Cool News
Summit Acquires Sci-Fi Novel AMP For Alex Proyas To Direct!
Beaks here...
Deadline's Michael Fleming is reporting that Daniel H. Wilson has completed another science fiction novel, which means Hollywood studios have once again engaged in a bidding war to acquire a property they may or may not make into a feature film!
The big winner this time is Summit Entertainment, which outbid the likes of Paramount and Working Title to acquire the as-yet-unpublished AMP for Alex Proyas to produce and potentially direct. The narrative centers on a medical/technological advancement that inadvertently imbues the disabled with superhuman abilities. Fleming describes it as an allegorical sci-fi action flick ala DISTRICT 9. Sounds exactly like the kind of brainy sci-fi I'd like to see Proyas attacking.
Proyas will reportedly shoot AMP in Australia for a "modest budget", as he did with 2009's love-it-or-loathe-it KNOWING (I was unabashedly in the "love it" camp). There's no screenwriter attached yet.
Wilson's other unpublished sci-fi tome, ROBOPOCALYPSE (currently scheduled to hit bookstores on June 7, 2011), sold to DreamWorks in October, and is now one of several thousand projects vying for Steven Spielberg's attention. BUFFY/ALIAS/LOST's is Drew Goddard adapting that one. Wilson also wrote the satirical HOW TO SURVIVE A ROBOT UPRISING, which was nearly a Mike Myers star vehicle at Paramount (the rights are now up for grabs).
Readers Talkback
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What the fuck was that shit?
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Next fall's best new show will come out of no where.
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You got greedy. You should've been satsfied from getting first for whatever reason.
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Dec. 1, 2010, 10:08 p.m. CST
nerd rage - i know, i was trying a nik cage knowing thing - didn
by korkie70
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he has always been very overrated! and I,Robot sucked!
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Dec. 1, 2010, 10:29 p.m. CST
"Dark City" Was A Masterpiece, "The Knowing" Was Very Weak
by Media Messiah
I love Dark City, a film so great, it was ripped-off by The Matrix, The 13th Floor, and now Inception.
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I liked Knowing too. The continuous shot of Cage going through the plane wreckage was top notch.
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great story and Jenn Connelly is Hot as Hell!
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Remember when he directed a movie that moved Roger Ebert to lavish praise upon it the likes of which is pretty much otherwise limited to Citizen Kane? Remember that guy? He didn't direct I, Robot, that's for fucking sure.
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Don't make it sound like it might not happen.
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Ok, 'Knowing' was half a great movie (the first half) and 'I, Robot' got screwed up by the studio (although it had flashes of brilliance). But still, anything Proyas does has more interest for me than, well, anything else.
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dark city came before the matrix?
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Films with flaws, but enjoyable nonetheless. He really lost it after that, didn't he?
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Proyas is an excellent director and I'm sure the script is good. <p>The people I don't have any faith in is Summit. Those cretins are the ones behind the Twiglit Saaga-loo and the new Red Riding Hood soon. Everything they do is in the vain of teen angst.<p>cue attractive teens in shitty movie!
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Dec. 2, 2010, 1:26 a.m. CST
I betch DrainBrain has got something to say about this!
by I am the Terminator
Something really stoopid!
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Dec. 2, 2010, 2:53 a.m. CST
Maxcherry: It's Easy To Prove The Rip-Off, Warner Bros Released
by Media Messiah
Dark City was released via New Line Cinema, and Warner owns New Line. Obviously, Joel Silver saw the script from Dark City early on, and saw its dailies (which served as a live-action storyboard for The Matrix) and decided to rip it off. Did you noticed how the Matrix sequels went completely haywire? The reason that happened, is that Proyas never did a sequel to Dark City, so Joel Silver and The Wachowski siblings had nothing to rip-off...to inform their sequels, so they winged it, and what they created out of their own inspiration, was trash. BTW, Warner Brothers also released Inception, which is a rip-off of both Dark City and The Matrix.
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I want to read the script he wrote for that. One day there will be an awesome tripods trilogy of films.
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I want to read the script he wrote for that. One day there will be an awesome tripods trilogy of films.
