The Matrix

Originally posted by ivanhoe
I've read part of the article and I didn't see the movie. I don't want to see such a load of non-sense and pseudo-religious or pseudo-philosophical blah blah.
It seems to me this is a way of satisfying people's hunger for "explanations" and "spirituality" by offering them spiritual junk food. It tastes sóóóó good and after you've finished you wan ...[text shortened]... ... indeed, "wake up" and stop waisting your money and energy on this spiritual junk food.

Well watch it for the action plot then.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
I've read part of the article and I didn't see the movie. I don't want to see such a load of non-sense and pseudo-religious or pseudo-philosophical blah blah.
It seems to me this is a way of satisfying people's hunger for "explanations" and "spirituality" by offering them spiritual junk food. It tastes sóóóó good and after you've finished you wan ...[text shortened]... ... indeed, "wake up" and stop waisting your money and energy on this spiritual junk food.

Or the artistic brilliance of it.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
I've read part of the article and I didn't see the movie. I don't want to see such a load of non-sense and pseudo-religious or pseudo-philosophical blah blah.
It seems to me this is a way of satisfying people's hunger for "explanations" and "spirituality" by offering them spiritual junk food. It tastes sóóóó good and after you've finished you wan ...[text shortened]... ... indeed, "wake up" and stop waisting your money and energy on this spiritual junk food.

Totally agreed. These movies have the silly effect of making bored teenagers spew lots of pointless drivel in profound voices.

Could you recommend something that is not spiritual junk food?

Originally posted by darvlay
Another example of this: Star Wars Episodes 1 and 2. Total trash.

I disagree...the Star Wars "story" was originally 9 "parts" or "chapters", they are simply continuing the saga. And...the story is a far cry from trash, IMHO.

Originally posted by royalchicken
Totally agreed. These movies have the silly effect of making bored teenagers spew lots of pointless drivel in profound voices.

Could you recommend something that is not spiritual junk food?

Not really, good enjoyable films, thats good enough.

Originally posted by royalchicken
Totally agreed. These movies have the silly effect of making bored teenagers spew lots of pointless drivel in profound voices.

Could you recommend something that is not spiritual junk food?

Royalchicken: "Could you recommend something that is not spiritual junk food?[/

If you like studying literature, Shakespeare, philosophy, anthropology, religion and violence, mythology and violence, there is only one thing you can do. Study the works, the insights and ideas of René Girard, a french thinker who worked at Stanford University. His ideas will change the way you perceive human history and human reality. His books and essays are not for the lazy, not for the faint-hearted but for the adventurous ...... for those who want an intellectual challenge. You will look at Shakespeare in a different way, you will look at Greek and Roman mythology in a different way, you will look at the Gospel in a different way and you will look at human history, at human condition itself in a different way. In the middle of his ideas stand mythology, religion, violence, the notion of the "Scapegoat", and the memetic human desires.


"Human beings, according to French thinker René Girard, are fundamentally imitative creatures. We copy each other's desires, and are in perpetual conflict with one another over the objects of our desire. In early human communities, this conflict created a permanent threat of violence, and forced our ancestors to find a way to unify themselves. They chose a victim, a scapegoat, an evil one against whom the community could unite.

In order for collective violence to stabilize a society, it is essential that nobody suffer a moral hangover as a result of the event. One dissenting voice spoils everything. Moreover, the lynching of the victim must not be seen for what it was. There must be a total forgetting of what actually happened."

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/24394


"The insight on the edge of which Merleau-Ponty trembled in 1947 is an insight into the failure of mythology after Christ: the election of a scapegoat may in fact have worked to found culture in the days before biblical revelation, but the Gospels reveal how it works, and an understanding of how it works destroys the possibility of it working. If we know the victim to be innocent, we can still pronounce him guilty, but we will not succeed in being drawn together-we will not succeed in founding a culture-with the pronouncement."

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9603/articles/revessay.html



"Violence and the Sacred"
by Rene Girard

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801822181/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/103-7782698-8850230?v=glance&s=books&st=*


"Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World"
by Rene Girard

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0804722153/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/103-7782698-8850230?v=glance&s=books&st=*


The Scapegoat
by Rene Girard, Yvonne Freccero

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801839173/ref=pd_sim_books_2/103-7782698-8850230?v=glance&s=books

Originally posted by ivanhoe
I've read part of the article and I didn't see the movie. I don't want to see such a load of non-sense and pseudo-religious or pseudo-philosophical blah blah.
It seems to me this is a way of satisfying people's hunger for "explanati ...[text shortened]... op waisting your money and energy on this spiritual junk food.

So if you've only read part of the article and didn't see the movie(s), how can you possibly form an opinion based on the subject you purport to reject? That's like me saying that I only read part of the Bible and a few minutes of The Passion, but I have an "opinion" about Christianity.

Ivanhoe, you quote too much and offer very little in your own words.

There are a number of reputable authors (Jung, Dahlstrom, Nietschze Zimmerman, Fernigi) who posit many of the ideas presented in the movies. Though you may consider the execution of the ideas to be inept, the fact remains that The Matrix reflects many Christian and Gnostic symbols and ideas (The Jesus Christ pose, The Merovingian lineage, a character named Trinity..who dies and returns to life, the Nebuchadenezzar, Zion, an ostensibly virgin birth, etc).

