The Matrix is being rebooted

[Dara]

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Warner Brothers is in the early stages of developing a reboot of the 1999 film. They want Michael B. Jordan to star and the Wachowski sisters are not involved.

That's a whole boatload of NOPE. Just... NOPE DO NOT WANT.

[terpkristin]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Who is Michael B. Jordan?


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Dara]

Michael B. Jordan is a fine actor but do not touch The Matrix.

To me, reboots should take a crappy film and make it better. There's really nothing to fix in The Matrix. There's nothing to make better and honestly, today's special effects are not better than what the Wachowskis accomplished back in 97-98. I hope this fizzles out and they find some better project to build around Jordan.

[Keith]

There is basically no way this movie isn't actually titled MATRIX: REBOOTED.

[Rick]

And of course...

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/matrix_re...

[John (Taloni)]

Rick wrote: "And of course...

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/matrix_re..."

So. Much. THIS!

I saw the first and mercifully skipped the other two. The Matrix had one good idea and it made for a fun if flawed movie. (machines with nuclear material need humans for electricity? how about, oh I dunno, building a nuclear power plant?) Anyhoo, what would a reboot do? Leave it be.

[Nokomis.FL]

Wallace from The Wire?

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

If it is a movie in the Matrix universe, I'm on board. I see Michael B. Jordan is black. Maybe it could be a young Morpheus movie. That would be cool.

and a quick Google search makes that seem more likely.
http://omegaunderground.com/2017/03/1...

If it's a remake of The Matrix, then NO. That is a great movie that is perfect as it is. It's less than 20 years old FFS.

Plus it was made in Australia. Doubly perfect :-)

[Louie]

Josh wrote: "Michael B. Jordan was in Chronicle, the found-footage superhero movie from 2012, Fruitvale Station, Creed, and the most recent Fantastic Four reboot."

And the upcoming Black Panther, where he is working with his Creed director, Ryan Coogler, again.

[Trike]

Dara wrote: "To me, reboots should take a crappy film and make it better. There's really nothing to fix in The Matrix. There's nothing to make bet..."

Exactly.

A good idea with a flawed execution is the best fodder for a reboot. One example off the top of my head is Damnation Alley. The movie oversimplifies and takes the edge off the book, plus it has terrible special effects. (Although the Landmaster is arguably the coolest truck ever made for a movie.)

John Carpenter's The Thing is the gold standard for remakes. The original 1950s version, The Thing from Another World, is actually a very good movie, especially for the era, but it bears only a passing resemblance to the short story it's based on, Who Goes There?. Carpenter managed the impossible task of honoring both Campbell's story and the film by seamlessly integrating the two. When they did a weird prequel/sequel to it a few years ago, it was pointless because they brought nothing new to the table.

With something that hews closer to Zelazny's novel, a new Damnation Alley could be brutally brilliant in the same way the best Mad Max movies are.

There's nothing they can bring to The Matrix to improve on it.

[John (Taloni)]

My god. Someone else has seen Damnation Alley.

Man, I loved the book. Then the movie came out. All I really remember is tanks forever driving around a desert. Laaaaame.

But, to go full circle, I saw it in Nashua somewhere as I was then living in Pepperell. You could have seen it in the same theater!

[Trike]

Except I was living in Ohio at the time. :p

The dumbest thing about Damnation Alley was shoehorning Jackie Earl Haley into it as literally the exact same character he played in The Bad News Bears the year before. (Although in my dream remake Haley would play Hell Tanner. Check him out as Guerrero in the Human Target TV series. Dead on.)

[Darren]

Maybe in 50 years this would be a good idea.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I was librarianing in a freshman class last semester where the professor made a Matrix reference and got... BLANK STARES. Because the movie is that old! Which makes ME that old... sigh. I still don't think they need to remake it.

Btw does anyone watch Humans? Carrie-Anne Moss is in the second season. I have no idea where Keanu has been because the stuff he's making is not the stuff I'm watching.

[Dara]

He was in John Wick and its sequel recently which was apparently kick-ass. I haven't seen either but my favorite YouTube film series Movies with Mikey loves it (which means I should definitely see it).

