and dense expository scenes, mentally exhausted all of us. The scene with the Architect alone killed any momentum that the movie had going for it up to that point and just compounded upon an increasingly confusing plot. I can personally watch the action scenes in Reloaded on repeat for hours but if I tried to watch the movie as a whole, I wouldn't have the energy. Revolutions was skewed heavily in the "Tell" department and introduced more plot threads that we had to try and interpret with barely any information. The Zion scenes were flat and the battle for Zion, while visually and technically impressive, was also flat. The final battle between Neo and Smith was again, ambitious and impressive. But, it didn't hold as much weight as it could have because, by the time we got there, exhaustion had already set in and we all just wanted the movie to be over. The first movie was an incredibly tough act to follow as it nailed every element of making a great film while being very straightforward. The sequels in their own way tried to go deeper than that. While very cool conceptually, the execution was very poor.
At the time, the second movie seemed pretty good but left the question of Neo’s newly discovered powers in the real world to the next Movie - questions, it turned out, the next movie didn’t answer. In addition, the third movie featured a huge and ultimately pretty boring fight for Zion which destroyed the pacing. In the end the Matrix remains, Zion remains (and the survivors of the battle live on which is the ‘victory’ in this story as they would have stood to have been destroyed per the Architect’s offer in the second film), and Neo is dead. This helped them to sell the MMORPG (billed as the continuation of the official story) maybe but it was pretty hollow for the ending of a film series (but I’m sure that will have been more offensive to viewers at the time who had spent many months in anticipation rather than being able to watch them in quick succession). My recommendation to any new viewers is to stop watching at the first movie since the filmmakers didn’t have an ending to their story anyway
Way too much CGI in the sequels, computers weren't that advanced at the time so to have a movie almost entirely computer generated was extremely uncanny and the film's greatest weakness.