I think so, or at least the film was very self-aware of the fact the Matrix as a movie franchise has exactly become what the Matrix in the original movie was, a repetitive, stagnant world that exists solely to suck the lifeforce out of its subjects. This is a critique that Baudrillard (whose work is featured in the original) actually had already of the original trilogy itself when he stated that "the matrix is the kind of movie that the matrix would come up with"

Not sure if she was trying to burn cash on purpose as performance art but I wouldn't put it past her either

The first time I saw Resurrections, I was lol'ing at the brainstorming montage, as I saw it as her explicitly sticking her finger in the eye of all the haters and crackheads out there. But the second time it was cringe. I mean, the first Matrix was this unabashedly bad-ass movie that was so fresh, and then by the time number 4 rolled around, it hates itself and everyone else so much that most of the screen time is spent just trying to get even...with whom? Screw those stupid critics; make a kick-ass movie that completely leaves those morons in the dust. Instead, the more I think about it, the more it just drags everything into the muck.

I think there's a way to make Matrix 4 that looks upon its own legacy and destroys that baggage, "kill your darlings" and all that, and even maybe many of the scenes filmed in this one could be present in that movie.

But the film we saw in theaters is not the quality version of that meta-textual film, it is often very confusing with poor writing, execrable action scenes, and plot that is far less clever than its ambitions. Some of the dialogue sounded like the crummy lines from modern Hollywood superhero and other blockbuster movies, a far cry from the at least tonally-consistent writing of the original films.

I rewatched the original recently and that dialogue is not exactly a strong point either. Really devoid of subtly or even the barest hint of humor. A pretty unbelievable amount of exposition, telling rather than showing.

I think I looked past it when it came out because I was a kid, and the world building was interesting to me.

The original had the capacity to convey awe, for its time. The first sequel felt like the franchise was treading into Star Wars prequel territory- the danger of a fantasy disappearing into the self-seriousness of its own contrived, convoluted lore. By the time of the second sequel all was lost, it became self-parody in many points with oblique pointless philosophical meanderings, even subplots that were brought up to be instantly dropped (just what was up with the "eyes of the Oracle" anyway?).

This third sequel is knowingly a self-parody, but imo its sins are a mix of the old (ponderous self-seriousness) and the new (unsubtle modern blockbuster cringe- "hey did you hear that everyone who served with him died?" "I was... shook."). This new one just feels lacking in the taste or sophistication of the previous ones.

It feels like a film made during a global pandemic where people have to go into lockdown and can't really sit down to hash out any of the details.

Well, they went even further during the film shoots:

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/11/keanu-reeves-matrix-4-rehe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbXSLzrs38Y

https://www.reddit.com/r/matrix/comments/rqh76p/the_matrix_4...

That aside, I do think the pandemic likely messed a whole lot of the production, which explains how the action got so lackluster.

I recently learned that Baudrillard (author of "Simulacra and Simulation", referenced in the first Matrix) criticized the first film as being something that The Matrix would have produced itself, to feed its prisoners an illusory red pill. I can't help but wonder if Lana took that criticism to heart.

She lost people in her life, and used the resurrections of Neo and Trinity as a way to cope with the loss. Past that I think she didn't really care that much. Good for her, she got that paycheque nonetheless!

> I honestly cannot tell if Lana Wachowski hates the Matrix or not.

The movies and the production of them? Yes.

The concept and story? No.

> Did she honestly ruin it on purpose?

Yes. I think she did.

I loved "Alien." Just an awesome film. Over the years there have been several sequels and spinoffs. Probably more bad than good. But there's definitely been some good ones. I just spend less time thinking about the bad ones.

Apart from the first Matrix movie, which is amazing, have the Wachowskis actually made any other good movies? Was it just the case that they were surrounded by talented people in the first movie and listened to them? Then after it was successful they were like "we got this".

Bound? Cloud Atlas? Speed Racer? Reloaded, as a pure action flick?

