I want to know why the Matrix sequels were so bad?

[Doctor King]

Honestly, I don't understand why they're complaining about how bad the sequels were. They think that it should be stopped at only the first matrix movie.

To my best opinion, I think all three movies are that great. Very beautiful writing. I have to admit it to you, I kind of tear-eyed at the end. But I don't feel like this is really end.

Uh, can anybody please explain to me why they're complaining? What do they really wants from The Matrix franchise?

 

[Gojira]

It has been so long since I saw the first sequel which was so terrible that I never watched the third movie.

I didn't like the sequel because I felt the movie had a plot that was a mess and in the end I really didn't care what happened to the characters and that is why it wasn't a good movie.

 

[Dart]

The first was near perfect. The sequels nowhere close. I have the Blu-Ray trilogy over a year and I still haven't finished the 2nd film.

 

[Cutter John]

I had pretty much the same reaction to the Pirates of the Carribean sequels. Perhaps the Matrix had the same problem. They had one good film idea, but decided to try to stretch it into a trilogy when there just wasn't enough plot to go around.

 

[theenglish]

I enjoy the films for what they are, but at the time they were a big disappointment. Aside from the pacing, I found the disjointed introductions of ideas that were never followed up on to be frustrating. I kept expecting there to be more to the story than we had at the end of the first film and we never got anything.

I remember discussing theories about the Merovingian as the protector of Neo (the Christ-figure); the trinity of the Architect, Oracle, and Neo being Vishnu, Kali, and Krishna; the importance of rebirth and resurrection to the story; and a number of other ideas. Nothing was ever, ever developed other than passing references. In my opinion these were just written to sound "cool".

 

[cultcross]

I think the main issue I had was not so much that films 2 or 3 were that bad in themselves. It was that The Matrix was so near-perfect that compared to it, the sequels looked particularly dire. The dilution of the complex, multi-layered mythology of the first that could be interpreted a dozen different ways by different people into Neo=Jesus, and the fact it never made a lick of sense that Neo had powers in the Real World.

There were some good ideas in the latter films - that Zion and the One were another means of control, for example, but overall, the quality dropped off considerably from the first. The third movie, especially, is almost inexcusable for what it did to the characters we knew from the first. Trinity's death scene is unwatchably bad.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I had pretty much the same reaction to the Pirates of the Carribean sequels. Perhaps the Matrix had the same problem. They had one good film idea, but decided to try to stretch it into a trilogy when there just wasn't enough plot to go around.

That's basically it for both franchises, as far as I can see. Plus, every series now seems to feel that its second movie needs to be The Empire Strikes Back. Additionally, The Matrix series seemed to become more and more pretentious and simultaneously dumb as they went on.

 

[Myasishchev]

Honestly, I don't understand why they're complaining about how bad the sequels were. They think that it should be stopped at only the first matrix movie.

To my best opinion, I think all three movies are that great. Very beautiful writing. I have to admit it to you, I kind of tear-eyed at the end. But I don't feel like this is really end.

Uh, can anybody please explain to me why they're complaining? What do they really wants from The Matrix franchise?

Oh, you mean how. The answer to why is "because the Wachowskis had one story in them."

The answer to how is found in the last scene in Reloaded. Reloaded is not a bad movie in and of itself, except for those last few minutes; the twist (really more like an untwist) ruins it; and considered as the first half of a very long film, it's even worse. There were a lot of interesting places they could have gone with Neo retaining his ability to manipulate the virtual reality in the "real" world--they decided to visit none of them.

Revolutions, in contrast to reloaded, is terrible from a plot and filmmaking perspective from nearly the very beginning. It's overlong and overboring, with far, far, too many scenes taking place in Zion, the dullest under the Earth, revolving around people the audience is unlikely to bring itself to care about.

Also, and this applies to both films, some of the monologuing is just cold awful, and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. The Matrix sequels are likely the most pretentious films to have ever been made, in the sense that they have intellectual aspirations far beyond their grasp but which they unwilling to give up for the sake of anything--story, narrative flow, or mere sense.

The part where Neo takes five minutes to figure out that the guy trying to kill him and repeatedly caling him Mr. Anderson is actually Smith is pretty hilarious, but I reckon that's unintentional.

All that said, there are excellent parts to both these movies. I think that a suitable editing job could patch together a Frankenstein superior to either, really. But even then, the final battle between Neo and Elrond will always simply make me wish that the Wachowskis had gone on to the Superman franchise instead.

