[David Fisher]

No, if you don't like it, then you don't like it. You don't have to try and tell everybody that the movie is crap.

On the other hand, if you don't like it, you don't need to have people tell you that you are stupid.

The question is, Why come here to complain over and over and over again about a movie that you don't like? Just say that you don't like it, and go discuss a better sci-fi action philosophy movie like Gattaca.

[Alex Spindler]

It shows that Smith can cross over into the human world by "downloading" himself into human brains. This is why he is a threat to the Machine power structure, and the reason that the Machines agree to use Neo as the ultimate Norton Antivirus.

But agin, why? What plot point does it serve showing him in the real world? How was it germane to the overall plot of Revolutions?

And how does Bain as a human represent any threat to the machines? Neo states that Smith's threat to them is because he is going to overwhelm the Matrix and then reach them. He makes no mention that this wouldn't be through the standard machine interfaces to the Matrix, which is how Smith got started in the first place.

It's just one of many subplots in Reloaded and Revolutions that feel like they should have deeper meaning or consequence but have none, or exist only to provide superficial justification for an action sequence. It all just feels so much like a psychic reading, where they throw all kinds of seemingly deep things at you, and we the audience try so hard to understand why it is there that we justify it for ourselves. But it was nothing more than old grifter confidence tricks except with science fiction/philosophy instead of spirituality. The least negative way of putting it is that the sequels are little more than Rorschach paintings that has no meaning provided by the artist and relies on the audience to read whatever they want into it. As one of the earlier posters stated, only those with imagination will like it, which I think I can fully understand.

I mean, you look at the screentime of Seraph in Reloaded. They fight, and he ends it with his "you never know someone until you fight them". You think that this has to have meaning, and you theorize what it could all mean. You tuck away all the theories in anticipation of the next film, to see how it will all fit into the puzzle, and it turns out to be nothing. Seraph was nothing but another program. He does little in Revolutions other than fight alongside Morpheus and Trinity and do nothing that they didn't do. Why did he fight Neo? No reason whatsoever. He was Oracle's bodyguard? She died under his watch once and was assimilated the second time. Not that we ever saw him do anything to stop it.

Little wonder Jet Li passed on this. There was no character there at all. He was non-lethal fight scene partner #2 in the end.


As to why the negativity, I suppose it works out like this: When you find out the stoner drop out from school becomes a drug addict on welfare, you kind of knew it was going to happen. When the top of the class, who writes a brilliant story in college and everyone has high hopes for ends up the same, you are quite disappointed and wonder how they fell so far. If The Matrix hadn't been so well crafted, so well paced, with interesting and unique concepts that was fully integrated in both the plot, the style, and the dialog of the film, I wouldn't be as critical of Reloaded and especially of Revolutions.

[Paul_Sjordal]

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I must have missed that. At the end of Reloaded, he clearly disconnected from the Matrix in a normal way. Then, he uses his powers to stop the machines. Yet somehow his entire consciousness got transferred from a body in a coma in an underground duct in the real world to the train station?

Basically, the reason was "You weren't ready to die." How's that for lame and uninformative?

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I must have missed that. At the end of Reloaded, he clearly disconnected from the Matrix in a normal way. Then, he uses his powers to stop the machines. Yet somehow his entire consciousness got transferred from a body in a coma in an underground duct in the real world to the train station?

Ah, so the Architect uses the word "code" and you assume that must mean Neo is a program? In spite of the fact that he and the Oracle keep referring to Neo as a human? In spite of the fact that they use the word "you" to lump Neo in with humans but never include Neo when they use "we" to talk about machines?

Neo is an anomoly that inevitably appears amoung the human population in every iteration of the matrix.

As for the talk about "code" and "we designed you to…" (another phrase that convinces people Neo is a program) let me remind you that the machines can reprogram humans plugged into the matrix at will.