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That was in Blade, you'll recall the sequence where the villain is holding a child as a hostage? Bullets fly in slow-motion, and we see bullet dodging by the villain. It is clear the idea for Bullet-time came from that sequence. Blade was also produced by New Line Cinema, BTW, which again, is owned by Warner. Also, the first big Hollywood use of wire-fu--which the Wachowskis and Joel Silver also looted to create The Matrix, appeared in Blade. So, given all that, there is a history of these guys looting ideas, which were all meshed together to form the action sequences, the story, and over-all look, of The Matrix. Oh, and last but not least, they stole the Skynet story from The Terminator, that being the humans versus the machines...war, as the basic set-up for their premise, and bam, couple that with the stolen themes and story of Dark City as the main storyline, add the martial arts and gun battle sequences from Blade, and you have The Matrix.
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And I forgot, the vampires in Blade wearing dark sunglass, suits, and the black trench coats. In The Matrix, that all became the look of the human resistance, when in the Matrix...and the agents who they battled.
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"if it had a good ending then it would have worked"<br><br> By 'good ending' I'm assuming you mean Bruce Willis shows up and flys a ship into the sun that stops the event and saves us all in the nick of time? <br><br>I have a real soft-spot for 'end of the world' disaster films. I don't judge them, I don't care how cheesy they are, how implausible, etc, I just put that all aside and spend 2 hours reveling in the disturbing thought of the planet perishing in some spectacular way.<br><br>That said, there are two things that annoy me in every single such disaster movie. <br><br> 1) Our heroes, as they try to stop the cataclysm, find themselves encountering a ridiculous amount of increasingly implausible accidents, and with even more implausibility, are somehow able to miraculously escape or overcome each one with milliseconds to spare. When this happens, it takes me right out of the movie. That level of manufactured suspense basically screams to the viewer 'you are not watching anything that could ever really happen, this is fiction'. Which is counter intuitive to the entire point of the movie experience. <br><br>2) Someone always comes up with some miraculous way to save the world in the nick of time, which again takes me out of the film for the same reason #1 does. But I realize the film needs to end that way so that people leave the movie 'feeling good' and may come back and watch it again, and will tell their friends how fun it was.<br><br>And it is the very fact that Proyas DOES NOT DO EITHER OF THESE THINGS that makes me love, love, love Knowing as a disaster film. There are no boulders falling around our protagonists, the ground is not disintegrating under their feet with each step as they run towards some stupid Deus Ex Machina fix for the end of the world. There was no fix. And if the earth ever faced an 'end of the world' scenario, Bruce Willis isn't going to save us. We're probably all going to die, and our only hope will be to try to salvage some tiny shred of our civilization. So Proyas had the balls to do what most directors don't with his disaster film. He destroyed the planet, in a spectacular fashion. And I can tell you, when the Earth was burning to a crisp on screen, the whole fucking audience was deathly silent. So that's why I'll always have a soft spot for Knowing. The first half had a cool mystery, it didn't have a big stupid 20 minute long calamity filled chase scene, and the earth bit it.
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Wasn't Knowing basically a remake of Dark City? The Crow was a failed masterpiece, it looked great but something felt off. And of course the AICN crow tear apart I, Robot, but it wasn't that bad.
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...the only paying cinemagoer in the screen. That was an oddly touching experience: sure the movie's flawed as hell, but it already feels like some that in 20 years time we'll be looking back on with vague awe, if only for it's nuttiness.
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Why? There is so much great sci-fi already published just begging to get the treatment. This will be like the bastard child of "Cocoon" and "Heroes".
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The Matrix in 'Doctor Who' was as early as 1976 and it's the same concept as that used in 'The Matrix' - the Wachowksi brothers simply took the idea of someone asleep in a virtual world and asked the question: would you be able to tell that was an artificial construct if you had been born into it rather than entering it at a later stage in your life?
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is a lot older than Blade or Dark City. First time I rmember it was when Eeric Idle is outrunning the bullet in Adventures of Baron Munchausen back in whenever that was. Probably older than that too but you have to give Terry Gilliam some of teh credit.
