I've been pretty quiet on the blogging front recently. Some of you might have noticed, others of you may not. But there are actually a number of reasons for the atrophy.
Most of them I won't get into because they're either boring or whining.
But one of them, I feel the desire to sound off about.
I've picked up and brushed off a story of mine which I'd told myself was finished. A story which, I have been forced to admit to myself is not complete and I'm devoting a lot of my creative energies toward turning a 40 page unfinished short into (ideally) a 200 page finished novel.
It is my goal to have at least an initial draft completed by next summer. Let us say, June.
It was as series of unfortunate events in my personal life and National Novel Writing Month that finally got me moving on this project. The unfortunate events bumped me out of the autopilot my life had gotten into. And the NaNoWriMo reminded me I had unfinished business and time again to deal with it.
I "finished" this project two summers ago. The summer of '02. And while I had completed what I set out to do, I realized that my goals were not ambitious enough for the story I was trying to tell. About the time I should have been rectifying this, I started taking an evening class of Japanese. This class ate all my free time and more energy than I had. By the time I finished two semesters of class the last spring, I was well out of the habit of writing anything but homework assignments.
And since I didn't have to do those anymore, I stopped writing almost altogether. That holding pattern saw me through 6 months. Then a number of lifechanging events turned my October upside down and I was forced to rebuild my everyday schedule in November.
When I rebuilt that schedule, I realized I had a story to finish and, while I didn't have a lot of time to work on it, I had enough.
Hence the lack of news updates.
Here's a fascinating link for the already converted: Confessions of a D&D Addict
Basically, it's a well thought out write-up by a gentleman who is both a Christian and a Role Player. In his write-up, he discusses why he doesn't find the two aforementioned roles to be mutually exclusive. He then goes on to defend role playing in general, and also addresses a number of the favorite points of contention that many Christians have with the most notorious RPG of all time: Dungeons & Dragons.
I doubt it's going to convince anyone who already has their mind made up, but even so, it's a very interesting read given the topic.
I was reading Madeleine L'Engle's remarkable Walking On Water in the Espresso Royale home base today and I ran across a spot where she quotes a friend as saying: "We do not judge great Art, it judges us."
For a moment I was taken by its profoundness and application to so many day to day interactions with the inanimate.
Then "We do not judge the pavement, the pavement judges us" derailed my reverence and I chuckled to myself. Suddenly I found myself thinking of Mystery Men.
Funny how easy it is to abuse language.
I didn’t bother to watch the original Matrix movie until it was on DVD. And even then, only when someone else forced it upon me. And even after that initial viewing I wasn’t too impressed. As far as I was concerned, it was merely a re-hash of Dark City only with computers instead of aliens. I was even rather bitter because the Matrix had done something that Dark City had never done— gained widespread acceptance.
Widespread acceptance that I always felt Dark City deserved.
As a matter of fact, I really didn’t have much interest in The Matrix until I ran across a book of essays expounding on the philosophical implications of the film. Then Neil Gaiman wrote a short story. Then sequels were announced.
Suddenly I found myself intrigued. I’ve always been a sucker for philosophy. And I was fascinated by the world building that was going on in the fiction section of the movie’s website.
And even better: everyone had seen The Matrix. There was always someone willing to discuss one aspect or another of the movie. And the imminent sequels.
So it went… (SPOILERS FOR REVOLUTIONS FOLLOW-- after a while, at least)
And now those sequels have hit and a lot of people are disappointed in them.
I am not.
I’ve been holding off on compiling my feelings about the sequels until I’d seen both of them. It seemed kinda half-assed to review a story based on Act II alone. But if I’d written this essay before I’d seen Revolutions it would have been largely the same. Given the material that we’d received so far I didn’t find it inconsistent at all.
So here’s my play by play of what makes the current iteration of films valuable:
There’s an extensive amount of Tolkien-esque world building going on with this series. What we have as cannon are: The Matrix; Matrix: Reloaded; Enter the Matrix [video game]; The Animatrix; Matrix: Revolutions; and a mess of comics and stories collected on the website to be published later on.
Now think about this for a moment. You just aren’t going to have all the answers by just watching the movies. You probably wouldn’t have all the answers by exposing yourself to all the source material. But there’s a hell of a lot of information out there. And more than enough for your mind to digest for a long time.
I’ve had a few people tell me what they dislike about the Matrix movies are the plot holes and the unresolved issues. Personally, I’ve never seen a series of movies with more inviting plot holes and plenty of answers to be had if you just look.
But the scary thing is… The more answers you get, the farther from any definitive plot you find yourself. The setting for the Matrix is chaotic and full of puzzles, questions, loose ends.
I’ve always thought the most poignant stories are the ones that go on after the movie is over. I think The Matrix is one such story. While the original movie was self-contained. All of the material that came afterwards was precisely the opposite. All of it cross-pollinating. All of it snowballing to make, not a story, but a universe.
Then, of course, there are the literary and philosophical allusions. Reloaded and Revolutions both borrow from every school of philosophy to reinforce their worldview. They borrow from volumes of myth to tell their story. They borrow from multiple genres to establish their mood and theme.
There are numbers of essays on the various meanings and implications and philosophical issues that rear their heads. I own two, myself. One regarding philosophy. The other regarding the Matrix’s effects on modern fiction, science fiction and how storytelling has changed to leverage the accessibility the Matrix tapped while offering us all a philosophy lesson.
