Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

They weren't exceptionally bad, but just such a letdown because the first movie was so damn good. The sequels lacked the sense of wonder and surprise. Oh, and the hippy rave scene - blech.

(BTW moving this to SF and Cinema channels)

Imho, it's because when you make a piece of fiction you create a virtual universe in the reader's mind, which you can then revisit in later works. But each later work will change the universe's rules slightly, and shine a new light on events in the former works.

The universe that Matrix 1 created in people's heads was awesome; there were subtle hints at huge things taking place, but we had to imagine most of it for ourselves, since we spent most of the movie inside the matrix, and didn't get to see very many of the fancy machines.

When they made 2 and 3, they changed the universes in people's heads by shining a light on all the stuff people had imagined, because they were very explicit movies, naming a lot of rules and properties of the universe.

The picture that is painted by the sum of the 3 movies' description of their universe is therefore a much smaller, brighter, less mysterious, more cliche picture, than if the first movie had been allowed to stand alone.

>> ^Crake:
Imho, it's because when you make a piece of fiction you create a virtual universe in the reader's mind, which you can then revisit in later works. But each later work will change the universe's rules slightly, and shine a new light on events in the former works.
The universe that Matrix 1 created in people's heads was awesome; there were subtle hints at huge things taking place, but we had to imagine most of it for ourselves, since we spent most of the movie inside the matrix, and didn't get to see very many of the fancy machines.
When they made 2 and 3, they changed the universes in people's heads by shining a light on all the stuff people had imagined, because they were very explicit movies, naming a lot of rules and properties of the universe.
The picture that is painted by the sum of the 3 movies' description of their universe is therefore a much smaller, brighter, less mysterious, more cliche picture, than if the first movie had been allowed to stand alone.


I guess that's valid. However, I liked the 'real world' aspect of it - I liked the intricacies laid out in 2 and 3. I liked the depth it provided - by adding Zion and the other characters, it matured IMHO. I'll admit, the 7 incarnations of Zion threw me for a loop, but in the end I thought it was an interesting (and original) element of the storyline.

Dag - I liked the hippy rave scene - I'd party like a madman if I was facing certain death at the hands of a machine army. That song was awesome too.

To each his own I guess. I always just wondered if there was some enormous plot hole I missed or something.

I thought the second one was a decent action movie. The freeway chase is an awesome bit of film making, IMO. 3 was pretty disappointing.

I liked both the first and the second. I think the third was sort of a let-down. Sure it was even more of an action movie than the others, but they don't really explain anything or give anything any sufficient meaning. I do still like all three though.

I think the worst aspect of this phenomena happened to me with Battlestar Galactica. The final episode ruined the whole BSG universe for me and made it lame, so much that I'm not interested in whatever else is being made in that universe. Which is a shame really, because it was really good up until that last piece of shit.

My standard response to this is that clearly the whole thing was never intended as a trilogy. The first film got lucky at the box office, and saved Keanu's career at the same time, but the ideas in the sequels were laboured and the writing terrible. Most importantly I just found them flat and anti-fun. I can certainly see someone younger getting a kick out of them but for me the sequels had no compelling narrative.

QT put it best in his 'top 20' list vid: The 2nd and 3rd movies ruined the myth

For me parts of the sequels seemed very poorly executed. Compounding that was it was impossible to tell in advance after only seeing the second movie. For instance the Merovingian seemed like such an interesting and mysterious character in the second film, but he amounted to nothing interesting by the end of the third.

Mentions of ghosts and vampires (or was it werewolves) by the oracle, having no real part to play in the movies.

Persephone's just one kiss scene in part 2, it seemed like such a pivotal and dramatic scene yet it didn't amount to anything really.

There's just all these elements.. especially in the second movie that don't play out. That goes for the conclusion of the series itself.

Then came the ultimate answer to all of this.. the MMO that was made in corelation with the developers of the film. The Merovingian becomes a faction in the game. I believe the whole ghosts and werewolves thing becomes relevant in the game (I haven't played it). The resetting of the world.. well.. you need that in place if you want to have a game taking place in the world. I seriously think it's their plans for the MMO that weakened the over all plot of Matrix 2 and 3, though part 2 is a VERY fun action movie.

Another big element... there's barely any gun fights in the sequels. I know The One has no use for guns, nor are they effective against him, but come on... they could have had one mega gun fight somewhere in the story. There's a short shoot out in the third movie at least, that's actually one of it's redeeming qualities for me.

