The Open Matt Project

Matrix Repetitions

Spoiler Warning!!! Although there are no details, I do talk about the themes.

Here's my brief take on the Matrix trilogy. I think all of the problems that people have with the series can be directly linked to the diminishing respect the creators had for the audience as each movie came.

In the first movie, they explain only just enough to give your imagination a real workout.

In the second, there is far more exposition - much of it unneccessary. We understand the stakes. We understand that for every rule we're told about, there will be an exception, and we can't wait to see it. We so so got that Neo loves Trinity. We got that the machines are bad. We mostly got that choices and free will are the main theme. We really got 90% of that in the first movie, but ok, we can sit and wait through some repetition to bring the slow kids up to date.

In the third... Well, I'm baffled. What happened? They explain again and again that the machines are bad, that Neo loves Trinity, that nobody knows anything!, and so on. The characters ask "why?" about 20 times each, and after the first 30 minutes of the movie, I was saying out loud, "so we can talk even MORE" as a response - and the audience laughed each time!

And what was the payoff? After listening to the frenchman, and Smith, and the Oracle, and The Architect, and Morpheus? We got D.E.M.

Deus Ex Machina: In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced by means of a crane to unravel and resolve the plot.

Read: Neo.

What a miserable shame. What happened to the fascinating and mysterious Merovignan (or however you spell his name)? What about Persephone's kiss? What happened with the TrainMan? Where did the Twins go? Why was Zion's defense so poorly planned?

Almost everything that made The Matrix such a good movie is inexplicably absent by the time we get to the third movie. I just don't get it.

Posted by Matt at November 7, 2003 01:17 PM