What you call "spiritual junk food," I would call an opening for people to become interested in the finer of aspects of religion, spirituality, and philosophy.

By saying that something "satisfies hunger," you are disregarding artistic license, you are being elitist and self-superior, and these things do not constitute a rational argument.

And what, really is junk food but sugar? Doesn't your brain run on glucose? Or are you in ketosis? 😀

Originally posted by David Tebb
I agree with what you're saying. But the studios only make these sequels because the movie-going public asks for them. I was (still am) a fan of the original Matrix film and I loved it so much, that I practically demanded they made a sequel!

I disagree. You can watch the first film perfectly by itself. The main question is: "Is Neo the One?" When this question is answered and the bad guy is destroyed, the film ends, and it should not have continued.
Look at what they have done: they resurrected Smith, put in a sex scene, some more action, a car chasing scene. These are all very cliche elements of a normal action movie (maybe with the exception of the resurrection). And that is what the sequels are: just another action movie. They add exactly zero to the story, and were only meant to make money, nothing more.
I certainly didn't ask for a sequel.

Originally posted by royalchicken
Totally agreed. These movies have the silly effect of making bored teenagers spew lots of pointless drivel in profound voices.

Every movie that is touted as "important" does the same thing. I think The Matrix (because of its lousy lead actor) is unfairly demonized.

I don't mean to come off as "fan boy" of the movies (there are things that I disagree with, like humans being used as a "batteries" which is absurd), but I do think that the Wachowski brothers put more thought into the movies than people give them credit for.

Mobil Avenue, anyone? Do you think that choice of name was an accident?

Originally posted by piderman
I disagree. You can watch the first film perfectly by itself. The main question is: "Is Neo the One?" When this question is answered and the bad guy is destroyed, the film ends, and it should not have continued.
Look at what they have done: they resurrected Smith, put in a sex scene, some more action, a car chasing scene. These are all very cliche elemen ...[text shortened]... e story, and were only meant to make money, nothing more.
I certainly didn't ask for a sequel.

I agree the first one stands well alone.
The christianity references aren't even that overt.
But the second film is lame and obvious and far too overt. Plus the 20min+ Zion dance scene at the beginning was pointless.
I didn't even bother going to see the third one as even seeing the second one has ruined my enjoyment of the first!

Originally posted by Varg
I agree the first one stands well alone.
The christianity references aren't even that overt.
But the second film is lame and obvious and far too overt. Plus the 20min+ Zion dance scene at the beginning was pointless.
I didn't even bother going to see the third one as even seeing the second one has ruined my enjoyment of the first!

The dance scene was showing the pinacle of human culture, them jumping around in a cave. Compare it with the scene in the thurd film when he gos to the robot city with all the little robots all organised and stuff and you get.....I dont know what exactly but its supposed to mean something.

Originally posted by Poison Godmachine
Every movie that is touted as "important" does the same thing. I think The Matrix (because of its lousy lead actor) is unfairly demonized.

I don't mean to come off as "fan boy" of the movies (there are things that I disagree with, like humans being used as a "batteries" which is absurd), but I do think that the Wachowski brothers put mor ...[text shortened]... give them credit for.

Mobil Avenue, anyone? Do you think that choice of name was an accident?

Mobil is a anagram of 'limbo'

Nemesio

Originally posted by Poison Godmachine
So if you've only read part of the article and didn't see the movie(s), how can you possibly form an opinion based on the subject you purport to reject? That's like me saying that I only read part of the Bible and a few minutes ...[text shortened]... gar? Doesn't your brain run on glucose? Or are you in ketosis? 😀

Poison Godmachine: "There are a number of reputable authors (Jung, Dahlstrom, Nietschze Zimmerman, Fernigi) who posit many of the ideas presented in the movies."

..... and how do they all fit together ? Do they fit together in any meaningfull realistic way ?

PoisonGodmachine: " ........ fact remains that The Matrix reflects many Christian and Gnostic symbols and ideas (The Jesus Christ pose, The Merovingian lineage, a character named Trinity..who dies and returns to life, the Nebuchadenezzar, Zion, an ostensibly virgin birth, etc).

.................... meaning what ?

PGM: "What you call "spiritual junk food," I would call an opening for people to become interested in the finer of aspects of religion, spirituality, and philosophy."

I hope these people come that far, after seeing the movie, and realise this kind of stories do not enlighten but confuse and darken the perspective necessary to start understanding reality.

Originally posted by Brother Edwin
The dance scene was showing the pinacle of human culture, them jumping around in a cave. Compare it with the scene in the thurd film when he gos to the robot city with all the little robots all organised and stuff and you get.....I dont know what exactly but its supposed to mean something.

BroEdwin: " ............ little robots all organised and stuff and you get.....I dont know what exactly but its supposed to mean something."



Brother Edwin,

You summed it up quite nicely ...... 😉

Originally posted by ivanhoe
BroEdwin: " ............ little robots all organised and stuff and you get.....I dont know what exactly but its supposed to mean something."



Brother Edwin,

You summed it up quite nicely ...... 😉

You cannot be told what The Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself.