Channel Awesome
Woah. Everybody loves this movie, but is it really the masterpiece everyone says it is? It’s time for The Matrix!
Tagged with: 1999 channel awesome doug walker matrix movies nostalgia critic
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I love this movie! As you predicted.
And this has anything to do with Ecli[seII’s comment why? If you’re gonna make a statement, do it where it is needed to be done rather than replying to someone else just so attention could be brought to your problem with the site.
Where are you getting this information from? I am curious.
Nevermind found it.
Care to share? I’m curious too
Steam, check out Phelous and Lupa’s tumblr posts; what Mike (the head of the company, not MikeJ), Rob, and what appears to be Doug but I’m still confused about his involvement is so despicable (even putting fan rumors aside) it has put me in a state of depression and has forced me to consider getting adblock and just view each creator’s individual blip page/Youtube channel. And I’m usually against adblock.
Tbh, I wouldn’t trust Lupa (and in extension) Phelous as far as I can throw them. Lupa has been known to go on crusades about really minore things that everybody else had already forgotten in the past.
I don’t want to play devil’s advocate on behalf of what Channel Awesome Head Honcho Mike allegedly said to Lupa, but I COULD….
Also, based on what Phelous wrote, I’d say that its seems what we have here is a failure to communicate…which is bad, but not an example of the kind of flagrant assholery that would leave me a distaste for this site.
I still like CA. I find it a good place to discover interesting people and content creators. I would hold off on getting outraged.
Doug did respond; he basically said “I try not to get involved in these things.” JO said in response, “That’s the problem.” I agree.
How dare he not want to engage in pointless drama!!!
Honestly, I have to say the same about that I have to say about the Sony leak: This is an intern matter. There is no reason to air the dirty laundry in public.
on the exodus matter please keep in mind that it is Mike Michaud not MikeJ. I’ve seen people make this mistake already and MikeJ has nothing to do with it.
Wait, what are you talking about? What’s all this about producers being treated badly and where’s all this come from?
Well, it’s mainly Mike’s fault as he has much more say in business matters than Doug and Rob as the CEO. Yes, Doug and Rob are kinda part of the controversy, but only with a few things here and there.
Filmed before the departures. Seriously, you think same day news would make it in to the video?
There is a new Tick TV coming out? Awesome. And yes, the Matrix does remind me of the Tick.
It’s kind of funny, but many of these plot holes are actually explained pretty well. For the most part, there is a general rule of thumb that Morpheus explains to Neo in the beginning. The Matrix is a program, and like any program there are rules. They can’t go running around like the Flash for obvious reasons, it would cause trouble with the program, and destabilize it. The whole reason for the Matrix is also explained at some point, they need the people to be in the Matrix or their will to live and give off proper energy would be gone. They say in one of the movies that they first tried to harvest the energy without the matrix, and they lost whole “crops” of people. Yes there are plot holes, some that even I didn’t care for, but the ones that you talk about are mostly explained, while the ones that aren’t you left out. Oh well.
i have been waiting all week for this video. FINALLY!!!
You thought Carrie-Anne Moss was Kate Moss? Do you ever look these things up as you are writing them?
LOL! (thumbs up) I’ll admit that I missed it on the first watch, but missing it after all the editing that had to be done to make this video…
Even Agent Schmuck missed it with Mr. Algia Critic saying her name wrong right in front of him. Unbelievable.
Douchey McNitpick, get over here and direct this bitch!!!
This is Art Carney all over again.
He’s sick. Give him a break
Hope you’re feeling a lot better now Doug! Also, this movie is badass! Loved it since 99.
I agree with nostalgia critic allthough I am a little bit biased cause all the idiots ran around and were talking about how we might live in the matrix.
How you can proof that we don’t?
And now seriously: Matrix is good movie, but it from start was dumped down cyberpunk. It propagate those ideas to larger group of people, who don’t think about it before. Even now Western popular Sci-Fi is backward in case of cyberpunk implementation, and that is always in price. Yes, that movie was pretentious, NC have right here. But still in late 90’ties outside hardcore Science Fiction fans it give people to think. Now it look more outdated then it looked before.. it don’t aged too well.
she doesn’t.case closed
It’s an old idea. Descartes questioned whether our reality was just the product of an evil demon in the 17th century.
