The Philosophy (and Review) of The Matrix Resurrections

The Matrix Resurrections will certainly go down as the weakest entry in the franchise, probably, for several reasons: There isn’t much philosophy (no wtf mindbenders), too much time is spent on Neo’s life dealing with suppressed memories, too much nostalgia, action sequences that are lacking and when they aren’t it’s actually too much, some rather large plot holes, and Agent Smith’s ultimately trivial role in Neo, Trinity, and Smith’s, um, trinity.

 

To make a long story short, the story revolves around Neo regaining his memories after having them suppressed after the machines resurrect him and Trinity (following the events of The Matrix Revolutions) in order to harvest the unique energy the two have together. Once Neo is free of the Matrix, he must re-enter the program to save Trinity. Lots of kung fu and gunfire ensues.

 

What does the movie get right? Neil Patrick Harris’ role is a delight and the fight between Neo and Smith in the basement is actual pretty good once Smith starts spewing the details. What the movie also gets right is in casting cynicism on the modern age. Whereas the previous movies took it as a given that a good percentage of enslaved human beings would rather subject themselves to the truth than live a comfortable lie, Resurrections does an about face, acknowledging the comfort our digital distractions have provided to make our enslaved live more tolerable. Whereas the previous iteration of Morpheus championed freedom of choice (which was acknowledged as a problem by the Architect), the new Morpheus highlights time and again that choice is an illusion. Interestingly, no one seems to mind. The movie doesn’t run with this theme though and chooses (!) to focus on the power of love in overcoming the powers-that-be. Thus, the spirit of the original trilogy is found wanting.

 

The Matrix Resurrection still makes a good point here, one that can been seen quite readily in American culture, from politics to entertainment. As the Analyst says in the new movie, “[People] don’t want freedom or empowerment. They want to be controlled. They crave the comfort of certainty.” He also says to Neo, “Do you know that hope and despair are nearly identical is code?” implying that a little bit of hope mixed with a little bit of despair is perfect for controlling people’s illusions. This is exactly the state of the U.S. right now as the furthest Left fringes of American culture battle the furthest elements of the Right. This culture war in the U.S. is all or nothing, fully binary, ones and zeros just like in the Matrix.

 

Neither side will admit to being controlled, though, as both fringes operate solely on emotion and cannot be reasoned with. When this is the case it is easy – with tools such as the internet – to trap people in an echo chamber from which they don’t want to escape because to do otherwise would be psychologically uncomfortable. Confirmation bias is a tool of control.

 

Another point made be Resurrections which goes hand-in-hand with the other message: So what if the Matrix isn’t real? Our realities are fictions we’ve created out of (faulty) memories. It doesn’t matter if we’re trapped in a fiction because we’re trapped in a fiction no matter what. Our minds are not capable of capturing all of reality. Nor are memories reliable, which is troubling since our behaviors are as largely derived from our history as our biology. In fact, every time we recall a memory it becomes destabilized within our wet-work and becomes prone to error. It should be alarming that eyewitness testimony is allowed in court knowing what we know about how memories work and how prone they are to influence. Being that we can’t trust our memories, we’re forced to make up narratives that provide the illusion of mental stability, because to admit you’re insane typically gets you physically restrained in some manner or at least cast out of society. So, you might as well choose a fiction that is most comforting to you so long as your basic freedom and social needs are met.

 

Even knowing all this, too many people insist on championing ‘the truth.’ Anyone peddling ‘the truth’ is either an egomaniac or trying to get something from you. Why did Neo want to know the truth? To quench his desire for special knowledge. Why did Morpheus need to point out the truth to Neo? Because Morpheus thought Neo could save humanity. Why are religious zealots always trying to convert you? Because they seek power and control. No religious zealot knocks on your door or flies planes into buildings for the sake of the truth. People pay a great deal of lip service to the truth but this often seems to be another tool of manipulation. It has to be because unless we’re talking mathematics there is no truth. All we have are interpretations of perceptions. Seriously ask yourself why the truth matters. It might matter whereas our actual survival is at stake (man-eating lion = dangerous) but how often is our literal survival threatened on a daily basis?

