h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I saw The Matrix:Reloaded this week. I'd been warned by several people that while the special effects and action sequences were great, the plot was non-existent. Likewise I also heard a bad review on radio.

However the plot made sense to me and I'm just wondering who else got it?

I thought that if you watched it in the context of being part 2 after The Matrix, then it worked. I wonder if people were disappointed because in The Matrix there is such a powerful plot twist with the whole waking up from/to reality, and there is no way to keep recreating that in subsequent movies. So Reloaded is more subtle in its plot approach. I also had the feeling alot of it was setting up for #3.

I had heard that there are lots of myth/philosophy references in Reloaded. That's the level I was taking it at. I especially liked the theme they introduced with the Oracle about intuition. I imagine I could watch it several more times and keep getting more out of it.

On the down side I did find some of how the plot was filmed to be a bit plastic and clumsy. It looked like there were several different directors doing different bits and maybe the whole project was just to big to pull that off.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear who else enjoyed it and what you got out of the story.

cheers,
kea.

Apparently the plot in the film isn't all in one piece, you can't get the film, totally, without playing the computer game (Enter the Matrix) alongside it (according to the gaming press anyway and the Big W Brothers did direct the game and have very tight control over it)

I've yet to see the film and I'm out of work right now so can't afford the game

That's interesting about the game (I don't think there is a mac version ). I read somewhere that watching the Animatrix short films helps with the plot too.

I rewatched The Matrix a few days before I saw Reloaded, which I think is a good way of doing it.

It took me several goes to 'get' matrix one, so will probably be the same here
like daS I can't afford to see it right now
definitely can't afford to buy a game..not good at comp games anyway
It has taken me 16 months just to do system shock 2 and I'm still not finished !!

*waves to kea*

They showed "Matrix" and "Last Flight of the Osiris" here (UK) on Channel 5 Wednesday night, which'll help, I may try and sneak into the cinema tomorrow morning (I can just push myself to seeing the film)

So far the game is PC and all 3 major consoles. And is supposed to be quite an integral part of the story - there's even an inbuild 'DOS' you have to hack to complete it totally (and get an important thread in the plot)

*waves back to Helelou*



It was about the 4th time I've seen The Matrix and I still got new stuff out of it. Of course its great with both movies that they are so stylishly cool too .



"It has taken me 16 months just to do system shock 2 and I'm still not finished !!"

That's ok, I'm still wandering the corridors of Zaphod's ship in the HHGG game.

Its fairly disappointing that there is no mac version. I mean, how difficult would that have been?

Hope you enjoy the movie anyway.

It won't be until I go back to the mill (16 jun) and get a pay that we will be able to see it, I only hope they cinema in town is still showing it then, or I will have to wait till it comes out on video
In system shock, I'm at the very end just not quite quick enough - yet

how cold is it there? I think we're in for a cold winter this year, so it will be colder for you still

it is already down to 10 degrees at night and it is only may
(going to look for cold smiley now)

Saw it yesterday, and thought it excellent, though the Virus twins looked clumsy and wooden to me - pretty, but weakened the general aesthetic.

Details of the prophecy angle and revelations at the end came so thick and fast it might take me a few more watches to fully clock where this is going. But it hooked on relationships and acts of faith, and built it up for the next one beautifully, proving there is more to this franchise than idealogical complexity and shit-hot kung fu action.

Give it 4 or 5 years kea

I saw a 'making of' tv prog as well, I think I'll probably enjoy it if I can get myself into one of those 'leave your brain at home' frames of mind, unfortunately I don't usually get on well with that kind of film.

"Dark City" in '97 helped with 'getting' the Matrix a great deal, a lot of the same questions in terms of controlling powers and fatalism (ok, they were aliens and there's no faux Eastern mysticism )

Anybody see the Wortchowski's FIRST film, "Bound"? Quite a cult following on the lesbian circuit and bringing in a lot of the cinematographic stylings (also starring Joe Palliantano or however you spell it), obvioudly they hadn't pinched 'bullet time' from the UK tv advertising industry yet as they'd only just started showing it to the public...)

Saw it last night.

Good film, but not as good as the first.



**** WARNING SPOILERS ****



It's got a totally different feel to it. Whereas the first was dark and mysterious, this one builds on the command structure within Zion and ends up being rather similar to any other sci-fi film involving the army/soldiers etc... with Morpheous being the clichéd rebel disobeying direct orders. For me it's completely ruined the character.... Morpheous was supposed to be the leader of the resistance and now he's just the captain of one of hundreds of ships. Instead of everyone being in awe of "the great Morpheous" they all just seem to think he is insane for believing in "the prophecy".

Some of the CGI was a bit ropey. The fight involving neo and a gazillion Agent Smiths was very poor I thought. Half the time it was obvious that Neo was just a computer generated Keanu Reeves rather than the man himself. It still hasn't been explained just why Agent Smith is replicating himself and in what way his program was changed when Neo "destroyed" him, so it will be interesting to see what direction this goes in in part three.

I thought the effects used for the ghosts was very good. Indeed the whole fight sequence with the rogue programs was excellent.... lots of nice effects and a variety of weapons used.

Most of the highway fight was good, but I'm still trying to work out exactly how the police car keeps up with a Ducati motorbike.......

In the scene where Trinity shuts down the power station, doesn't she know that she can't log in as root using an SSH connection?? She would have to log in as a normal user and then type SU along with the root password to become a super user with root privileges

There is also another connection with "The Prisoner". In the first film, at the end when Neo is running through the apartment block he breaks into an old couples flat and they are watching Prisoner on the TV. In this film, it turns out that Neo is the sixth incarnation of "the one". i.e. he is number six and he is going to set all the "prisoners" free from the Matrix.... cool huh?

As I said it's a good film just not quite what I was expecting.

Does any sequal eveer live up to the devoted fan's expectations?

(Except "Empire Strikes Back," in most people's cases)

Hooloovoo,

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/18/1416213&mode=thread&tid=188&tid=126&tid=200&tid=97&tid=172

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/30747.html

She ain't just 'logging on' she's cracking it using a current known (but well patched in RL) buffer overflow exploit which, even with current exploit tools, will drop you on the machine as root.

p.s. only try reading the /. one if you happen to enjoy off topic trivia! They seem more concerned about the fact she is cracking it using an internal IP.

Hey... thanks for those two links Very interesting!

interesting
this is a by the way

Having read the register......

The way it works in the film is she hacks the root password, changing it to Z1ON0101.... but she then proceeds to use

ssh 10.2.2.2 -l root

in order to log in using her newly hacked password. Assuming it's set up properly, SSH won't let you login as the root user.

Ah, right. Afraid I have developed a habit of not reading the register too closely

Still, more realistic than most hacking films!

> Still, more realistic than most hacking films!

Definately!

Check out the screen shot....

http://images.insecure.org/nmap/images/matrix/nmap-matrix2log-cropped.gif

I didn't get how she got the password first try. I thought it was good but agree with Hooloovoo - not what was expected at all. I didn't think the scenes in Zion really worked, becasue as you said, it changed the dynamics - Morpheus et al are just a couple of soldiers. I thought the CGI was great though, but didn't get the bits with loads of dialogue - the French guy and The Architect confused me a bit. Why didn't the human race die when Neo went through the door to save Trinity?

I thought overall - good (but not as good as the first) but overcomplicated and confusing.