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Movies Star Wars Prequels The Matrix

Was 'The Matrix' Part of Cinema's Last Great Year? (bbc.com) 179

Posted by EditorDavid from the party-like-it's-1999 dept.
In 2014 Esquire argued that great movies like The Matrix "predicted a revolution in film that never happened," adding "We are in many ways worse off now than we were 15 years ago as a culture. We seem to have run out of original ideas."

This week two film critics debated whether 1999 was in fact cinema's last great year. Slashdot reader dryriver writes: Notable films of 1999 are Fight Club, Magnolia, The Matrix, Eyes Wide Shut, Three Kings, The Sixth Sense, EXistenZ, Being John Malkovich, Man On The Moon, American Beauty, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Office Space, Boys Don't Cry, Election, Rushmore, Buena Vista Social Club, The Virgin Suicides, Sleepy Hollow, The Insider, Girl Interrupted, The Iron Giant and Toy Story 2.

According to Nicholas Barber, 1999 also was the beginning of the end for quality cinema:

"The release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace proved that long-dormant series could be lucratively revived. Toy Story 2, the first ever Pixar sequel, proved that cartoon follow-ups needn't be straight-to-video cheapies, but major, money-spinning phenomena. The Matrix proved that digitally-enhanced superhero action could attract audiences of all ages. And The Blair Witch Project proved that found-footage horror in particular, and microbudget horror in general, could be a gold mine. As wonderful as those films may have been -- The Phantom Menace excepted, obviously -- they taught Hollywood some toxic lessons. Instead of continuing to bet on young mavericks, studio executives twigged that there was a fortune to be made from superhero blockbusters, Disney sequels, merchandise-friendly franchises and cheapo horror movies. And that's what we get in 2019, week after week."
He also writes that the boom in DVDs in 1999 had "encouraged studios to fund offbeat projects," ultimately concluding 1999 was "the year when everything began to go wrong." He argues that today it's a different technology driving innovation. "In the 21st Century, streaming platforms have made the small screen the home of fresh ideas, as well as for conversation-starting communal cultural experiences."

But film critic Hannah Woodhead counters with a line from the 1999 film Magnolia: "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

"Nostalgia is often the enemy of progress when it comes to pop culture. We have a tendency to look back fondly on what came before, ironing out the flaws in our memory until the past is something that seems truly great, and even aspirational."
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Was 'The Matrix' Part of Cinema's Last Great Year? More

Was 'The Matrix' Part of Cinema's Last Great Year?

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  • I'm not sure. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @04:37PM (#59074532)
    It's a shame they only ever made one Matrix movie, it could have had some really good sequels.

    • I'm kind of glad they made only one movie. I expect that any sequels would have turned out very badly. That movie pretty much told the entire story that needed to be told.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mentil ( 1748130 )

      The protagonist fulfills the prophecy, gets the girl, and becomes hopelessly overpowered. How exactly do you start with that to make an interesting sequel? Your options are either to find a reason to bring him to the real world, where he has no special powers, or to find some reason why he might get gimped in the Matrix (that doesn't seem like bullshit). Or to have a nonstop beatdown with no dramatic tension because of the boring invincible hero.

      • The protagonist fulfills the prophecy, gets the girl, and becomes hopelessly overpowered. How exactly do you start with that to make an interesting sequel?

        You shut down the matrix, introducing the world to millions of newly-unjacked people that cant be fed.

    • Doesn't The Animatrix count as a sequel?

  • I think the bullet in the head came in the mid 10's.

    I thorogughly enjoyed all the Potters, (but got damn, those last two composers sucked..), most if not of all the Pixar stuff, a good chunk of the CGI Disney output, some of the Star Wars stuff was good,... ...but when china started funding movies and getting concessions to their.. "sensibilities"... that's when they lost me.

    Same with all the wokefullnes. Not the way to get my butt in the seat.

    How I yearn for a proper 2A piece like Red Dawn or Terminator 2

    • Close, Bullet in the Head was 1990 [imdb.com] and I agree, it is the high water mark of cinema.

    • Nothing has quite matched T2 since that came out.

    • Potter was something that had been in the works for years before and was written outside hollywood. Like LOTR. These were not Hollywood hatched things. Hollywood does not have the ability to come up with anything of quality.

