The Matrix Conversation

It is so sad that for the longest time I was excited for the second and third matrix movies and was happy when i saw them, but never glad i saw them. I felt that i owed them for making a fantastic first fllm and stumbled with them to the second and thrid movie along with the animatrix.
 
Jeff was right! The second and third film is not what the series could have been and should have been. It became so endemic on the computerize stuff and the religois stuff that it did not need in order to be good. They never branched themselves out of the first movie to be our star wars.
 
I love the first movie, like the second and third movie.

Yeah they got way too preachy in the last two films.

I just completely lost interest when we got to Colonel Sanders in a room full of monitors. That's when I realized this wasn't going to be a great sequel to a great film.

I really liked them when they came out, but i was like 12... In retrospect, I hate the fact that I have them in my dvd collection.
 
And I don't really think the first one, is as awesome as it was 10 years ago, but still kinda awesome.

I've never understood the beef against the sequels. I like them a lot still, and what's more is that they are exactly what I expected them to be at the time. I don't get what was so great about the first that was absent in the rest. Or I guess, what the rest had added that made them so much less than the first. 
I just don't see it. Reloaded and Revolution were great films IMO, and did what they needed to in order to finish Neo's story. I can totally accept "to each their own" here. But the way people make it sound is as though it's obvious how 2 and 3 failed. 
 
Anyone care to shed some light? I ain't here to argue taste. I just want to understand more of why most people I hear from consider the sequels such glorious failures.

They tried too hard with the mythos, like they wanted to cram everything in, about exiled programs and the Merovingian and crazy ghosts and just shit it didnt need.  This one should have been a darker tale that showed Neo was not completely invincible and ended on a sad note.  The fact that they got neo out so fast of the train station in the 3rd movie highlights they were not willing to take chances on neo looking weak.  Look at Episode 5, empire strikes back,  Luke loses his fucking hand!  And whole Zion being a crazy african dance party with Sex in the background, not cool.

" @Damian: I was never ridiculously into the Matrix but I loved the first one and felt kicked in the nuts by the second.  To me the entire movie failed because it made it a point early and often that it's message was "let's see how ridiculously confusing we can make this story arch."  It felt like the Wachowskis wrote the script while they sat around stroking each others egos.  It was the worst kind of script where you can tell there was no opposition to any ideas throughout the creation process. "

" They tried too hard with the mythos, like they wanted to cram everything in, about exiled programs and the Merovingian and crazy ghosts and just shit it didnt need.  This one should have been a darker tale that showed Neo was not completely invincible and ended on a sad note.  The fact that they got neo out so fast of the train station in the 3rd movie highlights they were not willing to take chances on neo looking weak.  Look at Episode 5, empire strikes back,  Luke loses his fucking hand!  And whole Zion being a crazy african dance party with Sex in the background, not cool. "

There are some reasonable strikes against the Matrix sequels here. But the only real things I see as "objectively poor" in comparing 2 & 3 to the first is that there was no BIG reveal like the first (as n8 points out) or at least not one that hit as hard, and that the first had the advantage of being a stand alone story while the next two were merely expansions of the original idea, which I suppose renders them inferior by default. The third one suffers especially, as if you didn't like Reloaded, the chances are WAY slimmer that you'll enjoy Revolutions.
 
In before another Episode 5 reference; honestly we cannot compare the Matrix and SW so literally. Totally unfair. When the Matrix 1, 2 & 3 came out we weren't living in the 70's anymore where an action trilogy was unheard of, and today people are just more cynical in general, certainly here on the internet where judgement-memes like "The Matrix 2 & 3 = garbage" and "Heath Ledger = best actor ever!" spread like wildfire, and holding the opposing viewpoint is intolerable to the majority. 
 
I guess I just wish it weren't such a joke. It doesn't bother me so much that most people disagree with my opinion, what bothers me is that the only people that DO agree probably wear black trench-coats in the summer, reeking of fecal-cheese.

" I just completely lost interest when we got to Colonel Sanders in a room full of monitors. That's when I realized this wasn't going to be a great sequel to a great film. "

The exact moment it went to shit was the 'Neo vs. A Bunch of Smiths' fight in the park, which looked like it was filmed in Doom 3.

i really liked the 2nd and 3rd when they came out.. hell i watched the third film like 3 times. but now looking back at it i was around 13 and so i thought any action movie is cool... but they sucked.. i remember

"
The problem, I think, is that the Matrix sequels tried really hard to be more like literary films than streamlined action-philosophy. 
 
People can get into philosophy when it is consistent. And the philosophy behind the first Matrix film was consistent. A messiah story. When the sequels rolled around, viewers were befuddled because there was no clear point to what was happening. The philosophy was present, but it was too present. And it bombarded the viewers from every direction at almost every point of dialogue. At every single moment there was symbolism and theme and philosophy and philosophy and philosophy.   Every moment is cryptic in the sequels. And when everything is cryptic, people start to lose the sense that the film has a causal chain. Reloaded and Revolutions favor their theses over their stories. And that's what hurts the sequels.   Don't get me wrong. I have been a fan of the Matrix trilogy for a long time. But the Wachowskis shot themselves in the feet when they abandoned the concision of the first film and spiraled away from the elements that made the original Matrix so enjoyable. Even I can see that, at points, they start throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. I mean, the scene with the Architect is almost complete bollocks. "