[Bill]

I'm so sick of all these reboots and remakes

[Trike]

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I was librarianing in a freshman class last semester where the professor made a Matrix reference and got... BLANK STARES. Because the movie is that old! Which makes ME that old... sigh. I still don..."

Girlfrennn, don't get me started. I just turned 52. I would French kiss a hobo for 30 minutes to be your age again.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Trike wrote: "Girlfrennn, don't get me started. I just turned 52. I would French kiss a hobo for 30 minutes to be your age again. "

Well *I* was not a freshman. :)

[Dara]

Keith wrote: "My favorite thing about The Matrix is that Keanu thought the stunt guys worked so hard for not much pay that at the end of of shooting, he bought each of them a motorcycle."

People can say what they will about how wooden of an actor he is but Reeves is a fantastic human being. In addition to the motorcycles, he gave most of his salary from the 2 Matrix sequels to the special effects and crew.

[Aaron]

Bill wrote: "I'm so sick of all these reboots and remakes"

Don't forget sequels, prequels, and seboots(a sequel that's also a reboot).

[Bill]

Aaron wrote: "Bill wrote: "I'm so sick of all these reboots and remakes"

Don't forget sequels, prequels, and seboots(a sequel that's also a reboot)."

Don't even get me started on these sequels coming out over a decade later. I'll be ranting all day.

[Dara]

Bill wrote: "Aaron wrote: "Bill wrote: "I'm so sick of all these reboots and remakes"

Don't forget sequels, prequels, and seboots(a sequel that's also a reboot)."

Don't even get me started on these sequels co..."

Wait - you mean nobody wanted a sequel to Independence Day?!

[Bill]

Lol or Zoolander?

[J]

I think I'm taking the news a bit better than everybody else. This could be a good thing. It won't be, because this is Hollywood, but it certainly could.

The Matrix Trilogy ended with a literal reboot. So anything which happens after those events are a reboot.

That said, Hollywood likes the soft reboot because it's a gray area and seeks to bring in fans of the original film while not alienating those who hated the later installments.

Put this as a whole new character, within the Matrix world, suddenly discovering what's up and having an adventure and that could work great. The soft reboot part being that the film would be far enough away from the others that it could be connected or could be a full reboot without actually committing.

[Rob, Roberator]

I don't want this, but if they do it, they should use the Animatrix as a reference.

[Louie]

There are so much uncertainties in that article (i.e., unnamed sources, "early stages of developing," "in talks to write a treatment," "potential interest in Michael B. Jordan") that this is far from a sure thing. So, I am taking this "news" with a large grain of salt. - If it does get a green light, I would be down to see Michael B. Jordan as a young Morpheus.

But, interesting to hear that Joel Silver [possibly] sold all of the rights to his films to Warner Bros.

[Daryl]

So, I'm sure everyone has heard the weekend speculation and/or see the tweets from Zak Penn. This Matrix movie looks like it will either be a prequel to the Matrix trilogy telling Morpheus' story (which I'm here for) or it will be a completely different Matrix story altogether (which again, I am all about).

[Carrie]

Noooooooooo!!!!! NO NO NO. [Stopping feet]

[Keith]

Finally, a prequel series that explains away anything interesting and mysterious about a character. What a novel idea.

[Rick]

Daryl wrote: "So, I'm sure everyone has heard the weekend speculation and/or see the tweets from Zak Penn. This Matrix movie looks like it will either be a prequel to the Matrix trilogy telling Morpheus' story (..."

God no, not a prequel. Prequel's are a terrible idea... Unless they do the thing that Star Trek did and create an alternate universe, there's no suspense. Hey, did anyone not get than Anakin was going to turn at the end of the Star Wars prequels? That Padme would die? That .... oh never mind.

Sure, a Morpheus origin story might be a fun movie, but we know that he won't win any final victory over the Machines, that he won't die, that he's not The One, etc.

The Matrix worked because of a confluence of time, place, aesthetic. Too bad there were no sequels. And there shouldn't be any prequels. Tell New Stories.

[Trike]

So, I saw Matrix: Resurrections.