      • Re:Nah, I think the bullet in the head was mid 201 (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Megane ( 129182 ) on Sunday August 11, 2019 @07:30AM (#59075928)

        Potter was something that had been in the works for years before and was written outside hollywood. Like LOTR.

        But once Hollywood took notice of it, they made sure that The Hobbit was fluffed and stuffed into a trilogy full of politically correct imagery that had little to do with the original story. Also:

        when china started funding movies

        I'm going to agree with GP post, this was really the thing that made movie quality nosedive more than it already would have. Once they started to make changes both to reduce meaningful dialog to have less to translate, and changes to account for the sensitivities of the Chinese government, it became nothing more than Moving Picture Product, as in "cheese product". Hollywood is now churning out the equivalent of plastic-wrapped cheese-flavored yellow slices, rather than fine aged cheddar and brie, because China is an enormous market that will happily consume it.

  • Nah - it was 1960 (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @05:18PM (#59074592)

    The last great year for cinema was 1960. I was tempted to say 1946, but Hitchcock directed a number of excellent films in the 1950s (including my favorite, North by Northwest) so I had to cover that.

    • I just got off your lawn.

      • I appreciate you vacating my lawn, as I am definitely older... but I will point out that all those great movies (at least slightly) predate my appearance on this planet. I just happen to think they are superior to anything that's come out since I was born.

    • I was tempted to say 1946

      I'll say 1946. In my movie collection from that year (in no particular order): Gilda. Notorious, The Killers, The Stranger, My Reputation, The Big Sleep, The Dark Mirror, The Blue Dahlia, The Dark Corner, Somewhere In The Night, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. I'm sure to have missed something, but still no year since even comes close.

  • It's all derivative anyway (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @05:22PM (#59074608) Homepage

    If you're going to ignore post-1999 films like Avatar because it's Pocahontas in Space, then The Matrix doesn't get a free pass either (it's really just the typical "Hero's Journey" story with good special effects).

    If you desire artsy fartsy stuff with original stories, stick to indie films. Most big budget films by nature are going to follow a popular formula (usually Hero's Journey - once you learn it you can't unsee it), because the studios' goal is to make profit, not to advance art and culture.

    I personally don't mind that Disney is remaking their classics. A lot of their older stuff hasn't held up well (especially Peter Pan, which I'm surprised Disney hasn't jumped on yet), so a fresh take on popular stories isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's funny how people whine about remakes like the original version of the movie is going to be erased from existence. If you'd really rather watch the original version, no one is stopping you.

    • If you're going to ignore post-1999 films like Avatar because it's Pocahontas in Space, then The Matrix doesn't get a free pass either (it's really just the typical "Hero's Journey" story with good special effects).

      It's not just a "Hero's Journey" tale. Those are everywhere and if done well the audience will never consider that angle. The problem with The Matrix is that people think it's original when it's just a mishmash of ideas taken from William Gibson novels and Jorge Luis Borges stories.

      • ..and their improvisations are poor.

        If Gibson was writing The Matrix, the agents would have also been jacked-in people.

    • Re:It's all derivative anyway (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Pseudonym ( 62607 ) on Sunday August 11, 2019 @03:45AM (#59075670)

      1999 is the year that copyright was extended, and in the case of Disney at least, I think there's an argument to be made there.

      Disney cannot do anything original well, they can only adapt well. Their own copyright extension left them with no public domain to raid, so they have had to acquire franchises and, when there were no more of those, to adapt itself with live-action remakes.

  • Good movies are still coming out (Score:5, Informative)

    by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @05:24PM (#59074620) Homepage

    Just a few days ago I watched Parasite, it is a new Korean movie, cleverly written and well made.

    Personally, I think that what's declining is not cinema, but American cinema (and maybe American culture in general).

    Also, matrix sucked, yes, that includes the first one.

  • Rose tinted much? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by philmarcracken ( 1412453 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @05:29PM (#59074640)

    The brain forgets the bad over time. There was likely as many flops and b grade movies then as there is now. I will admit the rehashes and reboots are getting old but lets not pretend a bygone era consisted of nothing but gold.