 

[psikeyhackr]

The Matrix trilogy was fantastic.

But it was metaphysically cerebral. If people don't get the deeper meaning in the stories then they just miss what the flicks were about. The first movie presents the amazing idea of millions of people being in a virtual reality and not knowing it. But once that idea has been gotten across what more is there?

There are two concepts important to the stories but the words for those concepts are never used, Avatar and Reincarnation. The Matrix is about metaphysical philosophy.

Neo is an Avatar. In the first movie after he was captured by the Agents we see him on multiple monitors sitting in the interrogation room. I wondered why so many monitors had the same picture but we don't find out that he was being watched by The Architect until the second movie. The Architect and The Oracle were the creator gods of The Matrix. The Oracle wore Yang/Yin earrings. The Matrix is actually a very cerebral series but it must be boring/confusing to people that don't find that stuff interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ysbczEYvKY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnn3Y9v_cww

psik

 

[Myasishchev]

And the Mad Max trilogy is about living in Kali Yuga.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I think the main issue I had was not so much that films 2 or 3 were that bad in themselves. It was that The Matrix was so near-perfect that compared to it, the sequels looked particularly dire.

This.

Also, they misjudged their audience... Personally, I loved the trilogy, but it's very obvious to me why so many people didn't, because th Wachowski's thought the wider moviegoing public were on the same page with them over the overall themes, subtexts, and mythological derivation. And most of them weren't...

 

[Skellington]

I liked the second movie (aside from the ending). The scene where the Architect talks incomprehensible gibberish actually made sense to me; he's a super-intelligent AI who may have difficulty in translating his thought patterns into something that a mere meatbag can understand.

The third movie is the only one that ever made me consider leaving the cinema. Would only consider seeing it again to determine if it's still as terrible as I remember.

 

[The Wormhole]

I actually enjoyed the sequels, but I understand why they aren't that popular. All that pretentious philosophical musing might make me feel like an intellect, even though I don't understand half of it, but it isn't for everyone. Hell, most people just want to see things blow up.

Ironically, I criticize Trek XI because it was aimed at people who just want to see things blow up. Aren't I fickle?

 

[Trent Roman]

I really liked Reloaded, and still do to a large degree, although the lack of decent resolution obviously dampens my enthusiasm. The action scenes were exactly what I wanted to see from this concept; I thought the broadening of the original 'life as a computer progam' metaphor to 'life as a mathematical equation' (via the causality-dependant Architect and Merovingian) was inspired; I was very fond of the substitution of the old messianic storyline for a more Indian or Mesoamerican idea of cycles of destruction and rebirth; and so on. No, the ending didn't bother me, because I thought it was going to make sense (my theory was that 'reality' was just another layer of the program, one suited for the antiauthoritarian mindset of those who couldn't tolerate the main Matrix--Zion as a kind of recycle bin, so to speak. Would also explain how Smith could take over the mind of someone in the real world.)

Unfortunately, the third one dropped the ball on all of these interesting ideas, returning to the messiah storyline and refusing to clarify a lot else. And the crux of the movie itself was just a generic sci-fi war film, Aliens meets Saving Private Ryan (but nowhere near the quality of either), that largely failed to take advantage of the concept of the trilogy. The third film should have been the payoff of the trilogy, and instead it just lay there like a wet rag.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Reloaded works well, but falls apart at the end. Revolutions is just the natural continuation of that train wreck until it grinds to a halt. It was a movie that thought it said a lot, but said very little. I tried to do many big things, but never really had any grasp on what it was trying to do. In the end, the second and third movies could at least have worked as style over substance (the style was quite cool) if it weren't for the long scenes of exposition which killed that angle too.

Overall, not terrible, but still quite a mess. Since the first movie genuinely works from beginning to end, it's quite disappointing.

 

[Klaus]

...because the first one sucked too?

 

[Samurai8472]

Hi Sentinel King

http://forums.henshinjustice.com/showthread.php?t=62135

Same thread on the same topic made me put two and two together.

 

[Doctor King]

...because the first one sucked too?

I disagree.

In all honesty, it was beautifully written, very story-driven. I can not understand why you think that the first one sucked too? Mind you explain why it's sucked so much, eh?

 

[lennier1]

Guess they decided to do something other than copy scenes from Ghost in the Shell.

 

[Doctor King]

What? Copy the scenes from Ghost in the Shell? Guess they can't come up with original idea.