One thing I admire about the Wachowskis is their insane ambition. You either hate it or love it but let's not pretend like they were just lucky.

Cloud Atlas was a mess.

They wrote the screenplay for 'V for Vendetta', which I thought was a pretty good movie.

What kind of person would take something of their own and ruin it like that?

Tons of people loved the matrix, just let it be.

Plenty of people. Part of the act of creation can be it's destruction https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/oct/14/banksy-...

I really don't like this new movie, but it doesn't impact my enjoyment of the ones that came before. If I really cared to, I can just pretend that this movie doesn't exist, as people are fond of doing to the original two sequels.

Even from a "cinematic universe" or "canon" perspective I don't recognize its ability to affect the previous story; we're living in a rapidly accelerating era of media where escapism commands huge money and nostalgia is king; who's to say five or ten years down the line someone else might not make a new Matrix property and retcon the story as told in this one? Would be funny if Lilly Wachowski was the one to do that.

Exactly. There are only 3 Indiana Jones movies.

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

Assuming the dialog can be believed: they either had to participate in the reboot, or let WB reboot it without them.

Ok, makes sense. Instead of WB making a horrible movie, Wachowski did it for them?

I’m not sure the Wachowski brand has improved after this.

It was rumored that WB would have made another Matrix without Wachowski involvement if she had not agreed to it. Who knows how that would have turned out.

Sure ok, but so what?

What kind of person (allegedly) sinks a movie franchise out of spite?

How about… Not do that and put effort into everything you do?

IDK. Not sure I buy this and think it’s possible the Wachowskis that made the first movies are gone, and this was a good effort. ♬don’t let money change ya♬.

> sinks a movie franchise out of spite?

it's not spite. She didn't "sink" it because she was spiteful, she wanted to say something about the films and her work and chose to deconstruct the act of making a sequel to a trilogy after 20 years. It's their art, they can do what they want with it.

Their work since Matrix has always been avant-guard (Cloud Atlas is barely a film in any normal sense, a Speed Racer film by anyone else isn't _that_) they were never coming back to make another stock science-fiction action film.

The real question is, how did Warner green-light the script and release knowing that it was going say all those things.

It was really petty and I lost a lot of respect for her over this. She could have let WB fail on their own (proving what a masterstroke their first movie was), she could have outdone it (proving she's still a master), or she could have given a middling effort. All of which, IMHO, would have been better than intentionally sullying--frankly, ruining--the original piece.

Frankly I hope I can just forget the fourth movie, because I don't want to watch the first movie knowing that Neo ends up a doddering old pilled-up nutter and Trinity's a cookie cutter soccer mom with barely a bike shop. (and of course, that's silly, because they didn't really end up that way, they were put into that way--at great expense--for why again? stupid plot. Stupid, stupid plot.)

> The real question is, how did Warner green-light the script and release knowing that it was going say all those things.

Self depreciation is fine for WB. Half the jokes in the new Space Jam are meta self-depreciation. (not funny jokes, but jokes nonetheless)

The new Space Jam is hands down the worst picture I've ever seen.

>What kind of person (allegedly) sinks a movie franchise out of spite?

Is it spite to not want your baby to become another Marvel/Star Wars clusterjerk? Perhaps it is, but I think she's allowed that. I don't think the world needs more of those, but it will always need more art and critique.

Better than this one? It's a pretty low bar.

Is it possible that the movie just sucked?

Everyone on here dancing around that possibility due to...reasons.

The reasons people seem to be dancing around is censorship. Woke ideology on one side and the CCP on the other. That’s an extremely narrow area to work in.

I don’t see this movie as an outlier. TV and Film have been in trouble since BLM and now with China buying AMC, the prospects don’t look good.

As as a (former) movie goer I’ve seen nothing but shit for the last 2 years. I now suspect shit is the new normal. I’m not paying for shit… it’s that simple. In other words, I agree with you.