 

It appears large swaths of human civilization don’t want freedom and don’t want reality. If they wanted freedom, they wouldn’t suffer the constant and often successful attempts to control them. Even couples wouldn’t marry if they wanted freedom as long-term marriages (in the modern world) require compromise to be successful. People don’t want reality either, as evidenced by the acceptance of outright lies and love of fantastical stories. There are so many ways in which we are not free and so many ways in which we ignore reality. Question yourself as to why you’ve accepted this and only then can you begin to grasp the fundamentals, they only truths to be had.

 

The Matrix Resurrections won’t go down in cinematic history as one of the greatest movies ever, or maybe it will. It depends on what we want to believe.  If it is what we want to believe, it doesn’t really matter if its actually true or not. No one’s survival depends on it. In the case of the Matrix, the people enslaved in it are arguably better off staying where they are.

What is Art?

Art.

What is art? You’ve probably been told that this is a difficult question. The word ‘art’ is so broad in scope that it might as well be synonymous with the word ‘love’ whose definition is so vague as to be almost meaningless. Words that are too broad in scope are not words at all, but mere utterances aimed at conveying gross approximation. This problem of definitions plagues every language besides mathematics it seems, and so it must be up to someone to remedy this situation if it is to ever be known what anyone is talking about. I will now attempt the seemingly impossible given that there appears to be no objective basis for what is considered art. I will attempt to be objective and therefore come to a reasonable conclusion.

What is art? There must be criteria met for something to be considered art. We cannot, for the sake of definitions, rely solely upon subjective judgement calls such as “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” Again, generalities only confuse the issue. And so, I have arrived at several criteria to determine if something is art and I do admit this list may not be exhaustive. However, the criteria I think are reasonable. In thinking about the criteria, I will analyze it from the perspective of having experienced an oil painting. Though the criteria should apply to all forms of art (or what is assumed to be an art form), I think it easiest to think about our criteria as it applies to paintings.

What are the criteria?

First, and perhaps most importantly, art must invoke an emotion in someone besides the artist. (No one considering themselves an artist would produce something they think should be a called art without being passionate about the work, so they are disqualified from figuring into this criteria.) If a piece of art can elicit an emotion from at least one subject, the work is on its way to being considered art. Thus, the more people the work elicits emotion in, the more confident we can be in proclaiming something ‘art.’ However, there is a very important caveats to this first criteria.

The emotion elicited must be what the artist had intended to convey. An ‘artist’ who suggests that their painting is going to mean different things to different people has created something that merely speaks to the relative freedom a society may posses and not to human nature, where human nature is something that changes very little over time whereas societies change very quickly by comparison. Thus, a painting can have its meaning, it’s eliciting emotion fixed in perpetuity if it renders the same emotion in someone decades in the future as it does when it is first presented, though, we do have to allow for the context of the art’s time and place of creation. (For example, there is no doubt – bear with me – much Nazi propaganda that could be considered art despite how we may presently feel about WWII-era Naziism. Such art, through the lens of being a German nationalist circa the year 1939, would likely make us feel patriotic, as it’s creator intended.) A painting that conveys something entirely other than what the artist had in mind is not art. Remember, the definition of art cannot be left solely up to subjectivity or the word is, for all intents and purposes, useless. Ultimately, not only does the work have to elicit an intended response, that response must be maintained despite the passage of time and culture.

Of course, a reasonable objection is what if the artist’s intentions are unknown? At a minimum, an emotion has to be elicited and the response must be fairly universal* among those experiencing the work. Again, the emotional response cannot be broadly subjective. Ambiguity or vagueness is not the point of art; these words mean something is not being communicated clearly enough.

[Meaning, more often than not.]

