Now, before you say to yourself 'That's it, Frank's popped his cork...", stop and understand what I'm talking about. I'm not turning into some way-over-the-top fanboy with a crackpot "proof" that it's real or something, or some deep meaningful rationale for the symbolism within. What I mean is that I now understand what they were trying to do with the series and why they fucked it up so badly.
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Before going further, let me just take a step back. Now I'll take a step forward. Now a step back...and a step forward...and now we're doing the cha-cha. OK, that was silly. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, taking a step back.
I almost didn't post all this, because I know there are a few of you out there who absolutely loved the Matrix films, and who, I'm sure, would like to take me to task for saying that they were fundamentally flawed. However, I rarely let that be a reason to back down, so I'm going ahead with it. You guys are welcome to tell me I'm bad for saying bad things about the Matrix series, provided you understand that you are wrong.
For telling me I'm bad, I mean, not for your opinion...hey, I support that. ;)
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Now then, the discussion I had was about how some of these J-horror (if you'll excuse the term) flicks seem to make no real sense, or at the very least, leave a lot explained.
Well, you also gotta figure that there's a sequel [to the film we were discussing](either out or about to be), which supposedly helps explain a lot of the stuff there which defied both standard storytelling mores and culture gaps. J-horror is well known for this sort of thing...the film and subsequent sequels mesh together nicely, but oftentimes do not do much exposition between them...unless you see the whole of a series, you end up wondering what the bloody hell is going on.Now, doesn't that make sense? Kinda makes you want to ask them if they are big J-horror fans.
Works both ways, too. The second film of a series rarely does much spoonfed plot exposition, recapping the first film...but at the same time, the first film rarely explains everything, as it's partly setting up the second film. It's a technique that the Japanese have been using for a while now, and doing OK with, but which the Wachowski brothers (or should i say, Wachowski brother-and-sister team) screwed up, with the Matrix flicks (in my opinion, anyway).