In other news, Lee Malvo, DC Sniper, may have been influenced by the Matrix.
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You may have already seen the first trailer for Revolutions that they showed at the end of Reloaded... the general consensus was that the trailer was boring and maybe it seemed like Revolutions would just be the left-overs.
The new trailer, on the other hand, is amazing; when I saw it, I was as mesmerized and blown away as when I saw the final Reloaded trailer. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of the mystery and suspense out of Revolutions. However, if I hadn't seen the trailer, I wouldn't have known there was going to be any mystery and suspense worth preserving in Revolutions.
With that in mind, you may want to skip watching the trailer if you want a heightened Revolutions-viewing experience.
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A Simulacrum, as defined by Baudrillard, is a copy without an original.
I was reading this essay talking about the relationship between the Matrix and Baudrillard.
An important metaphor is this: consider a map of the world that is so detailed and specific that one spends most of his time in the map instead of the real world. This is Baudrillard's analysis of the present state of affairs in modern countries, and he likes to call what we live in the hyperreal or the desert of the real.
But what is real?
If the map or simulacra is the confusion of money, material possessions, work ethics, religions, the media, and anything man-made that commands us, then what is the real?
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that there is no "real" but whatever we're genetically adapted to, which could tenuously be a reality of 20,000 years ago, one of hunter-gatherer. This is tenuous though, because, what's to say we didn't develop pre-adaptations then that assist us with living in our current simulacra? And why should the state of the world 20,000 years ago be considered more real than what it is today?
Anyway, that's not the point I was trying to get at, and I'm no expert on Baudrillard (I probably have offended fincky-picky readers already), but I was waxing reflexive a few minutes ago.
I was thinking, like, well, yes, WTF, we are living in some slimey simulation. No wonder being a cheerleader for money, success, intellectual pursuits, etc.. all feels like chewing air. I should become like Hemingway or something, and go out into the wild.
Then I thought, naah, it's too late, I've been socialized for the simulacra.
So, continuing with that thought I went, well then FINE, I should completely submit to the simulacra. I should go back to school, get a job @ google, learn how to hang-glide, go to anti-war protests, buy a nice car even though I don't want to, etc..
But then I thought, that's silly as well. My conscience tells me that I can't do things inauthentically or under false pretenses. Well, although, I do kind of do such a thing with the Tautrix which is a simulation of a religion in order to get the perks of having spiritual agents to pray to. But that's better than false pretense, it's more like fantasy. Fantasy is like halfway between being a cold supporter of pure truth and being a naive believer in illusion.
Well, I don't know the difference between doing that, v. pretending to believe in the system by making money etc. Well, we'll see.
Yeah, I'm not sure what the argument would be against making buku money just because it fulfills what I'm socialized to need, even though I don't endorse it.
Well, I think maybe the difference is that in the case of the Tautrix, I'm safe from becoming part of that which I don't endorse, which is believing that these "gods" actually exist... primarily because it's one of the tenets of that religion. In other words, it's not like by practicing the Tautrix, I'll become a religious fanatic.
Pursuing money or a career even though you don't believe it, on the other hand, poses the danger of sucking you into the system.
I have to understand what is truly important to me. Maybe the path to individual enlightenment is separating what, within us, is real and what is fake.
Global Mind Control Slated For Humanity By 2004: "By Spring 2004, an invasive mind control technology known as a 'Frequency Fence' is slated for implementation onto global society. This Frequency Fence is a bio-neurological, electromagnetic induced form of mind control which will block your higher sensory abilities. A literal 'perceptual harness' or 'mental prison' will be built around you without you even knowing it is happening, and the scariest part is, your five senses will not alert to you that anything is wrong."
Matrix-y bullet-time w/o technology
Lighting makes all the difference in the world, Morpheus.
UPDATE: and makeup, Agent Smith.
Egypt censor unloads ‘Matrix’ sequel
“It explicitly handles the issue of existence and creation which are related to the three divine religions, which we all respect and believe in,” it said.
What is the Matrix?
Control.
No, dude, What is the Matrix?
Control.
The Matrix Trilogy is a another control program written by the Machines at Hollywood. Hollywood depends on its consumers for survival so they created the Matrix. The first generation Matrix involved a paradise of black-and-white films, and later evolved into the Golden Age with films such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough and so it took newer, more intuitive directors to come up with films with an illusion of meaning and purpose. The current matrix of crappy movies satisfies 99% of the people out there. The other 1% are constantly trying to escape. They've resigned themselves to virus-writing, hacking, phreaking, and all other nonsense. It is these 1% that are destroying the Matrix. So, the Architects at Hollywood created the sci-fi mega-verse, or a series of Zions to parallel successive generations of the Matrix. These films are designed to suck in the intellectual nerds into repetitive tasks of fan-fiction, forum-posting, trailer-surfing, and of course, movie-watching. All of this is designed to feed one purpose, that of providing fuel to the Hollywood Machine. Ergo, vis-a-vis, concordantly, we have had Star Was, Lord of the Rings, and now, The Matrix Trilogy.