Really? 17th century? It’s a lot older than that. I’d say you could see the idea around from 500 BCE at the very least. Many of the philosophical aspects of the Matrix have something to do with ancient Oriental religions and philosophies, and that’s made very clear to anyone minimally familiar with them. They are one of the main sources on how they contextualized the idea of a “illusionary” world.
an*
sorry.
An interesting theory. Two questions:
1. If our reality/existence were the product of an evil entity or collective, would that really surprise you?
2. Assuming the same origin, would you really want to know about it or would it be something you’d be happier not knowing?
Literally signed up just because my nemesis, Rene Descartes, was mentioned.
The theory basically goes, “Can anything be truly known about the world outside the human mind?”, a question reflected throughout history and summed up in Descartes’ Cogito (which can be refuted on many levels). Hell, we even see some ideas floating around in the form of “Am I a man dreaming of a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of a man?” in Daoism/Buddhism.
The central theme of this movie is really that, given the explosion of technological power we’ve seen in the past 150 years, whether it is really so far-fetched to think that there’s the possibility that we live in a dream world of a technological design. I feel the movie does that admirably, even addressing things such as the final “plot hole” addressed by the NC. Admittedly, it isn’t perfect, but as a movie and a philosophical discussion, it is extremely interesting.
i follow the adam savage approach.
“I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Consider this:
As computing power grows exponentially, we will eventually have the power to create perfect simulations of our own reality, accurate even to the smallest detail, and indistinguishable from the real thing by its inhabitants. Eventually, we will be able to create an infinite number of simulations. Eventually, each of those simulations will, itself, advance to the point where they will be able to create their own perfect simulations. And each of their simulations will be able to create their own. And so on, and so on, and so on. Infinity upon infinity upon infinity.
By contrast, there is only one real world.
Therefore, statistically speaking, there are infinity:1 odds against our world being the real one.
It may not be quite the idea of The Matrix, but as my dad used to say, it’s good enough for government work.
Its still unclear whether or not computing power really does diverge to infinity.
Meh. Liked it better when it was called Johnny Mnemonic 😛
…Johnny Mnemonic is a completely different movie. Just because they’re both sci-fi doesn’t make them the same thing.
Both are cyberpunk, but they talk about different things. Johny Mnemonic is great classic cyberpunk movie, Matrix is just mediocre but it was focused on things what now are more common then in 90’ties.
“Johny Mnemonic is great classic cyberpunk movie”
Huh? Okay i liked the concept, but you have to admit that the execution was lacking. Mostly cause the pacing was dull & plodding. No energy was transferred from scene to scene.
Now say what you will about the Matrix, internally it’s elements flowed from scene to scene. You can say they were silly concepts, but they were cohesively applied throughout the movie. As well as adding and raising the stakes. Johnny Mmemonic just felt like “here’s something happening, okay now here’s another.” Connected sure, but little life or urgency emphasised.
it’s the same thing get over it
I liked it better when it was called Dark City.
Honestly, I liked this movie when I saw it for the first time, but I didn’t love it. I saw plenty of problems with it but I still liked the action, and that’s why I continue to watch the Star Wars Prequels.
Kate Moss?? Are you dense?
He’s sick. Give him a break
No. Fuck the hack.
the answer to why is there a Matrix is…emotion, the humna emotion produce more energy then blank minds…comatoes if you will, or is it with k?, but as i was saying humans emotion like love, anger, sadness, etc, make more energy/power just like a batery going nuklear, and then falls down again, sorry cant make it clear then that, im not a fan of the Matrix as a movie, but i am a fan of Matrix as an idea to advance technology, but this world we are living in are slowly moving to that direction where your thought can controle a computer, and verry soon, i can’t say when, but soon in the future we as a ppl will do Matrix/Tron stuff in our dreams, as our bodies rechager to the next morning, some might not wanna do it, but i want to be on the front row when the tech comes out, chears for a new futur Critic and fans :3
They why not hype them on drugs? Use a massage chair? Or use drugs?
Because this movie isn’t about batteries. That is just dumped down explanation for the crowd. Yes, that is a pothole, but it is just action movie witch flavor. And yes, Matrix have Evangelion disease, when bunch of idiots think that it is more deep then it never supposed to be. But that is not problem of movie itself, but it’s fans.
