What happened to The Matrix?
by Summer Brooks
The early hype stressed that Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions would change our impressions of The Matrix forever. However unintentional their actual accomplishment, that is one fact about the Matrix sequels that cannot be denied.
The hype that came out the week before Reloaded was released this summer cautioned us to wait for the third installment, to reserve judgment on Reloaded until after both movies had been seen so they could be evaluated together as a single story, as the directors meant them to be.
In all fairness, after seeing Reloaded, I had doubts. I was concerned that, at best, the filmmakers may have lost sight of their original vision and decided to treat us to filler and eye candy in the guise of a trilogy, and at worst, I'd end up believing that Reloaded and Revolutions would have served the Matrix mythology better if they'd been presented as a single film, not to mention ending up more satisfying and entertaining.
To the dismay of fans everywhere, I think now we have plenty of evidence to support the theory that both movies could have worked better as a single film, and that resulting single film probably should not have been made without some major reworking beforehand.
There were a number of long, pointlessly expositional scenes that could have been shortened, or excised completely. There were too many instances where the failure to use nuanced language to lead the imagination was directly responsible for the overwrought and frequently silly dialogue, and the glazing over of the eyes of viewers.
It felt as if the filmmakers were trying to create moods and invoke audience emotions by forcing the false-sounding conversations and the shallow-sounding baring of souls. Settling for that type of cheap manipulation was a poor creative choice, and how it managed to survive several levels of project development astounds me.
Most of the effects-laden scenes in both films felt as if they were drawn out too long. While many of the effects were visually impressive, some of the scenes lasted so long that it seemed as if their only purpose was to showcase the impressiveness of those effects. Some of these could have been shortened, greatly improving the pacing without causing any negative impact on the story.
One major source of my dissatisfaction lies in the failure to expand on how Neo was able to view and affect the real world in a way similar to how he was able to see and affect the Matrix. Strangely, there was a corresponding failure to expand on how Agent Smith was able to affect someone in the real world after they were unplugged.
The glossed-over explanation that they were equal and opposite to each other for the sake of balance in the Matrix seemed like a cop-out explanation, one used to set up the need to completely obliterate the premise of the first film while creating a continuity and a storyline for the sequels that was easier for them to write.
Why? Who knows.
Maybe it was easier for the writers to contrive a way to bring back Hugo Weaving's immensely popular and entertaining characterization of Agent Smith as the primary antagonist rather than dream up a way for the freed humans to fight the machine collective with a real hope of winning and freeing all of humanity. Maybe they lost the magic they'd uncovered while crafting the first film, and under the studio pressures to make more "just like this one, but different," they figured they could get the movies out sooner if there was a simpler premise combined with lots of new and amazing special effects.
I don't know what their reasoning was, but in the end, considering the depths of my disappointment with these two movies, no explanation of their reasoning will change what's been done.
In the end, all we are left with is a wounded Matrix franchise, an initially wondrous experience who's follow-up efforts fall far short of their predecessor. With flaws that glare so intensely there's no hope of rationalizing them away, these sequels suffer as prime examples of the studio desires for more of the dollars that the surprise success of the first film gave them.
Trying to squeeze those dollars from a story that many believed had already been told in its entirety has led to the creation of a contrivance, one we will be told is better because it had more success at the box office.
The true end result? We have been given a series of sequels whose storylines do more than diminish the resonant myths of the original. The intricate yet overblown special effects extravaganzas fail to nourish any continuation or enhancement of the uncertainties feeding the illusion that what we were seeing was possible... something the original was able to accomplish seemingly without even trying.
These sequels will forever be shadows striving to catch up to the original story, much like the sequels from another franchise that could never have enhanced their original.
Exactly like the sequels of that other franchise, I wanted to believe that they'd enrich the original; there was no need to try so hard to surpass the original, for doing so would change the magic in the story of the first.
Again, exactly like that other franchise, the Matrix trilogy will be singularly remembered not for what it is now, but for what might have been.
Exactly like that other franchise, in the end, there should have been only one.
December 2003
originally published in Bullshit Not Included, Jan/Feb 2004