Amazon.com: Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, in Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)
Any book with a reference to Borges deserves my eye. Any book mentioned by The Matrix is equally deserving. This is the book that Neo puts his cash-for-hacks money into before he goes to the club in the first movie. Anyways, a pass through the exceprt appears very entertaining, so I hope to get this eventually.
Phillip Winn's The Matrix: Reloaded Review ... this is the best review I've found on the Reloaded so far. It contains a lot of spoilers and explains things very well. I probably like it the most because it aligns very well with my opinion on the film.
General consensus
Action was great, but not as great as the hype made it out to be. For fans, first film was better. For the uninitiated, this film is fun. Specifics: rave scene too long, over-drawn out philosophy, etc.
My view
My faith in the film is precisely that, faith. But, let's discard that religious nonsense and focus on truth. But what is truth? And there we have it, just like Reloaded; we are digressing into philosophy and meta-discussion. Nonetheless, let me deconstruct my feelings about the film. As a piece of cinema where the measure of a great film puts Godfather at the top, this is not a great film. I did yawn a couple times, I was distracted, I got bored, I got restless. The rave scene did last a while and the philosophical digressions seemed in poor style. In comparing cinematically, the first film was better... the philosophical implications were subtly tied in with the narrative, there was character development, and there was this fun retro, hacker, BSDM chic thing going on. But, as a black monolith of reflection, the Reloaded is awesome and unlike any other film. The Matrix universe, at least for me, has opened up subsequent thought into other fields. Just look at the latest round of posts on this blog to see how much inspiration for intellectual adventure it has spawned. In other words, this film has tremendous post-view benefits--a concept alluded to in the review linked to above.
Here are some of the benefits:
- Attempting to obtain a DIVX copy of Reloaded so that you can fish out parts you missed. This leads to adventures into the nether regions of IRC and ugly file-sharing clients. Needless to say, it was fun being hungry for a file.
- Attempting to piece together exactly what the heck was going on in the film.
- Exploration into hot realms of philosophy: nihilism, gnosticism, Plato's cave... even Christianity.
- Fantasizing about the implications of actually being in a Matrix and trying to figure out how one would be able to break free from it, like Neo... and whether one should.
So, in summary, I thought the film was alright, entertaining, but nothing special. The Matrix universe--a totally separate experience with a shadow, like the shadow's in Plato's cave, that is manifest in the film--is a great magical mystery tour that will keep you excited well beyond your 3.5 hour/$10 theatre excursion.
Be on the look out for neurogenesis. Good flash overview of human evolution. Tree of Life follow connections between organisms.
And of course, very fitting... from The Matrix.
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.
Greek Philosophy: Plato, The Allegory of the Cave, The Divided Line, a Short Guide to it, and a Matrix-related essay about it.
Matrix.Reloaded.TS-ESOTERiC file info - Message Board -- information for those trying to pirate the Matrix Reloaded.
Okay, I'm a full-blown matrix nerd now. That aside, I noticed upon re-watching the first matrix the book that Neo puts his cash-for-hacks into. It's a copy of Baudrillard's Simulation and Simulacra. The chapter he opens to is titled "On Nihilism." I looked it up and got the link above.
Apparently Neo actually represents a terrorist. He represents the Christ of Nihilism. From the link:
The chapter of Simulacra and Simulation entitled "On Nihilism" advocates terrorism as the means of "checking in broad daylight" the mechanisms of control, but observes that the system is itself nihilistic and can absorb even violence into its indifference.
Good mind food. I think I'm going to pick up some stuff from Baudrillard. There's some essays of his on the left in the blogroll. Also, Baudrillard invented the term, "Desert of the Real."
Also, good read is New Yorker's review of the Matrix. Link will be dead in a week.
50 Reasons to Reject The Matrix: Reloaded
The Onion | Have You Been Bitten By the Matrix Bug? Item! Beware of Matrixmania! Matrix 2: Back To The Matrix is coming out soon, and that means the ladies of the world will once again be drooling over hunky Lawrence "Black Morpheus" Fishburn. But while drooling is guaranteed, many questions remain unanswered: Can the sequel top the original? Did Elron really die in the first one, or will he be back? Will there be more sparks between Neon and Brittany? Tune in here for all the latest cyber-poop.
I love this guy.
What if the Prophecy is true?
What if tomorrow this war could be over? Isn’t that worth fighting for? Isn’t that worth dying for?