Remember Cypher's demands to agent Smith in the first movie? The reprogramming abilities of the machines are obviously common knowledge to the unplugged humans. Apparently, the Zion rebels have a similar ability through the functions of the matrix. Recall what Morpheus promised the blue pill would do. There are also other references in the comic books and the Animatrix that discuss machines reprogramming humans in the matrix.

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Well, the end of reloaded is 24 hours before the machines penetrate the dock walls, and they go to the Merovingian's club sometime after he's been in a coma and they try to reach the Oracle. In the time between this and Reloaded, Merovingian is able to get cleaned up, make up with his wife, and kill the original body of the Oracle. A busy boy. And apparently Smith is busy too occupying an entire city through physical contact so fast that nobody is aware of his existence, least of all the Merovingian (who prides himself on knowing everything)?

Regardless of the presumed pacing of the Merovingian's activities, agent Smith doesn't claim to have assimilated all of the Matrix until much later in the film when Neo shows up for the final showdown.

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So Sati is not a program (as they state) but rather a machine? But Sati's father appeared in Reloaded, so he was already in the Matrix. So you're saying that he came into the Matrix to arange a deal for his machine 'daughter' to have her code made into a persona in the Matrix and have the brand new Oracle take care of her, a new Oracle he doesn't even know exists?

But Sati was in the train station waiting with Neo well after Merovingian had thought he had taken care of the Oracle. He had thought that she was gone until Morpheus and Trinity inform him otherwise.

I am operating under the assumption that programs are part of the machine world. I admit that I use the words somewhat interchangeably, but surely you're not suggesting that machines and programs somehow represent separate factions with separate agendas? They are one and the same whether they have physical bodies or not. Just for the record, yes, Sati and her parents are programs.

I don't presume to know all of the activities of Sati and her parents prior to the train station scene in Revolutions.

Most of the complaints I was responding to seem to suggest that Sati must be trying to escape from the Matrix to the machine world, so she and her parents are "clearly going the wrong way." I was simply pointing out that it makes more sense for her to be moving towards the matrix than away from it. The matrix has some entities that would want to delete her, whereas the machine world is full of nothing but entities that would want to delete her. Where would you take her?

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I think that was nothing more than opportunity. He didn't infect Bain to destroy the Zion fleet anymore than he infected Bain in order to kill the girl-who-looks-like-Switch-but-is-not-Switch. As best I can tell, he does it to kill Neo in the real world. But he has the opportunity in Reloaded but makes a point of not doing it. Why was he cutting himself? Why did he shake his hand? None of this is even answered. He effectively is nothing more than a gremlin to hamper the heroes from proceeding from A to B.

The statement I was responding to suggested that Bane-Smith was pointless because he didn't accomplish anything significant. I would say destroying the Zion fleet was significant regardless of whether or not that was his intention when he took over Bane.

He didn't stab Neo at the elevator because the Kid's shouting caused Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and Link to turn around. Bane could have killed Neo if he stabbed him in the back, but with everyone looking on, he would have to have fought the entire crew of the Neb to do it. Not good odds if you ask me.

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He stops a counterattack subplot (which means that all the screentime previous to that was wasted effort), he blinds Neo which has no overall effect on the story other than to have Neo have some form of machine 'spirit' sight.

So every action attempted by a character in a story must be successful or it shouldn't be in the story? That's a very odd argument to make.

[Alex Spindler]

Why come here to complain over and over and over again about a movie that you don't like?

I think it's because people asked for comments. Those saying that they're tired of reviews that say "it sucks" without explaining why. And I'm still trying to find the film that Chuck and Scott saw.

[Paul_Sjordal]

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Did this fight remind anyone else of the comic book where Superman dies (that fight with Doomsday).

Actually, it reminded me of Dragonball Z, which is even worse.

On the other hand, the rain at the beginning of the fight was awesome. Mood-wise it reminded me a lot of something Frank Miller would do.

