Philosophy and "The Matrix".

[jax0m]

I was parsing through my errant stream of psuedo-random thoughts the other day... and had a quick pause on "The Matrix".

There are endless philosophical themes to the trilogy...
What would you guys say the "moral(s)" of the movies is/are?

If there is one at all.

Or maybe you think I'm just missing the entire point by trying to find morality where there is none to be found, and trying to deduce such would render the philosophical arguments pointless.

Furthermore, what exactly ARE the movies, besides a mish-mash of philosophy?

[garak]

The first was pretty cool, but the second was hard for me to follow and it seemed lacking in, uh, substance. Or something. Never saw the third. If anything I think the moral I got from it (them) was to "question everything." A very INTP-ish theme.

Wait, what? Movies?

[Edmond Zedo]

The Matrix knows only one thing. It is better to be Star Wars.

[TraditionalNonconformist]

Theme?
I guess, "deja-vu is really a glitch in The Matrix" :D

Sorry, but I don't know what people find so profound about these movies.

Actually, I'd agree with what garak said.

[alex]

I don't really see the point to sorting out a director's interpretation & amalgamation of existing traditions/ideas which were possibly compromised for entertainment purposes. I'd just go read original texts.

[jax0m]

Have you guys seen the movie Dark City? If you haven't, I recommend that you watch it -- I mean, the basic principles of The Matrix are all there. The One, going back to the source, others around The One that are similarly enlightened... Except that Dark City came out in 1998, while The Matrix was released in 1999. It seems like a bigger-budget clone, and the aliens are replaced by machines.

Silliness.

<3
Jax

[philosupial]

People are always going on and on about the philosophy in the Matrix. So two guys, who took some philosophy classes and read some books decided to inject some of it into their movie. So what? It was so dumbed down for the mainstream anyway that it wasn't worth it.

Also, I got really sick, in all my classes, of students going "Oh, it's like the matrix where Neo..." Ugh. Just read Plato's Myth of the Cave, Hume's problem of induction, and some about existentialism and you're going to learn a lot more than the movies will teach you.

A moral? Make lots of money with cool effects, and feel good about yourself in the process for "educating the masses" about otherwise esoteric information.

[Aryan]

The Architect (white bearded man ) who made the Matrix and was controlling it was definitely an INTP.

[Biff_Loman]

The Matrix is interesting if you want to look at it from an artistic point of view (such as looking at the Christ imagery surrounding Neo, etc.).

For philosophy: let us not waste our time. The Matrix is for flying around, shooting things, and kung fu fighting. Yes, those fists ARE fast as lightning.

Dark City is superior in every respect except for: 1) Less flying, 2) less shooting, and 3) no kung fu fighting in the least.

None of this is to say that I did not enjoy the Matrix movies. I watched all three, and enjoyed all three, in spite of the fact that both the second and third movies are often subject to unfair criticism. And yes, there IS a lot of food for thought in the movies, but it revolves around the films' artistic merits rather than philosophical, uh, "weight."

[Johnny]

For me, the interesting part about The Matrix trilogy is that no matter one's ability to transcend "reality", one is only (in the end) falling into the grip of yet another matrix.

Better yet, when Trinity sees the sun and sky for the first time (a mundane pattern that gets repeated for us on a daily basis), she calls it beautiful...but that's one of those yucky feeling lines, and so most sci fi bufs would likely discard that very important philosophical scene...not a very manly scene...