That’s the symbolism problem, when you focus more in symbols than plot. The problem isn’t the fans, because they like those elements doesnt mean it’s bad per se. I can say a lot of films with very good screenplay and writing, but very lacking in ideas.
The movie is fine, not the best of the world, but it’s good, specially for those who like cyberpunk. Let us enjoy our movie and we’ll let you live not liking it.
They handwaved that in the movie, humans don’t function as well when they’re given perfection.
Human bodies always use more energy than they produce. That’s why we need to eat. There is no way for the machines to be able to harvest enough energy from us to run their massive facility. If they really wanted to get energy, they’d use plants.
No sunlight for plants. Also, plants don’t produce heat by ingesting nutrients.
You must wait for DECADES to harvest the energy invested into them.
The point of using humans is that they can ingest nutrients and produce heat without sunlight.
And that you can just feed them other liquified humans, recycling most of the humanity as food.
Machines are literally EATING people.
More important question is why don’t they just use geothermal – like humans do?
And the answer to that one would be – cause they fucking hate humans AND… they actually do exactly that.
It pleases them to feed off humans, as a punishment for what they’ve suffered at their hands and for being irrational imperfect creators of the machines.
Machines have developed a sort of a twisted Oedipus complex.
They want to torture the dad and eat the mom.
As for geothermal… they are letting a group of humans roam freely, feeding off of the geothermal energy and converting it into calories until their numbers swell.
Then machines kill them off, liquify them and feed them to their Matrixed cousins.
Thus harvesting the calories lost in the production of energy.
Except doing so violates thermodynamics. Humans don’t spontaneously produce energy, otherwise we wouldn’t need to eat.
Originally, the idea was to have a wetware CPU, using the human brain to actually serve as an interface, but it was deemed “too complex”.
I do like the idea that it’s just an excuse for the machines to punish people, though.
Neo: We’re batteries? That’s fucking retarded! It goes against Thermodynamics!
Morpheus: How do you know about Thermodynamics, Neo?
Neo: Every highschooler knows about Thermodynamics!
Morpheus: And where did you go to highschool?
Neo: …in…the Matrix…
Morpheus: The Machines tell elegant lies.
Thermodynamically, If the machines wanted to use humans as a power source, they’d be better off tossing us in a pile and burning our corpses. Because humans (and pretty much all animals use 80ish percent of the energy they consume just to keep themselves alive and of the remainder only about half is recoverable. Assuming they siphon half of that off of us and use the rest to feed the next generation, they’d get 5% of what it cost to feed us in every generation, and every generation would only be 5% as large as the last. Even just burning us, they’d still run out of power in the course of weeks, but at least they’d get 10% of our power now instead of 5.2626% and have to wait centuries to even get that!
Or if the machines ACTUALLY wanted to get energy, they’d do the obvious thing and go nuclear. It’s not like they’re prone to human error…
Actually, the real reason is because people in the Matrix aren’t batteries. They’re processors. They just changed that line because the producers thought that the audience would be too stupid to get it. If you think of people as literal processors for a giant computer, then it makes total sense why there’s a Matrix.
Yeah, this was a big part of Neil Gaiman’s “Goliath,” which was written based on an early draft of the Matrix. It also kinda-sorta implies that the Matrix is being run in a way that allows humanity to replay its entire history over and over again, for the purposes of producing a human civilization that WON’T cause the Second Renaissance.
At least, that’s the most sensible option given the events of the story, IMO.
It wasn’t proven but Matrix plot is almost copy-paste from obscure Polish SF book under title “Robot”. It was about that Machines enslaved humans in order to use them as processing power. But one of them start to consider possibility that because they use human brains, it could be possible that they’re in fact a humans. But of course those ideas are universal, and we could find them in many cyberpunk books.
About The Wachowskis they’re in fact known copy-pasters, who “borrow” from many sources, but always in way that they can’t be accused about plagiarism. I always see Matrix as popularization of cyberpunk, and NC isn’t only one who don’t see that movie as grate, but still it wasn’t also bad movie in opposition to its continuations.
Indeed, it’s also an idea ripped off from The Invisibles.
Well same goes for Tarantino.
I actually think after about 10-20 years copyrighted works should go into public domain, so other artists can take a crack at the material.
