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The Matrix Franchise

L8wrtr

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If you have to have played the games, seen the animations, read the comic books and collected the trading cards to understand this new movie them I'm out. If you just have to enjoy watching people in shades running up walls and firing machine guns then I'm in.
I have to hope that Lana understands this and if done correctly, the important story elements that occurred off-screen will be integrated via good story-telling as needed throughout the film. They don't have to info-dump it in the first 5 minutes, I'm okay with saying "I have no idea why things are different than I expect" as long as she addresses/resolves those as part of the unfolding of the story.

This should satisfy both the hard core fans who are invested in every nook and cranny of the mythos, as well as those who are more casual fans of just the cinematic story.

As I'm not invested in the Matrix like say I am with Star Wars, Superman, Star Trek, Dune and so-on.. I can be hopeful without fear.. it will work for me, or it won't, but I suspect it will be wildly entertaining.
 

Jrzag42

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If you have to have played the games, seen the animations, read the comic books and collected the trading cards to understand this new movie them I'm out. If you just have to enjoy watching people in shades running up walls and firing machine guns then I'm in.
I'm assuming that if they do consider Matrix Online canon, it won't be mandatory and the new movie will provide enough context. It'd be pretty shitty to make the movie depend on knowledge of a game that can't even be played anymore. It's cool if they acknowledge it, and if knowing about it enhances the experience, but if it's required to understand anything then that's no good.
 

addiesin

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The simplest twist is to reveal that the "real world" was never real, and nobody had actually made it out of the Matrix. Then it literally doesn't matter what the side material had, if the old premise is shattered. The only evidence I have to support this is Neo's powers working outside the Matrix in the sequels. If he were still in a simulation, it makes slightly more sense that he would retain those powers. But this isn't necessarily the best direction to go, as it kind of sucks out all hope and makes the franchise overall pretty nihilistic.
 

TM2YC

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I'm assuming that if they do consider Matrix Online canon, it won't be mandatory and the new movie will provide enough context. It'd be pretty shitty to make the movie depend on knowledge of a game that can't even be played anymore. It's cool if they acknowledge it, and if knowing about it enhances the experience, but if it's required to understand anything then that's no good.

I very much doubt they would make it "mandatory" to understand anything but as they began the first sequel with characters from a videogame talking about the events of an animation, then went on to devote lots more runtime to other characters from other animations, I do worry the new film won't 100% work for fans of JUST the movie(s).

Also, since they controversially recoloured the first movie to look like the sequels, it's surprising that this new movie could not look less like the first three (just going by the trailer colour timing anyway)... then again, maybe this is like a new Matrix construct that looks different on purpose, then at some point they'll go back to a green 90s looking Matrix running on an emulator :LOL: .
 

Moe_Syzlak

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They seemingly didn’t think it was even mandatory to understand what was going on in the first two sequels. 🤣
 

Gaith

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I very much doubt they would make it "mandatory" to understand anything but as they began the first sequel with characters from a videogame talking about the events of an animation, then went on to devote lots more runtime to other characters from other animations

I think The Kid is the only Animatrix character who crossed over, and apart from one fairly unimportant line ("you saved yourself"), all the context needed for his role was in the movies themselves?

The bigger lore problem with the sequels, IMO - apart from the non-sequitur of why the Neb is so undercrewed when Neo is so popular - is how utterly unsurprised our heroes are to discover (assuming it is a surprise) that there are so many other factions to the Matrix than the agents vying for power. (Okay, I guess it's only really the Merv's faction, but still.) The first movie had no hint that anyone apart from The Oracle and her kids stood outside the tyranny of the Agents, and now we've got rogue programs and ghosts and castles and such?! It reminds me of Peter Jackson's King Kong, in which the crew's reaction to finding an island full of dinosaurs and monsters is "huh, that's kinda weird, but let's not worry about it when we've got a blonde to save." (Or, for that matter, Steve Trevor, presumably a Christian, being totally unfazed to learn the Olympian gods were real all along, when belief in a singular authentic deity is kind of a big deal in that religion.)

Anyway, this video has some excellent suggestions:

 
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TM2YC

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^ Doesn't the first scene after the dream sequence in Matrix2 begin with them talking about "The Osiris", an event from one of the animated shorts.
 

Gaith

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^ Yes, but there's only one line about that ("these scans confirm the last transmission of the Osiris"), and the takeaway, that the machines are tunneling to Zion, is pretty self-explanatory. ;)
 

matrixgrindhouse

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Animatrix stuff that comes up in the other movies:

Final Flight of the Osiris - depicts the discovery of the Sentinel army. The message sent at the end leads to the big crew meeting in Reloaded. This is expounded upon in Enter the Matrix.

The Second Renaissance - Besides being the origin story, the Machine judge at the UN has the same voice as the Deus Ex Machina being Neo speaks to in Revolutions to negotiate peace.

Kid's Story - Needless to say, introduces The Kid. He wound up being much more important later on, but either way...

Program - I think there's an easter egg depicting one of the characters somewhere, at some point, but I could be mistaken.

Beyond - Nothing yet, but some people have made a connection between one character's star-pattern makeup and blue highlights with Jessica Henwick's character in the new movie. They may be one and the same.

A Detective Story - A tenuous link at best, but Mr. Ash makes his last stand aboard a train. The Trainman uses the same model of pistol (called the Detective Special in real life). Straw-grasping, but not impossible that he took the weapon as he did so many wrist watches.

Matriculated - On the DVD and Blu-Ray of Revolutions, the Sentinel-like machine that takes Neo's corpse ambiguously alive body away has green eyes, like the reprogrammed Runner from this story, to indicate that the Machines were now friendly to humanity. The eyes were originally red in the theatrical cut, and I hear they may have been reverted to red on either recent TV broadcasts and/or the 4K version but I can verify neither.