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As usual, Media Messiah doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
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The IDEA of dodging bullets has been around since Superman comics. "Bullet Time" is what you're referring to , which is an approximation of real-time slow motion using computer graphics and/or multiple still cameras to capture "live" motion. The effect in the Matrix was first seen in Michel Gondry's Gap ad in the early 90's and a music video. John Gaeta perfected the effect in The Matrix. The effect in Blade, unlike in The Matrix was mostly CG combined with regular slow motion. The Matrix used 100 still cameras to capture a live moment and the bullets were added digitally afterwards. <p> Also Media Messiah - stop using the words "rip-off." All the ideas you mentioned as rip-offs are standard cliché sci-fi elements we've seen or read about many times. Just because they used wire-fu in the Matrix, it was "looted" from Blade? WTF? How about the fact that hundreds of Asian films had been using it for kung-fu sequences and Matrix hired the best Asian wire-fu director for, guess what, kung-fu sequences. A film using the same technique as many others is common practice. It's called good planning. <p> And the funniest claim of all - that humans versus machines was ripped off from Terminator? Oldest story in sci-fi. Been around since something called The Industrial Revolution. Try watching the 1927 epic Metropolis, or the 1970 film Collosus: The Forbin Project. Unless, of course, you're joking or you're just young.
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by Bernard Wolfe? That would make a great movie! http://bit.ly/hPvBBw
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Yul's cyborg predated Arnie's cyborg by about 10 years.<br>
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He's dead to me
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They should call it 'Paraplegic Activity'.
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...is being remade, I think?
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Paraplegic Activity. Genius!
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Do you know what kind of people are concerned with whether or not someone might be gay? People who are closet cases. It's 2010 man. No one gives a rats ass if someone is gay. The only people who do, are Republicans and closet cases, and those two traits tend to overlap quite frequently.
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even for a talkbacker.
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Dark City invented the idea of the world not being what it seems. Yep. Dark City was very good, but I went into it with too high expectations. I actually prefer the first Matrix film.
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The Ghosts in the Machine monologue by James Cromwell's character. Here it is: "There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code, that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote... of a soul?" Great stuff. I never read the Asimov stories, so I', not sure if this was pulled from one of them, but it seems a bit more philosophical than some of his other stuff.
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From The Crow, Dark City, Garage Days and I Robot. Knowing was interesting and in keeping with many of the underlying themes in his work (his mysteryclock website was cool, too) I'm looking forward to this; sounds innovative...
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It must be the same asshole because he's obsessed with the appearance of pedos. I've called you mutherfucker. Now I'm going to have fun picking you apart.
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I re-read your previous post pretty carefully, and I definitely get the feeling you're the fella with issues, bud.
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...even as a curiosity piece, or is it a piece of shit? Someone tell me if I need to see this, or if I'll regret never being able to get those two hours of my life back...
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recommend other trippy films to check out? Something of the level of Lost Highway, the (1st)Matrix, Dark City, Fear and Loathing?
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Knowing's off the list this weekend... so hit me with an alternative. Something that doesn't sell out with a Deus Ex Machina, preferably...
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THE MATRIX didn't rip off DARK CITY, any more than DARK CITY ripped off LOGAN'S RUN, THX 1138 or 1984. They're all just part of the same dystopic tradition that can trace its roots back to PLATO'S CAVE. PS. THE TERMINATOR rips off WESTWORLD, yes, but the story you're looking for is actually call the NATIVITY. That is all.
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Anything by Davids Lynch & Cronenberg should do the trick: NAKED LUNCH, ERASERHEAD, VIDEODROME, FIRE WALK WITH ME, EXISTENZ...
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I loved Knowing despite Nic Cage. It was an honest work, no Hollywood tricks and bullshit. And I must be one of the few who loves I, Robot. Sonny easily outshone Smith as a character with incredible depth and emotion.
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You ought know if you like Knowing if you're filled with dread during the initial... event. Having the sounds turned up helps :)
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(500) Days of Summer
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Is this flick a Sarah Palin allegory?
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For example: You've got a giant robot/machine that can eat up a house. And yet it has no sensors or whatnot to tell it to stop if a human might be inside? Insultingly stupid action sequence that throws the movie's rules out the window, just for the sake of action. Fucking hate that shit.