Look what great things are done with works in the public domain, like Sherlock Holmes, or lovecraftian horrors.
I think artists shouldn’t have to hide behind “homage” when they want to show their own take on something that already exists.
Neil Degrasse Tyson also said that when he interviewed Laurence Fishburne. But I also wondered about that. Someone will have to explain the science but I thought it was akin to asking, why have furnaces? If you want the heat just burn the gas directly. Well the answer I’m thinking is that you built the furnaces & engines to do something. We can just throw logs on the fire to heat our homes. But we developed furnaces & central air to distribute that heat better. And car engines are to convert fire into kinetic force.
At least someone witch common sense! Batteries idea was stupid, but that wasn’t about what that movie was. I always consider that movie as pop-cyberpunk, nothing more, nothing else.
Guess nobody told Dr. Robotnik that Organic Batteries was a bad idea…
Robotnik didn’t use animals as batteries, He used them because making several types of somewhat intelligent A.I. is time consuming and hard, so he enslaved animals and made them do it.
Because.. you know.. that makes more sense.. <_<
Finally a right answer for this question.
Didn’t they actually address that in the movie saying that they died all the time or something?
It could have been handled much better. How so? Err…. okay, I’ve got one.
Why establish a virtual world for humanity to live in? Because mankind can think outside the box in a way that machines just cannot do. In the real world, human evolution stopped when the machines won. In the Matrix, human evolution can continue unchallenged.
To simplify, the machine overlords could use the humans within the Matrix to help advance their own abilities outside of it. What groundbreaking technologies do humans come up with in the future? Who will be mankind’s next Leonard Da Vinci or Albert Einstein, and what will their grand ideas be? The idea of machines using the Matrix as a think-tank makes more sense than using it as a glorified battery charge kit.
And that’s just one idea, improvised on the spot by a non-writer.
This sort of falls apart when you consider the fact that the Matrix is set at a point in time that is before where time is in the real world. In the real world, humanity reached the point where they could invent machines that rose up against them and created the Matrix in the first place. If the machines wanted to see the humans evolve, they would’ve let time continue at a similar pace instead of setting them back to an earlier point in history when their own inventions were so primitive.
Created an account for this. The Matrix was created so that the robots would not have to commit genocide of the human race. There were two wars between robots and humans. The robots went away and created their own society but humankind attacked them. They decided that instead of wiping them out they would create a place where every human could be happy and where they wouldn’t take up as much space (I think the growing population was the reason why they humans attacked the robots the second time. Not enough space.)
Now people like Morpheus can’t conceptualize something like this. The idea that the robots have truly found the perfect solution conflicts with the urge attack authority. He believes that they use them as batteries and Neo even says that it doesn’t make sense in the movie.
That still does not make total sense. First of all, we can economize on land much more than we actually do without The Matrix. The entire population of the human race could fit in the state of Texas, and every household would still have room for its own townhouse. Second, the problem with overpopulation is not finding enough space for housing everyone. The problem is producing enough energy to keep everyone alive without exhausting the worlds energy reserves. Putting everyone in a computer simulation in a confined space does not address the core problem.
so glad your feeling better and so glad that u finally did this reveiw
And here I thought I was the only one…the only thing The Matrix has going for it is style and effects. But the story? Give me a break! It’s okay at best.
I loved Agent Schmock (Did i wrote it right?).. well Agent Doug Smith)
You need to put him in the other reviews! 😀
It’s “Schmuck”.
Thanks!
I like the Matrix, although I also think it’s a flawed movie and not as deep as some would like to think it is. I take the action and search sequences that go on in the Matrix in the same way that I take Tron. It’s a visual representation of the computer searches and virus vs malware type action that takes place in the coding. Also, if I’m not mistaken, the “anti-virus” Agents had to work within the framework of the Matrix, hence why they were more limited in what they could do within it. As the later movie shows, once an Agent program takes off those limits, the Matrix all goes to Hell.
Also, I think your criticisms of the lines like the ones with “AI” and” EMP” are unfair. I think you are confusing lack of character knowledge with the movie simply explaining to the audience through the character.
