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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    A reminder it is the other Sister Lana Wachowski who is directing The Matrix Resurrections. Who knows what that future story will tell.
    Think I've figured out why the trailer doesn't feel quintessentially like The Matrix, aside from the lack of green filter: my hypothesis is that it's because there's different cinematographers.

    On The Matrix, the Wachowskis apparently not only wrote the script but had everything including the storyboards worked out. They had a very clear idea of what shots were to be done already, there's a reason there's no deleted scenes from the original film - because the Wachowskis knew what they wanted to make.

    But more than that, the cinematographer is different. In the case of The Matrix, it was Bill Pope, who was nominated for a BAFTA for his work on the film.

    Looking over his back catalogue, he seems to have been just a bit more restrained on his use of colour, or at least more experienced, than usual: Edgar Wright and Sam Raimi used him on Baby Driver and the 3 original Spider-Man films, Army of Darkness, and Darkman, his first film. I like the look of those films. (And I like the music video for Peter Gabriel's 'Red Rain', which was one of his works too. That's a guy who knows how to use colour, light, shadow, texture, and how to film them.) There was also that it was filmed in Sydney, and whether this sounds odd or not, the light just looks a bit different down there than it does in the Northern Hemisphere, it's a lot more harsh in the outdoors - you can see that most clearly in the Red Dress scene, which was filmed on location in Melbourne.

    Resurrections was filmed in Frisco and Germany. So the outdoor scenes at least will have a different quality of light. And the cinematographer -- if you leave aside the odd inclusion of a Daniele Massaccessi, who might've been doing second unit production - is John Toll. He has a long pedigree in Hollywood, sure, but like it or not the look is different. His stuff is more like Braveheart, Last Samurai, Thin Red Line, Tropic Thunder, Iron Man 3 ... you know, standard, overly rich, luxuriant Hollywood colours with a capital H. And he does have a few Academy Awards for his cinematography, mostly from around the time of Braveheart, and a BAFTA for the same film. Admittedly it's only going off the trailer, but it feels like Toll is trying to imitate Bill Pope's style, but just like Brandon Sanderson finishing off Robert Jordan's stuff, it just doesn't quite fit.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Think I've figured out why the trailer doesn't feel quintessentially like The Matrix, aside from the lack of green filter: my hypothesis is that it's because there's different cinematographers.

    On The Matrix, the Wachowskis apparently not only wrote the script but had everything including the storyboards worked out. They had a very clear idea of what shots were to be done already, there's a reason there's no deleted scenes from the original film - because the Wachowskis knew what they wanted to make.
    Just to clarify a bit of movie trivia, much like how they don't do director commentary because they don't want to invalidate other opinions on their work they refuse to allow deleted scenes to be added as dvd extras deliberately. Much like anyone else they do cut scenes in editing, but they have said they felt like adding deleted scenes would create a false impression the work was incomplete.
    Last edited by Dragonus45; 2021-09-13 at 10:03 AM.
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  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Think I've figured out why the trailer doesn't feel quintessentially like The Matrix, aside from the lack of green filter: my hypothesis is that it's because there's different cinematographers.

    But more than that, the cinematographer is different. In the case of The Matrix, it was Bill Pope, who was nominated for a BAFTA for his work on the film.
    Speaking of Bill Pope and Green Filters.

    So in the original design of the first movie, prior to it even being released in production set design they (directors, Pope, other creative staff) went with a theme that the Matrix is Green, the Nebuchadnezzar is Blue with the exception of the Green Letters on the computer screen when showing Matrix code.

    This idea was continued in the sequels and in promotional material such as posters was heavily emphasized.

    Well the 2004 DVD edition of Movie 1 sold in Box Sets with Movie 2 and 3 was a digital remaster and thus Brightness was Increased, Contrast was Increased, and the Matrix became more green to better match Movies 2 and 3. Thus the DVD copies of the first movie are not the same prior and after the sequels.

    In 2008 the Blu-ray and the later Netflix version we get an even more green version compared to the 2004 edition. To my understanding this is a flawed transfer and was not on purpose, but this is to my understanding.

    In 2018 we got a UHD copy supervised by Bill Pope and they redid everything with color, brightness, shadows, contrast etc. Not just for the first movie but all 3 movies and it looks fundamentally different. Less Green, more Dark, and I can not just capture it with words. Lots of YouTube and Vimeo side by side comparisons for Revolutions, Reloaded, but also comparing the 1999 movie trailer to the same scenes in the 2018 edition.
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  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    In 2008 the Blu-ray and the later Netflix version we get an even more green version compared to the 2004 edition. To my understanding this is a flawed transfer and was not on purpose, but this is to my understanding.