So you've seen the trailer for the Matrix, but do you really know what's going on? Who is the hot half-asian chick at the end? Who are these twins? They're not really agents. And what are these "upgrades"? The answers to these might be spoilers, so don't read on if you want a "pure" experience. I decided to read half of the production notes anyway for the hell of it. So to answer some of these questions. The hot half-asian chick near the end is the wife of Seraph, a snitch within Zion. The twins are Seraph's bodyguards. The guy in the motorcycle with Trinity is the "key" hacker. The "upgrades" Neo speaks of is the ego of Agent Smith that emerges. If you recall the first Matrix, Agent Smith is the most human of the agents, asking to be alone with Morpheus so he can confess his desire to leave the Matrix and therefore his need to get the codes to Zion. My guess is that Agent Smith will have tremendous importance in the next two movies, making the bridge between humans and machines. Anyways, more goodies like this are in the Production Notes, and I don't think it'll spoil my experience of the movie, but rather allow me to focus on other stuff rather than being distracted by confusing plot twists.
Okay, I admit, I've got the Matrix bug. I've been watching all the Animatricies, I've watched the trailer at least 30 times, and I even watched the Matrix on FOX despite actually having the DVD player (my DVD player is actually in another room, so HAH!). No, but anyways, forgive the posts about the Matrix coming up.
First off, let's bare some truth here. One: the first Matrix while as being a tight movie, was not THAT good. Bear with me here... you have to beware the magical workings of marketing, cultmania, and our minds' weaknesses. But basically, for me, I saw the first movie in theaters and thought it was pretty dope after I saw it. However, I also felt that it dragged on a bit and that there were dull spots. I bought the DVD and also struggled to watch it because many scenes just seemed like special FX and nothing really special. Plus the philosophopsycho-babble got annoying at times. But, as time went on, after I bought a huge poster of the Matrix, after all the new trailers, after hearing other people recall how much they loved the Matrix, etc.. I too started to think that I actually loved the Matrix as well. I started pretending that I was like all the other fans too, reading up the Matrix philosophy articles and making promises that I would definitely be there opening night. Then I reminded myself about the Phantom Menace and how I went through the exact same thing. I had seen the first three Star Wars movies as a child, and I remember them being cool, and I remember reading some of the books and stuff, but I don't remember the movie being an amazing awesome feat of cinema. I remember enjoying the fantasy stuff, but I don't remember it having the same story-telling quality and emotional gravity of other great movies, like the Godfatha. Fast forward to the end of High School when Phantom Menace comes out and I'm thinking, like everybody else, that somehow Star Wars touched my childhood when it didn't really. Then the movie came out, and it sucked. So, in other words, I'm going to lower down my expectations for this new Matrix because I don't want it to suck for me as well. Ironically, this is only going to heighten my experience of the Matrix Reloaded, and as a result, shows that I have an even deeper affection for the movie. Damn.
A Gaggle of Robot Movies
Robot movies coming out include The Matrix Reloaded (5/15), Terminator 3 (7/2), The Matrix Revolutions (11/11), and I, Robot (7/2/2004). Also next year, watch for Terminator 4, Robocop 4, StarTrek 11, Star Wars III, a Westworld remake, and yes, Tron 2.0. (kurzweil) *beam*
The Second Renaissance Part 2 has been posted. For the unilluminated, the Animatricies are anime shorts that convey various aspects of the Matrix world. They're entertaining, artful, and innovative. Four are available for free online, five more come when/if you buy the DVD. (Don't worry, divX will unlock them for the rest of the world). Some $9 million were invested into making these shorts. Although the DVD sales alone should make up for the investment, the marketing hype that this generates in the cult-crowd is well worth it I'm sure.
Matrix Reloaded Review ... looks like the reviews are starting to pour in. This review doesn't praise the Matrix, but yet, despite my initial lowered expectations for the movie, I'm turned on by all the potential "explanations" coming up. For example, who is the Keymaker? Who will be this movie's Judas? Should be interesting. $300 million per new Matrix movie.... must have something valuable.
101 Reasons We Hate The Matrix Hilarity ensues.
The Matrix - It's Harry Potter with guns. By Chris Suellentrop As Alan Dean Foster puts it in Exploring the Matrix, an anthology of essays by science-fiction writers, Neo is "Everynerd": "His perceived world is a sham, a mistake, a carefully crafted fake, and you know, deep down, that yours is, too." But the movie has a special appeal to that subset of misfit, the computer geek.
Info on why the Matrix is so it.
BTW, please, please, for the practical sake of your well-being, keep your expectations low on the Matrix Reloaded. Chances are, it's going to suck, hence all the major promotion before hand. Plus, any movie you walk into with expectations never lives up to it. AND, lowered expectations on everything makes you pleasantly surprised.
Was Neo, from the Matrix, not a hacker, but rather a blogger? Take that, delusions of grandeur? ... ! .... ?! ... !?
Truth be damned, the girl in the red dress (matrix) turns you on.
