The Matrix Redacted

Here's how it goes.

If you happen to have it sitting around, Final Flight of the Osiris (from The Animatrix) makes a nice introduction.

  0:00–14:55

16:25–17:32

Since I'm cutting out most of the visit to Zion, you have to imagine some kind of voiceover here. “Our heroes take a well-deserved rest in Zion. Meanwhile, back in the Matrix...”

32:44–33:42

“Later, we find Neo talking with one of the councillors.”

35:22–38:12

39:06–40:09

40:37–

I also like to imagine that Link is really Tank. I can always bring him to mind by imagining that one line from The Matrix: “mmhh ... it's a very exciting time!”.

So there you have it … five cuts that make the movie twenty minutes shorter.

One thing I like about picking and choosing like this is that it's just detachment taken to an extreme; that is, detachment of parts of a work from the whole.

Speaking of which, there are some other works that I detach.

One is Enter the Matrix. Pushing parts of the movie plot out into a video game was an interesting idea, and really does bundle the two together quite strongly, but it's not much fun for us folks with old computers. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere, something like “don't try to bundle into uncommon media”.

The other is The Matrix Revolutions. Sad but true, I just didn't like it, so much so that I'm detaching it from Reloaded and trying to think up a better ending myself.

Part of the problem is that after Reloaded, I spent months puzzling over the last scene, trying to come up with a consistent explanation for how Neo could apparently stop machines in the real world. I didn't come up with a definite answer, but I was pretty sure that whatever the answer was, it had to involve a surprise on the order of the original realization about the matrix. And what answer were we given? “Oh, he just can.” So, that was somewhat unsatisfying.

Another part of the problem is that I just never cared much about Zion and the real world, and that's what most of the movie was about. Sure, the effects were nice, but even I get tired of effects when I don't care about the characters. So, if you want to see people shoot creepy-crawlies, I'd say, go watch Aliens again.