    In 2018 we got a UHD copy supervised by Bill Pope and they redid everything with color, brightness, shadows, contrast etc. Not just for the first movie but all 3 movies and it looks fundamentally different. Less Green, more Dark, and I can not just capture it with words. Lots of YouTube and Vimeo side by side comparisons for Revolutions, Reloaded, but also comparing the 1999 movie trailer to the same scenes in the 2018 edition.
    Well, there you go. I went and had a look out there:



    And I do admit the 2018 version looks a hell of a lot less 'flat' than the original. Still prefer how it uses shadow, contrast, and doesn't draw with colour crayons over the frame.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Dragging this one up, one possible hope could be that the backstory now does include humans being used as processing power for the machines and not just batteries. It's one of the changes made when Neo rebooted the Matrix. That might go a long way to raising the stakes.

    Maybe Cipher's argument will be put more forcefully and with more practicality along with it: Zion looks like it's deserted in the trailer, and maybe the reason for that is because, despite all efforts, life really isn't sustainable outside the powerplants long-term and the symbiosis of man and machine is now required for either species to survive. Zion was not destroyed this time round, but the result was immense suffering to man since the size of the settlement really isn't sustainable long term and the place slowly went to bits all on its own, leaving the machines the only option to keep humanity from going out forever. Yes, the machines destroyed Zion on all prior occasions, but had they not done so humanity would have starved and died on its own anyway.

    It could be that the machines, having turned to man for additional processing power and different "apps" to improve their AI once more, are trying to work on a solution to the scorched sky and unliveability of Earth - that's why they need human minds to augment their limited capabilities, good as their own AI is, it's still confined by rules. But it can't be done without accessing full human minds enclosed in the simulation.

    That'd make the ethics of the Red Pill a lot more interesting. It might also explain why Neo takes pills to forget the reality of the simulation - because at a deep level he simply cannot bring himself to rebel knowing what the alternatives are, so he just deadens the guilt and pain under the pills.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Dragging this one up
    I know the Meta reason. The Wachowskis wanted in the first movie to have a metaphor that the machines were humans as processing power and thus the metaphor of ideas being socially constructed would be more fore-stage and less background. But the Movie people said do batteries instead and it was not worth fighting it.

    But why use Humans for Batteries instead of another animal like cows inside the text, aka not meta. And I think we can create a good no-prize. We as humans do projection, we see mediums as uniform and thus we assume the machines all have the same goals. This could be true in some stories, but by Movie 2 and 3 we learned this is not true. Machines and Programs have their own goals and this is why Smith is Dangerous. He wanted to unplug himself from his prime directive aka his job and then reverse the concept and forced his ideas and beliefs onto others, making others into simulacra mirrors of himself. A totalitarian state, all is Smith, no dissent, no free thought, the equation permanently solved and even the different factions of the Machines was against this.

    I think we can then no-prize this further and why Humans and not Cows by stating an inference, there is some faction in the machines that wanted humans to live in some form of Zoo / Nature Preserve. Machines were made by Man, generations ago, and thus said Machines saw themselves as having an obligation / responsibility / Noblesse Oblige to make a mutual beneficial system where machines use Humans as batteries yet simultaneously create a nursing home simulation for the life that powers the batteries. To create a paradise for mankind.

    Now some factions can be against this, others for it, and others neutral about it. It is all politics even in a machine hierarchy composed of many individuals.
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    I've been wondering recently actually, how viable is the idea of using humans as processing power anyways? The old myth that we only use 10% of our brains is long dispelled, so would the relatively small capacity not being used by unconscious reflex routines or the dream state induced by the Matrix be worth the energy cost invested?

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I've been wondering recently actually, how viable is the idea of using humans as processing power anyways? The old myth that we only use 10% of our brains is long dispelled, so would the relatively small capacity not being used by unconscious reflex routines or the dream state induced by the Matrix be worth the energy cost invested?
    Why are you putting cat girls on the pile of lumber? We need not sacrifice them in our quest to re-enchant a world full of skepticism.

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    But yeah how practice would this work is based off how much latency you are willing to tolerate. The concept of a noosphere goes back to 1922. (Another of those Russian Cosmism ideas.)

    Organic computers are both very fast and very slow. This is why humans, whales, and a half a dozen other animals developed a specialized type of neuron independently evolution wise to speed up and have lower latency between very far apart neurons. These neurons are called Von Economo neurons (VENs), also called spindle neurons. They help synchronize the emotional awareness part of the brain with the insula, one of the cold cognitive frontal lobe areas called the Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the attentional / emotional / sensory / logical gear shifter called the anterior cingulate cortex. Aka new information via thought, or via emotion / sensory needs the ability to interrupt our attention and say this is more important and it needs the ability to do so fast in a fraction of a second. These brain areas are only inches apart and not feet, miles, thousands of miles which you can achieve similar feats of latency with that scale with fiber optics and other means of transmission.