Here’s my hot take: don’t bother.

It’s bad in the sense that it is boring as hell. I literally fell asleep twice two nights in a row trying to watch it. Pushed through this morning, but only because I was distracted and entertained by playing a match-3 game on my iPad. (Marvel Puzzle Quest, to no one’s surprise.)

People calling it the “woke Matrix” are hilariously missing the point about the first movie. But also… they’re not wrong. The girl-power aspects feel cheap and pandering. Trinity is supposed to be all “one with the power”, but she only does so at the permission of Neo. Still feels patriarchal, honestly.

I don’t get the point of new-Morpheus. He fills a necessary plot point, but it could’ve been a bit (no pun) filled by literally any other similar character. Agent Smith v2.0 likewise feels like a contractual obligation.

We all know it’s a sequel by now, and they constantly make meta-self-referential comments, many of them echoing the comments made 4-1/2 years ago in this very thread.

Spoilers - (view spoiler)[So here “The Matrix” is a video game that Neo made which was a big hit. So now Warner Bros. is going to make a sequel, with or without the involvement of Neo and and his partner. They actually say those words in the movie. Wink-wink. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a director comment so, um, directly on the behind the scenes stuff in the film itself. So props to them. The fact that Neo has one of those poseable hands on his desk giving The Finger to the world is both callback to the original film and Lana Wachowski flipping off WB. So props for that, I guess. (Get it? Props?)

The part about Morpheus is a puzzler. It feels less like fan service and more like a remnant left over from an earlier draft. The fact he and Smith are played by two different actors just makes it peculiar rather than interesting.

As I recall, in the third movie there was a guy in a room with a bunch of monitors who was really the one pulling the strings. I might be wrong about that, as I only watched Matrix: Rewind and Matrix: Regurgitation once each. (I am, however, 100% positive those were the titles.) Anyway, here we have that exact same character, played by NPH. Except now he’s a therapist pulling everyone’s strings. I can’t help but think that’s commentary on therapy. Whatever.

There’s even a black cat for no reason other than callback stuff.

At one point they even lay things out like a video game, and throughout there’s a guy who acts like the game person who’s always telling you things in video games. “Great job! Now go through that door and flip the switch. Great job! Now find the weapon and shoot the agent. Great job! Now plug in the toaster and drop it into the bath with me to end my misery. Grea-ay-ay-gahk” (hide spoiler)]

I won’t spoil the ending, but c’mon, you know how it ends. In the dumbest, most anticlimactic way possible.

I mean, if you like zombie films and really loved the Burly Brawl, you’re going to enjoy the heck out of the third act here. The coda, maybe not so much.

[Trike]

Oh, just thought of another thing about Morpheus… (view spoiler)[He’s a huge wasted opportunity because in the film he’s a self-aware program the way Smith was/is. He’s inherently good, due to being patterned on Morpheus, I guess.

But how much more interesting if he filled the same role as Agent Smith in the first movie, as antagonist. Here’s a good guy, a symbol of justice and freedom, being co-opted and corrupted by the wrong side. The way the Nazis used a symbol of peace, the swastika. Or the Tea Party co-opted the Don’t Tread On Me flag. Or how white supremacist cops are currently using The Punisher logo. Or — more to the point — how pathetic bros have used The Matrix and its red pill/blue pill symbolism. Talk about meta-commentary!

Too bad he’s just used as a video game character. (hide spoiler)]

[John (Nevets)]

So I held off watching this for a while, but had an afternoon off in cold Boston, so figured why not. I wasn’t expecting much, but ended up enjoying it. I actually thought the first 2/3rds were very good. But the start of the third act got into some very bad writing, and storytelling. So much so it felt like a different writer. And that wasn’t helped by JP Smiths extremely bad physical acting. The ending was the action movie you expected, but that was fine by me.

I don’t necessarily disagree with any of Trikes points, the movie just hit me better. I 100% wish they didn’t feel the need to make this movie, but since they did, I enjoyed it for what it was.

[John (Taloni)]

So..."The Matrix Awakens?" Nostalgia 'memberberries make it worthwhile for some if not everybody.