  • ...Esquire was a great magazine instead of a way to sell overpriced menswear, print the same recipes for drinks over and over as if it was some kind of 'cocktail renaissance and push aging celebs next project. Seriously?? $250 sneakers and $150 Hawaiian shirts so you can look like a drunk Uncle?

    Not to mention hypocritical articles talking out of both sides of their mouths. I mean right this minute their website has this article on their front page: "The Best Movies of 2019 (So Far) - From space "f*ck bo

  • The main reason why Matrix is regarded as a classic nowadays was because it was one of the first movies to predict the future of the upcoming defining technological development in the 21st century - the internet. So did Star Wars for manned space travel. And The Truman Show for exploitative television and total surveillance. Each decade has a handful of movies that define the cultural athmosphere of the time they were made in and those movies are remembered as classics. Currently we live in a timespan that

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by fluffernutter ( 1411889 )
      Read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and you won't consider Star Wars original any longer. There is even an evil empire, a hero that is a rogue trader and a villain with 'supernatural powers' (like the force).

      Also the freaky thing is that Asimov described a piece of technology that was a box that played moving pictures out of book sized removable boxes, like VHS tapes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeremyp ( 130771 )

        Also the freaky thing is that Asimov described a piece of technology that was a box that played moving pictures out of book sized removable boxes, like VHS tapes.

        Yeah, I reread the Foundation Series a few years back. It's definitely dated by its future tech.

        • That's the problem with sci-fi, no matter how hard you try to predict the future, you are basing it on today's knowledge. It's really hard to think out of the box with tech that hasn't even been conceived of yet. Look at the tape "disks" they used in ST TOS, or anything in Space 1999, ( just started watching this again on Military Channel) , we are limited by our own imaginations , writers, and film budgets.

      • I think many people havent gotten though the foundation series because the first "book" wasnt a book, but they dont know it and may see it as a harsh style of writing.

        The first "book" was compiled from a series of short stories that appeared in a scifi magazine.

        Also, in all honesty, The Foundation is only part of the true full series. From his Robot stories to his Empire stories to his Foundation stories. These are all connected. Its all the same universe.

    • That's so stupid. You can't "predict" what was already going on!

  • What A Load of Crap (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tsqr ( 808554 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @05:43PM (#59074662)

    Sure. Our glory days are behind us. It's all down hill from here. They don't make 'em like they used to. Cinema is over the hill.

    Bullshit.

    Whiplash, The Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Birdman, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club, Captain Phillips, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Argo, Moneyball, The Help, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Inception, Darkest Hour, The Revenant, Hacksaw Ridge, Green Book, Three Billboards, Hidden Figures, The Big Short, Manchester By The Sea, The Shape of Water.

    Not a remake, reboot, or spandex-clad superhero among them.

    • I don't think "it's all down hill from here" ... I mean, not unless motion picture makers just throw in the towel and decide to quit making any real effort?

      But IMO, it's not just some random reminiscing about "the good old days" to declare 1999 a real banner year for good movies!

      I've always enjoyed movies, but I remember it was around that time when I'd literally hear about a new movie I wanted to see in theaters often enough so my girlfriend and I could go see one every weekend, and never regret spending

    • I believe I've seen only 4 movies in your list. Of the 4 only "Hidden Figures" would I list as great. Were the other 3 enjoyable? Yes, but they weren't great (or worth "glory"). The rest, I probably saw the trailer or read the overview and went "meh". It's the rare remake I'm willing to go see. I'm also now pretty super-hero'd out. The result is that we don't go see many movies in the theater any more -- maybe 3 in the last year ... maybe.

      I'm far more apt to wait until I see an interesting movie in the 10
    • If you are in a certain type of film, SF or fantasy, then you are SOL. Beside spandex and young adult romance, there hasn't been much lately. Inception I give you, but the rest were rehash from the past , poor films, spandex or YA romance. Heck I am part of the problem since I went on and enjoyed ghost in the shell and alita in spite of their flaws ;).

  • At the time I talked to people about The Matrix. They went on at length about the special effects, but never mentioned any aspect of the plot. I concluded it didn't actually have a plot.

    A large special effects budget will only get you so far. Without a decent story and interesting characters, you're doomed.