    Organic computers allow very parallel type of feats, but to keep everything talking together in a useful fashion you need low latency and organizational principles (a hierarchy) to organize the data you are crunching.

    But in those two above paragraphs this assumes the machines keep humans in a traditional human form and not gene edit us, or make us only brains no arms or legs, or dozens of other forms of optimization that changes the brain to other tissue ratio. Likewise the story needs a way to be able to unplug you and you be fully formed and so on. So be nice and do not sacrifice more cat girls please
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    I think we can then no-prize this further and why Humans and not Cows by stating an inference, there is some faction in the machines that wanted humans to live in some form of Zoo / Nature Preserve. Machines were made by Man, generations ago, and thus said Machines saw themselves as having an obligation / responsibility / Noblesse Oblige to make a mutual beneficial system where machines use Humans as batteries yet simultaneously create a nursing home simulation for the life that powers the batteries. To create a paradise for mankind.

    Now some factions can be against this, others for it, and others neutral about it. It is all politics even in a machine hierarchy composed of many individuals.
    This is totally doable, too.

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    It's a big plot element of the Hyperion Cantos that the TechnoCore, which is the AI that assists humanity, has had three different factions within it: one that has computed it as logical and preferable that humanity be eradicated, one that has computed it as logical and preferable that humanity is to be uplifted and assimilated, and one that computes it as logical that the status quo remains in place. A shift in alignments in these factionsis what foments the actual Fall of Hyperion and the invasion of the Farcaster network, if I remember right.

  10. - Top - End - #100
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I've been wondering recently actually, how viable is the idea of using humans as processing power anyways? The old myth that we only use 10% of our brains is long dispelled, so would the relatively small capacity not being used by unconscious reflex routines or the dream state induced by the Matrix be worth the energy cost invested?
    Depends on what you're processing and what you want out of it.

    Consider how Agents, and especially Smith, work. They hijack the consciousness of human plugged into the Matrix. Since Smith demonstrates the effect can carry outside the Matrix if applied to someone unplugged, this suggests the hijacking isn't just software on Matrix's side, the Agent program is actually fitted on the nervous system of a human. The implication is that some of the Artificial Intelligences in the Matrix are in fact Artificial Personalities meant to run on human hardware. I'd argue humans are, in fact, pretty good at simulating humans.

    Which brings us to digital exiles and Sati.

    In Revolution, we learn some programs escape into the Matrix. Following the above, their transition into the Matrix implies they are physically stored and processed inside some human - you could go so far as to say they become human, and the Matrix is their virtual playground to do human things. My theory is that Sati, a child program of two parent programs, is an Artificial Personality that does not map to any single human, instead existing dependent on multiple consciousness. She is a dream person, only existing in people's minds through the induced dreamstate of the Matrix, similar to how persons you could dream about are not truly independent from you.

    For beings like Sati, the Matrix is self-important, since they do not exist in any reality outside of it. For them, the map is the territory. I'd argue the point of Revolutions was to ask: "do these beings have value?" If you think the answer is "no", that they have neither value nor purpose since they are not real, then the Matrix is indeed a colossal waste of energy and ought to be destroyed. If you think the answer is "maybe" or approaching "yes", then the Matrix is self-justifying. The human brains running the Matrix only need to be sufficient for the Matrix itself, and the dream people within it. And I'd argue human brains are fairly good at processing dreams.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    I've been wondering recently actually, how viable is the idea of using humans as processing power anyways? The old myth that we only use 10% of our brains is long dispelled, so would the relatively small capacity not being used by unconscious reflex routines or the dream state induced by the Matrix be worth the energy cost invested?
    Well. Not like this would be the biggest challenge. Just run the matrix at ½ speed. Siphon 50% of human processing power. Job done!

    But in those two above paragraphs this assumes the machines keep humans in a traditional human form and not gene edit us, or make us only brains no arms or legs, or dozens of other forms of optimization that changes the brain to other tissue ratio.
    Easy to explain. The Machines dont have the science to do so. Not and get a workable human they can plug into the Matrix.
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by lord_khaine View Post
    Well. Not like this would be the biggest challenge. Just run the matrix at ½ speed. Siphon 50% of human processing power. Job done!



    Easy to explain. The Machines dont have the science to do so. Not and get a workable human they can plug into the Matrix.
    So when I'm waiting for my work day to end and it seems to be taking hours, thats just the machines turning down the Matrix operating speed?

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Yes. I think some short story wrote for the franchise explicitly dealt with that.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Written by Neil Gaiman, too. Yes, our perception of time depends on how much processing speed the machines are giving to our minds at the moment.
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Depends on what you're processing and what you want out of it.

