Successive reveals

[jack]

Often a plot has a structure like:

1. A hero triumphs over adversity with the virtue of some aspect of humanity, in contrast to the villain. Eg. love, free will, hope, etc, etc.

2. The villain reveals that actually he's been manipulating the hero all along, and actually the human virtue was a comfortable illusion.

3. The hero says, "actually, by SHEER FORCE OF WILL", I will ACTUALLY triumph using the virtue you despise, and does so.

Obviously many stories only do 1, and many stories only do 1 and 2. And sometimes it's not actually a virtue, it's just the hero thinks she knows what's going on, or that so-and-so is her friend, etc, and then the villain reveals that was all a plot, and then the hero suddenly puts all the red herrings together and figures out what's REALLY going on, or the spy decides they really DO want to be on the hero's side after pretending to be for 300 pages, or whatever.

It's possible to do this story very well, and represent an epic clash of philosophies in an action or detective story. For instance, (imho) Total Recall or Anthony Price both have reveals that go "this is what's going on, no wait THIS is what's going on", but both make more sense, both more sense as a coherent narrative, and more sense as a one-up triumph of the story's philosophical position.

However, many stories, even quite good stories, fuck it up. I think the pervasive problem is that for this to work, 1 has to be plausible, 2 has to make MORE sense, and 3 has to make EVEN MORE sense, either coherently, or thematically. However, audiences are trained by bad stories to gloss over inconsistencies, so when you reveal that #1 is incorrect, they may go "whu? I was supposed to spot that? I was too busy glossing it over, I thought I was supposed to".

I think the fundamental problem with the Matrix sequels is not that they outright suck, but they attempt to subvert the first film's comparatively straightforward "kung-fu good, virtual reality indistinguishable from reality, being enslaved even unknowingly bad" message with a lot of rambling nonsense based directly on the first film's weakest points (namely, why are we in the matrix in the first place). Investigating unresolved questions is good if you can make them clearer, but bad if you just draw attention to something everyone was happily suspending disbelief about. The rambling nonsense is not inherently a BAD theme, it's just that the films are much, much better setting up the message of the first film than that of the later ones, so it comes across not as clever, but as stupid.

I think this is why, after the second film, we still held out hope, because it raised interesting questions, but hated the third film, because it just confirmed everything we thought was stupid.

Comments

[lavendersparkle]

At the end of the second film I hoped that it was going to reveal that the 'real' world was just a second layer of the matrix to catch people who managed to escape the first layer, like when you realise that you're dreaming and try to wake up but you actually just dream that you've woken up (or am I the only person who does that?). That could be used to excuse the dodgy science in the first film and why Neo has power over the machines at the end of the second film. Then they'd be stuck down a rabbit whole of whether a reality outside of the matrix even existed.

I think I liked the the second and third films because they had more ambiguous mythic themes rather than the straight forward narrative of the first film. I didn't worry so much that the plot was more full of holes than a swiss cheese because I started treating it all a bit more like a David Lynch film. There may be internal logic to parts of the films and you can imagine there may be a whole load of meanings and explanations you're never privy to. That's OK, it's like life.

[jack]

I think my argument at the time was that when Neo exhibited his power over machines:

1. He couldn't actually have that power in the real world, because that would throw away the effort the first film went to to (imperfectly) explain why he had those powers in the matrix.

2. Zion couldn't be another layer of the matrix, because that would throw away the effort the first film went to explain the differences (or not) between the real world and the matrix: it would be interesting, but I think the audience would feel "ok, so why should I care" and just stop, if they can never know.

So, I deduced, Zion had been real, but at the end of the second film, Neo had not left the matrix. (After all, what better way to find stuff out from him than to stick him into a simulation of the real world?)

Of course, my analysis was completely wrong, because it relied on the second and third films NOT undermining the essential points of the first.

The reason I posted this is that as you say, I thought the basic elements of #2 and #3 were not bad, all the stuff the architect said was not a bad plot, but that it switched from "ok, pretend this all makes sense, gloss over the minor inconsistencies" to "it doesn't make any sense, just accept it as given", which is always a bad transition to make.

In the first film, you could at least try to guess what was going on. In the second film, I kept thinking things like "why should I believe the architect at all? they've obviously thrown away any pretence of being consistent, so I have to decide thematically if we're supposed to take that at face value (and then, why should we believe a word of it?) or if it's supposed to be a true exposition" which kind of ruins the suspension of disbelief.

[rysmiel]

I do not quite think it's doing that; I think what passes for 3 in the Matrix trilogy is actually something closer to an extension of 2, except for confusion as to precisely who the villain actually is.

I should just link to my posts on the whole trilogy, I think:

http://rysmiel.livejournal.com/147596.html
http://rysmiel.livejournal.com/147876.html
http://rysmiel.livejournal.com/149826.html

[jack]

Thank you. I skimmed the first one, that you linked to from liv's post, before writing this. I think you make some very good points, but don't agree with all of it.

I think what passes for 3 in the Matrix trilogy is actually something closer to an extension of 2, except for confusion as to precisely who the villain actually is.

I'm don't know if I follow. Maybe I should have included more examples in my original post for people to pick apart. What I'm thinking of is the confrontation with the architect. This seems to basically go:

Neo: I am so awesome, we're finally winning this war.
Architect: No, actually, I just made you think that. OK, now you know the true set-up, your only two options are...
Neo: Screw that. I stand by my awesomeness, I can reject you, and STILL save BOTH Trinity AND everyone else, even if you THINK you made up my awesomeness.

[rysmiel]

My argument would be that, in doing your 3 above, Neo still ends up doing exactly what the Architect and the Oracle together are playing him to do; their objective is to persuade the Deus Ex Machina to give the humans a chance at more interesting co-existence, for which they set up viral-Smith as the threat, in the later two films, and Neo both as the means to turn a regular agent into a viral threat, in the first film, and ultimately the means to overcome him in the third.

I may well be wrong, but I find the whole series as a skillful and well-depicted exercise in careful memetic manipulation of a not particularly bright Everyman quite a bit more satisfying than it being the hamfisted Hero's Journey retread it appears on the surface.

[jack]

Ah, I see. I agree if you can read the Oracle that way, then we're just talking about 1 and 2 (although I still think "make the second one better, not worse" applies to the revelation from 1 to 2).

I just didn't believe that stuff; I thought your version was possibly more interesting, but probably never intended by the creators. However, I should actually go back and watch the oracle scenes again and make sure.

[(Anonymous)]

That's my interpretation of the plot of the trilogy. I think the viral-Smith was more the Oracle's creation than the Architect because at the end of the third film there's a bit where the Architect tells the Oracle that she "played a dangerous game", which I took to refer to the Smith-virus.