Better Matrix Sequels

So, it's pretty much consensus that the Matrix Sequels (at least Revolutions) were complete garbage. What would need to happen for them to be good? The Wachowski's explained their intent with the sequels:

What we were trying to achieve with the story overall was a shift, the same kind of shift that happens for Neo, that Neo goes from being in this sort of cocooned and programmed world, to having to participate in the construction of meaning to his life. And we were like, ‘Well, can the audience go through the three movies and experience something similar to what the main character experiences?’

So the first movie is sort of classical in its approach, the second movie is deconstructionist and an assault on all the things you thought to be true in the first movie … and the third movie is the most ambiguous, because it asks you to actually participate in the construction of meaning.

So how can they make this work with the general consensus being TTL Matrix sequels were good?
 
well much much less pseudo-philosofical dialogue that you can't understand, less general apologism of terrorism...hem sorry radical freedom fighter, less rave-orgies (hell when i first see the movie i imaginated that the reason the machine attacked them was due to the level of noise they were making and due to the fact that the machine the next morning, unlike the ravers, need to go to work, they were seriously pissed off) and Trinity death scene much much shorter.
 
Matrix 1 ideas:
Instead of bodies being used for power, the brains are used for parallel processing. Ever had a migraine that just wouldn't go away?

or:

Machines do use humans for power.
Neo: "No, that is impossible. Everyone knows that."
Morpheus: "Where did you learn that?"
Neo: "At school, same as everyone else."
Morpheus: "Where did you learn that?"
Neo: (realizing) "In the matrix."
Morpheus: "Exactly. People have been lied to their entire life."


Matrix 2:
Less/shorter speeches

Burly brawl, where Neo has to deal with hundreds of Smiths: Have one of the Smiths assimilate that v2 agent, but then it begins copying that code to other Smiths, upgrading all of them. Neo has to leave as there are too many to deal with in upgraded mode.

Neo vs the Merovingian mooks: instead of just waving his hand to stop the bullets, he waves his hand, and turns the bullets back on the attackers. They hit, and the mooks go down, but then regenerate in various ways (vampire, werewolf, ghost, etc). Seeing that bullets have no effect Neo remarks "Looks like we gotta do this the hard way," and cue the melee dance fight.

Matrix 3:
Tanks and mobile gun platforms. Tanks are much tougher to take out, but slowly get immobilized due to all the Sentinels being destroyed. The mobile walkers remove the legs and replace it with a pair of treads. There is also armor plating for the operator so they don't get cut by flying debris. Have a comment about the tower utilizing jammers so the Sentinels can't fully coordinate.

Make Matrix 3 be inside another layer of Matrix. This explains why Neo was able to hack the Sentinels at the end of 2.

Comment at the end that humans need the machines to survive, and several of them go back to live in the Matrix, remote piloting drones in the real world to clean up the sky.
 
Matrix 1 ideas:
Instead of bodies being used for power, the brains are used for parallel processing. Ever had a migraine that just wouldn't go away?

As I understand it, that was the Wachowskis' original idea, but apparently some suit at Warner Roadshow either didn't understand it himself or didn't think the audience would understand it. (Neil Gaiman's prose story "Goliath", published on the official website and collected in The Matrix Comics volume 1, uses the parallel-processing idea.) Now you know, and knowing is half the Mandatory Education Content Segment (TM).
 
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Matrix 1 worked because it was cool and it stuck to tried and true Biblical allusions. Then they went all nutsy eastern and stuff, with lame sword fights and pseudo-deep speculation on crap. If they were going to make sequels, they should have realized that their post-modernist drivel was lame and simply just gone for blowing crap up and stuff like from the movie Inception that makes you think, but isn't making a serious philosophical statement.
 
A Darker, Ambiguous Ending

Matrix II: keep it very close to the actual movie, except the Merovingian has a longer speech with Neo towards the end of the castle scene involving inferences of who his 'predecessors' were...

Matrix III:
Neo remains trapped in the subway as before, aware that the battle is raging, he escapes later than in the movie but still manages to get to the One City as the machines are breaking Zion's defences. That is when things begin to turn...weird.

Neo notices that the city is not built in a manner consistent with the rest of the machine logic and has feelings of deja vu as he walks through it. He then jacks into the Matrix and begins to fight Smith as in the movie, at one point finding the same building where he was rescued. Smith grows angrier and angrier, but Neo continues to have feelings of deja vu. As he begins to question the environment and situation itself, he once again puts a hand in the mirror - this time intentionally. As he is consumed by the polymorphic silver, Smith walks over to him as 'reality' fades away.

We see an circular configuration of people laid out in front of computer terminals where Morpheus, Trinity and Smith (a husband and wife team), and others are arrayed in sensory deprivation tanks. The Merovingian and his wife are among them, as are a Neo is not among them - he is, in fact, the first artificially intelligent entity ever created. Morpheus then explains that there has, in fact, been a terrible conflict with a nuclear winter expected to last a generation or two and they need his help to survive. They though that by making him feel emotions and a dependence on the humans helping to 'evolve' his programming that he might feel a sense of obligation towards saving humanity. Six times they have tried to do this ('predecessors'), six times they have failed. Computers are needed to run the very complex fusion energy systems that remain in this future 100-150 years from now and this is their last effort. Every nation is represented in the team as broadcast, the reason most of the characters are of more equatorial appearance is because Europe, Russia, China, and Japan are essentially wastelands and the characters are all in a large underground facility near what was once New York City. The screen darkens as Neo ponders what to do next, while slowly putting on his sunglasses.
 

Angrybird

Banned
Make the Second Renaissance into a full movie - I once read that this had been the plan from the beginning.
 
  • Don't bloat the sequels with unnecessary, uninteresting characters. Merovingian? More like Meh-rovingian. Never understood why I should care about him, or the Keymaker, or any of the other weird people Neo met in the Matrix, or how giving someone a cake-induced orgaism is supposed to make a profound statement. I didn't care for the soap opera of Zion either and half the characters running around in that battle.
  • Don't try to sound all cool and mystical with the pseudo-philosophical babble that took up half of Reloaded and Revolutions. A much better ideological focal point would be paternalism vs. whatever the opposite of paternalism is - do they submit to the machines and continue with the Matrix, where they can have a fulfilling life even if it isn't 'real' by a certain metric, or do they keep fighting for their 'reality'?
  • Don't godmode Neo, make his opposition seem like a challenge (aside from Agent Smith, who was the only character who was done reasonably right in the sequels). Don't do shit like being able to resurrect Trinity "just because". Fridge her if that's what you want.
  • Have layered Matrixes. Have a happy ending, then kneecap it with the revelation that the "real" world was just another layer all along.
 
How about no sequels and let it stand alone?

By far the best option.

I've never seen Jaws 2 or anything that follows. I've read the book (rubbish) and I feel that Jaws should stand alone as a movie.

Same with the Matrix. It should have just stood alone. It worked perfectly without the sequels.
 
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