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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Matrix Themes---preaching to the choir?

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

01:45 / 28.03.03

So, 2 new matrix flics this year.
There has been a lot fo talk around the office lately regarding The Matrix as being a great big call to revolution, defeating the system by not participating in it and all that. The Invisibles and other such work are similarly themed and are hailed by many of us as great revolutionary works.

but, come on now

We interpret The Matrix and New Xmen as great revolutionary works, but do any of the people who arent already "enlightened" get it?
Most of the people I talk to about the new matrix flics are looking forward to swords and car chases, which they said they missed in the first one. Others are just happy to have more black clad crazy violence action.
The only people who work here that claim the matrixs theme is a brilliant piece of revolutionary cinema are the ones who already no the score.

anyone else have any thoughts?

Nietzsch E. Coyote

03:49 / 28.03.03

Movies by invisibles for other invisibles. Its good to preach to the choir, that way they know they aren't singing on their own.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:47 / 28.03.03

'Enlightened' people *know* that the Matrix is a shiny, pretty piece of fluff with some very basic pseudo-revolutionary themes bolted on. It has the message: guns are cool! Black leather is cool! Martial arts are cool! Evil robots are cool! It's no more, or less, a 'wake-up call' than Terminator 2, and only Robert Anton Wilson fans with delusions of grandeur who do too many of the wrong drugs would ever think otherwise.

08:54 / 28.03.03

Amen, Flyboy. The only boundaries these movies will break is in special effects, which is kinda cool but not a lot else.

The Natural Way

08:57 / 28.03.03

It also has the message: reality games are cool! Blah....

So that stuff is there. But, as haus pointed out on another thread, how the *message* slides down is another thing altogether. Cool! might be the problem.

09:26 / 28.03.03

Wrong drugs?

Maaan but if the film wakes even one person up isn't it worth it, dude?

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:31 / 28.03.03

If someone explains to me what 'wake up' means in this context, that'd be a start. Wake from what into what? Wake up to the destructive nature of capitalism? The way in which mass media creates consensus reality? And what will you do with that awareness, based on this film? Walk into the lobby of News International, guns blazing - tempting - or just buy an Audioslave album and feel really smug?

09:39 / 28.03.03

Man you just don't get it, sitting their on your PC with your wife in the kitchen making breakfast for your kids...

I just liked the jackets.

09:45 / 28.03.03

Sorry for not being serious, I think the whole "wake up" in the Matrix was the fact that reality is just an illusion a very old theme, it appeals to lots of people but as noted many people have already heard this theories before doesn't mean we should stop talking about them though right?

Being serious for a moment though if a movie/song/book does make people think for a second about their life and their role in the world it can't be a bad thing right? Many people felt something when they watched the movie (you can tell by how many Neo aol names popped up after the film was released

)

Sorry I'll stick to the Buffy/Angel threads from now on, honest

13:26 / 28.03.03

En Vogue told us to 'free our minds', like, ten years ago, right?

The Matrix movies are fluff, albeit well-constructed, viscerally exciting fluff. There's no serious revolutionary agenda. What we've got, if anything, is an incitement to terrorism, with the whole guns and leather drill about how "it's us against all of them", and the easy lies about how anyone there on the street could be "one of them", so it's ok to kill anyone you like. At least Arnie and Sly made no bones about the reactionary crap in their movies. See them, by all means, if you like a bit of escapist drivel, but don't pretend it all means something righteously "invisible", if I can use that term without involuntarily throwing up.

13:35 / 28.03.03

Okay duh we know Matrixes are fluffy.

I'm on Bear Lives side here. Everything acts as a part of something else. Matrix encourages people to try to understand some of the reference material, leading the audience farther along the road to "enlightenment". Shit I started noticing comparative mythology when I was five and they pushed me into comics at twelve. By 23 I was ready for Invisibles and was able to wrap my head around it. I enjoyed Matrix. I bet it helped me in some ways.

If for nothing else, the message the Matrix gives its audience is this: Reality is not what it seems to YOU.

So what he uses guns. King Mob used guns until he got past needing them. Neo will probably not need them anymore by the end of three.

15:35 / 28.03.03

I still think they need to cut a deal with the evil robots. I mean, I wouldn't mind living in the matrix as long as I know I'm in the matrix and can fly... So I'll be a "copper top" if you "free my mind". That way everyone wins. You can't expect humanity to survive on wasteland planet without the machine's help. Silly humans.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:12 / 28.03.03

Rock on impulsive.

What we've got, if anything, is an incitement to terrorism, with the whole guns and leather drill about how "it's us against all of them", and the easy lies about how anyone there on the street could be "one of them", so it's ok to kill anyone you like.

This made me think, everyone sees the false reality/fight the system/rage against the machines side of the matrix, but what if all that were cover?
could the warchoski (sp?) bros really be on the side of the established order, so when they start culling the populace they can say "but anyone on the street could be one of THEM" ala red scare? Neo Macarthyism gives me chills...

19:07 / 28.03.03

If nothing else, even fluff slides into the subconscious to some degree. You come for the car chases, you leave ever so slightly believing in magic just a little more than you did before. That's a score for the good guys, as far as I'm concerned.

Though Fighting The Man aside, learning to fear the possibility of machine led revolt is a Good Thing. People might need to take that shit seriously in a hundred years or so. So, its good that popular fiction is giving that meme some coverage now.

12:20 / 29.03.03

I always thought The Matrix was a gateway drug, in a way very similar to the band Tool.

It's only the start of beautiful things to come. It's one of the first things you'd introduce a newbie to.

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:53 / 29.03.03

Or, moreover, yawn. To which I say: fly's on the ball. It's PVC and gun porn; get with the program, for Christ's sake.

18:18 / 30.03.03

I've never once seen an example of the Matrix influencing anyone to consider the nature of reality, or to investigate its source material more thoroughly. Instead it's been co-opted by a wide variety of groups as a symbol of their own ontology writ large onto a cinema screen. Many fairly fundamentalist Christians see it as holding a fairly traditional Judeo-Christian stance, for example, in exactly the same way as people here view it as an interpolation of source material from the Invisibles. This gives the impression of introducing people to new ideas, but it's really just everyone reinforcing their old ones. What else would you expect from a classic tale of *Good* versus *Evil?*

Just saw Equilibrium, BTW. Not a good film by anyone's definition, but Bale's performance is magnificent, making every scene watchable. Makes you realise how much better the Matrix could've been with decent actors. Expect brilliant special effects, people: not heart or character or meaning. Distinctly counter-revolutionary.