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Tremors is one of the ten best movies ever made.

"Stampede Earl!"

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Hell yeah!

Hate the Matrix.
Watch the entire trilogy.
For Five weeks in a row.
A little each night.
Then you'll learn to love it.
Like Big Brother.

Duracell analogies are not bad sci-fi. In fact, I feel lavish attention to scientific minutiae to make worse sci-fi. "Primer" was an exercise in elegant gibberish, to my ears at least. The fucking 60's "Time Machine" had me more involved. Involvement is important. The characters and plot are important. Accuracy, on the other penis, is a last-minute touch you add if you have time.

But, yes, the second two Matrix movies have issues, but it isn't the science; it's the pacing and point of view issues. We follow Neo all through the first installment only to be shuttled back and forth between supporting characters in 2 & 3 like children in some nasty custody battle. When we do get back to Neo, he's treading water, having already made up his mind on what to do somewhere halfway through 2. So we're left with our main character in a holding pattern, so they made the crummy choice of showing us the exploits of Zion and all. Super-fuckin' yawn. Back to Neo for his story's excellent climax.

Unfortunately this takes 7 hours to get to. So the filmakers fail here, losing the audience's involvement by literally losing the plot. As a pastiche of pop culture, it works to amuse. But, for a movie, that just isn't enough.

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Ham-fisted ham fisting.

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Tremors is one of the ten best movies ever made.

"Stampede Earl!"

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I love Reba.

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This is not my empire.

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Duracell analogies are not bad sci-fi.

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Using humans as batteries is bad sci-fi. Really bad. I could come up with a better idea while falling off the toilet drunk.

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What others say about boorite!

i think the exact battery quote was "The human generates more bio-electricity than 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTVs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy
they would ever need." that's not anymore outlandish than many many scifi concepts. here's one example -- warp speed. a vehicle travelling at hundreds of times the speed of light, which physics has told us is the speed limit of the universe. the assumption is that there are scientific methods we haven't acquired yet that would allow what now seems impossible. in the case of warp speed it is probably wormholes and the bending of spacetime. in the case of humans as batteries it is the "form of fusion" they mentioned. if they'd have said, we hooked one end of a jumper cable up to his nose and the other end to his balls and siphoned off energy, then i think you'd have a case. but introducing the intentionally-general "form of fusion" makes it directly analogous to the the warp speed example

for the record, i loved the first Matrix and hated the sequels. i think the reason i liked the original so much was because it was a "birth of a god" story. that's a rare movie concept. some were saying the Matrix stole from other genres, but i haven't seen many or any birth-of-a-god movies. and not only a birth of a god, but a character we are identifying with throughout. so it's kind of like we vicariously experience his ascension to a deity

that's why the sequels sucked so much. you have a god fighting people. why? it's never in question who's going to win. and where did his godly powers go? the end of the first Matrix wasn't "oh, i can stop bullets, scroe!" it was i am the one, i can see the code, i can stop time, i am a god. that all went away in the sequels. he's fighting people on diesels and werewolves and ghosts, when as a god, he should have been working to free the trapped lives still in the dreamworld. i mean, shit, isn't the ending basically that all the trapped lives stay trapped, the matrix stays intact, but whoopty freakin do, Zion's allowed to survive so they can keep throwing rave parties.

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what if nigger meant kite

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i think the exact battery quote was "The human generates more bio-electricity than 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTVs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy
they would ever need." that's not anymore outlandish than many many scifi concepts.

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Then many many sci-fi concepts suck. One asks oneself how a human body generates all these volts and BTUs. The answer is food. And feeding a human body takes energy. You put energy in, and energy comes out. So, yeah, in a limited sense, a human body is like a battery. Is it a good battery? No. It's grossly inefficient. Is it an energy source? Oh hell no, not when you count what it takes to fuel it. So if the machines hook a bunch of human bodies up to wires, have they found "all the energy they would ever need?" No. Quite the opposite. They've found an energy cost center, an energy sinkhole. So Morpheus is wrong. The opposite of right. Took me about .2 seconds to realize this while watching the movie.

