Unlocking The Matrix [SPOILERS]

Time Magazine ^ | May 12,2003 Issue | RICHARD CORLISS

[Captain Peter Blood]

Flanked by Trinity and Morpheus, Neo meets the Merovingian and his luscious wife Persephone (Monica Bellucci). The Merovingian is a Frenchman out of the Bush Administration bestiary: cruel, supercilious, with a love of cursing in French—which he describes as like "wiping your ass with silk." He refuses to release the Key Maker.

[William McKinley]

Get over myself, because I would boycott something over the dispicable Cornell West?

What a strange reaction on your part.

[eddie willers]

get over yourselves. It's just a movie.

I saw it.
Thought..."Nice sound effects...too much Kung Fu".

I don't get the cult following.
(Though I never "got" Star Wars either....nice Saturday Matinee Movie...nothing to write home about IMO)

[vikingchick]

too much Kung Fu It looks like it from the trailers. I can only take so much.

[Tatze]

Did anyone see the Matrix thread the other day "new MATRIX movie disses the President"? It has been pulled, but I was wondering if there was any truth to it. Given that it was pulled, I tend to think it wasnt, but I dont want to spend money on this movie if it is true.

The gist of the thread was about a scene where they are talking about the worst people of humanity or something like that, with TV screens in the background showing some of the people they consider the worst. The TV screens show Hitler and Bush, maybe more. Can anyone confirm if this is true or not??

[Pelayo]

The TV screens show Hitler and Bush, maybe more. Can anyone confirm if this is true or not??

Harry Knowles' review over at AICN mentions it.

[scoopscandal]

I just saw Reloaded last night. I thought that was Cornell West. How disturbing.

BTW...Reloaded is not Matrix. I didn't care for it. The fight scenes were so long, I thought I was watching a music video. It was weird. There's a Zion orgy scene that kind of turned me off too. That's not Matrix. It was just weird.

Did I mention it was weird?

[Question_Assumptions]

Oh and the problem some people had with the Matrix wasn't the overall level of violence, but the scene where Neo and Trinity cooly slaughter unwitting security guards.

Yeah, that bothered me, too. There is a scene in Goldeneye that I had a similar reaction to. James Bond gunning down Soviet soldiers and agents trying to kill him is one thing. James Bond gunning down a bunch of Russian police officers just doing their job is another.

[Dialup Llama]

>Oh and the problem some people had with the Matrix wasn't the overall level of violence, but the scene where Neo and Trinity cooly slaughter unwitting security guards.

That scene is an Al-Queda blueprint attack on an office building in the US. What is more disturbing is that scene is preceeded by a depiction of an aircraft crashing into a skyscraper. Looked cool when it first came out. After 9-11, terrorists (which is what Morpheus is) aren't so cool.

[Skywalk]

Compare the actions of Luke in Jabba's palace, giving Jabba several chances to hand over Han Solo without getting killed, and how he dealt with his father(non-violence and persuasion first) to Neo and Trinity's cold-hearted slaughter of innocent security guards.

Or more recently, compare the Terminator in T2 disabling police without killing them to that.

I can't stomach a story where the hero has no regard for people he should know are innocent of the evil that he targets.

[Pelayo]

Oh and the problem some people had with the Matrix wasn't the overall level of violence, but the scene where Neo and Trinity cooly slaughter unwitting security guards. Not a touch of remorse, not a hint that their lives were valuable, no ATTEMPT to find a way to avoid taking the lives of people who did not know the role they were playing.

Well they may not have shown any remorse which is disturbing but, if you follow the explanation of the nature of the Matrix in the first movie, you would know that they don't really have the option of trying to save them. Because anyone of them could become an Agent at any time, they need to kill them quickly before it becomes impossible. They couldn't just give them all red pills, because that would take to long and as Morpheus explained it's not safe to disconnect someone who's fully grown anyway. All the pain they caused the guards was technically illusory anyway, all Neo and Trinity actually did was shut down their minds.

[Ipberg]

Did anyone see the Matrix thread the other day "new MATRIX movie disses the President"? It has been pulled, but I was wondering if there was any truth to it. Given that it was pulled, I tend to think it wasnt, but I dont want to spend money on this movie if it is true.

Yes. George W. Bush flashes on the screen right after Mussolini and Hitler. I've just returned from seeing the movie. The worst part is that I wasn't even watching for the controversial moment: it's that easy to pick out.
However I'm in Canada. Perhaps it was pulled only from American viewings?

[Hildy]

Can anyone else verify this? If this is true, it would be unprecedented that a movie would label a SITTING President in those terms.

[paulklenk]

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time tells the story of a cosmologist whose speech is interrupted by a little old lady who informs him that the universe rests on the back of a turtle. "Ah, yes, madame," the scientist replies, "but what does the turtle rest on?" The old lady shoots back: "You can't trick me, young man. It's nothing but turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down."

[chichipow]

Don't ask me how they got the captures.

[LayoutGuru2]

A thread was pulled!?!?!?

I hope just because it was a duplicate.

Hey folks, help me out and throw me some links on this Matrix Hitler/Bush B.S.

See my post here:

Matrix Reloaded. Has Anybody seen it?
			Posted by LayoutGuru2 to ikka On News/Activism 05/15/2003 10:59 PM PDT #12 of 18

[Tatze]

new MATRIX movie disses the President

This thread has been pulled.

Pulled on 05/13/2003 7:16 PM EDT by Admin Moderator, reason:

Please do not post from DU here. Thanks.

[Tatze]

The images werent pulled from the movie, the thread on FR that exposed it was pulled.

[goldstategop]

And the Admin Mod now censors exposes? Wow I have in mind things to say about this foolishness but I don't want to get banned from here. Is he sure it came from DU? Even if it was, why wouldn't we want to know what the enemy is thinking? Something doesn't compute here.

[Tatze]

In general, they dont like repost's from DU (DummiesUnlimited). But it didnt seem like it was from there, and the subject matter, Im sure, was of interest to people here.

Im now trying to decide if I want to support this movie. The original was great and Ive been anticipating the sequels, but I may just be too disgusted to go see it.

[Sloth]

I don't remember the images on the screen being anything negative in particular... it was just a jumble of historical images. I don't think it was a slam on Bush (or if it was, it was a pitifully weak one).