Matrix Revolutions Decoded, The

An amazing edit.

As decent as the story of the first film is, it is (by and large) an introduction to the main story. The fact that we don't even see Zion in the first movie at all is telling, and after rewatching it before this movie it felt more like a TV pilot than ever before. When The Matrix ends, the story is just getting started.

The problem is where it went from there. The story of Reloaded has its moments, but was bogged down in mumbo-jumbo and a way too complex structure for its own good. Revolutions is terrible in almost every respect, and all the central parts - the Messiah story, the war movie, and Bane - are uniformy awful.

Although this is a really radical edit (Bane removed, and a completely different ending), it still stays true to the movies' main stories, apart from the vastly superior new ending. Despite cutting most of the war movie snoozefest, it's still recognisably about the attack on Zion. The fact that so much deadweight can be cut without creating continuity errors or plot holes, is a testament to how padded the story was with badly written stereotypes we were supposed to care about.

I probably enjoyed The Matrix DeZionized as much as I enjoyed this, for the simple reason that Zion is just not enjoyable in any form, not even with the deadweight removed. This edit, however, makes a lot more sense as a film, and is easily the better edit overall. It's as good as this extremely flawed story can get.

I'm very impressed over all. I think the changes are great. I watched this with a few people and only one friend who is basically a matrix purest was disappointed with the end.
I thought down playing the martyr / messiah thing was great.
I hadn't seen the originals in a while so I was a little rusty watching this, which made the movie a little harder to follow. I think if you just saw the first movie and watched this you'd be a little lost, but you'd get there in the end.
The pacing is great, very fast and fluid.
I thought the use of the rave at the end made much more sense.
I thought keeping Trinity alive was a bit tricky but you pulled it off well. It does get visually a little awkward but overall if I wasn't looking for cuts and "mistakes" and was just watching this like a Hollywood movie I might not have noticed all.

I very much enjoyed this version of the Matrix parts II and III. The editing is perfect, except for a bit at the end. The narrative works great. I felt Dezionized went too far, Zion is a good part of the story. Eliminating Neo's power over the machines in the real world seems like a much more precise diagnoses of what was wrong with the originals.

Now to some nitpicking. The "your move" line makes no sense, as the next scene in Zion shows the machines about to enter the cave and wipe everyone out. The problem is we have no machine drills. Even if we did, they would obviously have spares. I'd simply eliminate that line.

I like keeping Trinity alive and eliminating Bane or whatever his name was. Terrible thing in the original, that role. Of course, it gets a bit awkward with the narrative and the editing in machine city. But I'll take it.

Very happy with all the creative choices made, overall, maybe I would have liked to keep the night club scene, which I enjoyed. But all the trainman stuff had to go and if that was the price to pay, so be it.

This was a sensational edit, condensing a sound portion of the second movie, and tightening up the muddled third act, rearranging key scenes and stumbling on very creative solutions to what would normally be narrative dead-ends (how to blind Neo without a struggle with Bane) , to create a very different and tighter sequel worthy of the Matrix's initial promise with fans.

As a fan of this Trilogy since childhood I strongly suggest this edit. This edit provides more of a cohesive story with improved pacing which is far more satisfying way to end the saga and proves that the WB shouldn't have spit the conclusion into 2 movies.