What does this have to do with the movie? Even if I could imagine a scenario in which the argument would be relevant, I don't understand what you're specifically attacking here.

Something trans related maybe? Dunno. Woke movie making is super annoying but I didn't get any of that from the new Matrix. Maybe because all the characters were chosen in 1999 before CRT took off, maybe because it just wasn't necessary. As a kid Morpheus/Fishburne was perhaps the coolest black man I'd ever seen, the casting was perfect. The man managed to somehow carry off both radiating gravitas and also this almost child-like naivety and belief in Neo.

The new Morpheus was just nothing. What a waste. Really, the casting in the original was one of the things that made it. Agent Smith, the Architect, each of these actors looked and sounded like their character. The casting in the new Matrix was just all over the place. Never did care for Trinity though.

> Woke movie making is super annoying but I didn't get any of that from the new Matrix.

New Neo is blue haired girl. New Trinity is tattooed girl. New Neo and New Trinity are not yet lovers (which appeases the CCP) but the final scene shows them embracing behind Old Neo/Trinity.

I don’t think I read that wrong and thought it was pretty obvious?

So your guess is that no movies from here on out are going to feature lesbians because of CCP, and you assumed everyone else would have made this connection and would immediately notice girls with tattoos, blue hair, and connect this with both ultra-left and chinese overlords!? And the apparent lack of these qualities compared to previous movies that might have featured slightly less subtle hints of gay sex is where you draw the line?

I didn't even notice a tattooed girl

They looked like black dashes or symbols that went from at least her shoulders to across her neckline/upper chest. I thought it looked cool myself.

Ya who the hell would, everyone has tattoos

Financial struggles… isn’t that what we’re talking about?

It’s simply one in a long line of offerings from Hollywood that is not meeting viewer expectations. I see it as a cumulative effect.

... And my reasons are clear.

That's a pretty tenous connection imo. You might as well pick any arbitrary thing you think is declining, financially I guess, and point to wokeness or the CCP as the cause. Is there something specific you saw in the older movies that you think is missing because of that stuff, therefore the movie is bad and wokeness is responsible?

I claimed censorship is the cause followed by identifying the censoring parties.

I can imagine areas where censorship could lead to increased profitability. Just as I can imagine where it can lead to losses. The Film industry I put firmly in the losses category.

Due you think continued/increased censorship will be good/profitable for the film industry?

I have no opinion on the latter, there haven't been any movies except Bond that are in theaters and I'd like to see. You could have just referred to more specific instances of CCP censorship with regard to previous Marvel releases, because I don't follow it and it just comes across as fear-baiting rather than having substance. With respect to those things like Eternals not being released in China, and Hollywood probably wanting to court their audience, afaik it was not released there and I also don't think it looks very good, so I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to censorship because obviously it didn't work to get into that market. Every superhero oriented movie I've seen, or seen a trailer for, looks awful, but unfortunately they often do sell quite well in the North American market and make up disproportionately large amount of released movies over the last decade.

In summary, the movies I've seen that suck tend to just suck. Usually it's because they're way too long, or they don't tell a story very well, or the plot is just rehashed and contrived. James Bond was great, 1917 etc, but others just seem uninspired. To make a case that censorship is the reason, I think you'd need be annoyed with specific aspects of a production, rather than the entire thing.

I think there's an issue on the internet of people wanting to discuss somewhat contentious issues that are assumed to be followed by everyone, like CCP stuff or immigration or trans issues or whatever, but most people just don't care or aren't in that bubble, so it tend to come across as a bit sus unless you can tie it in together and make a reasonable case for it.

I was so disappointed in this movie and I thought the trailer looked amazing. It was just so bad. When they brought back the Merovingian looking like he had not brushed his teeth is 45 years I almost turned it off. Then amazingly it got worse.

the trailer is exactly the same style of the film you get. Scenes included in it like stopping the bullets and dojo explosion look incredibly lame. Then the colors are all over the place. It's fine if you don't do the green tint, that doesn't mean you have to pop everything to 11.