    ...laura

    • Did you ask? Did it ever occur to you that the special effects were just so good that that is what people talked about? I mean, the Matrix has a pretty solid hero myth arc. It's not like it's treading new grounds in storytelling, but it's a solidly put together movie.

      • OP isn't wrong. The lack of plot in The Matrix was exposed in the rest of the trilogy when the special effects were rehashed and not surprising anyone anymore.

        Seriously, using humans as a power source? Talk about the most inefficient and idiotic plot device ever imagined. That's just one example of how dumb the plot. Real scifi doesn't allow physics that bad.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dissy ( 172727 )

          Seriously, using humans as a power source? Talk about the most inefficient and idiotic plot device ever imagined.

          So basically you ignore all of the multiple themes of the different stories in the script, and focus on the one detail that wasn't actually in the script, wasn't written by the Wachowski brothers, and was ordered to be put in by some brainless Warner Brothers executive who's only experience with writing is balancing a checkbook.

          That's a bit like ignoring all the words you put into your slashdot post for the sole reason that your slashdot account number you didn't choose has too many 4's in it.

        • The stupid thing is they could have fixed that in the later movies. I was pretty sure by the end of the second movie that the "real world" was really just another matrix, and since it wasn't actually real, then you could do stuff like use humans as batteries and scorch the sky and other nonsense. I was looking forward to how this would all play out in the next movie, but instead in the third movie they...uhhh....I'm not even sure what they were going for to be honest.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by martinX ( 672498 )

      But it had Bullet Time! And Keanu learned kung-fu. Woah.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dwpro ( 520418 )
      I saw 'The Matrix' in high school, so my brain wasn't fully formed yet, but I can still vividly recall walking out of the cinema after the movie, looking at the sky and finding it looked different than I recalled and wondering, "Is it possible we are living in a simulation?" It was exciting following ragtag group of rebels attempting to free the human race from being farmed for energy by an advanced robots/AI, using abilities like uploading skills directly into one's mind like a computer program, and willi

    • You could say the same thing about the original Jurassic Park. People talk the most about the special effects, which were simply amazing for the time, but people don't claim the movie didn't have a plot because of it.

  • I mean, by that point it was already a long running joke about all the Rocky sequels.

  • ... most people are lazy, there is more content in more languages then at any point in history. If you can't find something it's probably do to your own narrow mindedness and shallowness of taste then anything else.

    If you want orgiinal entertainment it's out there, but you got to put in some effort and not have it force fed to you by corporate marketing.

  • Sure 1999 was a great year, and 2018 might not have been equally great, but yeah; it's nostalgia speaking; every year great movies - and series - are released. Think about Game of Thrones; or Chernobyl. Nah; entertainment and mind-changing cinema hasn't come to an end just yet :-D

    • That's just it. TV largely sucked in 1999. Movies were amazing all through the 90s. The cost of production, the introduction of the Internet, and new models of distribution play a large but largely unseen role in our tastes and the creative output available. We are now in an era of great television, but largely worthless cinema. That is why the examples you threw back are TV shows. Movies nowadays suck.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        I wouldn't say worthless. It's just Hollywood is chasing these huge tent-pole features and franchises right now. Some are quite well executed and entertaining. But we aren't getting as many of those fresh voices like we had during the indie film boom of the 90's. At least, not in cinema. Those all seem to gravitate to TV right now.

        It's all cyclical though. Look at the late 60's and the 70's compared to the action movie sequel obsessed 80's.
  • ...that I can remember. So many good titles that year, especially that summer, that you just took it for granted that something awesome was going to be at the theater next week. Even Phantom Menace, especially on a big screen, didn't seem as bad as it turned out to be ( that movie REALLY became problematic on the small screen.) But like the article said, Three Kings, Bringing out the Dead, Fight Club, Talented Mr. Ripley, Deep Blue Sea, Being John Malkovich, South Park: BLU, Iron Giant, Blair Witch, Americ

  • He argues that today it's a different technology driving innovation. "In the 21st Century, streaming platforms have made the small screen the home of fresh ideas, as well as for conversation-starting communal cultural experiences."

    And you say this like it's a bad thing...