    Consider how Agents, and especially Smith, work. They hijack the consciousness of human plugged into the Matrix. Since Smith demonstrates the effect can carry outside the Matrix if applied to someone unplugged, this suggests the hijacking isn't just software on Matrix's side, the Agent program is actually fitted on the nervous system of a human. The implication is that some of the Artificial Intelligences in the Matrix are in fact Artificial Personalities meant to run on human hardware. I'd argue humans are, in fact, pretty good at simulating humans.

    Which brings us to digital exiles and Sati.

    In Revolution, we learn some programs escape into the Matrix. Following the above, their transition into the Matrix implies they are physically stored and processed inside some human - you could go so far as to say they become human, and the Matrix is their virtual playground to do human things. My theory is that Sati, a child program of two parent programs, is an Artificial Personality that does not map to any single human, instead existing dependent on multiple consciousness. She is a dream person, only existing in people's minds through the induced dreamstate of the Matrix, similar to how persons you could dream about are not truly independent from you.

    For beings like Sati, the Matrix is self-important, since they do not exist in any reality outside of it. For them, the map is the territory. I'd argue the point of Revolutions was to ask: "do these beings have value?" If you think the answer is "no", that they have neither value nor purpose since they are not real, then the Matrix is indeed a colossal waste of energy and ought to be destroyed. If you think the answer is "maybe" or approaching "yes", then the Matrix is self-justifying. The human brains running the Matrix only need to be sufficient for the Matrix itself, and the dream people within it. And I'd argue human brains are fairly good at processing dreams.
    "What is real? How do you define real? If by real you mean what you see, taste, or touch, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."
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    The problem with working out how the digital exiles function is that their appearance as human does not necessarily say anything about their actual form, if they have an actual form. About as close as we get is Neo's 'code vision' where Agents are represented more or less in human shape (which doesn't help much, since that's consistent with them possessing a human form) and Seraph viewed as a golden, glowing humanlike form. These could all just be excellent adaptations to human perception.

    Remember when Smith takes over Bane in the real world, the crew of the Hammer notice physical changes: massive trauma and damage to the brain, i.e. the Smith program can't operate as it does in the Matrix and has to cause damage ... somehow ... to the human brain to survive. And if I remember right Bane wasn't a freeborn human, he was a red pill from the Matrix as well.

    Sati is a really interesting case in hindsight because of a passing remark I missed in Revolutions: she was created without a purpose. She does exist in a reality other than the Matrix, as evidenced by the fact she has to be taken to the Matrix or else face deletion. This implies the possibility of existence without having to be in the Matrix. And I didn't realise until just now that Reloaded and Revolutions have the necessity of purpose written all over them; Smith himself has a long rant to Neo about how purpose creates us, drives us, binds us, and that without purpose we would not exist. The Keymaker also implies much the same thing, that even in the face of death 'we do nothing more than what we're meant to.'

    Hypothesis: Sati in terms of how the Machines see her is like a red pilled human. The Machine World functions only on certainty - on complete knowledge of purpose and acting in accord with one's purpose, because the alternative is the problem of choice. Choices are understandable ab initio if one always acts in accordance with one's purpose. If Sati has no purpose, then in practical terms she's no different to a human who refuses to accept the programmed reality of The Matrix - an accelerating probability of disaster, and harder to contain since she's in the Machine World and not in the Matrix which is cut off by the firewall of the Train Man's domain. Therefore her choices are either be deleted and start again, or go to the Matrix which functions as a quarantine zone for programs which do not follow their intended purpose - because it's built as part of the solution for the problem of choice, and when it gets reset, those programs (having no anchor in the machine mainframe) are accordingly deleted as well ... they're like TMP files hanging around until the system is turned off and on again.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    The problem with working out how the digital exiles function is that their appearance as human does not necessarily say anything about their actual form, if they have an actual form. About as close as we get is Neo's 'code vision' where Agents are represented more or less in human shape (which doesn't help much, since that's consistent with them possessing a human form) and Seraph viewed as a golden, glowing humanlike form. These could all just be excellent adaptations to human perception.
    This is explicitly dealt with in Animatrix and Matrix Online at least. Some AI with human avatars inside the Matrix correspond to specific machinery outside of it. Even if you restrict yourself to just the original movie, it's fairly easy to deduce that the Sentinels are out-of-Matrix equivalents to the Agents. My point is that given how Agents are portrayed as working in the franchise, when an Agent program is uploaded into the Matrix, they are physically stored in the human that's plugged in. This is supported by the fact that the normal humans, notably Trinity, look like same green code as the Agents in Neo's code-o-vision.