It should be obvious that various emotions can be the intended response to a work of art, however, something like a painting doesn’t have to convey a strict message. To paraphrase Youtube user, Spoudaois, art can [also] be produced to create an aesthetic as something interesting or that enhances a mood, or as something complimentary to its surroundings (but also be able to be considered art on its own merit). I am in agreement with this assessment because it segues nicely towards the next criteria – purpose. What is the work’s purpose; what does the art do for the consumer of the art?

Probably not art.

If the art in question was created for the sake of an artist’s therapy, as something they simply had to get out of their system least they be driven mad, this is not art. Certainly the act of creation can be therapeutic, however, an artist cannot accurately gauge their work any more than a given person can accurately assess their own intelligence. The person experiencing a painting must be able to say, “Ah, this is what the art does,” and can go on to explain. If a painting does nothing, say, is a canvas painted white and without so much as texture among its characteristics, this would have no purpose in an all-white room and merely wastes the observer’s time.

At this point, we might raise the objection that what if this was the artist’s purpose, for their all-white painting in an all-white room to elicit frustration or anger at the observer’s time being wasted? (And perhaps also among the artist’s intent was for this to be a metaphor for the time we all waste in our lives?) This brings us to our last criteria, that a work of art is not something the average citizen can create. Anyone can create an all-white painting. This ability does not render one an ‘artist.’

An artist is one who displays talent not possessed by the population at large in much the same way the general population is unable to play professional-level basketball. For example, if a painter renders a near-lifelike portrait with charcoal, they possess talent that most others do not. Moreover, in much the same way as the professional basketball player, it does not matter if this talent is the result of innate ability or deep learning the average person in not amenable to; it is the ability itself that counts. Art is the result of an ability to produce it.

It might be argued here that artificial intelligence could produce a work of art free of human interference. However, the A.I. relied on human interference to exist in the first place and cannot operate outside of the parameters programmed into it. Nor does A.I. actually know what effort or ability is; it merely does what is asked of it. Currently, no ‘thinking’ machine wakes up in the morning and decides it is going to paint that day when it has the option not to, nor can it decide what mediums to use. In a vaguely similar vein, we should not consider a good deal of graphic design art ‘art’ either, as much of this work can be reproduced by the average citizen with relatively minimal software training. (This is not to say talented graphic artists do not exist, though.)

To recap the criteria, a work of art must:

·        * Eliciting an emotion from its consumer and be able to convey the message the artist intended [or]

·        * Produce an aesthetic, that is, enhancing or creating a mood, or act as something complimentary to its environment;

·        *Have a purpose which in brevity should be captured within the previous criteria;

·        * Be the result of talent that the average person does not and likely cannot possess.

With these criteria in mind, we can likely dismiss much of what is currently considered art and regulate it to the bin of well-intentioned but futile attempts. It’s not that we should be snobs about art, rather, we should simply have higher standards for both art and definitions. Otherwise, we’re as lowbrow as the art we think is admirable. 

Computer generated 'art.'

I Watched It So You Don't Have to: Jupiter Ascending

When you find yourself thinking that a dastardly one-dimension, 7-foot tall lizard who wears a trench coat is the best thing about a movie, you start thinking you’ve just seen one of the worst movies ever made.

If you were to take your time trying to explain everything wrong with the Wachowski Brother’s 2015 movie Jupiter Ascending, you would likely miss out on some of life’s equally torturous experiences, such as having your perfectly healthy teeth yanked out with rusty pliers. Jupiter Ascending’s basic plot revolves around a destitute young woman who doesn’t know she is royalty (thanks to the configuration of her DNA) and her scheming space-family who all want her inheritance, the Earth, for themselves. With a huge budget, the movie attempts everything including the kitchen sink; nothing is spared in an effort to cram everything into a movie: In short, if you were to take Cinderella and Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix, Guardian of the Galaxy, Gravity – basically every other sci-fi movie ever – and put it in a blender, Jupiter Ascending would come out. Unsuprisingly, everything gets lost in the mix. The casting is questionable, the acting is terrible, the plot barely coherent, the visuals (generally agreed by critics to be stunning are in fact) too far over the top and OH my GOD THE sound EDITING! Fire that guy!!

