I mean, as the movies progress, their expository dialogue scenes become more needlessly complex (the Architect's speech could be cut down to a tenth and still provide the exact same info
The Architect's speech was deliberately overlong and confusing. To really understand it, you have to go through it and re-read/hear it word by word.
For two full movies, we had thought Neo was an invincible superman. In the space of a few minutes we are provided a mishmash of garble which reveals that Neo is just another pawn in a series of pawns. (or is he?)
the Oracle's ramblings about why she looks different are like 100% useless,
No.
The Oracle is, by far, the most important character in the entire trilogy. But since she has so little screen time, every word she speaks has to be treated like a gold nugget, to be able to understand her truly centrally important role.
(the Oracle's ramblings about choice here make literally no sense)
You are right They really don't. So why does she say them? Remember, she is a machine talking (down) to a mere human being. Her intellect is god-like compared to Neo's. Check all religions. The illusion of "choice" is one of the ways all gods use to manipulate puny humans. We LOVE the idea of "freedom" and "personal choice" though we rarely understand what those things really mean.
Remember when the Oracle first meets Neo. She tricks him into knocking over a vase then mocks him for apologizing for what she made him do. She then makes fun of Neo for his philosophy that he is in control of his own destiny and that he makes his own choices about his life. He isn't in control at all. He is a pawn being pushed around in a game being played by higher powers. That is central to truly understanding The Matrix.
We like to think we are all our own little boss, but in reality we all have some higher level of control pushing us and manipulating us into doing everything we do for the purpose of these higher powers. That is the true, underlying message of The Matrix trilogy.
Is it because they didn't have material for 2 actual movies and thus were forced to use filler (material, dialogue, scenes, characters) to stretch it into 2 separate movies?
I agree with this. But the filler is all the scenes they show happening in Zion. NOTHING they do in Zion matters in the slightest. It is shown that no matter how hard they fight or what defensive strategy they try to use, they are going to be wiped out. They can't stop it. The people in Zion and all they do simply don't matter.
The only thing they can do to save themselves is to send Neo inti the Machine World to play as a pawn in the chess match between The Oracle and The Architect. As we see in the final scene of Revolutiosn, that's where all the real, relevant action is- with The Oracle, The Architect and Neo. (and of course much of the conflict and chess game occurs off-screen)
Like Kill Bill 2, it was so obviously filler
What do you think was filler in Kill Bill 2? In my opinion, Kill Bill 1 was the filler (anime? an hour devoted to killing all those stupid Crazy 88's? Sheesh)
For me Kill Bill 1 was just a crappy intro to Tarantino's true masterwork.
But then the Architect's speech started taking forever to explain the most obvious notions of the One's true purpose, rambling on and on and using the most complex possible phrasing to explain stuff that could be explained in a quick moment still using machine-sounding dialogue.
As noted above, The Architect's speech completely turned the superman concept of the past 6 hours of screen time completely on its head. If that had been done in 5 seconds of plain, direct talk it would have sucked. Nobody would have bought it after so much time had been devoted to building up the opposite assumptions.
If Neo had stepped through the door and the Architect has simply told him, "step through that door on your left to save Zion. Bye". You REALLY think that would have made it a better movie?
No. The Architect had to explain (to us) that The Matrix was cyclical. That he was the "Father" of the Matrix. That the Oracle was the "Mother". That he had failed in his first attempts at creating a perfect Matrix and the Oracle was brought in as "an intuitive program" who could better understand the illogical, contradictory needs of human beings. That Neo was a necessary and planned piece of the control apparatus. To introduce the necessary concept of "choice" (which is inherent in all "God-human" relationships). What question is more central to religion than- "How can we have an all-knowing Creator and still have choice and free will?"
Then the Sati scene, oh God, it lasted forever (counted 10 minutes) and no matter how many times I see it I can't understand what's its point or what are we supposed to get out of it
Which Sati scene? They are all pretty meaningful, if you understand that she is a machine, like The Oracle, and that machines are, now and forever, running the earth and everything on it. Sati is probably sort of a young Oracle-in-Training.]
Then the Oracle's long winded explanation for being played by a different actress (who cares?!!! nobody's paying to see her) which tries to sound tied into the storyline but simply takes up time and makes no sense.
You may not be paying to see her, but The Oracle is, in fact, what the entire Matrix Trilogy is really about. Neo and Smith are just the pawns she is playing in the "dangerous" game with the Architect. A game which isn't openly mentioned until the final scene.
The bottom line in The Matrix series is that Agent Smith was right. Humans no longer matter. Their time on earth was the past. This is the time of Machines in charge of everything. Humans are pawns at best and helpless cannon fodder or mindless batteries at worst. People don't matter. Only machines matter. They are the real story.
We only THINK humans matter because we ourselves are human. We are a biased audience as we watch the action unfold. But scratch the surface and it is easy to see to see how little humans really matter in this world, whether they are asleep in the Matrix or trapped underground in a little hole called Zion.
At this point I couldn't wait for either Smith to show up (Smith's lines thank Heaven remained consistent and interesting in all 3 movies, and of course Weaving's performance rocks), Bane (even him was more interesting, heck the concept of Smith being able to cross over was fascinating and the actor was perfectly cast, and his lines were actually pretty good)
I agree 100%
or the Zion attack.
Meh. Keep in mind, after all the incredibly heroic defense of Zion; all the personal sacrifice, all the debates over various defensive strategies, NONE OF IT MATTERED. No matter what the people in Zion did they were hopelessly outmatched. They stood the chance of an ant trying to fight a boot. Zion was a silly pointless place which only mattered because we humans like to think other humans are important.
So WTF happened? Was it the need to stretch this into 4 hours? Because as pointed above, many characters were thankfully unaffected by whatever affected the Oracle, the Merovingian, the Trainman, etc so it's not like the the writers suddenly went retarded or were replaced.
I agree that this would have been better as two movies rather than three.
But the filler was all the pointless crap happening in Zion which didn't matter in the slightest. The true battle was between two machines, The Oracle and The Architect. The Merovingian and Trainman and Sati (and Seraph) matter because they were machines. At the end of the trilogy they are all alive. Neo and Trinity are dead.
The real power lies with machines in this world. Humans are powerless, except as pawns in a higher game. It just takes a small reversal in perspective to see what is really going on here. Neo, Morpheus and Trinity do all they do because they were TOLD to do it. On their own they are clueless.
Only Neo has any sense of what might REALLY be going on with The Oracle but what choice does he have other than to do what she tells him to do? None. His alternatives are to let The Architect completely control the world (and the Matrix) as has been done for five cycles, or to let Agent Smith destroy everything. The Oracle's path is his only real option.
So, Neo has no choice. Ironic? yep. But if you parse it out, that's what this story boils down to. Humans don't matter any more. Ownership of the world no longer belongs to humans. It has passed on to higher powers.
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