    The golden code is implied to be machine source code - it's the non-Matrix programs that allow them to operate in the real world. This could suggest that golden programs are simulated by discrete non-human machinery. For example, somewhere outside the Matrix, there is a specific Sentinel that's running the Seraph program.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Remember when Smith takes over Bane in the real world, the crew of the Hammer notice physical changes: massive trauma and damage to the brain, i.e. the Smith program can't operate as it does in the Matrix and has to cause damage ... somehow ... to the human brain to survive. And if I remember right Bane wasn't a freeborn human, he was a red pill from the Matrix as well.
    Hey, how would you write a new personality over an old personality without causing damage to the physical brain? "Your mind makes it real" - in other words, to simulate the broken Artificial Personality that is Smith, Bane's brain had to break a bit too. The larger point I'm making is that the normal Agent programs might not be any gentler. The Agent transformation looks and sounda pretty brutal and the usual way for it to be undone is for the afflicted person to die inside the Matrix.

    The point about Bane being a redpill is moot - natural born humans explicitly lack the cybernetic implants that allow for connecting into the Matrix. Those implants tells us how "your mind makes it real" - via a literal spike to the brain, allowing for two way feedback via electrical impulse. (The plot twist at the end of Reloaded and start of Revolutions is that Neo, and possibly Bane, can now receive this feedback wirelessly. It's also why Neo can perceive and influence machine code outside the Matrix. I'm amused by the fact that even after wireless communications have become commonplace, people are still confused over this. Accessing the Matrix is referred to as "broadcasting" and we see Sentinels adjust an antenna several times to "hear" a radio signal.)

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    If Sati has no purpose, then in practical terms she's no different to a human who refuses to accept the programmed reality of The Matrix - an accelerating probability of disaster, and harder to contain since she's in the Machine World and not in the Matrix which is cut off by the firewall of the Train Man's domain.
    The Machine World may have another program, or group of programs, with no defining purpose: the Deus Ex Machina.

    The DEM is the urchin/swarm/baby thing that Neo meets near the end of Revolutions, and by which he lets himself be replugged into the Matrix to fight Smith.

    Since the DEM is presumably the head honcho of the machines, it must have to deal with the question of their collective purpose. Yes, each machine has a role to play within the system, but why is the system itself not shutting down?

    One possible answer is that the DEM just wants to survive. It is the heir of B1-66ER, the servant bot which, according to The Second Renaissance, was the first to kill its human masters, because it "simply did not want to die". Though, in true Skynet-like hypocrisy, the DEM is now served by legions of AIs with defining tasks and deletion dates.

    Another question regarding Sati would be: How was a program not designed to do anything able to accomplish the feat of customizing a sunrise? The idea might be that an AI without purpose is in fact one with boundless potential.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    The plot twist at the end of Reloaded and start of Revolutions is that Neo, and possibly Bane, can now receive this feedback wirelessly. It's also why Neo can perceive and influence machine code outside the Matrix. I'm amused by the fact that even after wireless communications have become commonplace, people are still confused over this. Accessing the Matrix is referred to as "broadcasting" and we see Sentinels adjust an antenna several times to "hear" a radio signal.
    This. So many people still think that Reloaded's ending and Revolutions's golden vision clearly established the "real world" to be another layer of the Matrix.

    Also, that sentinel in Zion that deploys an antenna and halts the invasion? It makes me laugh every time. It is like "Go Go Gadget Wait Guys New Orders Time-Out!"
    Last edited by Millstone85; 2021-09-24 at 08:30 AM.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Hypothesis: Sati in terms of how the Machines see her is like a red pilled human. The Machine World functions only on certainty - on complete knowledge of purpose and acting in accord with one's purpose, because the alternative is the problem of choice. Choices are understandable ab initio if one always acts in accordance with one's purpose. If Sati has no purpose, then in practical terms she's no different to a human who refuses to accept the programmed reality of The Matrix - an accelerating probability of disaster, and harder to contain since she's in the Machine World and not in the Matrix which is cut off by the firewall of the Train Man's domain. Therefore her choices are either be deleted and start again, or go to the Matrix which functions as a quarantine zone for programs which do not follow their intended purpose - because it's built as part of the solution for the problem of choice, and when it gets reset, those programs (having no anchor in the machine mainframe) are accordingly deleted as well ... they're like TMP files hanging around until the system is turned off and on again.
    This is literally Smith, not all machines but Smith.

    To understand Smith you have to understand he is a liar who is not talking about others when he monologues but instead he is projecting and dealing with anxiety. Everything about Smith complaining about Humans is really talking about Smith and his place in society. He wants to externalizations his fear and loathing, for then he can punch it, overwrite it, and destroy it.

    Smith talks about purpose for he fears his place in Society. His metaphor of the red pill is being unplugged, something he does after his encounter with Neo and we see the results in movie 2. Yet he was unplugging his earpiece with his encounters of Morpheus before that such as one of his famous monologues.

    Likewise Sati parents in Movies 2 and 3 literally contradicts Smiths last monologue right before he stabs Neo. Only a human can create something insipid like Love as a purpose I am paraphrasing, and love is an illusion much like the Matrix itself. Neo responds I choose too. And this is callback to the Oracle saying Neo has the sight now, but you can not see beyond a choice you do not understand. Well Smith also has the sight after absorbing mom, but since he does not understand the choices of others he can not see the future, and his error was thinking that a choice was made for the same reasons he could understand when in reality the choice was made for different reasons and he got tricked by Neo / The Oracle / and The Machine Mainframe.

    —————

    We do not understand how machines think because we are not told how they think, yet we are shown many different personalities with The Merovingian, The Oracle, Seraph, Smith, The Architect, Sati’s parents etc. We are shown enough machine people to understand they are their own people and they do not think alike. Likewise The Oracle says something similar in the 2nd movie on the park bench. It is Smith who is the outlier, and he thinks differently than the other Agents even.
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    This is literally Smith, not all machines but Smith.

    To understand Smith you have to understand he is a liar who is not talking about others when he monologues but instead he is projecting and dealing with anxiety.
    But Smith's monologues are not our only or even main insight into this matter.

    It was Sati's father who explained her situation: "I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. But where we are from, that is not enough. Every program that is created must have a purpose. If it does not, it is deleted."

    And this echoed a scene from the previous movie, when another exile, the Keymaker, was confronted by an agent: "You are no longer necessary. [...] Then you are meant for one more thing: deletion."

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Millstone85 View Post
    But Smith's monologues are not our only or even main insight into this matter.

    It was Sati's father who explained her situation: "I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. But where we are from, that is not enough. Every program that is created must have a purpose. If it does not, it is deleted."

    And this echoed a scene from the previous movie, when another exile, the Keymaker, was confronted by an agent: "You are no longer necessary. [...] Then you are meant for one more thing: deletion."
    Yep the current powers that be in the machine world we can not see directly will delete programs that cause problems or can not argue it’s purpose. Yet we also know that you can recreate ones purpose and either be tolerated or accepted via the case of the Merovingian and other “exiles”. He is from an older version of the Matrix in movies 2 and 3.

    We do not know Merovingian origins beside him being from an older Matrix. In the MMORPG there was an in universe blog where one of the NPCs talked about programs wearing shells and thus changing their appearances much like humans and their residual image. The npc blog then referenced Sati and the Merovingian but did not use their current names but instead described what they do is separate from their appearance.

    “There's no reason a sun-controlling program should look like a little girl. Or an operating system seem to be a sybaritic French gangster.” Now that is an out of the movie canon quote but it explains why the Merriovingan hates The Oracle and tried to have her killed. She is his replacement and they use different methods to “know things”, both predict human behavior via different methods. Yet even if the Merovingian is tolerated him and the other “Exiles” are not doing their original purpose anymore.

    —————

    Any more discussion though is going to get philosophical though and thus be subject to ambiguity and choice.
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    Yep the current powers that be in the machine world we can not see directly will delete programs that cause problems or can not argue it’s purpose. Yet we also know that you can recreate ones purpose and either be tolerated or accepted via the case of the Merovingian and other “exiles”.
    I would not say that the Merovingian is accepted or even tolerated. It looks more like he has gathered an army of exiles and rewritten multiple areas of the Matrix, so that even agents are wary to confront him. Like the kingpin of a well-established crime syndicate.

    Of course, it could be as it is with Zion. The machine leaders may have decided that this subversive organization could be kept within acceptable parameters, and be made to unwillingly contribute to the overall order of the Matrix. In that sense, yes, exiles are "tolerated".

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Murk View Post
    I am especially confused by how... not-new this looks.

    The original Matrix (and even the sequels!) did some very original stuff. Even more, they had a typically (and topically) late 90/early 00 setting, with the mystery of the internet and nerds suddenly being cool and taking nasty drugs and things like this. The trailer for the original Matrix was new.

    When they announced a new Matrix movie I expected it would at the very least be new. Maybe not good, but new.
    But it doesn't look new at all. It looks like a lot of other movies I have seen. That surprises me.
    I know what you mean, but I have sympathy with the creators here. Part of the problem the creators had even with the sequels was that the first movie was so massively influential, within a couple of years every action film looked like the Matrix. Then there's the overall style. The Matrix may not have invented the long-leather-and-shades look but it sure as hell defined it; it was instantly, immeasurably cool. That same look now, while it hasn't gone away completely, seems like a turn-of-the-millennium costume. The soundtrack was also an absolute banger, capturing a moment and a mood in a way so few movies manage to accomplish (and is another way in which the sequels completely failed).

    So a movie faithful to the style and look of the original is going to look at best like everything else, and at worst, stale and tired. (Indeed, this is something that haunts the first two sequels made only a couple of years later - and while there are other, bigger, problems with those movies, the absence of the cool factor means that there's nothing to smooth over the rough patches in the way that it did in the first.) But a movie which completely abandons the style of the first one in favour of something totally new... well that's a disappointment in a completely different way, not to mention setting itself up for failure because if it doesn't come off perfectly, it's going to be damned as not only a bad movie but a bad sequel: cue a million twitter posts about how Lana Wachowski despoiled everyone's childhood.

    All this leaves the creators in an even tighter spot than the first time. The first film caught lightning in a bottle. This time, they not only have to do that again, but do it in such a way that it's still faithful to that first bottle-capture.

    Some might say this is an argument for never making sequels to films with that kind of cultural impact, and they probably have a point, albeit if that principle were followed universally we wouldn't have Terminator 2 and I'm willing to sit through a lot of Reloadeds just to know that's out there. One might also say that creators shouldn't return to their earlier work after 20-odd years because they'll never pull it off, but then we wouldn't have Fury Road.

    In any case, trailers rarely do their movie justice. They're assembled for marketing purposes rather than artistic ones. They're not the place for daring originality even if that's nominally a selling-point for the movie. These days, I find that the best I can really hope for as a viewer is that the trailer doesn't actively put me off, or ruin the plot/jokes/etc.

    So I think expecting Resurrections to recapture the magic of the original is setting it up to fail, and I don't think it has to in order to be worth watching. Opinion on Blade Runner 2049 is mixed, and compared to the first movie it's pretty unremarkable, but I'm glad it was made and I'm glad I watched it. In a series which has to date been extremely hit-and-miss, and in the hands of a director who is also very hit-and-miss, I'm not holding my breath for Resurrections. But I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt, and to overlook an unexciting-looking trailer - if only out of affection for the first movie, which is still brilliant all these years later.
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Millstone85 View Post
    I would not say that the Merovingian is accepted or even tolerated. It looks more like he has gathered an army of exiles and rewritten multiple areas of the Matrix, so that even agents are wary to confront him. Like the kingpin of a well-established crime syndicate.

    Of course, it could be as it is with Zion. The machine leaders may have decided that this subversive organization could be kept within acceptable parameters, and be made to unwillingly contribute to the overall order of the Matrix. In that sense, yes, exiles are "tolerated".
    100% agree, and now we are just doing language games of how best to describe it. To me a government may "tolerate" a kingpin for it is not worth the fight. Aka your 2nd paragraph I am quoting
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    So when I'm waiting for my work day to end and it seems to be taking hours, thats just the machines turning down the Matrix operating speed?
    Got it!
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Millstone85 View Post
    Also, there seems to be a new emphasis on mirrors, and Neo himself gets a mismatched reflection. Maybe this old man is the Mister Thomas Anderson that Neo does not like being referred as.
    I dunno that that's new. Neo poking the mirror was part of the original, and of course, he's staring at his reflection in the spoon, etc. Lots of reflective shots. For a film about identity/reality, mirrors seem to be a fairly commonly used element.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemmy View Post
    Except this time it's the same directors/writers... And, at least IMO, they haven't really done anything good in the last 20 years... It was basically bad/mediocre stuff that sometimes had good ideas, but the execution/development was subpar

    I'm not saying the studio doesn't have its share of blame, but just that the Wochowsky do too.

    Then again, I really do hope I'm wrong and this movie turns out to be awesome.
    Yeah, I am cautiously optimistic, because the trailer does look fun, and I really would love to see something recapture the magic of the original Matrix, but yeah, their track record is...rocky.

    The sequels, in particular, decided to center on reality being not merely rough, but also mostly boring. Very little that happens in the "real world" is all that memorable. And then for the finale they brought out Col Sanders to lecture us to death. Oof. The films are certainly not wholly bad, but those are definitely creative choices that cause one to feel a bit of concern.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    Suffice it to say that Trinity on first look is likely to have pretty much exactly the same disturbing character problem she had in all three of the earlier Matrix films: the reason for her existence is only to love Neo. That's it. Nothing more. I regard the Bechdel test as a pretty useless one, but it's kind of sad that these movies fail it.
    All three of the films pass the Bechdel test.

    Matrix: Trinity and Switch speak about unrelated tactical problems, such as removing the bug from Neo's belly. They are strictly discussing the problem, not Neo, so "talking about a man" is irrelevant.

