The Wachowski Siblings are now the Wachowski Sisters

[Barrister]

A lot of people think it's watchable(RT rating) != "one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made"

I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, but the first listing of "100 greatest science fiction movies ever" on google has The Matrix at #13.

http://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-100-best-sci-fi-movies#tab_panel_9

[Valmy]

Well yeah but most Sci Fi movies are horrible.

[lustindarkness]

Haters gonna hate.

[Eddie Teach]

At first glance, that list has Matrix ahead of Children of Men, Moon and T2. 

[LaCroix]

moon is terrible after a second or third rewatch years down the line.

children of men tries so damn hard

matrix is better than both, imo

[Eddie Teach]

So even Mr Contrarian agrees it should be lower than Terminator 2.

[LaCroix]

 

[Jaron]

Cruz will reign them in once he is president. These gays are out of control.

[Malthus]

The Matrix was good fun.

Sure, but you have to accept the rules of the universe it exists in. Once you do that, the sequels are decent fun too.

Yeah, but I had a problem with that in the first movie, too.  Specifically, the part about if you died in the Matrix, you died for real.  Sure, that made sense for people who hadn't been freed from the Matrix, but if you were out of the Matrix and went back in on a mission, you had been trained to know that the Matrix wasn't real--that's why you could do all the bullet time stuff.  But if you know it's not real, it seems to me that dying there would be sort of like your character dying in a CRPG--it might kind of suck, but you know it didn't actually happen.

Of course, on a meta level, you kind of need that--otherwise, there's no risk to the heroes while they're in the Matrix.  Well, other than the traitor who's murdering their bodies while their minds are in the Matrix, but that's different from the Agents actually being a direct threat.

Just because you know doesn't mean that the biological part of you (your brain) would be able to sort out the electrical impulses and say hey, this isn't actual pain and death.

Yeah, that could be explained away easily enough - it's such a shock to the system that your brain thinks you're dead, and therefore you are.

Yi's point about thermodynamics is better, but it's essential to the overall theme of the movie so you just have to roll with it.

That "battery" business? I don't think it's essential at all. The actual reason people were held in the matrix could be totally different, without changing the movie much.

For example, I always thought a better explanation was that the machines found human unconscious minds capable of certain types of lateral thinking that the machines realized they lacked, and so the machines were keeping a network of human brains alive as a giant brain bank - keeping their conscious minds occupied with the Matrix, while they plundered the unconscious for their own inscrutable purposes. 

[grumbler]

At first glance, that list has Matrix ahead of Children of Men, Moon and T2. 

Well, the T2 rating is obviously wrong, but I'd put it ahead of Moon and CoM.  Moon was just okay, and CoM was just unwatchable.

One problem with The Matrix as a "great SF movie' is that it doesn't have anything to make you want to watch it again.  You pretty much see everything there is to see when watching it the first time, and a second viewing would be dominated by the fact that the big reveal is already known.  Absent the wow factor of the big reveal, what is there to recommend the movie?

[garbon]

Children of Men was dreadful. I don't know why that would make any list of top sci-fi. Critics who liked that (of which there seem to be many) are cray.

[Barrister]

At first glance, that list has Matrix ahead of Children of Men, Moon and T2. 

Well, the T2 rating is obviously wrong, but I'd put it ahead of Moon and CoM.  Moon was just okay, and CoM was just unwatchable.

One problem with The Matrix as a "great SF movie' is that it doesn't have anything to make you want to watch it again.  You pretty much see everything there is to see when watching it the first time, and a second viewing would be dominated by the fact that the big reveal is already known.  Absent the wow factor of the big reveal, what is there to recommend the movie?

I've seen The Matrix multiple times.  It stands up well to repeated viewing.

Yes, on first viewing it's mostly about the big reveal.  But what else is there to recommend?  It's a damn good looking movie.  The sets and costumes, the action sequences (bullet time!), great performances by Fishburne and Huge Weaving (and Keanu Reeves fairly wooden acting actually works for him in The Matrix, though everyone else is bland to terrible).  The movie is also jam-packed with a lot of allegory (I totally missed the Neo as Christ the first time around, though it seems pretty obvious now).

[Caliga]

There is no cock.

[The Brain]

Children of Men was dreadful. I don't know why that would make any list of top sci-fi. Critics who liked that (of which there seem to be many) are cray.

There's lots of dogs in it. Almost every shot.

[celedhring]

Children of Men was beautifully shot, but I didn't get the feeling that it was about nothing at all. I like it, on a purely formalist level, but that's it.