Yes, I agree that a movie needs to explain certain things, but a movie should do that naturally. It makes no sense that Neo would need to clarify if he’s such a smart tech guy. A better and more in-character thing would be for Morpheus to say it, because he likes explaining things, or if he did, then maybe Neo could have a comedic moment where he’d say “I know that. I’m a tech guy, too, remember?” “Oh? Well… okay then…” You gotta have dialogue that works with the character. It’s the hardest thing for exposition to do, but that’s how it needs to do it to be realistic.
The reason there’s a Matrix is that brains and bodies produce energy when they have stimulus–like, you know, a world around them. Simple.
Actually, the original explanation the writers wanted was that the humans were not for energy but for processing, as in they were all part of this giant mainframe thing, and the idea of the Matrix makes much more sense there, but the executives of course thought this too complicated for Joe Schmoes.
Anyway, while I agree to an extent a lot of the impact this film had is faded and it remains a pretty late 90s/early 2000s movie…it’s still pretty fun and interesting.
We have plenty of things to provide stimulus already. Even the most basic of classical conditioning can cause a human to love a certain thing. Not to mention drugs.
well maybe they just show compassion .. the animatrix does seem to implied machines are not cold as people think they are
That was something I wanted to mention. The machines seem to use the Matrix as way to control humans rather then simply outright killing them.
He’s reviewing the animatrix next, right? Hopefully it will illuminate the situation.
I disagree about the film fading. Still to this day films try to be the next Matrix.
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dated.
HEY, FUCK OFF!!!
Oh, grow up!
The first time I saw the Matrix was when it came out on DVD and I was 11. I found it boring. Then when I was about 14 I rewatched and was “OMG it was so deep and meaningful jshdhdbdjxxx we are all part of the matrix ..deep metaphysical thoughts ” and then I watched the other two and was like “oh. I am mildly disappointed.” And now in my twenties rewatching the matrix again. It’s just really Boring . It suffers a lot from pacing problems and far too much exposition. It’s mildly nostalgic and defined a genre of movies for a really long time but now its something I can admire for its scope and technicality but I don’t enjoy watching it on an evening in. Besides if you wanna debate the intricacies of theology and philosophy through metaphorical and allegorical tropes then there are far better films as well as more subtle ways of doing it. XD Excellent review as usual.
Love that shellcase porn!
YAY! I’m not the only one who thinks the Matrix is a massively overrated and poorly acted movie!!! Totally agree with you Doug, it’s not “bad” per-say, but it’s certainly not good either and has a lot of dumb things in it.
I actually like the second one the best of the bunch, which I think you said at one point too, and mostly for the better action scenes and less focus on the utterly boring characters. The only character I like in the whole series is Morpheus and even then he’s not great, just better than the rest.
oh hey, someone else who thinks the second one was best of the bunch! I usually get people trying to burn me at the stake for that. I just genuinely feel it capitalises more on the premise and idea that there are multiple layers of reality, I think most notably with the screens in the background of neo’s chat with the architect hinting that multiple versions of him are having the same chat all at once.
the first one is hailed as some deep and philosophical masterpiece, but all it seems to do is drop lewis carrol references every time it remembers it wants to be deep and philosophical and outright call its protagonist the messiah. subtle. the second one achieves things like that much better
“The leads are just so wooden – ” One might argue that they’re wooden and stoic because they know they’re avatars in a computer game. Or, at least, that’s what they were going for.
A similar excuse could go to the movie Gerry. But you oughta see the Brows Held High video on Gerry to get that.
Did he say, “funky butt lovin’?”
Major Tom wants to speak with you NC.
So does Thomas Jefferson.
Boo yah!
Thank you for noticing that plot hole! I noticed it when I first watched Matrix but none of my friends seemed to. Glad it’s not just me.
The Animatrix explains it as the Machines finding a way to not wipe out humanity but make them live in a way that is very similar to the lives they lived before AI and give them a chance to be happy.
Humans made AI, AI made other AI, AI moved to its own land, Humans went Derp and went to war on them.
OK, the point why the Agents just aren’t omniscient about everything in the Matrix is pretty simple. It’s all about the control and authority aspect of the film. The Machines don’t want their own to be too powerful, either. If the Agents were like gods of the Matrix, they’d sooner or later ask “why are we letting ourselves be bossed around when we could be gods of the Matrix?” So, their abilities are limited to what the Machine higher ups think is a suitable balance between superiority and control.