    There are plenty of interesting and original films being made. But they aren't appearing in Cinemas anymore. In my opinion, this is due to cost. Take a movie like "Office Space," which is great. Does seeing this film in a cinema add anything special that I don't get watching it from my couch? And is it worth paying $15 to watch it in the cinema when I can watch from my couch for less money in 3 months? Is this the sort of movie I have to see right now on a 60 f

  • Personally, I've much preferred television series over that period..you get a longer story, (when done right) real character development, and so much more in more digestible portions. (Of course lots of duds too, but the potential is there.)

    I almost never go to the theater, preferring to watch a film at home if I'm going to..and even then I usually split it over a couple nights because I often don't have the time (or interest) to sit through 3+hrs. There are some great stories that fit in a 1.5-3hr format,

    • It's the Internet and DVDs.

      During the 90s, the Internet and DVDs allowed indie films to make it outside the art house. This led to an explosion in "film" making.

      During the last decade, the Internet has pushed content delivery into our homes and so "prestige" TV is where it's at.

    • Most of what I watch are series as well, for the same reasons. It has to be a really engaging movie for me to watch the whole thing in one sitting (let alone ever finish it).

  • We haven't run out of ideas but Hollywood definitely has. It was movies like Jaws and Star Wars that did it. Infantile mega blockbusters simultaneously released in multiple theaters, aimed at the lowest common denominator and guaranteed to make their money back, before word got out that it was good-or-bad. Hence the reason we get all those sequels, prequels and sequel-prequels.

    How Star Wars made (and then ruined) modern Hollywood [gamesradar.com]
    --

    Sorry, anonymous posting has been turned off. Please register and log

    • There was always spectacle in Hollywood movies. At least as far back as Ben Hur.

    • I don't think Hollywood has run out of ideas. The ideas are out there. People seem to forget that cinema is an industry - a film is expected to make money, not just arouse nostalgia in the viewer ten years later. There are thousands of amazing ideas being presented, but producers are too scared to risk large amounts of money making films out of them.

      Fortunately we have people like Ian Hubert making shows like "Dynamo", outside of the Hollywood system.

  • the matrix lolz (Score:3)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @08:31PM (#59074954)

    Typical wooden acting by Reeves, cliche plot carried mostly by special effects.

    Not a masterpiece, schlock sci-fi with overuse of sequential stills

    plenty of better movies before and since

  • The Matrix was part of the year where you got old and grumpy. No doubt that year kids started listening to music you don't consider music, started wearing shorts that show a bit too much leg, adopted hair styles which you think are ugly and generally your entire world is crumbling around you as you yearn for the good old days.

    There is plenty of good cinema out there if you care to look.

  • Rick Beato has a good discussion on this in "How Computers Ruined Rock Music" https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    Pretty much the same thing applies to movies.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Except that as member of the class of '99, American Pie holds a special place in my heart.

  • Risk (Score:2)

    by jimbo ( 1370 )

    I don’t think we’ve run out of ideas, I think the industry is risk averse and throw away a lot of original ideas. They prefer to base things on successful books/movies and things the masses already have an emotional connection to.

  • If you look at it like this:
    What's the chance of a movie being universally acceptable as good, well there are about 500,000 movies in existence and Batman Returns is the top 500th movie and Dangerous Minds is 1000th, so perhaps in between there is where the cutoff lies as to universally accepted 'good' movies?

    So actually putting the data of the top 250 rated movies in a graph, the average is ~3 good movies per year which occurred last in 2008. 1999 (5) was good, but not really an outlier compared to the 70'

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by epine ( 68316 )

      If you try to put a polynomial trend through it, the late 70's and early 80's were actually cinema's best era (Alien etc) although I'm not sure if that will shift ...

      Recently bias is real, and it's spectacular.

      I'm read some books on film history where the recently bias is less dominant. The seventies are usually hailed as the glory era for big budget experimentation, with some of the major projects also a showcase for swinging from the financial chandeliers.

      Star Wars (1977) is often cited as a seismic shift

  • Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Sunday August 11, 2019 @03:55AM (#59075684) Homepage

    What a perfect example of Betteridge's Law of Headlines [wikipedia.org]: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no". :)

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