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As regards ticket prices, mister.e, I am seeing it on opening day for $3.00, and if you call that unreasonable... then I envy you, because you must live next door to a theater that lets you see it for free or something. Also, I feel obliged to point out that if you wait and rent it from, say, Blockbuster, you will pay at least this amount, and probably somewhat more.

As regards the success of the second movie, I will quote http://www.bigscreen.com/News_Events/20 … elease.php:

The Matrix Reloaded has earned over $734 million in worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing film of 2003 and the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, both domestically and internationally. Additionally, Reloaded scored the record for the largest single week ever with $158.2 million and reached $150 million in a record-breaking six days domestically; internationally, it is the 10th highest grossing film of all-time, and is the first film in history to gross more than $100 million in a single weekend.

So yeah, it's no Spider-Man, but it's doing quite well.

As for my expectations regarding Revolutions...

I want you all to imagine the following scenario. What if, when "Empire Strikes Back" was released, it had disappointed at the box office and Lucas had decided to not make "Return of the Jedi?" In that situation, what would people say about "Empire?" It's definitely the bleakest of the Star Wars movies, it has serious plot arcs that aren't satisfactorily completed (because they're setting up "Jedi"), it introduces new characters and settings for undiscernible reasons. If "Jedi" had never existed, "Empire" wouldn't have been half as loved as it is.

Frankly, I look at Matrix and Matrix Reloaded, and I see that the Bros. Wach. originally wrote the idea as a trilogy. Then, Warner Bros. only green-lighted them for one movie, so they had to make it able to stand on its own, thus, they stripped out a lot of the elements that would have tied into the other movies. When WB handed them the budget for Reloaded/Revolutions, they had some catching up to do. Reloaded obviously bears the brunt of the work, since it has to not only set up the philosophical backdrop for itself and Revolutions, but also retroactively give the audience a thicker philosophical backdrop for the first movie. This, I think, is one reason why the philosophy is laid on so thick in Reloaded.

Another change that Reloaded brought to the whole trilogy is this. The first movie was a piece that dealt primarily with themes of identity, birth, humanity, and hope. (Yes, there are more that could be added to that list, but off the top of my head and without stopping to think about it, that's what I'm writing. Deal.) However, the second movie completely changed that, and instead made it's domain the themes of choice, free will, and control. To completely shift the topic of an opus 1/3 of the way through is a monumental feat of storytelling, but I won't deny that it completely threw everyone who saw it for a loop. It was vastly unlike the original, and that disappointed many people, but those who could blink and roll with the gear shifting made it through the transition and were able to accept the change in the story.

The Bros. Wach. have said (through Laurence Fishburne) that "the first movie was about birth, the second movie will be about life, and the third movie will be about death." If you look at this next to the thematic shift between the first and second movies, the whole discontinuity makes more sense. Or at least it does to me. Birth has much to do with discovering your identity and your humanity. Life is full of choices and a struggle for free will in a world where we are not always in control. What themes related to death will Revolutions center around? Well, I'm going to find out on Wednesday at 4:15 pm (the soonest it's showing here.)

I will admit that in Reloaded, I missed the feel of the first movie. But I trust the Bros. Wach. to tell a good story, even if they tell it in a way I don't expect or completely understand. It took me several times watching the first movie to catch everything and I'm sure I still don't understand all the underlying references. (At present I have seen The Matrix exactly 57 times, The Matrix Reloaded exactly 6 times )

So I fully expect that Revolutions will surprise us yet again. Initial reviews from people who have seen the premiere tend to suggest that it feels less cloying than Reloaded, so my money's on Revolutions to be a great finale.

Edit: malfunctioning BBCode.

The Matrix was nothing but a remake of Tron.

The Matrix Reloaded was nothing but gibberish and crappy effects. 

I'll pass on the third.

the second one is a lead up to the third.

I like the second one a lot, sorry if you guys thought it was crap.

btw, I finally get your avatar, whoever posted before me... I thought it was like a moose or something, but now, probably because this is a matrix thread, its NEO!

snip

I actually am big into philsophy and existentialism and whatnot, and have read transcripts of the architect speech a few times. I give it credit for being expertly written and thought through, but it does seem a bit pretentious and forced upon the audience.

