Matrixy

Salon blogger Martin Marprelate has written an insightful fan's commentary about the Matrix Revolutions. ...

For myself, after the lukewarm reaction to the Matrix Reloaded, I just knew that the third film was going to be panned, come what may. That's why I decided to see the film on its opening night, so I could watch it uninfluenced by the negativity. No, the sequels didn't have the same impact as the first movie; they were each very different movies - telling quite different parts of the one story. My main disappointment with the sequels was the way they were overhyped and oversold, which created the inevitable backlash. And at the risk of trolling, as a fan of Tolkien's books I much prefer the Matrix movies to the Lord of the Rings movies, because the Matrix was envisioned for the medium of film/DVD, whereas LOTR was definitely not. As good as the first 2 LOTR movies were, they are still pale shadows of the books - and the omission of the "Scouring of the Shire" un-Hollywood ending from the Return of the King movie is the biggest example of this.

Oh, and before I end this brief excursion into film criticism and geek culture, let me note that the Matrix is going to be made into a MMOPRG, the Matrix Online. It's set in the post-Revolutions Matrix. It's only going to be available on the PC - which is probably a good thing for me, because then I won't be tempted to try it.