Thegun's 50 Worst Sequels Ever Made (#15)

[miketheavenger]

I've actually never seen the MATRIX Sequels tbh. I don't even know exactly why. Maybe it was because of their poor reputation or some other reason. The first movie is incredible, though.

[75Live]

2 hours ago, miketheavenger said:

I've actually never seen the MATRIX Sequels tbh. I don't even know exactly why. Maybe it was because of their poor reputation or some other reason. The first movie is incredible, though.

 

They aren't that bad, I can see why it's on the list though.

 

Basically they took a cool concept and for a lot of people, they tried too hard to become "bigger than the idea" and thought they were too self important or whatever term you want to use.  It's kind of what some say about the Pirates DMC and AWE.  Not saying everyone feels that way but it's one of the complaints against the sequels.

 

Matrix 2 and 3 are definitely worth a watch though.

Edited August 30, 2016 by 75live

[Ethan Hunt]

Never seem The Matrix sequels

Edited August 30, 2016 by Ethan Hunt

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

The Matrix sequels aren't as awful as some make them out to be. Of course, The Matrix is nowhere near as good as people make it to be, IMO.

[ecstasy]

One positive from this thread is reading the diverse opinions on some of these all time classics. 

 

 

[TalismanRing]

1 hour ago, Jayhawk said:

The Matrix sequels aren't as awful as some make them out to be. Of course, The Matrix is nowhere near as good as people make it to be, IMO.

 

I agree with the second sentence.

[DeeCee]

The underlying idea of human batteries makes zero sense. 

[baumer]

2 minutes ago, DeeCee said:

The underlying idea of human batteries makes zero sense. 

 

That's kind of the McGuffin though isn't it?

[TalismanRing]

21 minutes ago, DeeCee said:

The underlying idea of human batteries makes zero sense. 

 

I saw The Matrix on opening weekend before the hype and laughed & groaned at that reveal.   Then in Reloaded when we see the ports on his back during the sex scene I had to keep myself from cackling in the theater.  Energy inefficient and deeply unsexy.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2016 by TalismanRing

[Porthos]

17 minutes ago, DeeCee said:

The underlying idea of human batteries makes zero sense. 

 

AIUI. that was forced by the studio execs who felt that the original planned idea that the brains of all the people hooked up in the Matrix gave it the 'computational juice' to make the Matrix possible was too cerebral/people wouldn't understand it.  Thus it was dumbed down to living batteries, which as you say makes zero scientific sense (using humans as batteries takes FAR more power to feed the humans/keep them alive than they could ever put out in electricity).

 

But it's only us nerds who really cared about that, so whatevas.

[BadAtGender]

14 minutes ago, DeeCee said:

The underlying idea of human batteries makes zero sense. 

 

Maybe, but it's not important, either. They movie isn't about trying to come up with a plausible scenario for machines to take over the world. It's to have a "machines take over the world" as the baseline so they can explore a number of different philosophical and sociological ideas. Spending time to explain something that might make more sense would be a waste, really, for what they're trying to do. It's easier and arguably better to throw out an easily digested idea so that they can move on and get with what they're trying to do.

 

This is what irks me about a lot of nit picking. Any film (or novel or comic or tv show or whatever) only has a limited amount of real estate to get the point across. If you're trying to do everything to make sure you're ironclad against the nitpicks, you're probably not getting to the point in any good way, either. So you need to choose what's important enough to spend the time on.

 

A recent example I noticed. In the show iZombie, Clive (the police officer) accepts the explanation that Liv (the zombie) is a psychic, which explains how she knows things about the crime. He doesn't question this frankly out there reason. During the writing process, they originally had a much longer build to that, where he needs to be convinced first. But they found that it was getting in the way of the plot (and using up time they didn't have in the show), so they switched it so that he accepted the reason because his aunt is a psychic. But then they found even THAT explanation was slowing things down too much, so they excised it entirely. Now, while it might be a thin justification on screen, it works well enough so that they can get to the point of the show, which is solving crimes, not coming up with a reason for one character to believe another character is a psychic.

 

Another example. DC released a new Prez series last year. It's really good. Updates a concept from the 70s where a teen becomes president of the US. However, despite it being good, the comic is a pretty slow build. The main character doesn't become president by the end of the first issue, and it takes several to get all the base concepts for the series in place. While it reads fine as a collection, I could see the argument that it kinda failed as a series because it didn't utilize the page real estate the best to get the point across in that first issue. 

 

Movies, obviously, don't have quite the strict requirements as TV and comics, but they still need to work. If you're going off on a tangent to explain some minor detail, you fuck up the pacing and make the final product worse. Give the audience what it needs to comprehend and move on with you. Sure, it might raise questions after the fact, but that's AFTER THE FACT, and thus you've already gotten them through the movie.

