Hey guys, just saw the trailer and read the 2 threads dealing with it. I agree its kick ass, and it got me thinking and I just wanted to say WOW!
My first time at the Matrix website (whatisthematrix.com) and i'm blown away by the philosophy section. You must really check this out. WHy do I think the Matrix is the greatest film i've ever seen? Because it is not just a great shoot em up film with revolutionary special effects. It embodies important symbolism and meaning in everything it does... its a message to humanity to WAKE UP!!! It draws very closely to gnostic christianity and buddhism as well as certain parts of the "yogi/spiritual" culture. It also gives us a george orwell type of revelation of the future/present... not just the dangers of AI but uses mediums to approach many subjects.
Wake up Neo
but one thing that pisses me off...
THe Matrix reflects alot of eastern asian themes, fighting scenes, and cinema yet even a "token asian" prescene is missing from it's cast of actors/actresses (from what i've read and the previews and the original matrix). I know they tried to cast Jet Li, but is it so hard to put an Asian actor in a movie that won't portray him in a gangster with an accent or a kungfu master role? Espcially in a movie where one can fit so easily? Since a good percent of the population of the world is asian or asian descent (china alone is what, a fifth?) hopefully they (whoever is in charge of casting) will at lesat be gracious enough to have some asian extras in zion's population or in the matrix itself. Jada Pinkett? Please.... And yes, my mother is Korean and I have alot of asian friends... otherwise I wouldn't really care would I?
Originally posted by Oracle17 Hey guys, just saw the trailer and read the 2 threads dealing with it. I agree its kick ass, and it got me thinking and I just wanted to say WOW!
My first time at the Matrix website (whatisthematrix.com) and i'm blown away by the philosophy section. You must really check this out. WHy do I think the Matrix is the greatest film i've ever seen? Because it is not just a great shoot em up film with revolutionary special effects. It embodies important symbolism and meaning in everything it does... its a message to humanity to WAKE UP!!! It draws very closely to gnostic christianity and buddhism as well as certain parts of the "yogi/spiritual" culture. It also gives us a george orwell type of revelation of the future/present... not just the dangers of AI but uses mediums to approach many subjects.
Wake up Neo
but one thing that pisses me off...
THe Matrix reflects alot of eastern asian themes, fighting scenes, and cinema yet even a "token asian" prescene is missing from it's cast of actors/actresses (from what i've read and the previews and the original matrix). I know they tried to cast Jet Li, but is it so hard to put an Asian actor in a movie that won't portray him in a gangster with an accent or a kungfu master role? Espcially in a movie where one can fit so easily? Since a good percent of the population of the world is asian or asian descent (china alone is what, a fifth?) hopefully they (whoever is in charge of casting) will at lesat be gracious enough to have some asian extras in zion's population or in the matrix itself. Jada Pinkett? Please.... And yes, my mother is Korean and I have alot of asian friends... otherwise I wouldn't really care would I?
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
So why put an asian guy in a film that is paying homage to an asian style of film making? I think its great that they didn't put an asian in the film because it breaks the mold. There are so many martial arts movies out there where asians are the lead actors.... I actually like the idea of seeing Lawrence Fishburn, Keanu, and Jada Smith busting out some Kung Fu on the bigscreen. It's definitely refreshing.
I never said a leading character... thats too much to expect. This film isn't marketed mainly towards hong kong or what not.. But if asians consist of a third of the population... shouldn't at least one of the 20 or so speaking characters..... ah fuck it. No one really cares except for asians, and i'm only half.
Originally posted by Oracle17 I never said a leading character... thats too much to expect. This film isn't marketed mainly towards hong kong or what not.. But if asians consist of a third of the population... shouldn't at least one of the 20 or so speaking characters..... ah ---- it. No one really cares except for asians, and i'm only half.
Leading role or not, it's a set of films influenced by eastern culture. It's an action flick. To say that its marketed towards Hong Kong(or what not) is silly. For one, HK films are nowhere near the budget that Warner Bros has put up for the Matrix franchise. It's a movie!
I'm Mexican, and I didn't get all upset when Jennifer Lopez(Puerto Rican)played Selena(who is Mexican American). Sit back, relax. Besides, Asians shouldn't complain at all. They have the ultimate bad ass...Bruce Lee.
The Matrix is such a great film because the movie was able to change peoples lives and the way they think about reality. Not many films can do that, especially not to the extent the Matrix did.
And uh, there are some Asian actors in Matrix Reloaded...
happy now? The one on the left is Ghost, on the right is Seraph and he tags along quite a bit with Neo in Reloaded.
Originally posted by jessecrx Leading role or not, it's a set of films influenced by eastern culture. It's an action flick. To say that its marketed towards Hong Kong(or what not) is silly!
I dont know why I can't let things go and try to clarify everything, but here goes...
I never said its marketed towards Hong Kong. In fact I said the opposite. Hong Kong is not a significant factor in Matrix's money making scene, therefore I wouldn't expect a leading asian.
Yo blaxican, thanks for the pics. Where did you get theM?
do i detect a bit of bias here? or is someone complaining just b/c thier favorite actors didn't get casted, there's a reason why they didn't. ethnicity hardly plays a role in casting expect when matching the story line. besides, its just a movie. do you know how many white ppl there are too, lemme see there's a technical line to white, there most if not all of europe, russia, australia, s.africa, and don't forget the us. believe it or not, we do out number you here. oh and there's canada too.....
Originally posted by Oracle17 I dont know why I can't let things go and try to clarify everything, but here goes...
I never said its marketed towards Hong Kong. In fact I said the opposite. Hong Kong is not a significant factor in Matrix's money making scene, therefore I wouldn't expect a leading asian.
Yo blaxican, thanks for the pics. Where did you get theM?
i think the matrix was an amazing movie, not just cuz of the unreal special fx but also the story kicked ass... i think the second will be almost as good, i say that because the story will still probably be good, but i think they are going to "overuse" those special effects.. like that scene from the preview where there are like 50 of the same agent.... i donno, i still think it will be an awesome movie but i hate it when hollywood overuses or pushes stuff so far that once cool stuff becomes outplayed and just plain... dumb
The thing about Matrix is that ANYTHING can happen in there, in 1999, the special effects were good, but not as good as now, and 4 years from now they'll be 10 times better.
They can really push more limits with the Reloaded, and the last one. We'll see, although there is a bunch of new effects, like the 50 agents flying, there is still a lot of old ones, like the slo-mo jumping, flips, flaps, and so on, which I think may get a little boring after a while....
The first matrix was not bad, great story, however because of Keanu Reeves, I haven't seen it until about 3 months after it was released. I don't think of him as a good actor overall, he plays every role the same, has same tone of voice, and just irritates the heck out of me ok ok, i'll stop with that, I wish they would cast someone who is an unknown actor, but with great potential, since the movie is 95% special effects, acting skills are not needed to great extent.
and about the asian look of the film. Wachowski brothers ripped off a lot of the effects from Japanese Anime, mostly films like Ghost in the Shell, Lain and others. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. I think more anime will hit real-life films, since the special effects these days can pull off some crazy stunts that only animators could create. What I would like to see is Wachowskis giving some credit to anime movies which they stole their ideas from.
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My sig will be in the works for a while,
for now here are some pics:
http://mkx.home.mindspring.com/portfolio/photo/
The one on the left is Ghost, on the right is Seraph and he tags along quite a bit with Neo in Reloaded.
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