The other point someone made about the part 2 and 3 answering so many questions about the world is relevant too. They also seriously fucked up the setting when Neo used his powers outside of the matrix. That's when the tightly constructed universe of the first became a notch closer to a generic super-hero movie.

...nothing in the Matrix movies is as bad as what Indiana Jones 4 did for THAT series however. /derail >.<

Crake already said most of what I had to say regarding why the second and third made the first movie worse. QT also made that point very well, as Fusionaut pointed out.

The Matrix Reloaded had exactly three good scenes in it. Neo vs. The Smiths, The Chateau Fight and the Highway Chase. The rest is an attempt to surpass the first movie's philosophical ideas that fails miserably. The entire Merovingian segment was just sad.

The Matrix Revolutions had the same problem as many superhero movies seem to have. When you have a character with too much power, it soon becomes problematic to create plots that aren't solved with "Neo flies in and saves the day". So instead of thinking up an actual challenge to those powers (or, to delay that challenge until the end of the film, with the Smith fight), they simply disable the hero.
Cyclops gets disabled in every single X-Men movie. He's more a cripple than a superhero.

I don't want to get into the whole prophet, architect, control and the rest of the philosophical concepts they try to introduce in Reloaded and Revolutions, because, while in the first Matrix they were so subtle with their actual message, in 2 and 3, they simply cram them down your throat like it's a classroom.

The magic in the first movie is completely obliterated by the sequels. That's the best way I can describe how I feel about it. It's also why I don't regard them as relevant when discussing The Matrix with friends.

Neo can stop bullets with a wave of his hand...yet "Superman" has to block kicks. The bloated sequels don't make sense within the "rules" of their own universe, and all of the "deep questions" raised by Reloaded were left unanswered by the t(h)urd movie.

This has already been said before but part of what made The Matrix so good was that it took place almost entirely within "our" world. We only saw snippets of what the real world was like, outside of the Matrix. Reloaded tried to incorporate more of the real world while balancing out scenes within the Matrix, but by Revolutions, it almost entirely took place in the real world. Add to that the heavy philosophical allegories, the fact that it took Trinity a full 10 minutes to die after being impaled on 35 pieces of rebar, and any other number of problems that plagued the last 2 movies.

I still think the way that Reloaded should have happened was Neo somehow "reboots" (Reloads) the Matrix causing everyone to wake up for a moment inside the real world. Then, after they fall back into the Matrix, they begin to talk with one another about the "dream" everyone had, with Neo acting as a Messiah-like figurehead. Revolutions would have shown the world-wide fight within the Matrix against the agents/Matrix/whatever, with humanity eventually winning and waking up for good. This sillyness of computer programs, Trainmen in the Limbo world and iterations of Neo splitting off and re-absorbing back into the system was just that....silly.

the first movie was just too good for its own, er , good. i honestly can't think of a way they could've followed it with a film that wasn't inferior to the point of mass disappointment.

i'll admit, the second installment annoyed me to the extent that i've still not watched the third.

>> ^deputydog:
the first movie was just too good for its own, er , good. i honestly can't think of a way they could've followed it with a film that wasn't inferior to the point of mass disappointment.
i'll admit, the second installment annoyed me to the extent that i've still not watched the third.


Don't watch the third. It's high budget drivel. You'll have more fun watching a Van Damme movie. Seriously, if I want a laugh and watch a brainless movie it's got to be Van Damme.

the scene where she grabs his heart... blech

I think I have perhaps the most forgiving suspension of disbelief ever, along with a tendency to just accept what's on the screen, so I enjoyed all three movies about the same. Nothing can beat the lobby shootout, though.

The problem with the 2nd movie was that it wasn't the first movie.
The problem with the 3rd movie was that they turned Neo into Jesus.

But I saw all 3 in theaters and bought all 3 on dvd, so WB and the Wachowski brothers are crying all the way to the bank, and they don't really care what we think.

Animatrix was actually quite good. The stories were (mostly) on par with the first matrix movie, it's just missing the ground-breaking special effects because it's animated.

I played through the first single player game as well, it was ok. Never touched the MMORPG'r though, or it's "path of neo" re-hash.

I was completely obsessed with The Matrix around the time that it came out. I'm massively disappointed in the sequels for all the convolution and stupidity, but I don't hate them. I think the battle inside Zion is a pretty mindblowing and nightmarish scene. My favourite shot in the whole trilogy is when The Kid is rushing out onto the bridge across the chasm, and sentinels are swooping by, plucking up soldiers. That shit was crazy.