And while it’s possible that all of that was an accident, and likely a lot of that was accidental. Think about the movies that will be trying to emulate the Matrix for years to come. Think about the ones that already have to various degrees of success.
Think about how your life and your view of Science Fiction would be different if you had never seen these films.
And so far I’ve hardly even touched on the movies themselves. So let me do that now.
Reloaded. Had one of the finest chase scenes I have ever witnessed in a movie. It was full of mind-breaking monologues. It answered a lot of the questions that had been awkward at the end of the first movie (read plot holes), such as: "The first guy who unplugged himself; how did he survive his first day unplugged?" and "Who the hell is the Oracle? And how come she hasn’t been messed up by agents?"
And while Reloaded asks as many questions as it answers, it also offers the portrayal of a man who has to ask himself: "Okay, I’m Jesus. So now what?" Because this time his detractors just kill the disciples.
And of course there’s Agent Smith. A being created with no free will and through a glitch in the system is given free will. And he doesn’t know what to do with it. So he does the only thing he’s ever known how to—he destroys. Because, ultimately, destruction is an easier way to exercise your will than creation. And because he doesn’t understand creation.
As a matter of fact, I would posit that free will has driven him mad.
Revolutions. I’m actually rather glad the directors didn’t choose to make the gods of the Matrix the gods of the real world as well. Neo, Trinity and Morpheus take a back seat to the people who know how the real world works.
And as a matter of fact, very little of this movie is spent in the Matrix. The time in the Matrix, however is spent exploring exactly how "human" the machines have come. While they won’t act outside their parameters, they have developed states and behaviors that strongly resemble desires and feelings.
And it turns out, in a wacky way, the machines are people too.
Just as the Earth essentially created the Humans and humanity destroyed the earth. Humans created the Machines and the Machines are sucking them dry (assuming this story about being batteries is true, because it turns out the story about Zion was not). The Machines are turning their back on their maker, just has Humanity has theirs.
Another interesting parallel is Neo and Trinity head for the Machine City like Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom. While an utterly hopeless battle wages back home. Because there are no new stories.
And while Trinity dies delivering Neo to the Machine City, he would have never made it there without him. Say what you want about cheap plot devices, I consider this to be karma. She fulfilled her purpose and it was her end.
I really think anybody who dies and is resurrected is living on borrowed time, anyway.
Over the course of this movie, Neo has been coming to grips with new "powers." And while I already have a theory about what’s going on here, this is no more of a plot hole than the existence of an Oracle was in the first movie.
If Neo is indeed "The One," why shouldn’t he have abilities that are above and beyond the norm?
Then there’s always that adage: "Any sufficiently advanced technology…"
But since this is my essay, I’m going to force-feed you my theory about Neo’s Powers.
I personally find it beyond the realm of feasibility that the Internet does not continue to exist in some form. The machines would find it far too useful. And even today we have wireless networks. So the people are networked on a private network: The Matrix. They most likely have some sort of back-up connection to this network so they don’t blink out, or die if their connection should go down.
Oddly enough, Neo (who is The One) can access this network and enter commands to the machines (such as selfdestruct.sh).
I could make up other rationalizations, but that’s my favorite one, so I’m going to keep it.
Willing suspension of disbelief, people.
Okay, so the ending is inconclusive. This is a flaw, why?
You know the Architect does not have free will—or at least he is, as a machine/program of law, bound to his word. If he says he’ll free the people, I for one, believe him.
Trinity died delivering Neo to the Machines. Neo died delivering humanity from the machines. Then he’s carted off on a machine barge, not unlike King Arthur’s barge. And we’re told, "He’ll be back if we need him" by the Oracle (who probably designed him in the first place).
And you know what this ending reminds me of? AKIRA.
Only I fail to see what’s wrong with that either.
So what we have here are a number of fascinating characters, living out interesting circumstances in a well fleshed out setting. No wonder everybody hates it.
The movies are imperfect, I grant you that. Ask me sometime in person what’s wrong with Reloaded over a couple of beers and we’ll have to call it an evening before I’m done.
But when I look at the implications of this trilogy. When I see what it’s done to how movies are made. When I look at what it’s done to the cyberpunk scene. When I look at what it’s done to any given university’s philosophy department. When I look at what it’s done to me.
I have to say; "Good job Brothers W! I hope to one-up you someday."
But you know what? I bet I never will.
I saw Matrix: Revolutions last weekend. I loved it.
I'm left looking around wondering why I'm one of the few. What exactly was everyone expecting from the end of this series that they didn't get?
I don't understand. What do you think was missing?
There are days when I really miss my old movie-watching companions. Movie reviewers are a piss-poor stand in.
What was I thinking before my life was so recently spilled all over the floor?
Ah yes. Kill Bill.
Andrea and I hit a showing of Kill Bill Vol. 1 as part of a whirlwind commemoration of 1.5 years of our being an 'Item'.
My initial reaction was something between amusement and revulsion. The movie is overflowing with Tarantino's signature violence as a theme. I'd almost say that in this film violence crosses over from the abstract to the physical and it can almost be said violence is a prop in Kill Bill.
But really, if you can stomach Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs there really isn't anything new here-- just more instances of it.
But all squeamishness aside, I'm rather impressed with Tarantino's command of bushido philosophy in both theme and plot progression. Right down to Bill's waxing philosophical about his warriors and the sakura blossoms on his weapon.
As a matter of fact, perhaps the oddest thing about this film is how what should be Japanese roles are all filled by Americans...