So I don't know why you thought it was amazing.

It felt like a sort of kabuki of the original Matrix, as written by Redditors who were tasked with making it as self-referential as possible.

Yeah at one point during one of tiresome chase scenes that was packed with gun play and slow-motion action, I recall one of the actors said “I hate bullets!”

Totally believable to me that the filmmakers just “dialed-it-in” for a pile of money without caring for the story. After all they were already “done” after the first movie. Too bad. Tragically, that same pile of money could have funded a dozen innovative new filmmakers and actors with fresh stories to tell.

Fresh and innovative stories don't sell as well as a known brand. That's why a sequel to an established franchise is always preferable to big studios.

You can tell a completely new story under the brand name of The Matrix, she's chosen the lazy way.

Yea…I mean, I got through it because I loved the originals but it was very much a fan-service movie.

Not unlike the latest Spiderman with how much it tried to reference from the others in the collection, but the constant flashovers to the originals were a bit exhausting.

Was tough to watch. I mean, I got it…but it was tough to watch.

It was like watching fan fiction of the original.

This is my take. And when thinking about it, it's rather brilliant if so. It's still painful to watch, and a bad film in every sense, but the way this was financed and got greenlit seems somehow to be a masterful rug pull. It has metal robot pokemons, freeing Neo is completely unnecessary, the new human settlement doesn't need a thing and won't fight, the soap opera low-fi slow mo fight scenes, everything seems to point to a sort of purposeful sabotage.

I haven't seen the new movie, but RedLetterMedia's review had interesting commentary along these lines.

I think the F-U might have been to the Redpill movement. For taking an allegory for Estrogen and turning into some misogynist hate movement.

Or it could just be these tweets: https://twitter.com/lilly_wachowski/status/12621047544963399...

I've heard that the Wachowskis claimed that, but in what way is the Matrix's red pill similar to estrogen pills, or transexuality in general?

when it was originally written, the most common estrogen pill on the market was red.

short answer: the matrix is gender.

but it also represents any social construct pretty generically, and that's why there's so much confusion.

long answer: duck duck go matrix transgender.

also, like, when a creator tells you their work means a thing, just take them at their word. they would know. you can criticize how well or how poorly it conveys the meaning, or explore what subterfuge is concealed within, but questioning explicit intent is a bit silly.

> also, like, when a creator tells you their work means a thing, just take them at their word.

This is reductive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response_criticism

explain

Literary theorists have been debating the nature of meaning within texts for well over a century. The matter is not settled.

You advocate a highly intentionalist interpretation of a work - the author says it means this, so that's what it means.

'jevoten and others in this thread advocate a more formalist interpretation - the meaning lies in what is written.

I drew your attention to a more reader-focused perspective - that meaning comes from the reader's experience of the work, not the work or the author.

To say "they would know" is to sidestep this entire discussion and suggest that there's some objectively correct way of interpreting a text and that correct way is intentionalism. This is reductive because it ignores the reality that many people (theorists and non-theorists) don't put a whole lot of stock in authorial intent.

maybe that's what you think you meant. but my experience of this thread is that you explained your original comment about how i should disregard explanations

I'm glad we agree.

> questioning explicit intent is a bit silly.

I'm not questioning their intent, I'm questioning whether they successfully expressed that intent in the movie.

You asked how the red pill was like estrogen pills. I don't think the Wachowskis said that part was intended though.

Trans people noticed the parallels. I don't think they intended everyone would. They wanted to do more with it too. Switch's Matrix form was supposed to be male.

So what are the parallels, besides trivial color matching?

>when it was originally written, the most common estrogen pill on the market was red.

As Don Quixote once said "El Oh El"

i know, right. reactionaries will misread anything. literally bootstraps and bad apples.

Are there some sources from the era that the movie was released that make that connection? Or is this just people trying to take back the meaning of the red pill from those scary republicans?