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Why 'The Matrix' AND 'Lord of the Rings'?

M

Morry

New Member
Hello all,

've been losing my www connection for a while.
Interesting and odd times we live... Two threads reactivated on Lord of the Rings ad the Guardian releasing reviews of the Matrix sequels to be released in May and November: http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,905451,00.html


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Quote:
"The answer lies in the word itself, which splits into a pun. There are two matrices in the film. A matrix, first of all, is a womb. The Wachowskis conjure up a future in which the planet is a parched, ravaged desert. Machines have assumed control, enslaving men and reducing them to a food source. Human beings doze in uterine vats of goo while a master race of artificially intelligent robots sucks life-giving heat from them. To keep their victims occupied while they feed on this vital warmth, they wire them to a main-frame of dreams, a cerebral cinema, whose illusory delights are known as 'the matrix'.
But there is another kind of matrix, less physical than the womb, a mathematical grid, with numbers arranged in rows and columns. The film begins by studying such a galaxy of digits, glimmering on a computer screen. The camera closes in on a zero and travels through its welcoming vacancy. The numerical matrix, like the maternal pods in which we see human beings drowsing while the machines graze on them, is a means of multiplying and reproducing. At the start of the film, we stare at the gaping O; we soon encounter the complementary 1 in the slim, upright personage of Keanu Reeves, a hacker who lives in Room 101 of an apartment block. His alias, during his nocturnal bouts of electronic mischief, is Neo, which turns to be an ana gram. 'You are the One, Neo,' remarks the guerrilla leader, Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne)."

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Cannot help thinking that it happens quite often these times to have these strange mix-up:
For the 'romantics': Lord of the Ring, W. Vance, Swords and Wizards, Dune 1, Anne McCaffrey, Edwards Scissorshands, Btaman 2 and 3, Spiderman etc
For the 'hardcore' dystopian ones:
The Matrix, Dune 2 onwards, Dune the Butlerian Jihad, 12 Monkeys, Daredevil, Batman 1, Seven, Being John Malkovich etc
For one romantic one a dystopian one?
Could be good to reflect on why we revive idealistic pure and naive views of nature when we criticise so much our real world by speaking about dystopian mechanistic 'matrix' future..... and why we - at least I do - almost all of us like a bit of both sides.



Morry :confused:
 
I think humans, as a whole, have this "grass is greener" mentality. We are always seeking for more, better, happier, etc. Isn't that why we watch films and read books...to escape from a place that we deem incomplete and not good enough? Or at least to view/visit another place or person that has problems worse than ours?
 
Hi,
Not really what I meant.
I rather meant that most often each time there is an optimistic literature popping around some other development in *dystopian* ones generally attract a wider audience.
Let's think about LOTR and The Matrix for example. I am not sure that there is going to be a sequel imagining a follow-up to Tolkien's - people will get bored with Arwen, Legolas, etc being (un)happy after having finished the war against the great evil of Sauron. As for the Matrix, it was just one novel - The movie is as dark as it could ever have been and two sequels are being made -let's hope they do not develop on a 'fairy tale'-alike. There is a similar situation with the characters. Who really likes ever looking at happy people doing better, quicker and more smoothly than we do? I do not. Do you prefer tormented Neo or the peaceful two Latino characters who were born out of the Matrix? It is sad when they die but you soon forget them. Also do you want to know what happens after when Neo and his mate have fallen in love? They are happy and have many children? Not to be overtly cynical. I think I am just realistic here: what we look for or want to see or read is not *steady continuous happiness* per se but troubles in the water of an average level of hapiness and seeing or reading about others dealing with these troubles pushes towards helping dealing oneself with it. There is nothing worse than the boredom of perfect happiness. I do not think that I would like to go to Heaven when I could make inferno my own personal and unpredictable place... ;)

Morry
 
I see what you mean. In art, conflict is always more interesting than peacefulness. I guess in life, it's the same way, expect when it's one's own conflict. Isn't that why news shows try so hard to find the conflict in a story. I mean, who's interested in "Happy News"? By definition, is there such a thing?

I still think it has to do with escapism. Places and people unlike the one's we are familiar with, doing things we can't or won't do. Also, the "what if?" question comes into play. I could go on but I have to go to work . . . boring, boring work. I wish I could escape to some far off place right now!!!
 
Not speaking about art per se but rather life and literature and why we turn to art in order to deal with life and its mess around us.
It is still pretty unclear to me why I began to be interested in purely idealistic stuff - kinda refer to McCaffrey and her unrealistic and boring Dragons of Pern or the cheesy love feministisc dull stories of W. Vance I suppose - and in the same time more dark pictures and movies - I started with Seven and went on since then with any 'dark' SF possible. I stilll have a complete abhorrence for horror films of any kind whatever however.
I guess it is because I am also getting older and have probably more tricks of life to complain about than I used to have before.
As for escapism I do not know. There must have been some thing like that when I began reading McCaffrey - I let you guess whether I was more or less a malified lesbian or a lesbianised gay :) - when I was turning to it. I think I have argued somewhere else on this board that sexual distinctiveness was pretty edulcorated in the cycle of Pern, and that it looked like pretty much an unclear asexual gay-lesbian propaganda which w looked pretty unrealistic to me. Beside being a bit cynical, What I mnea is that I rather tend now to conisder some imaginary literature like McCaffrey or sometimes even LOTR as pretty dangerous as they keep people out of the real game of life. OK I guess I have partly to apologise immediately to McCaffrey here. I really like what she did at some point. As for now, It came a bit of a shock to me when I was testing on a her a game from a friend of mine proposing 'Feminist = ugly' as an inevitable law in life, academe, politics and literature. Interms oflife, I had plenty of examples to fill in the law. For politics I had Ann Widecombe. For academe, I had Sandra Harding, and Evelyn Fox Keller. As for literature, I had still a hope of not finding it... hope that came to be pretty well deceived. :D
Any that might have similar thought to share with me is welcome... ;)


Morry
 
Dawn said:
I see what you mean. In art, conflict is always more interesting than peacefulness. I guess in life, it's the same way, expect when it's one's own conflict. Isn't that why news shows try so hard to find the conflict in a story. I mean, who's interested in "Happy News"? By definition, is there such a thing?

I still think it has to do with escapism. Places and people unlike the one's we are familiar with, doing things we can't or won't do. Also, the "what if?" question comes into play. I could go on but I have to go to work . . . boring, boring work. I wish I could escape to some far off place right now!!!
Click to expand...

Hey Dawn, your Icon is definitely a page turner. Just as dawn is a day turner.
 
Hi Morry,

You talk so much that I do not know what you metersay.

I like the Matrix not because of darkness but because of the IDEA - do not you have sometimes the feeling that YOU live in a Matrix? And would not you like to be a hero and break through it YOURSELF?

Same with the Lord of the rings. It is nice to be a happy little hobbit with stinky hairy legs, but is it not more romantic, more expiring to be a HERO, to fight against the darkness, and to win it?

This is the dream of every kid. To fight the bad, but eventually to come home to mom's cake and a cup of hot tea.

So it is not darkness vs. light and cheesiness vs. true romanticism. It's just the books of what we are NOT. But what we might want to experience, at least while reading. And this is why fiction is so appealing.
 
I was meaning to refer to an icon, and it's the current icon that's always displayed, right? B.G. wasn't responding to any posts over 4 yrs old, but he has still responded to a thread that's over 4 years old.
 
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