The Matrix

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Catholic Dude:
What do you think about the movie “the Matrix”?

I think it is one of the worst & overrated movies of the last decade.
It was NewAge mental garbage, lousy actors, lousy acting, lousy script, etc.
Also it used Christian terms to sound “cool”, the sad thing is that many people thought the author made up those words.
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I see your points, but I just viewed it as a kick *** action movie. Who cares what Keanu’s theology is? It is hollywood remember. What did you expect, a tribute to JPII?
 
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Scott_Lafrance:
Read this article and tell me its nonsense.

Buddism and Gnosticism in the Matrix
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Maybe not nonsense, but it does refer to “Gnostic Christianity.” Are you trying to tell me there ever was such a “Christian” tradition? They might as well have titled the review “Buddhism and Gnosticism in the Eastern religions and martial arts.” It was just an action movie coupled with a recurring theme within sci fi, namely that we create computers that eventually rule us. I think the lack of depth in the sequels proves my point.
 
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dirtydog:
Maybe not nonsense, but it does refer to “Gnostic Christianity.” Are you trying to tell me there ever was such a “Christian” tradition? They might as well have titled the review “Buddhism and Gnosticism in the Eastern religions and martial arts.” It was just an action movie coupled with a recurring theme within sci fi, namely that we create computers that eventually rule us. I think the lack of depth in the sequels proves my point.
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The problem is the average joe is stupid and takes in that stuff like its the Gospel. Then when your out talking to someone about true Christianity their mind is warped and different definitions pop in their head. You try to talk with them but they give you the run around the bush on why Christ is simply another one of many good loveable smart guys in history, and that Christianity holds no more weight than any other “religion”.

It was put in such a way where the average boy gets their kicks off action movie, but plugs in all these subliminal terms and messages that the average boy takes in (both knowingly and subconsciously) as gospel and profound, and dont realize that its low quality unoriginal plegiarism. They use words like “trinity” and “zion” for example and those to a Christian are some of the most sacred terms, however in the movie they are a half naked (and ugly) woman, and a LasVegas cave area. If you took a poll many kids wouldnt know the difference, or worse yet every time they hear it in Church they dont take the terms seriously because their mind jumps back to garbage. One thing that really shocks me is whenever I hear someone use this exact phrase, “that movie was deep”…I know Im in a dead end conversation when I hear those exact words from many people.
 
i see you didn’t like it.

however, i found it very provocative. i think it explored some good issues, and in a thought provoking way.

i get a rush from watching it all the way through. it reminds me of the death and resurrection of our Lord.

yes, it hit on many issues that man has grappled with over the course of the last 6000 years. what philosophical journey could avoid doing that?

yes, it might produce some of the effects you’re describing - people being confused and being led into relativism. but it doesn’t mean any of that to me, and i’ve seen the movie used as a great springboard into discussing truth - not relativism.

to me, it’s important to meet people where they are, and bring them farther into the light, rather than insisting that they only think the exact formula that i believe. this movie, i think, helps move people along, a bit, into examining some of the assumptions we make about life.
 
Catholic Dude:
The problem is the average joe is stupid and takes in that stuff like its the Gospel. Then when your out talking to someone about true Christianity their mind is warped and different definitions pop in their head. You try to talk with them but they give you the run around the bush on why Christ is simply another one of many good loveable smart guys in history, and that Christianity holds no more weight than any other “religion”.
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I wholeheartedly agree with you. However, the average joe that I know of is stupid enough to think that truth is relative and that the Gospel was just applicable to the times that it was written in. So we are fighting an uphill battle anyway. I think that there are points in the Matrix that could be spun into the favor of an orthodox position. Watch it again with that mindset and see what you think.
 
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jeffreedy789:
i see you didn’t like it.

however, i found it very provocative. i think it explored some good issues, and in a thought provoking way.

i get a rush from watching it all the way through. it reminds me of the death and resurrection of our Lord.
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I probably woulnt have come down so hard on it if it didnt misuse Christian terms in it. One thing that I have never denied was that it was revolutionary special effects, that were good in many ways. But the problem nowdays is that “directors” have replaced a good script/story with special effects.
yes, it hit on many issues that man has grappled with over the course of the last 6000 years. what philosophical journey could avoid doing that?
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I agree, there are some issues that man has struggled with, but this is hollywood and people take it as gospel. Those issues are discussed on a very shallow level, and big words and foreign terms are used to give the illusion to depth and philosophy.
yes, it might produce some of the effects you’re describing - people being confused and being led into relativism. but it doesn’t mean any of that to me, and i’ve seen the movie used as a great springboard into discussing truth - not relativism.

to me, it’s important to meet people where they are, and bring them farther into the light, rather than insisting that they only think the exact formula that i believe. this movie, i think, helps move people along, a bit, into examining some of the assumptions we make about life.
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Its like I said to DD, the average joe is dumb and the average boy’s mind is being formed. I guess the problem with me is that I know too many people who fall for the shallow and empty promises/“teachings” in it, and I get frustrated when I cant get through to them. About the springboard to discussions, I guess it can work if you know how to use it and are solid in your faith.
 
It was a contrived view of the world through the myopic vision of computer programers - basing their fallacious notion that there is anything similar between the human mind and a computer program. Thus the Matrix presented a mechanistic and deterministic view of human behaviour and I recognized no theological themes running through the movie.

All the internal characters were anthropormorphic computer programs or ‘viruses’ (i.e. subliminal programs) given human form for audience recognition.

While it was a fun and entertaining movie, It was written on a freshman level of thinking. It was not nearly as profound as Stanley Kubrick’s movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey. When Kubrick’s ‘2001’ first appeared in 1968 it was fifteen years ahead of its time, and the Matrix is already obsolete.
 
While people are discussing the Matrix, I thought I would post a link to what I think is the funniest review of the movie ever done. I have two guesses as to who wrote this review, 1) someone who never saw the movies, or 2) someone who saw the movies but is deaf, blind, and possibly has no hands (they couldn’t even read the script in braille!). Here’s the link:
traditioninaction.org/movies/007mrMatrix2.htm

I owe a great debt to this site, they have given me so much material for my blog.

Yours in Christ,
Thursday

P.S.
I loved the Matrix, it is one of my favorite movies.
 
I absolutely loved the first Matrix…then the second one got a little too “sexual” for my taste and had no real storyline, and the third totally lost me and made me walk out of the movei kind of waiting for…well…the movie:)

But yeah, the first Matrix was absolutely amazing, it’s one of my favorite movies…but in my opinion they should have stopped there
 
Big fan of all 3 Matrix movies!

I think it was brilliant how they mixed so many religious philosophies into making such a cool thinking persons fantasy! Alebit, if one really tries to wrap their noodle around the meanings, its as confusing as trying to decipher a movie that has Time Travel as its themes… but nonetheless its well written and expertly directed awesome stuff! 🙂
 
I enjoyed the first movie a lot the first time I saw it. It doesn’t stand up very well to repeated viewings though – too many holes in the premise and some really lousy dialogue in some places. I think what struck me most about the movie was the inventive cinematography and the fantastic John Woo-esque over the top action sequences (even John Woo doesn’t make them like that anymore).

But the actual plot of the movie starts to fall apart under scrutiny. It’s a great action flick, but it’s hardly the intellectual statement that some people make it out to be (and it’s possibly plagiarised… we’ll see what the court thinks). Really, the premise is pretty tired and old. The “themes” are pretty elementary. And the whole thing winds up being far from a “thinking man’s” action movie. It’s basically a live-action anime flick with everything that entails, good and bad.

It’s definitely an overrated movie, but it’s not bad – it’s just not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m glad I saw it before there really any hype surrounding it, very early in it’s theatrical run. I think if I had seen the movie after everyone built it up into this wonderful thing, I would have been very disappointed with it.

I didn’t even waste my time/money with the sequels. Everything I’ve heard makes me think that they took a good thing and ruined it by trying to turn it into something bigger than it really was.

And then I saw Equilibrium and all memories of The Matrix (what movie was that again?) faded away. The plot of Equilibrium is basically just Fahrenheit 451 mixed with equal parts of Brave New World and 1984, but the action sequences revolving around the Gramaerton Clerics and their Gun Kata (a firearm-based martial art) make the sequences from The Matrix look pretty bland by comparison, especially the finale which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it, but it’s the most unbelievable 4 minutes of action footage I’ve ever seen. They don’t rely as much on computer effects and they still produced an action movie that is more satisfying to watch (the great acting helps too… Sean Bean, Christian Bale, and a surprisingly good performance from Taye Diggs).
 
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Scout:
Couldn’t sit through any of them. Keanu Reeves is the worst actor to ever walk the planet. He couldn’t act his way our of a wet paper bag. Soap Stars look like Oscar contenders compared to that guy.

Scout :tiphat:
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I completely agree. Also, I thought The Matrix was nothing short of Hollywood razzle dazzle hype. Not particularly a sci-fi fan, anyway.

Sherilo
 
I thought the first movie was a great combination of action, thought provoking ideas, and special effects.

It had a twilight zone feeling combined with an Indiana Jones action pace and that made for great entertainment.

The first time I saw it, it was a little confusing as to the nature of the Matrix, but the more I saw it the more I like the premise.

The second 2 movies were not nearly as good, either plot wise or how well they were done.

Most folks go through life thinking very little about why or how we were put here. The first movie to me was very thought provoking, and made me look at the world slightly differently. We may not be wired to some thought control machinery or massive illusion, BUT we are away from home and life is only a precursor to something that we believe is more real and more appealing.

None of the movies answers the meaning of life nor addresses what happens after life, but that was not its aim. Perhaps they should have addressed what place religion played in the Matrix. I don’t think this made the movies any less thought provoking or any less entertaining.

I had heard so much bad press about the third movie that I waited until much after its release to the video stores to see it. That was a mistake. It was badly flawed but it too was very entertaining and probably much better on the big screen. When a movie gets way too much bad press, I guess we set our expectations very low, and very often the critics are either flat out wrong or simply have different taste.

I see an awful lot of movies, and I do not remember any plot similar to that of the matrix. I’d be curous to know if there were movies with a simiar plot and what were they and how closely they resembled the Matrix plots.
 
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wcknight:
I see an awful lot of movies, and I do not remember any plot similar to that of the matrix. I’d be curous to know if there were movies with a simiar plot and what were they and how closely they resembled the Matrix plots.
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As far as similar plots go, you’ve got Logan’s Run, THX 1138 and others in the same vein.

As far as having the whole “the world is actually a computer simulation” thing is concerned, it’s been done to death in mediums other than live-action movies for about two decades. If you watch any anime (as the Wachowski brothers clearly do since they borrow heavily from the imagery and visual technique of anime), you would have seen most of what was in the Matrix a long time ago (though not usually done that well).

As far as plagiarism and the courts are concerned, the Wachowski brothers are being sued for potentially stealing the script for all three movies from a screenwriter who claims she submitted it to them years before they started making the movie (and claimed it was their own). We’ll see whether or not she can produce enough evidence to win her case (preliminary signs all seemed to indicate that she could, but I haven’t followed it really and the case was first made public months ago).

Really, the cinematographic techniques in The Matrix (particularly all the “Bullet Time” stuff) were the only truly unique thing about the movie. Everything else in the movie borrows heavily from Blade Runner, John Woo movies (particularly The Killer or Hard Boiled), the last few Hong Kong-produced movies made by Jet Li, Fahrenheit 451, Metropolis (the Fritz Lang one, not the more recent anime movie), Johnny Mnemonic (I’ll never forgive hollywood for ruining one of Gibson’s best short stories) and very very heavily from Ghost in the Shell and other cyberpunk anime films.

Really, The Matrix wasn’t groundbreaking in any of the concepts it portrayed (in fact, it was downright sloppy in some places). It was just the first time that most of this was exposed to a mainstream audience. It would be more thought provoking if the plot had been a little more cohesive, but it might’ve been 4 hours long too. As it stands, it was a great action movie with appealing visuals and well-done special effects (that were used a little bit too much IMHO).

Still doesn’t hold a candle to Equilibrium.
 
There’s so many similarities between The Matrix and the anime, Ghost in the Shell. So if you liked this movie (the first one), you’ll surely like GITS as well. I think the Wachowski brothers mentioned paying tribute to this anime as well.
 
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Milliardo:
There’s so many similarities between The Matrix and the anime, Ghost in the Shell. So if you liked this movie (the first one), you’ll surely like GITS as well. I think the Wachowski brothers mentioned paying tribute to this anime as well.
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I didn’t “get” either one. But maybe I’m just strange.:whacky:
 
For similar (themed) Matrix type flicks check out:

Dark City, eXistenz & The Thirteenth Floor

I dig well done Sci Fi.

I am a huge fan of Equilibrium as well btw…I was terribly let down by THX 1138… EQB fits in pretty good with 1984…you could almost look at it as Equilibrium occuring within a generation after the events of the even more depressing flick 1984… But well worth a watch
 
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