Sunday, May 18, 2003

My Rant, Reloaded

Ok, it seems my rant against the Matrix was a little harsh.  All in all, I really like the Matrix Reloaded.  It’s just that this trilogy has such high expectations that it unwillingly created for itself.  The producers obviously saw how much potential the first movie created and they are cashing on on this big time.  There’s no denying this.  The animatrix, the video game Enter the Matrix, selling out to powerade in commercials, its capitalism at work, baby.  They even opened the movie early on the 14th to make their opening weekend figures appear larger.  If you pay attention to all these, you can even catch subtle things in the movie like what happened to the Osiris and why the kid is following Neo.  Little things that you can probably guess what happened, but are there simply for the people who shell out the money to feel elite.  I saw the movie for the second time today and I’d like to go over the things I liked and disliked about my favorite movie’s sequel.  Spoiler alerts ahead, but if you haven’t seen it yet, you suck.  I’ve seen it twice.  I’ve given them my money, so I can feel elite.

What I disliked:
1.  The first thing that I disliked was also the first thing in the movie.  I hate it with a passion when movies or stories start with dream sequences.  Maybe I just think its overdone or something, but I always hate dream sequences.  This started the movie on a downward slope for me.
2.  I know Link is supposed to be the comic relief to the movie, but it got damn annoying after a while.  And the puss- joke was out of place.  There wasn’t much comic relief in the first movie, and it should have stayed at the same level.  At least he wasn’t as bad as Jar-Jar Binks.
3.  The Adventures in Zion, as I like to call it, took a long time and had too many corny jokes.  Once again, it should have been either more serious or less boring.  And don’t say I’m too stupid to catch what they were saying.  I understand it perfectly but its boring to listen too.  This is why DVD technology is so great, you can skip past this stuff
4.  I will never in my life retract what I said about the “Rave / Neo Ass” scene.  This is trash that pushes the movie from a PG-13 rating to an R rating.  Producers do this because of a preconception that people won’t go to anything rated beneath R rated movies because it’s childish.  Lots of movies will add meaningless profanity or sex scenes to make the movie seem more adult.  Personally, I think this usually detracts from the movie experience because it seems out of place most of the time.  It is especially evident in this movie.  I think the motive to this make this scene was that they assume you will watch all three movies back to back to back eventually, and you will need an intermission with some cool music.  :D
5.  Morpheus mentioned that they have freed more minds in the last 6 months than the last 6 years.  This goes against what they said in the first movie about most minds not being ready to be freed.  It’s about enlightening the chosen ones, not simply meeting quotas on freed people.
6.  I still think the part with the Merovingian was a little uncalled for.  We could tell what was happening to her without the need for matrix code.  And the part where Persephone wants to kiss Neo is stupid.  It would have worked if she just gave them the keymaker because she was mad at her husband.
7.  The fight scenes, while still awesome, were different than before.  The fights in the first movie used a lot of guns with was awesome.  Also, the fighting revolved mostly around who was stronger in the second one, as opposed to the first.  In the first, they were very creative about how they beat agents.  I liked the old way much better.
8.  I don’t like the fact that Neo can fly.  It’s just weird.

I’m sure there’s more, but i forget at the moment.

What I liked:
1.  I liked the main point about whether it is choice or causality that controls us.  I liked how the Merovingian saw through them, showing that they were just doing what they are told to do by the Oracle.  They are helping that which they are trying to destroy.
2.  I liked the double matrix theory, but I hope it doesn’t go too far.  For example, if it turns out that Neo or any of the others are programs, or if the entire Matrix is just a part of some other program, I will be mega pissed.
3.  The fight scenes were awesome, of course.  But there was still a lot of CGI used.  In the first movie they didn’t get attacked freaking every single time they were in the Matrix.  I know. someone will respond with “Upgrades”.  To that, I say “Upyours”.  Another thing I don’t get is why Neo even bothers beating the shit out of people.  If he’s the one, shouldn’t he be able to rewrite the matrix?

I can’t wait to see the next one in November.  I will have tickets to the first showing then too, so don’t label me a Matrix hater :D.

On to the next topic: the Whempy’s LAN in Columbus was on the 17th, and I went with Krhainos, Swiftwulf, and Codex.  We set up this cool wireless network between our cars as we made the two hour drive.  More about that on its own special page here.  The LAN was exactly as I had remembered it from a year ago.  Must be doing something right then, huh?  No.  I still hate every single thing they do there.  Their tournaments are always FFA or TDM (including CTF and gameplays like this), never 1v1.  They always have the worst rules that you have to follow, like a certain number of people have to be offense and defense.  Offense players are not allowed to chase people entering their bases down.  Also, they have this obsession with playing the oldest games around.  HLDM is fun, but they couldn’t get it working due to some HL virus that I was accused of having.  BS!  They obviously don’t know who they are dealing with, right?  I asked at the beginning of the LAN if the UT tourney was UT or UT2k3 and they said it was UT2k3.  It ended up being original UT, so it was not fun.  The tourneys ended up being HLDM, UT, Quake2, and Starcraft.  I hate their tourney system soo much I don’t know why I keep doing them.  It’s this reputation I gotta keep up, eh?  Right.  I had fun at the LAN though, simply because of the amount of people there.  The unorganized gameplay there is way more fun than than anything else.  I barely had any time when I was not playing anything.  Got to play a little BF1942, though not as much as I wanted.  Got to play a LOT of Q3, and a (almost) 1v1 against Ecrivian that lasted 92 minutes.  Good God!  :D Maybe we’ll go back again next month or the one after that.  Gotta play some more with the mobile wireless!

Well, I guess I am done writing for now, Peace.

Special Link Update! (thanks Swiftwulf):  http://www.macstation.com/whatsnew/monkeyboy/