>>3049Alright, just finished the other two. Since they are basically two parts of one movie I'll look at them together.
First of I guess I need to take back my accusation of the film being ultra-idealist, as the powers of the One are explained in M2 Architect scene (I will refer to the movies by M1,2,3). As far as I understand the One simply has an inherent connection to the machine network, which further explains Neo's powers outside of the Matrix and grounds them in reality: his connection to Matrix let's him stop the sentinels and later see the network sources, thus letting him see after the blinding. However this is not good for the film. While I dislike the "no spoon" idealism, it was an authorial idea, so what ever, however this new explanation of Neo being a predicted powerful anomaly ruins the "no spoon" explanation, as now he has powers simply because he is the one, which contradicts with the first film.
I guess I will continue with other things that were sort of ruined by the second film.
Number one is obviously Tank, who was a great character and at least for me one of the best from the first film, but gets unceremoniously killed of in the background before M2 and never even gets mentioned. Not that Link isn't a good character either, it's just that instead of him it should have been Tank. This section of my criticism is a bit hyperbolic al, it's not a big deal, I just liked the character and that's all.
More seriously though, Agent Smith. In M1, Smith was really interesting. He basically was a rebellious machine, wanting to it self become free and escape from the fake world. This made him in my opinion a great candidate for an anti-hero / sympathetic villain if he had survived (if we pretended we didn't knew how M2-3 will go, we'd assume he was dead at the end of M1). However later movies change him. Now he pretty much becomes pure evil type of villain and acting like a joker wannabe, maybe somewhat resembling in his motivations a rogue AI villain. He talks a lot about purpose, and how he wants to get revenge for having his taken away, but in M1 his main motivation was escaping that purpose. Though at least I guess his actions are quite interesting, even if he is retconed himself: having lost purpose, he is lost himself, thus not being able to do anything else but hyperjokerfied nihilistic destruction. I don't really get the point of Smith being Neo's evil twin however. Also in the end Smith is just a mcguffin: he (and more specifically his destruction) is just a bargaining chip for Neo to offer the Architect in exchange for ending the war.
Don't have much on Architect. For what he was he was written well and was pretty good character. However I think his counterpart of the Oracle is more interesting. I really like her position of being the one who tries to break the balance. It is quite clear Matrix is a stagnant and not too good of a system. It seems the Architect maintains it as a path of least resistance: he mentions to Neo that in case it fails he has plan B, yet would rather stick to this. Thus from a progressive Marxist perspective I do like Oracle's motivations.
In the end I'd argue that Matrix did have a pretty good resolution. Oracle succeeds, the war ends and the wheel of history once again moves forward, breaking the cycle of the One. Sure it could have been more explained what really happens, but is that necessary? So here is how I see the world moving forward: peace is achieved between the machines and humans (Architect seems to be respectful of his deal with Neo and will likely honor it), with both civilizations learning to coexist and eventually rebuild. Machines have to use their plan B, whatever it would be, to find a new source of power, while the sleepers slowly awaken out of the Matrix (it is presumable that at the point the movie happens if the Machines don't crush Zion the awakening would rise exponentially: one council member says they rescued more than combined in last few years and the Architect alluded that the system destabilizes around the time the One shows up). Finally I'd imagine the Matrix becomes a machine world, basically the place where they truly live while only acquiring energy from the real world.
I guess I might have missed some things but if so I'll try to post more if I remember. Final thoughts then I guess. I was going in expecting that I will walk away with the opinion that M2 and M3 shouldn't have been made, but no, I kind of enjoyed them. Sure they were cheesy as fuck at times and maybe relied too much on ebin action scenes while losing the tightness M1 had (I'd argue the bit where they fuck about in Zion, train-driver sub-program and the hangar battle could have been cut a bit, but hey, can't really hate on gangster looking mechs who shoot their 40k looking bolters sideways at an angry swarm of wasps). Also I did like the end and didn't really find flaws with it that are too pronounced. I guess that there were some plot-holes, like why does Merovingian, a seemingly rogue element, exists, why did non-Smith agents tried to kill keymaster even if it would fuck up the prophecy (I guess he's an exile, but still, Architect should have made sure he'd live) or why did Neo couldn't break the program rules the Train Master had but could fuck as much as he wanted with the Matrix as a whole or with Smiths world at the end. Yet I don't believe plotholes matter too much if they are minor, and in the end I will say that the entire Matrix trilogy is net-positive.
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