Thats his character. He's supost to be pretentious like that. Its who he is.

I was rather disapointed when I saw Reloaded because of the expectations I had on it.  But it was a great movie.  I have since bought the dvd and watched it 6-7 times.  I completely agree with JazzDuck, and so I've been liking it more and more.  The only thing about Reloaded that I really don't like is the beginning.  If they started the movie right after the cave rave, it would be a much better experience/movie.  I can't wait to see it on Wed, at a private showing .  I saw the original at a private showing at 3 in the morning with 15 other people, in one of the newer stadium seating theatre's and two sugar cubes.  that was an amazing experience.

I thought Reloaded was a great "middle" movie for the trilogy.  It built a bit on the first, gave you new insights into the characters, and finally showed you waht Zion was like.  I also think it was clever how Agent Smith was brought back, no longer as the main baddie like in the first, but  whole new independent bad guy along with the standard Agents and Marovincian's (sp?) thugs.  And, according to the trailers I saw (ESPECIALLY the newest one, that I saw at the beginning of The Rundown), Agent Smith will definitely be a pivotal character in Revolutions.  And by Pivotal I mean "Even the machines can't stop him, and ask for Neo's help to get rid of him" type pivotal.

At the end of Reloaded, when Neo somehow psychically disables four sentinel robots (and then goes into a coma), it gives you a renewed sense of hope for the humans whose future would otherwise look very bleak.  You are left to think, "Could previous incarnations of The One do that?  Is he more special that originally thought?  Could he do that because Agent Smith tried to copy himself over?  Or maybe there's ANOTHER matrix on top of this one?  Maybe someone just shot the robots with that EM gun??"  Any movie that makes you think that much is certainly of some merit, IMO.

I would also like to add that it's kind of interesting that while Agent Smith spoke with such contempt of the human "virus" infecting him in the first movie, he himself becomes a virus in the second movie.  It will be interesting to see how Neo dispatches so many Smiths in Revolutions.  Does he have to kill each one, or just the original?  While all the copies are the same, they seem to single out one "Smith" during the second and third movies as the one who does all the talking.

Now, for the people who say the special effects are poopy.  Yes, I will admit that you can definitely see the CGI in some scenes, especially the Park Fight and almost any time Neo is flying.  Could they have put more time/effort/money into it?  Probably.  Would it have made much of a difference to the majority of viewers? Probably not.  Movie making is still a business, and spending $5 or $10 million more on CGI wouldn't have brought in any more sales.  Deal.

I'm really excited to see what the brothers Wachowski do in the final installment.  I can't, in my limited engineer's brain, think of how to end it.  However, I am pretty confident it will end with a big bang. 

Plan B seems freaky wrong.

NO SPOILERS!! AAARGH!!!

(Thanks for at least warning us, and posting it in such a way that we could glaze over it.)

as for "Does he have to kill each one, or just the original?" I'd say every one. 

Go ahead.  The best thing about  being me is that there are so many mes."

I've got that quote as accurately as I can without sitting in front of the movie right now.  He was in the hallway of back doors towards the end of the movie.

I thought this was funny (or, rather, funny if you find idiocy amusing):
MSNBC readers confess they have no idea what the smurf is going on

Hmmm, both of those "spoilers" fit well with some of the stuff in the animatrix series.  However, neither fits in 100% when you look at both the Animatrix series AND Reloaded.  Some stuff just doesn't jive.

As for the animatrix:

The robot colony was called "Zero-one"

The human colony is called "Zion"

One in the same? Two different places?

Wednesday is almost here.

Keep in mind the spiritual implications of a location named "Zion".

Also, "zero-one" wasn't spelled out. Mechanical-like, it was: "01".

Keep in mind the spiritual implications of a location named "Zion".

Right. And you could consider a machine with emotion convinced of it's own spiritual being...

Also, "zero-one" wasn't spelled out. Mechanical-like, it was: "01".

But pronounced "zero-one".

I know a guy here at school from Cali... he saw it halloween weekend, said it was just alright and the ending was interesting but not mind-blowingly great, the best part he said was that he got to sit next to Sharron Stone at the opening...