Rewatched
"The Matrix" this morning, just didn't feel like getting out of bed and I didn't mind a refresher with the new one coming out.
imminently rewatchable as always. It's up there with films like Independence Day and Jurassic Park or John wick where it's like "oh hey thats on" and you can just sit down and enjoy it because something is always happening. The exposition is interwoven into the action, you're not sitting around waiting while someone explains the Matrix, "It must be shown". Its a very compact story with a compact ending. Gives you lots to ponder and wanting more, but also not needing it. I'm a software/hardware/internet engineer it's surprising to say the way things are laid out "works" for me.
The technology is left opaque to where it's not contradicting, I may not know how the exits and things work, but as someone who understands what a socket is, how the OSI model works and Layer 5-7 firewalls function I can go "I don't know how that works, but its also not showing me enough that I could debate it. In theory it could work" and I think thats how to successfully "suspend disbelief" in scifi and allow an audience to feel connected to a film and its characters. Things like "along with a type of fusion reaction" work because Fusion reaction is not along enough that I can argue and I probably would have argued that maintaining a comatose human might end up making the cost differential kind of weak. I like when films do that. I don't need things explained to me, just small little windows for logic to function. I think as far as "The One" and the commentary on predestination goes, I can guess what my boss is doing at home right now today with a 75% accuracy based on established patterns and repetitive predictable outcomes. I like that the science in the scifi allows for the likelyhood that a Neo would occur, someone with enough of an understanding of the underlying architecture of the matrix to allow them a plethora of backdoors, visualized as super powers, and the people looking for him are the one who are most likely to find him.
It'll be interesting to see if they reflect on the 2&3rd movies or just kind of gloss over them for the 4rth movie. I'm hoping its the latter. This kind of scifi always works better when you keep the exposition to a minimum. It could be argued, all you need to know is that Neo forced a truce of sorts, and he and trinity maybe died. You could just ignore reloaded and revolutions altogether while keeping them canon.
Prospect (prime?)
Aesthetically Retro Space Hijinks involving father and daughter going onto, a getting stuck on a planet in search of meat trees they can cut open to extract giant sperm harbouring fancy space diamonds within. I'd like to leave it just there, and I think I will. Though Pedro Pascal was so reminiscent of a charismatic friend from a long while ago, actually had to double check.
I have a big crush on Prospect. I'm really into set design and Prospect kinda blew me away with its attention to detail. I think every movie goer is different and people care about different things, but I loved that nothing looked fancy in Prospect. These are impoverish miners who can barely afford space travel so the design of their hodge podge technology was just perfect to provide that sense of realism. I think thats a big part of what made Star Wars great, Ralph McQuaries "lived in universe". Space travel would never look flashy or shiny as much as we might dream it does. It would look cheap and dingy. I liked how they were able to use film effects to make generic fields look alien. I think so far I'm the only person the planet that noticed that, similar to Star Wars, they made a unique written language for Prospect. You only really notice it on consoles and when she writing in her journal thing. I also thought Pedro Pascal as Space Mark Twain was Magnificent. Again to each his own I know to some people it just looked like low-budget scifi, but I loved it. I actually got to talk to the set designer on Reddit and he/she confirmed all my thoughts and talked about putting some of the guns and things together. I'd kill to get the film makers to autograph a poster or something.