Likewise, in the real world the rebels can hack into the machines to a limited degree and avoid being detected by them. If you take the Animatrix and the sequels into account, it’s even implied that they have some Machine sympathisers — not to mention the whole “rebellion is another level of control”-plotline, but lets leave that one lie.
There are some good fan theories why the Matrix exists at all, but unfortunately the films didn’t bother to confirm any of them, probably because the whole issue got too convoluted by the last minute rewrites to the script.
I have to say, though, Serial Experiments Lain handles the same themes better than the Matrix.
Throughout this review, I kept thinking that Lain was the animated version of this. Could the common connection be due to a dawn of the Millennium, dawn of the Internet sort of thing?
Do you really not like this movie, Doug? Or is it just the Nostalgia Critic that doesn’t?
You know, the more I think about it the more the fact that a movie that goes so heavily into “philosophy” basically solves all its problems with punching and kicking bothers me.
This review was hilarious as always, and I hope that you are feeling much better from your sickness if you have not fully recovered just yet. Also cant wait to see all the other Matrix and remaining Disneycember videos later this month!
Hoo boy! Are you ever going to get of shit about the “Kate Moss” error…
Whoops! Speaking about errors: In my previous comment either remove the “of” or put “loads” before it.
THERE IS NO SPOON!!
Too bad for the Spoony One then.
You should do an NC review of Brazil, Doug. See how you like it when your favorite movie is torn apart like this
Really? Wow.
Did the nasty man say a bad thing about The Matrix?
Wait… wouldn’t you need to do a review of Brazil for this whole reverse favorite movie bashing thing to work?
remember the “HOOK review? he even admitted that it was one of his most favorite movies, ant he still tore it up. so he already knows how it feels to have a favored film scorched.
He also likes Jurassic Park and did a review on that too. I’m personally hoping we’ll see Die Hard one of these days, since he likes that but that’s perfect for some ribbing.
What a horrible man he is to not like the same movies you do.
To address the plot hole you brought up at the end: The original concept was that the Matrix was a vast neural network. The machines would have an entire virtual world, built on the framework of human brains, and they could continuously grow this world through organic means instead of needing to construct and add on to it themselves. Then executives thought that the concept was too complex for audiences, so they dumbed it down to the ‘living battery’ concept we have today.
The final product still had the plothole.
That is interesting. So if the machines actually got something more from all of the humans in the “neural network” than just body heat / energy it would make more sense.
Maybe something like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the entirety of humanity’s brains were used to do computation…
The moviemakers don’t get credit for things that weren’t actually in the movie itself. Just like with Superman II or various other films, the only thing that counts is what’s actually IN the film, or what can be interpreted thanks to the film. Your explanation holds no weight.
It was in the movie until nearly the last second when the studio stepped in and forced them to change it. That is completely the fault of village roadshow pictures and not the actual filmmakers.
This is one of the cases where I will give the movie credit for something that wasn’t in it because it was a change that was unwanted and forced on them, and because the other movies treat it as if this is one of the reasons why they needed humans all along. And yes, I just gave the sequels credit for something.
In the end, though, it was not put in the film so it does not get credit. The writers, perhaps, deserve some credit, but the plot hole nevertheless exists in the final project and the explanation was never put into the film itself. Thus the explanation has as much weight as a helium-filled balloon.
Oh, it looks like somebody already commented on what I was going to bring up.
Personally, I don’t much care for the movie any more. Liked it when I was younger, but it really hasn’t aged well and, frankly, wasn’t really that great to begin with.
I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think it was, nor was originally meant to be deep and meaningful. I just thought it was a fun action movie with some good acting, an interesting (though not wholly original) premise, and some really quotable lines.
you said it, maan!!!
I was fairly young when I first saw it, so I did think it was fairly original (having not seen any other movies like it but having seen them since), however I do agree with you completely either way. That being said, I have never heard a single person claim it was a “masterpiece” or “the next Star Wars.”
Same with me, and in my case this was even one of the first action movies my mother allowed me to watch, so it was really badass and awesome when I saw it back then. I didn’t rewatch them lately, however.
^ What he said
I agree with you infinitely. As a movie that shouldn’t be taken too seriously as philosophical, it has great action, some pretty good action, and a good story.