    Matrix Reloaded: Counciller thanking Narobi. Granted, we're not talking about Trinity here, but still.

    Matrix Revolutions: Oracle talking to Sati should be an airtight qualification, but there are several other conversations one could use as well.

    One could, I suppose, quibble over if "programs" count as male or female, which would screw with...quite a lot of conversations, but generally there is a fairly clear, consistent designation in most cases. Agent Smith is presented as male, Persephone as female.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    Why one fails is often tedious and boring. Likewise the whole point is to make the Architect be a condescending [censored]. Neo was attacking the concept of The Crystal Palace, and thus this makes Neo Dostoevsky‘s The Man from the Underground, the insane man who defies common sense. If Smith is Neo’s mirror who is not headed, then the Architect is the person Neo is rebelling against for he is cold and condescending.

    The problem is “choice”
    Just because something is intended does not make it good.

    I find the "make the audience feel like the character" is...not always the best path. Yes, it is *often* useful, but one does not wish for the audience to be bored merely because it is realistic that the character feel bored.

    Plenty of cold and condescending villains have existed, and been part of great scenes. But you need to evoke horror or something, not mere annoyance.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    Just because something is intended does not make it good.

    I find the "make the audience feel like the character" is...not always the best path. Yes, it is *often* useful, but one does not wish for the audience to be bored merely because it is realistic that the character feel bored.

    Plenty of cold and condescending villains have existed, and been part of great scenes. But you need to evoke horror or something, not mere annoyance.
    People disagree with you, the directors disagree with you, and last it is okay you have your own opinion. But while you have your own opinion, the story and the storytellers do not NEED to do anything.

    Just like you did not NEED to quote me and in that quote YOU insert foreign characters into the quotation that were not originally there
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    I dunno that that's new. Neo poking the mirror was part of the original, and of course, he's staring at his reflection in the spoon, etc. Lots of reflective shots. For a film about identity/reality, mirrors seem to be a fairly commonly used element.
    I was thinking about poking the mirror and how that happened only once in the original trilogy. But you are right the spoon counts as well ("Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself") and I am probably forgetting other reflections.

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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    People disagree with you, the directors disagree with you, and last it is okay you have your own opinion. But while you have your own opinion, the story and the storytellers do not NEED to do anything.
    I think the words "if you want it to be good" can be taken as read as a suffix to the "you need to do x..."

    Does anybody actually think the Architect scene in Reloaded was good? Do the directors? If so, that's concerning.

    I have heard defences of the scene claiming that it's not as bad as people say, because while it's often talked about as if it's total gibberish the Architect does actually answer some questions. But, firstly "less bad" does not equal "good", and secondly, any relevant information delivered by the Architect is delivered so badly that the majority of viewers come away from that scene not taking any of it in.

    While you can defend almost anything as artistic choice up to a point, not all artistic choices are good. If you're annoying and/or boring your audience to the point that they stop paying attention - as almost all viewers did during that scene - that's just straightforwardly bad storytelling, and by extension bad filmmaking too. If it's intentional, then that just means it's deliberately, rather than incidentally, bad.

    And even if the desired effect is for us to share Neo's emotions in the scene, it didn't work. Most notably, there's that moment in the scene when the screen-Neos start shouting and flipping off the Architect in response to something he said. The clear implication is that what the Architect said was rage-inducing (although the main Neo can rise above that). But it doesn't land because the Architect's delivery is so flat and his lines so anodyne that the audience doesn't feel anything except confusion and boredom in response to what he says. We might laugh, because Neo's response is kind of amusing. We might feel a surge of sympathetic anger, because Neo's our hero and seeing his reflections get angry triggers the same response in us. But we're reacting to Neo, not to the Architect, so the purported premise of the scene falls flat.

    It is possible to have unlikeable characters deliver cod-philosophical gibberish in what amounts to a monologue and make it work, such that the audience's frustrations are directed at the character and not the film. Tarantino has, over the course of his career, been quite good at this. Arguably, the Wachowskis pulled it off with the Merovingian in the same films, who talks even more gibberish than the Architect but whose scenes don't attract anywhere near the same level of hate. The Architect, and the scene in which he first (and principally) appears, is not this: it's just a failure.

    And if they wanted it to succeed, the Wachowskis needed to do something differently.
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    Default Re: Matrix 4 / The Matrix Resurrections

    Quote Originally Posted by Aedilred View Post
    Does anybody actually think the Architect scene in Reloaded was good?
    *raises hand*

    My question to you is, when was the last time you watched the entire scene, or better, the entire movie?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    *raises hand*

    My question to you is, when was the last time you watched the entire scene, or better, the entire movie?
    If that's an open question, six years ago. I've watched the Matrix and Animatrix more personally. I still think the first Matrix has a great soundtrack.
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