All three of the Matrix films, and the Animatrix, are all great and they all fit together with an epic and coherent story. I will say that the rest of the franchise lives in the shadow of the first one just because it was so new that its impossible for them not too. The second film also has some CGI fight scenes that suck when compared to the great martial arts choreography in the first one, but all three are solid action movies. The story along all the movies also makes sense and never feels like its cheating or "making shit up as it goes" like I hear a lot of people claim. I honestly think most people are just stupid when they say stuff like this.

If its been a while since you've watched them, check them out without all the buzz of haters and youll see how right I am.

>>213028994 (OP)
Did you think the barley brawl has aged well

>>213028994 (OP)
>Man makes robots to be their servers
>robots rebel against man
>Robots then make programs to help them control man in the matrix
>programs rebel against the robots
Pure kino. How come no one ever touches on this aspect of the series? It's not just agent smith, The Merovengian and his goons run a mafia organization in the matrix against the machines wishes, the oracle helps out Neo and the humans, and there are other minor programs that are seen trying to skirt around the machines rules and laws.

>>213029070
Smith was a rogue program. a "2" in the 1 & 0. The Oracle started the war by nuking itself and The UN during the events of "Zero One" in The Animatrix. What she's doing to help, i s making amends for her genocidal actions. The Merovingian has been around since the first version of The Matrix, Version 1.0.0.0, and at this point is practically a corrupted program that can hide himself from the mainframe, it's why his goons are "monsters": werewolves, demons, vampires, the ghost twins, etc. they're all old, obsolete, dead code and software he was allowed to reprogram by the mainframe.

The Architect knows what's going on, and lets the corrupt code run because to try and delete it would upset the careful balance of Matrix Program 6.0.0.0, the program with Neo as "The One".

>>213030220
neo is also Pig Latin for "One", mind you. Thomas Anderson is special, because he can use the powers of The Matrix Program in the real world. No other chosen one, messianic figure designed by the software, could. He essentially has the original matrix source code written in his DNA.

Smith figured out a way to hack the code, and essentially jack himself into a hardline of the real world by taking over someone's consciousness, via the program.

These movies are fucking brilliant.

I thought the writing and one liners were a bit outdated. The first one is still a classic, tho.

I agree that most people are stupid and pretended the architect scene was word salad or something, when it made perfect fucking sense and made the story better.

There were some problems with the direction of the movies, Zion was just dull, boring, grey, without anything memorable, just a bunch of freaks dancing or with boring love stories without interest.

>>213029070
The implication is that the Merovingian ran a previous iteration of the matrix. The architect made a matrix where every human need was met and they rejected it, so the next iteration was basically hell run by the Merovingian, which failed just as badly. Then that's when they got the oracle involved, she understood the problem was choice. You could get people to accept whatever you threw at them so long as they had a subconscious choice to reject it all. 99% of people wont, but the 1% will, and its easier to just jettison them from the program and let them become controlled opposition you eventually wipe out to reset the program.
The "choice" the one has to make when they're in the room with the architect is to go back into the matrix. They make that random element of the random element to conform.
Of course it wasn't perfect, and eventually when presented with a choice, someone is going to pick the other option. Which is what happens with neo, and what the oracle had foreseen. She knew it would force a new paradigm.
Merv is basically allowed his little fiefdom inside of the matrix because the Matrix 3.0 or whatever version is still built on the architect and Merv's work.
That can all be pretty much inferred by the evidence in the movies.

>>213028994 (OP)
I wish they did a better final fight instead of the capeshit flying around, it looks pretty lame now.

>>213030425
>The implication is that the Merovingian ran a previous iteration of the matrix
He ran version 3.6.6.6 or something. That's actual lore. He's "the devil" because The Architect made him that way after that version of the program was a failure. A literal "cast from heaven" moment. The Merovingian's version of The Matrix was codenamed "Project Eden", because it was designed as a utopia for humans. Everyone went insane, and started omitting mass murder and mass suicide, because Merv was bored, so he re-wrote part of the code without approval from The Architect, and was punished for it.