[Thegun]

 

[TalismanRing]

They could have spent just as little time on something that made more sense and then moved on without any deep or exhaustive explanation.  No explanation, no matter how long was going to make that concept or conceit make sense.  The infrastructure they had to build, the energy they had to expend to maintain it, to get that little energy was just ridiculously stupid.  

 

Not everything needs to hold together under scrutiny during or even after the movie is over and you're looking for something to eat in he refrigerator (thanks Hitch) but the core concept or the backbone of the world building should hold together long enough under the willing suspension of disbelief that the film has hopefully created and fostered while you're watching.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2016 by TalismanRing

[Water Bottle]

The real issue with the Matrix is procreation. If humans are linked up to the machine, how do they make babies and thus new human batteries or whatnot? Is this explained and I just forgot or the plot hole everybody ignores?

[Thegun]

33. Escape From LA (1996)

 

Dam, this one is on here as a half-hearted choice.  It's been 20 years, and this movie like many Carpenter films are starting to get its fans  (Getting closer to fresh on RT, perhaps another 10 years, and this will continue to develop a legitimate following.)  I do like this movie, but that's because I like anything Kurt and Carpenter.  Just everything is completely frustrating about this film.  Is it a bad remake of the far superior Escape from NY?  If that is the case, it is pretty awful and such a missed opportunity. Is it a parody/ remake of Escape from NY that is in on the joke? Possible, but this needed a much better script, and more support to make it work.  It's far too serious at times and the cheesiness doesn't mesh with it.  The budget is huge and and you have Kurt Russell playing mother fucking Snake and still rocks the role.  Obviously the 15-20 million of the film's 50 million budget went to him.  Are the, at times, atrocious effects intentional or just Carpenter not knowing how to work on a big scale.  It has a great cast that range from cheesy to plain awful. And Poor Pam Grier, thankfully she got Jackie Brown soon after, and works for maybe the first third of the film.  It has torture by treadmill and execution by lack of basketball skills for God sake.  It has a plastic surgeon gang.  It has the worst surfing scene of all time.  You guys that think Reloaded has interesting concepts, check out Escape From LA.  This film is saying quite a bit, but gets lost in its trash.  Though this film is much much better any day. Because let's face it, Snake is Snake.  You don't want to punch him in the face like every actor in Reloaded.  There were so many sequels you could have done, and you do this.  Hell, if we show Snake traveling down south and takes up the identity of Captain Ron. Now you have something!

 

Best Scene:  Kurt makes a full court shot.  (They say it was real, that is bad ass)

 

 

 

[Porthos]

6 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

The real issue with the Matrix is procreation. If humans are linked up to the machine, how do they make babies and thus new human batteries or whatnot? Is this explained and I just forgot or the plot hole everybody ignores?

 

I figure babies are made in test tubes and then plugged into the Matrix/farm.  Hardly something beyond the capabilities of the machine overlords.  Even if one wants to drill down to the level of specific parents for specific children, I figure needles are still a thing in the future.  One pair of invasive probes later and presto, new embryo ready to be put into a birthing tube.

[DeeCee]

1 hour ago, Baumer loves Oogieloves said:

 

That's kind of the McGuffin though isn't it?

I know. You just have to let it go. 

[Thegun]

32. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

 

Yuck.  Follow up your supposed solid final entry with a possible reboot/continuation and this is what you get.  If you watch the trailer here then you've seen all of Corey Feldman's role, easily the most interesting of the series outside of Jason.  He cameo's his way out of the opening on his way to Goonies.  First and foremost the acting is awful.  And it tries to go back to the roots bringing more of POV style killings of the original, and after 2-4 made the series killings iconic at times and Jason came into real menace, these are just cheap.  There's not a single character to root for outside of Jason, and spoiler alert, he isn't in it.  The killer's motivation in this movie is weak.  It's not fun.  This is hands down the one you never have to see.  Well, there are a couple, but they at least awfully hilarious with the way the films try new things.

 

 

 

[DeeCee]

34 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

The real issue with the Matrix is procreation. If humans are linked up to the machine, how do they make babies and thus new human batteries or whatnot? Is this explained and I just forgot or the plot hole everybody ignores?

There's scenes with babies being taken from small birthing pods and moved to the bigger pods Neo is in. 

[Thegun]

8 minutes ago, DeeCee said:

I know. You just have to let it go. 

 

The Mcguffin is Neo.  No one is searching for batteries at all in the film film.  Everyone (Morpheus, the machines, even Neo himself) they are all searching for the one.