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here's one example -- warp speed. a vehicle travelling at hundreds of times the speed of light, which physics has told us is the speed limit of the universe. the assumption is that there are scientific methods we haven't acquired yet that would allow what now seems impossible. in the case of warp speed it is probably wormholes and the bending of spacetime. in the case of humans as batteries it is the "form of fusion" they mentioned. if they'd have said, we hooked one end of a jumper cable up to his nose and the other end to his balls and siphoned off energy, then i think you'd have a case. but introducing the intentionally-general "form of fusion" makes it directly analogous to the the warp speed example

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What is this about fusion that makes using humans as an energy source plausible? I missed it.

Which I found cool.

lewl

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What others say about boorite!

Cowboy postmodernism by boorite 1-21-03

One day at the ranch... So I says, "that dialectic subdeconstructivist theory ain't gonna generate an abundance of gendered narratives by itself." Ha, ha. What insights does this offer into the problems of representation, identity and reality in contemporary culture?

I really lliked what the Matrix could have been.

By the time it got to round two, I could see the train coming.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

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I really lliked what the Matrix could have been.

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Me, too. That's probably why I have an urge to throw things at it. That and the fact that it's held up as such a great example of all kinds of things that it isn't.

Now Kung Fu Hustle-- THAT WAS A MOVIE.

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What others say about boorite!

quote:

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i think the exact battery quote was "The human generates more bio-electricity than 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTVs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy
they would ever need." that's not anymore outlandish than many many scifi concepts.

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Then many many sci-fi concepts suck.

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but i'm guessing you don't complain about the warp engine or the TIE fighter. and really you shouldn't. first because it assumes new science so you'd have to adopt the opinion that there is no possible way science could ever achieve such a thing. i'm of the opinion that we know dick about science and how the universe works so i'm not ready to adopt that. second, even if you do adopt that, you'd have to then ignore that it's fantasy. it's science fiction. i'm sure you don't scream bullshit when superman flies or the enterprise goes into warp, so you can't use it as supporting evidence that the Matrix is a bad movie without saying they all are since it's the nature of the genre.

you're supposed to though. that's the point. it's intenetionally general. it's like asking what makes using dilithium crystals in the enterprise's engine plausible.

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what if nigger meant kite

The Matrix by boorite 5-28-03

The Matrix is a computer-generated dreamworld built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this. RING Stop that.

Boorite makes a good point that humans would not make good batteries. There were plot holes left right and centre. My favourite is that people could read flashing pages of code by sight, and that code formed a readable image despite containing only a couple thousand characters as opposed to the couple hundred thousand pixels comprising a modern computer screen.

There is a reason for a lot of this that people tend to miss. The Matrix series are some of the most misunderstood films ever made. Very very few people twigged to what was actually happening.

If anyone's interested I'll fill in a few of the details. All three films took place entirely within the matrix. There was no Zion, no super powers, nothing but a big mind fuck for the characters and the audience.

The whole thing was about the element of choice, all humans were connected through the matrix, and since their minds were linked that choice could be made by an individual, allowing the human race to remain happily enslaved. If you think like a computer it's pretty obvious that they never had to let anyone out, just make them think that they were free. That's the important thing here, don't think like a human.

The biggest give-aways to this theory were when Neo fried the squiddies in the "real world", when he could see even though he was blind and when agent Smith entered a human body. The oracle was never on their side, she was just a part of the larger program, as with everything else. You can chalk these things up as plot holes, or you can delve a little deeper.

Agent Smith's behaviour tells a lot as well, the way he carries on and gloats all the time. A program wouldn't behave like that unless it was programmed specifically to do so. Or it's just bad filmmaking.

If you re-watch the films and keep this in mind you'll be able to spot a LOT of things to support what I'm saying. This just touches on what was happening (I wrote a massive essay on this ages ago but lost it when my computer died). It's a lot more rewarding to figure out the other 90% yourselves.

And yes, they did make things up as they went and added things in later (probably after the first film was released) and most of it came about by accident. But no film's perfect.

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Dinosaurs had eggs bro, the chicken came way later.

The Matrix Refilled by ObiJo 1-30-04

Morpheus! Yes, Sarah, it is I. Does this mean I am the one?! No, Sarah, but you are the two. The two? What does the two do? She gets me a Whopper and a Sprite.

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There is a reason for a lot of this that people tend to miss. The Matrix series are some of the most misunderstood films ever made. Very very few people twigged to what was actually happening.

If anyone's interested I'll fill in a few of the details. All three films took place entirely within the matrix. There was no Zion, no super powers, nothing but a big mind fuck for the characters and the audience.

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it seems like there are as many theories about the meaning of the last 2 movies as there are fan sites. Revolutions grossed half as much as Reloaded. that's not because people didn't understand it. it's because they understood all too well that it was a terrible contradiction of what the first movie was. if there was anyone that didn't understand what made the first movie so great, it was obviously the Wachowski brothers. i'd thought they were brilliant after the first movie, but after the 2nd and 3rd it was pretty obvious they'd just got lucky and hit the lottery with the first.

the first one ended with Neo in a phone booth, on the phone speaking these words to the Matrix:

"...I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you."

is it any wonder that is what fans expected from the sequels? but when did he show the people what the matrix didn't want them to see? when did he show them a world without the matrix? a world without rules and controls, where anything is possible? he didn't. instead he fought tooth and nail so that Agent Smith couldn't what? destroy the matrix!

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what if nigger meant kite

The no "real world" concept was a twist I conjured before actually seeing the first. My family seemed to be watching that movie at all hours after it came on HBO, but I had no interest in it, thinking they were making money ripping off too many better movies, like "Dark City". But I'd catch snippets of dialogue, and I remember one night, I was a floor down and they had the climax cranked. I misheard one of Morpheus' lines in the climax (probably "He is starting to believe") as being "We are still asleep".

Hey, but has anyone else spotted all the Lewis Carroll in these movies?

I mean there is loads of obvious stuff, but there's so much more that people who've really read Carroll will find. I don't think it's a stretch to say the movies are primarily a rejiggering of Carrollian nonsense. Then they layered in an encyclopedic overview of movie cliches to bring it up to date.

Frinstance, has anyone spotted the sort-of "42" in the first. It was glaring to me, but I've never heard someone else mention it. (Not that I talk to Carroll or Sherlock Holmes fans all day.)

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Ham-fisted ham fisting.

The Mattress Reloaded by kaufman 12-20-05

Shhhhht-click!

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

There's not enough explanation to complain much about.

Star Wars is not science fiction.

Because it's magic.

Problem is, unlike the examples cited, The Matrix offers a coherent explanation, and that explanation is bunk. It's true that "science fiction" movies are rife with bunk (see especially The Day after Tomorrow), but it is not true that bunk necessarily inheres to the genre. Nor is it true that large numbers of us do not throw things at the screen when it shows us a pile of absolute balls. I say, if you're going to bother explaining something, please think for five seconds. Otherwise make up some crap about "dilithium crystals" and leave it at that.

"Hocus-pocus, now we're flying ten times the speed of light!" That's fine with me. But that slingshot-around-the-sun bullshit to go back in time and save the whales got on my nerves quite badly. Because it's not a far-fetched unknown. It's known bullshit. Same with the idea of using humans as a power source. Lame! Don't tell me you couldn't come up with a better reason for computers to enslave us.

you're supposed to though. that's the point. it's intenetionally general. it's like asking what makes using dilithium crystals in the enterprise's engine plausible.

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No, dilithium crystals are some hocus-pocus power source the writers made up. They might as well have used Venusian Ultra Super Unleaded. Contrastingly, we know what humans are, and the idea of using them as a power source is flat dumb. Saying "fusion" doesn't make it smart. It's just another layer of WTF. "Sounds sciencey! Whee!"

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What others say about boorite!

Say what you will about humans being inefficient batteries, but I got fifty hours of play on my PS2 just from the static discharge off mandingo's ball hairs.

The matrix was all bullshit from the beginning. The first one had a decent plot to it, and the rest were just thrown together to A) capitalize off the success of the first movie and B) get put out in theaters before LotR hit.

TIE fighters, Warp engines, they make sense because they make use of technology we don't have, and therefore cannot be truly proven impossible. The Matrix, however, tries to make things explainable in ways that the layman realizes is just plain stupid. Yes, I'm sure there are NASA astrophysicists watching Star Trek: TNG and correcting everything the blind guy in the engine room says, but not so for the people who like the show.

And dammit, I don't care what anyone else says. Not even Superman can reverse time by flying backwards around the earth. Whoever came up with that had to have been wiping his ass with the script.

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It was such a waste of everyone’s time and money that even the Tokyo stadium’s rape robots apologized– something they were programmed specifically never to do.

Just kidding! The Matrix kicks every possible quantum state of ass! BEST MOVIE EVAR!!!!!1

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What others say about boorite!

There's not enough explanation to complain much about.

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you obviously haven't listened very closely when Data and Jordi talk in engineering. there's more explanation in any one episode of Star Trek TNG than the terse phrase "Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy
they would ever need." see the quote at the end of this post for proof

i always forget it's a romantic comedy

Because it's magic.

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so does Star Trek, so does Superman. here's one such coherent explanation from Superman:

[i]"JOR-EL:
His dense molecular structure will make
him strong ...

JOR-EL:
Fast. Virtually invulnerable ..."[/i]

dense molecular structure? that's hardly "magic"

and that's exactly what they did. again, "a form of fusion". intentionally general. not cold fusion or splitting the atom, but "a form of fusion"

again, no more lame than the warp speed, TIE fighter, or superman examples. it's the assumption of future technologies and the use of a very general CYA description, both endemic to the genre

you're supposed to though. that's the point. it's intenetionally general. it's like asking what makes using dilithium crystals in the enterprise's engine plausible.

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No, dilithium crystals are some hocus-pocus power source the writers made up. They might as well have used Venusian Ultra Super Unleaded. Contrastingly, we know what humans are, and the idea of using them as a power source is flat dumb. Saying "fusion" doesn't make it smart. It's just another layer of WTF. "Sounds sciencey! Whee!"

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dilithium crystals and the entire Enterprise propulsion system are without a doubt better defined than The Matrix's "a form of fusion". in any one episode i'd wager, let alone the cumulative empire. here's one such quote from one of the many Star Trek sites that discuss it to help remind you just how specific and un-hocus pocus Star Trek's explanation is:

[i]"As the key element in all Federation warp engine designs, the dilithium crystal mediates the reaction between the matter and anti-matter in a starship's main engine core.

Dilithium is the only material known to be non-reactive with antimatter when subjected to a high frequency electromagnetic (EM) field, rendering it "porous" to antihydrogen.

Dilithium permits antimatter to pass directly through it's crystalline structure without actually coming into contact with it, due to a field dynamo effect.

Once found only in nature, the technology of the 24th Century antieutectics enables the formation of pure, synthesized dilithium and dilithium matrix re-crystallization through the use of high energy photon injection."[/i]

same argument. "a form of fusion"

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what if nigger meant kite

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What others say about boorite!

omg pWN3d

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what if nigger meant kite

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Dinosaurs had eggs bro, the chicken came way later.

Life's a Matrix by Injokester 12-21-05

Hang on. Did it say to follow the grey rabbit or the white rabbit?

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Dinosaurs had eggs bro, the chicken came way later.

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Dinosaurs had eggs bro, the chicken came way later.