I’ll begin with the plot holes simply because I have to start somewhere and they are something that for me is incredibly distracting. Most notably, Channing Tatum’s character’s past reveals that he was alleviated of his (literal) wings for attacking a member of the royal family, but we never find out why he did it. If you’re Kunis’ Jupiter, who is royalty, you might want to know what exactly happened instead of falling for this alien who is essentially a wolf-like space stripper with Spock ears. In another instance, Mila Kunis’ character is attacked in her apartment by silly little aliens looking to kill her, yet they don’t actually do it and instead opt to ‘wipe’ her memory. Wtf? Worse, the same aliens erase her memory of them being in her apartment but are so incompetent that they leave her with a picture of them on her smart phone. Then there’s half of Chicago getting blown up when the villains are chasing down Channing and Kunis, but this is explained away as Channing says the aliens will ‘wipe’ everyone’s memory and although some people will remember what happened, no one will believe those people. Meanwhile, everyone else in the city has no memory as to why half the city is blown up! And if you add in the assumption that some people would have videoed the battle and the aliens don’t have the sense to erase data on smart phone, well, you see why this is a plot hole. (I would also like to add that the 8-minute long battle over the skies of Chicago feels much like watching your friend play a first-person shooter game while you eagerly wait your turn. Of course, you never get to play.)

As far as casting is concerned, the movie might as well have been cast by a deaf and blind mute. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter (“Just call me Jupe,” she says to her subjects upon discovering she’s royalty. REALLY?), a down on her luck 20-something who wishes she was royalty and then discovers she’s royalty. Naturally, upon discovering she owns the entire friggin’ Earth, doesn’t want the responsibility and really just wants to go back to her family of poor Russian immigrant stereo-types. Unfortunately, Kunis cannot act worth a lick, making the far-fetched Cinderella plot device all the worse. Meanwhile, Channing Tatum reluctantly plays Caine, a half-wolf ex-space marine bad-ass hoping to redeem himself and get his feathery Victoria’s Secret angel wings back despite wearing a pair of gravity-defying roller skates that would seem to be more handy. There is no denying Channing was simply picking up a paycheck with this movie as he waited for the Magic Mike sequel to go into production. Then there’s Sean Bean cast as Caine’s mumbling father figure while Eddie Redmayne plays the evil Balem Abrasax, a character even more mumbly than Sean Bean who occasionally musters enough strength to scream, “Kill her!” The rest of the cast is ancillary, whose careers are probably over after appearing in this movie.

Then there’s the visuals. Are they good? Frankly, they’re too good in that there is often so much going on on the screen at times that you can possibly process it all. The visuals then were perhaps a means of distracting viewers from the movie’s attempt to critique capitalism but for which it offers no solution. Cue the scene of Kunis navigating the space-DMV in order to claim her inheritance with help of a roboticly gay assistant. Groan.

“Ambitious failure is at least worth talking about,” says critic Martin Roberts. He is right; Jupiter Ascending qualifies as a movie so bad that it is good, insofar as one can enjoy the movie on a comical level, mocking the movie’s poor execution despite the honorable intentions of the movie’s producers. You clearly get the sense that the Wachowski Brother’s thought they had a good story on their hands but once the movie went into production, it seems as though they saw how bad it was going to turn out but had already crossed the point-of-no-return and therefore had to finish production. This ‘fact’ is no more evident than in the dialogue, which seems at times written by complete strangers who didn’t bother to communicate with each other about what the characters in the movie were saying to each other, much less how they were saying it.

All of this is a shame as the underlying premise, the very reason Earth is at risk, is actually somewhat interesting: The planet is just one among thousands in which its inhabitants are ‘harvested’ to produce a life-extending drug for the alien royalty. It’s a good enough premise to construct a story around, so perhaps the remake in five or so years will be better. But that movie would have to be because when your expectations are low, you have nowhere to go but up. And that is how anyone with the guts to sit through this movie should approach this cinematic Titanic.