>>213030333
As someone old enough to have seen the matrix on opening night with his friends who spent the next several hours kung fu fighting in slow motion, a really big problem with Zion is that in your head you really built it up and wondered what it was like since no one really expected a sequel.
You get the cocktease with that virtual command center, but then it turns out its just a commieblock hive they can't wait to leave.

>>213030425
>Matrix 3.0
Version 6.0.0.0 is the one we see in the movie if you pay attention to The Arch's dialog in part 3.

>>213030522
I assumed it meant the 6th iteration of the current oracle designed matrix.

>>213030573
Ah. I misread. My mistake.
But yes, it was matrix version 6.0.0.0
In the 4th film it's like some re-written fork of the original source code because it's set after the events of The Matrix Online.

>>213030333
>Zion was just dull, boring, grey, without anything memorable, just a bunch of freaks dancing or with boring love stories without interest.
part of 90s leftism. The matrix is corporate, white collar, and white while Zion is a brown people rave. Rewatching I noticed that one of the council leaders of Zion is Cornell West.

Making them batteries is the dumbest thing ever and taints the whole franchise with stupidity. Otherwise fine

matrix revolutions is a bad movie imo because its exhausting. as cool as the zion robots should be, i was just so exhausted visually watching that shit. navras is such a kino track tho

>>213032782
My headcannon the stupid human battery shit with the idea that the machines had some kind of "first rule" that prevented them from killing off all humans, they just needed to defend themselves from an existential threat.
Once they came up with the plan to plug them into a simulation to try and keep them somewhat comfortable and alive they decided to just try to recover some of the energy costs by harvesting a tiny amount of waste heat to funnel back into the system.
No one in zion knows shit, and human batteries is just the easiest explanation they can come up with.
They should have gone with the original idea that the machines were using the human brains as wetware to run their own programs. The reason people in the matrix needed to be docile and complacent with their heads down just going through daily drudgery was because it meant the machines could use more of the resources to run their programs. If everyone "woke up" the machine programs would go kaput because they ran out of memory to run them.
Not that it really matters in the end I guess.

>>213033170
It does matter. Them being batteries makes any serious consideration of the more interesting possibilities irrelevant because of how stupid the underlying premise is

The freeway chase in Reloaded still hasn't been topped by any action movie since. And man, seeing it in the theater was incredible. I hope someday another action movie comes along and gives us another insane action setpiece like that again, but I'm not counting on it. I think we're past the days of truly groundbreaking action movies/stunts.

>>213033170
This is a 100% valid explanation.

>>213033436
>It does matter.
It doesn't. Not really. And you can always claim the unreliable narrator. Morpheus knows what he's been told and what he's seen, and they make it really clear with the oracle she doesn't tell everyone everything.
And the fact that they never refer to it ever again outside of the exposition dump means you can easily ignore it.
The movie isn't about how the machines generate power, or why they wouldn't use geo-thermal energy, or nuclear, or hydro-electic, or gravity batteries, hell even stirling generators are fine, especially when you don't need agriculture.

>>213033170
>some kind of "first rule" that prevented them from killing off all humans
I like the idea that although they were very upset with humans, they still love them as their creator and don't want them extinct. They also still derive some sense of purpose from tending to humans since that was their original task. And since humans are the only other sentient beings, they don't want to extinct them and get lonely. Each of the machines and programs is different and some feel more strongly than others. Oracle seems to have lots of love and wants peace the most.

>>213028994 (OP)
There are four matrix movies sweatie, never forget.

Hated The Matrix in 1999. Watched the 2nd one, hated it too. Watched them both again last year, still hated them. Never bothered with 3.

>>213028994 (OP)
Resurrections was a fucking abomination that should be actually memoryholed in the way that people meme about Reloaded/Revolutions.
Completely god awful universe killing canon destroying barrel scraping sholck