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Admit it asshole, I called you out. You used to come here as JEHOVAS_WITNESS, spouting your crap that Spielberg and Lucas had "pedo beards" and now you've re-emerged from the sewer spouting that a gay director looks like a pedo. You clearly have unreolved issues. Did your daddy make you suck his "snake" when you were a little boy? My offer still stands - a can arrange an appointment with a qualified psychiatrist. I can ease your pain. And please release the kids you have tied up in your basement. Don't make them suck your "snake" like your Daddy made you.
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I mean Dark City, the crow? Come on, even Irobot had it's moments. Now i think AP needs to cultivate the stories on the work he does. I dont understand how you can have some movies that kick ass and some movies that dont. I think alot of hardcore fans of his wants him to reach that upper echelon of respected directors and people out there. He deserves it. I mean quentin tarentino has only made like what 6 movies? Now i didnt like jackie brown the others i loved and yet he's given praise. why not Proyas??? Or is he one of those underground guys that come out every two years and disappear again?
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As a sport. <br></br> http://bit.ly/h7UkRm <br></br><br></br> they killed the dog. <br></br>
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I saw it and..I don't know. Certain things were flashes of brilliance and certain things just totally made me want to hate it. I loathed the CGI train sequence but loved the airplane sequence. I don't know. However, something about the ending just felt...off. It started off as one movie and turned into another one which normally is fine but..I dont know. It was weird.
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Reconstruction (2003)<p>Mothman Prophecies<p>Jacob's Ladder
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You use a lot of words when you could just say, '2012 sucked and Knowing didn't'.
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Was fucked by Fox. Even on the directors commentary (which was so bitter and negatively geared at Fox that I was surprised that they let it onto the DVD), Proyas detailed many of the things Fox shoved down his throat on that movie. He described the original version of the film to be a much darker future detective-style story more than the happy action family movie Fox wanted it to be.
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I think most the detractors just wanted it to be a different movie: something darker more cerebral and less of a summer popcorn movie. But for a sci-fi summer popcorn movie, I found it to be fun and intelligent - definitely more intelligent than most such flicks. I'd never argue it's among cinema's greats, but it's well-paced, fun, and has great atmosphere. <p> And, WriteForTheEdit, did you ever think that house-destroying robot had been set off as a security measure to kill Smith's character since he was finding out too much? I just assumed that was what's happening. Interesting how some people just assume something that does make sense and some people assume something that doesn't. I think it all just depends on how much you're into/liking the movie. <p> Not a perfect film, but certainly no disaster. It was a Proyas popcorn movie. Nothing fundamentally wrong with that.
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I'll agree that there are far worse films than I, Robot. But that's what pisses me off most, when a potentially really cool movie falls short, for what appear to be things that are driven more by marketing departments and less by creative people.<P>I'd buy that the house-eating robot should have stopped but didn't because someone tampered with it. But either we needed to see the tampering happening (lame way to do it) or we needed to see Smith's character responding in a way that made it clear he realized what had happened (the right way to do it).<P>As I recall, we got neither.<P>And I think there were other examples of this kind of thing, but none come to mind right now.<P>All I'm really saying is that it's not one of Proyas' best pieces and the blame does not fall on his shoulders.
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My bad :-P
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The Matrix was filmed on the SAME SETS as Dark City immediately following that production...chomp on that one, talkbackers! FACT. Look it up. Good theory someone had about the Wachowski's suddenly losing their "inspiration" for the two Matrix sequels. Proyas is indeed STILL one of the BEST DIRECTORS ALIVE and KNOWING will be looked back on in years to come as a visionary piece of work (as perhaps will I, ROBOT (even though it's a "studio product," think seriously -- have you seen a completely CGI character be as effective and "invisible" in any movie since?). I know this because I am...MR. MURDOCH!
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Looks like someone needs their cocaine high today! lmao. Proyas is up there but he needs to shine more. be more consistant be damned what the studios want. that what lucas did. Did it on his own.
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So directors you don't like are pedos, you perceive pedophilia by looking at people's faces, and anyone who argues with you in a forum is a pedo. Are you seeing a trend developing here? Are you totally unaware on any level that you have some kind of a weird sexual issue going on here? You've obviously got gays and pedos on the brain. It's not normal. I'm pretty sure you were either sexually molested as a child, or you are sexually attracted to male children. Because man, your subconscious is swarming with thoughts about gay child-fucking. You're projecting, wearing your issues on your sleeve for all the world to see, and frankly it's a little embarrassing. Get a grip fellah.
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was awesome. The only misstep of Proyas' in my opinion is Garage Days. His masterpiece will always be Dark City but if his films remain on par with Knowing, I'll be a happy Alex fan.
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I think The Crow is his pinnacle. Don't know why but the film effects me everytime I see it. It's just pitch perfect from beginning to end and perfectly encapsulated the time it was made, even the soundtrack is amazing. Dark City was awesome and the ending totally threw me. I, Robot..it wasnt that bad..I was entertained but dont go out of my way to see it. Didnt see Garage Days (Don't revoke my geek card, please). Knowing...as I said earlier I liked it a little but wanted to like it more but something about the end just didnt feel right.
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DARK CITY his second best.<p>KNOWING shocked me with how good it was -- how honest it was, as opposed to being some ramped-up rock-infused save-the-world nonsense. I watched it because nothing else was on, and I only knew it had tanked. But it is a great, great film.<p> I remember feeling really strange about it afterword. I didn't expect it to be so affecting. It's incredibly nihilistic, but at the same time there's a small, small light, and that light is almost too wrapped up in strangeness to feel light at all.<p>If you haven't seen it you should.
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Hands down ultimately the best underrated movie i have ever scene. just wished they used brandons martial arts skills more..
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I felt kind of like that by the end but not in a good way. I felt like I had watched this subdued, yet incredibly urgent film and I was expecting the resolution to go in another direction and then it zagged on me and I felt really let down. The resolution felt like a cop-out to me. I don't know why. And Chainsaw...yes, the Crow is perfection lol.
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I didn't feel 'good' about it, but I guess more because the whole film was really unsettling -- 'subdued but urgent' is the perfect way to put it. I thought the end would be more conventional, and that the film was building towards saving the day -- but to me that made the end hit really hard. If you're up for it I suggest watching it a second time.
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I guess I'll have to watch it again. I guess not every twist works for everyone and the whole angle they took just didnt work for me. I didn't hate it(except for the horrendous CGI train sequence), but it just fell flat for me.
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I see that you conveniently didn't mention that?<BR><BR>Further, this from Wikipedia: The rooftop set that Trinity uses to escape from Agent Jones early in the film (The Matrix) was leftover from the production of Dark City, which has been remarked upon due to the thematic similarities of the films.[3] According to The Art of the Matrix, at least one filmed scene and a variety of short pieces of action were omitted from the final cut, and have (to date) not been published.
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I just love all these Warner and Wachowski sibling apologists. These are the same types of people, whom if they ever saw a flying pink elephant at a party, they'd pretend they never saw it. The Wachowskis stole the whole entire concept of Dark City, and this was Warner's business model, to ripping-off their own. They certainly ripped-off Dark City and The Matrix with Inception, so why not rip-off Dark City with The Matrix, prior? The same regime is there at Warner, and obviously, they have no problem stealing from their own, and not giving credit, or paying royalties to those whom they have stolen from.
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No scene prior, in film history, was framed the way the scene in Blade was shot, complete with computer generated slow-motion silver bullets. The only difference in The Matrix shot is they pulled a 180 degree to 360 move with the cameras, and used wire-work to aid Keanu to lean backward, but clearly, the inspiration for the shot came from Blade. Same studio--New Line/Warner, zero coincidences.
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Blade--The Original Bullet-Time <BR><BR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RppfiZ50jQ&feature=related <BR><BR> The Matrix Bullet-Time With A Bigger Budget <BR><BR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhxbYTMNMxo
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...in your net navigators, but remove any space, or spaces, that may appear in the addresses before hitting the enter button on your computer keyboard, or you will be misdirected to an error messege.
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That the Matrix was actually written by a black woman who recently won a lawsuit against Warner. That's just what ive heard and read on non-officialish blogsites. To me that would make a lot of sense. If you consider the fact that WIll Smith was originally approached for the role of neo and that the Matrix kind of has a lot of pro-black overtones....makes a heck of a lot of sense. Once again, just rumor.
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