So, with a lot of time and no money on our hands, my roommates and I decided that the best way to pass the time was to watch movies. With so many to choose from, both from DVD collections and the video store across the street, this turned out to be a problem. We found that time passed more slowly when we’d stand in front of the DVDs and repeat “I don’t know what I feel like watching” over and over again. Although I’m sure once we spent half an hour doing this...
Anyway, a solution was found in the form of movie series. Many movies have spawned sequels and the like, so it wasn’t hard finding one. The best part was that the next two or three movies to watch was already figured out! This actually started way back in December last year, because we were looking for Christmas movies to watch. So naturally, we picked the Die Hard movies. It wasn’t until two or so weeks ago that we decided to pick it up again, this time with the Alien movies. I’d tried to watch the first one a while ago, but it was just too boring. And it’s true; it takes 45 minutes for something interesting to happen. Forty-five minutes is just slightly longer than an episode of TV, so you can forgive me for thinking that something should happen within this time frame. But I prevailed this second time, and I quiet enjoyed it. After all of the Alien movies, we moved, naturally, to the Predator franchise, then AvP 1 and 2, then Predators.
I won’t go into detail about them here, mostly because I’ve seen a new series since, and I would have forgotten most of the cool bits. But I do know that I feel sorry for the Aliens, being harangued and tortured by the Predators. All the Predators want is something to play with, like a squeaky toy one would give to a dog. Instead of creating squeaky toys, or creating AI to fight against/train with, they created space ships to capture less advanced but still sentient beings and forced to breed over and over again so they could kill the young. Not cool.
But onto The Matrix:
I’ve seen The Matrix before a heap of times. I really like this movie, and one of the reasons I hadn’t previously watched the sequels is because it is nicely self contained. Sure, the others touch on valid points within the life of the characters, but they weren’t really needed to make the first one any better, or to fill any gaping plot holes. At the end Neo has accepted his powers, and is going to help get people out of the matrix. This is nice, and kind of hopeful. The build up to the drama is really good, and the exposition is given in such a way that you’re not bored to tears or left with unanswered questions that ruin the plot. The effects are awesome, and it’s easy to get lost in the nostalgia of the peace. It was fun thinking back to a time when “I know kung-fu” wasn’t a renowned saying, or when there was only one ‘Neo’ online. I can’t help but giggle when thinking about the problem Morpheus would have encountered when looking for Neo nowadays. There’s got to be a billion Matrix fans who’ve taken the name as their own.
One thing I’ll always remember about the movie is when Mouse talks about the machines ability to synthesise the taste of food. How do they know what beef or eggs are chicken tastes like? It’s fascinating to think about, because we only know what beef tastes life because someone said “this is beef” when we were eating it. If we grew up being told that beef was chicken, then we would think that chicken tastes like beef. Make sense? Basically, what I’m trying to say is, that we give names to things because someone else gave them that name, first. Beef is beef because it’s beef.
One major downside to watching The Matrix was the fact that we had to borrow it from the video store. Half way through here were countless glitches and we had to start the disc from the beginning I don’t know how many times. I’ve seen it before, and so has Zeppy, but our other roommate hadn’t. There wasn’t much that was missed out due to the skips and glitches, but it must have been really annoying to work out what was happened, especially when it glitched through most of the end. But while that may have ruined the movie watching experience, it didn’t ruin the movie.
Let me know your thoughts about The Matrix. Do you think we're all living in a machine? Post your comments below!
Coming up next: The Animatrix.
Kathy
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