[Alex Spindler]

So every action attempted by a character in a story must be successful or it shouldn't be in the story? That's a very odd argument to make.

No, I suppose my argument is that the counterattack was only in the movie for Bain to disrupt it. It was all off screen activity with lots and lots of buildup that the writers were never intending to show. To give an example, it would be like them working through all the dialog for the Dock war and then having Neo stop the machines before they ever breached it. Now if the humans had been in the middle of their counterattack, with a good action setpiece and it seemed like we were winning and then we see the EMP crush our success, that would be something. But as it is, we have a significant chunk of Reloaded that boils down to, "We were gonna fight 'em, and we might have won, but we got sabotaged, so we're screwed".

I mean, the concept of CODE inhabiting a human body and walking around in the real world is a fascinating concept. This should be prime territory to really bring something new to the story. I mean, you could have mined this for all kinds of fascinating discussions on avatars in the real world, or the meaning of consciousness, or anything. But it all boiled down to absolutely nothing. There isn't even a hint of the same type of teasing dialog to discuss in Revolutions to make us think it meant something.

[David Fisher]

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I think it's because people asked for comments. Those saying that they're tired of reviews that say "it sucks" without explaining why. And I'm still trying to find the film that Chuck and Scott saw.

Why bother? I thought Titanic was a series of expensive money shots with a bunch of hacky writing and a manipulative ending. I could dissect the film apart if I wanted, but it would serve no purpose.


Seraph's statement "You can never truly know somebody unless you fight them" is a critical point for the audience. This explains the approach that Neo takes in both of his fights with Agent Smith (in Reloaded and Revolutions). Neo knows from his experience in the first movie that he can literally fly into Smith and blow him up from the inside out. Neo knows that he has these powers, but it serves him no purpose because Smith can somehow come back. Neo has to fight Smith to find out exactly how powerful Smith is and what it will require for him to die.

How can Smith effect the world of the Matrix? He can probably destroy an entire crop of humans. That's a good start. But it's all about Purpose. Smith has lost his purpose, so he basically tries to "one-up" the human virus by becoming a smarter virus. Unfortunately, this will not satisfy Smith. After he has taken over all of the humans in the Matrix, he may start going after the programs in the Matrix. He really has become a destructive virus, and a dangerous variable in the real world. The machines recognize that this program is not acting in their best interests anymore, and he must be deleted...

[Matt Stone]

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And how does Bain as a human represent any threat to the machines?

Maybe I didn't explain myself fully before. Bane doesn't represent a direct threat to the machines. Bane is the manifestation of the threat that Smith poses to the machines. If Smith can take over Bane, than he can take over anyone in the human world (as he has already done in the machine world). So, not only can Smith destroy the world inside The Matrix...he can also destroy the Machine World using the same method of replication.

[David Fisher]

There is no literal "code" walking around inside of Neo's body. When the architect is referring to the process of downloading Neo's "code" to the source, he is probably talking about Neo's memories and experiences. In computer science terms, you would probably call this data. In the Matrix, they play a little loose in the concepts of data/code, dynamic memory, etc.

At the end of Revolutions, Neo's body is being examined by a machine. It is probably inserting probes into Neo's brain or possibly removing the brain and analyzing its electro-chemical composition (which is what memories are). In a sense, this is Neo's code. He's actually fulfilling the purpose of the One and he doesn't even save Trinity.

[Pete-D]

Well I think the thing about Agent Smith being a threat to the machines is actually part of a core theme in the Matrix -- which is control.

In the Animatrix (The Second Renassiance) short films we see in detail how human beings gave birth to A.I., then tried to discount ("delete" it as it were), but there were too many machines by then. And eventually when humans reneged on peace, it caused our downfall.

Now the machines were the dominant "species" on the planet. They gave birth to the Matrix.

But, soon it went out of their control (specifically with the virus like Agent: Smith, who was supposed to be deleted).

There is a strong theme of creation and