»Did the Matrix fall victim to Star Wars disease?«

I just watched Matrix reloaded and revolutions back to back through Comcast's On Demand. I had heard the final movie was horrible, so even though I loved the first 2 I put off seeing the final installment till I could see it for free.

So, my final thought on this is the W-brothers are suffering from the same incurable disease ravaging their creative genius that George Lucas has already succumbed to. Call it - Starwarculosis. Both storylines started out promising; excellent action scenes and brilliant AI work interspersed with some interesting philisophical quandries. The audience could be entertained as they watched Neo dodge bullets or Luke wield his lightsaber while at the same time ask themselves - what is the meaning of the matrix? What is the force and how can the Jedi bend it to their will? Is Neo the One? etc, etc

The early movies (first three Star Wars, first two Matrix) succeeded because the writer/directors took the tried and true action-adventure formula and added a new thought-provoking mythos to make their movies stand out from say, I Robot. It was important not to get too deep, to answer the most obvious questions (yes Luke, I am your father. Yes Neo, there have been six Ones before. You got set up) but let the audience draw their own conclusions about the meaning of the Force and the nature of the Matrix. Most importantly, the movies had to be entertaining. After all, moviegoers plunked down hard-earned cash to be entertained, not take a pop-theology course.

I can see a pattern emerging in why both storylines have presently gone to shit. Here are the classic symptoms of Starwarculosis.

1. overly cute characters that serve little to advance the plot. In Matrix 3 it's the little Indian girl, in Star Wars it's Jar Jar. Of course, the W-brothers succeed in making their cutesy character at least barable.

2. allowing actors like Keanu and Hayden Christensen to completely carry the movie, something neither of these guys can do by themselves. I'm not saying they're total idiots (Keanu makes up for his Bill &Ted moments by being an incredible physical actor), but they desperately need the help of such veterans as Will Fishburne or Samuel Jackson. Ok, let me put it to you like this. Fisburne was a good part of what made the first movie excellent. Likewise, Harrison Ford was a driving force in the Star Wars triliogies that made otherwise ordinary performances by the rest of the alliance characters truly shine.

3. Sacrificing good storytelling for special effect extravaganzas.

4. Using ambiguity as a plot device. Both Lucas and the W-brothers probe the nature of their worlds, but never deliver the goods. It's smoke and mirrors, fun hall illusions. Instead of giving satisfying answers to the big questions, the directors just throw in another question. It's the equivalent of a philosophy student being caught unprepared for a class discussion by saying, "how can I know the answer to this week's assignment? How can we truly know the answer to anything?"

5. Mind-numbingly stupid and melodramatic dialogue that a remedial Community College student could improve upon.

Just like STDs and lung cancer, Starwarculosis is a very preventable disease that these directors could have avoided. As even an inspiring Sci-fi/fantasy writer such as myself knows, you first have to know where your story and world are going before you write. Never break the rules of your world unless you explain why. If you're going to raise big questions in a film, answer them dammit. That's why you're taking the audience on a trip, after all.

Most importantly, give a strong ending that allows the hero to triumph on his own merits or the merits of his allies. Look at the Lord of the Rings as a perfectly executed ending. The fate of the world hangs in the action of one hobbit, who almost succumbs to the darkness that is the Ring. But it is through the courage and steadfast loyalty of his friends that good triumphs. Not your typical good guy dispatches arch-villian while spouting pithy oneliner, gets girl, tells girl how much he enjoyed their previous sex scene and how he's going to rock her world again as they ride off into the sunset. But it works brilliantly.


I still have no idea what happened in Matrix Revolutions. Neo gets up, says he's continuing to fight because he chooses to, he is inevitably defeated ,but his defeat destroys Agent Smith? How? What the Hell happened? What is the point? This is classic sloppy Deus Ex Machina, the good side triumphing through some miraculous circumstance never fully explained.

But if you're a hollywood icon, you no longer need to follow the tenets of strong writing or storytelling. You can be as crazy or muddled as you want to be, as long as you pack seats and bring back casino-style returns to the Hollywood execs.

Alas, both Lucas and the W-brothers have fallen victim to their own successes.

APU_gunner wrote:

As even an inspiring Sci-fi/fantasy writer such as myself knows, you first have to know where your story and world are going before you write. Never break the rules of your world unless you explain why. If you're going to raise big questions in a film, answer them dammit.

1) Are you meaning to sound horribly arrogant? Or did you mean to write "aspiring" (rather than "inspiring")?

2) I don't think they did break the rules of the world of the matrix without explaining why

3) Often majorly successful works will contain ambiguity. There is nothing wrong with this. I think many of the questions people have are answerable, and that those left unanswered are intentionally ambiguous.


But I liked the Starwars disease stuff - that was funny. A very good post!

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, but I really do disagree with a lot of what you just said about the movies. There is really too much to go into in depth during the course of just one post, but i'll just try and address a few things you mentioned above.

You talk about overly cute characters that do little to advance the plot and you compare Jar Jar Binks with Sati. However, Sati is definitely not there for the sake of having a cute kid to please the family audience and especially those who have experienced Enter the Matrix (or watched the Collectors Box Set) will know that there is a deeper significance to Sati's character, the surface of which was only scratched during the course of Revolutions.

Yes we all know Keanu isn't an acting legend or anything, but to be honest he suits the role. Despite being the main "hero" of the trilogy, I felt that the character of Neo wouldn't feel right if overplayed, which left little room to flex acting muscles anyway. As such, I find it very hard to picture anyone else as suitable as Keanu was for the role.

The question of good storytelling is a very subjective one. Just because the Wachowski Brothers decided to do something different, does not make them bad storytellers. As for the special effects, I struggle to think of any movies in which the use of impressive special effects are so strongly linked to the underlying concepts and philosophies of the subject matter itself.

Ambiguity is never used as a plot device at any point in the trilogy. Of course, like any movie makers, the Wachowskis only reveal to the viewer as much as they want you to see, but the overall storyline to me is completely tight and unambiguous. A great example of how this is deployed to great effect is the scene where Smith gets the eyes of the Oracle and laughs as he forsees his victory in the final fight with Neo. That is a true plot device, cleverly deployed in a similar fashion to that which was used in Bound, the OTHER (also brilliant) Wachowski project. There are, however, a lot of uncertainties that surround the nature of the elaborate world in which the Wachowskis have created, but surely that's a good thing? It's hard to find a movie these days that allows you the luxury to continue the debate and discussion so long after its conclusion. Obviously, I understand that this is not for everyone and it was clear from the start that a lot of people were not going to enjoy the trilogy as a whole.

Um... if the ending counts as plot then YES ambiguity IS used as a plot device.

The ending is definitely ambiguous.

call me picky, but an ending really isn't a plot device.

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