Anyhow- they've been pushing for multimedia connectivity since 2003. I do not expect the defunct MMO to be "required reading" for the new movie. Neo was never present in MXO in any conscious capacity. Once again, he will be the audience proxy. MXOers will know a little more going in, but we never, ever, had every piece of the puzzle. We got about four years worth of post-Revolutions plot. There's about 15 more we missed out on in the interim, evidently.
 

L8wrtr

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^ Yes, but there's only one line about that ("these scans confirm the last transmission of the Osiris"), and the takeaway, that the machines are tunneling to Zion, is pretty self-explanatory. ;)
Yeah, I have to say that having never seen the animated stuff, I had no idea that line referenced it, and I just assumed that like the Clone Wars and Obi-Wan being a general, were references to something that isn't critical for me to know to move forward, other than as @Gaith noted, a ship was lost, and thus they inferred the machines were advancing..

My assumption is that any reference to the now defunct game would follow a similar concept, just work in cross-references which give us what we NEED to know, while making the hard core fans squeal in delight that a game/narrative that they love and are invested in does in fact link to the movies.

What they need to avoid at all costs is what started cropping up as the ST started unfolding.. "What the hell is the First Order? Why is there a Republic and a Resistance? Who the hell is Snoke?" which was always "It's explained in a book.. it's explained in a comic." These weren't minor, trivial points.. and to try and excuse lazy writing buy explaining it off the silver screen is the sin that I hope they are smart enough to avoid.

We'll know in a few months
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Wow, it’s funny again how two people can see something so differently. That trailer to me smacks of desperation to reboot the franchise. I hope I’m wrong and they actually have a compelling story to tell, but that seems to indicate they are just trying to reboot a story that was told after one movie.
 

matrixgrindhouse

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^ Wow, at 0.14 they're cutting in green-screen footage. So is this going to be an official sequel to @matrixgrindhouse 's Robots VS Kung Fu ?! :D

Also this is the first video that makes me think this sequel could be genuinelly exciting and daring (and not boring and bland like the other too).

Considering that there's shots of characters watching the first movie in a theater, that isn't outside the realm of possibility! I joke, of course. I remain incredibly optimistic in the movie, and will no doubt make use of it someday when I get to RVKF part 5, maybe sooner depending.
 

addiesin

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Considering that there's shots of characters watching the first movie in a theater, that isn't outside the realm of possibility! I joke, of course. I remain incredibly optimistic in the movie, and will no doubt make use of it someday when I get to RVKF part 5, maybe sooner depending.
With him using the John Wick look in this new one, you have a lot of other material to pick through too (the Wick movies themselves). Perhaps Neo is forced to spend some time as an Agent/assasin working for Agents?


I'm cautiously optimistic for this one. Sucker for a trailer.
 

matrixgrindhouse

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With him using the John Wick look in this new one, you have a lot of other material to pick through too (the Wick movies themselves). Perhaps Neo is forced to spend some time as an Agent/assasin working for Agents?

I already had that as a subplot in my first one, during the first big chunk of Johnny Mnemonic footage! My Neo is a slimy scumbag. It wouldn't be out of character for him to betray his cause yet again. I've already got lots of ideas for how to use Fishburne and Randall Duk Kim's characters as extensions of Morpheus and Keymaker. The Merovingian's Le Vrai restaurant and The Continental may be one and the same. One idea I've been toying with is having

Mark Dacascos's character, Zero, reveal himself to have been stalking Neo since the beginning. His line, "I'm more of a cat person myself" - taking on the absurdly literal meaning that he is a shapeshifter, and was the Deja Vu cat all along.

I'm ready. It looks to be a beautiful movie, and the promo materials thus far seem to be heavily referencing elements from my beloved MXO. But if it sucks, if it throws the MMO out of continuity, so be it. I'll have material to continue my grindhouse-verse for years to come. I'm still a long way from being well enough to edit, but at least I'll have more to play with when I get better.

Final trailer coming later today!
 

Jrzag42

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If you tackle this, I recommend the movie Generation Um... It's not good, but it has Keanu in his John Wick look and has some weird scenes that may be usable. Like running through the city and stealing a camera from a bunch of hula hooping cowboys, and a scene where he sits on a bench and eats a cupcake for a whole minute or two straight. I'm not sure how, but I'd love for something good to come out of this awful movie.

Edit: Upon further inspection, he does not exactly have the John Wick look. Disregard all of this.

On another note, I'm super excited for Matrix 4.
 

addiesin

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I already had that as a subplot in my first one, during the first big chunk of Johnny Mnemonic footage! My Neo is a slimy scumbag. It wouldn't be out of character for him to betray his cause yet again. I've already got lots of ideas for how to use Fishburne and Randall Duk Kim's characters as extensions of Morpheus and Keymaker. The Merovingian's Le Vrai restaurant and The Continental may be one and the same. One idea I've been toying with is having

Mark Dacascos's character, Zero, reveal himself to have been stalking Neo since the beginning. His line, "I'm more of a cat person myself" - taking on the absurdly literal meaning that he is a shapeshifter, and was the Deja Vu cat all along.

I'm ready. It looks to be a beautiful movie, and the promo materials thus far seem to be heavily referencing elements from my beloved MXO. But if it sucks, if it throws the MMO out of continuity, so be it. I'll have material to continue my grindhouse-verse for years to come. I'm still a long way from being well enough to edit, but at least I'll have more to play with when I get better.

Final trailer coming later today!
I admit it's been a while since I watched. But also, deja vu!
 

Racerx1969

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Seems like a potentially interesting direction they are going. I'm hopeful it's good and not just a desperate reboot/money grab.
 
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