Matrix Revolutions: The Epic Edition

The first Matrix was a fantastic, game-changing film, and I don't envy the Wachowskis the difficult task of creating two sequels to such an influential piece of art. While almost any sequel would fall short of the first, the result was two overlong, self-important action/war films that failed to bring enough new ideas to the table to justify the effort.

This edit gets a lot right in condensing the narrative into a single 3 hour epic. The new plot is relatively easy to follow, it includes much of the good and discards a lot of the bad.

Unfortunately, the very simplicity of the new narrative turns out to be this edit's greatest weakness.

Spoilers Begin

The first 2/3 of the edit essentially tell a condensed version of Reloaded, but without the Architect waiting at the end. Instead, when Neo enters the door he goes immediately to the machine city. This allows for an extremely condensed version of Revolutions, but because it skips the 'twist' that Neo was never intended as the chosen one, Neo never has to make a meaningful choice in the edit. He begins the story believing that he is the chosen one, and follows the Oracle's directions to save Zion. His defeat of Smith occurs the same way it does in the first film - he destroys Smith from the inside with his 'chosen one' powers, presumably, since we do not see the Machine God aid in Smith's destruction.

Spoilers End

In short, while this is a good 'action movie' cut of the Matrix sequels, it loses too much of Reloaded and Revolutions to replace them in my viewing.

It is a bold and confident step to refuse to tell us what changes have been made in this Matrix edit, but I put my trust in GeminiGod and set aside three hours to see if the ‘Epic Edition’ meets its highly ambitious goals. While this is certainly a project which has received a lot of effort and is a display of some impressive technical skills, on the whole I feel it loses its way as much as the other Matrix sequel edits that I have viewed.

The Good
- In general, the trimming down of the films is good, I particularly enjoyed the first hour which was a finer version of Reloaded.
- The added scenes, though noticable, are still impressive.
- The inclusion of the two animatrix films is an excellent choice and perfectly sets oneself up for an epic Matrix experience.

The downfall however, is the narrative. It isn’t easy to blend two films or to reshape the plot as much as GeminiGod has attempted, and again for the first hour it mostly holds together. But towards the middle, things get shaky.

It is not clear how Neo and Morpheus find the Meriovingian so quickly, but this can be assumed by the audience. However, immediately following that scene, Neo meets the Oracle for a second time (taken from the second film): the fact that he knows where she is undermines the film’s plot so far – everybody disobeyed direct orders simply awaiting word from the oracle, Neo must then pass a test simply to be taken to her, after which she dissapears again. The conversation which they have does not make much sense in the context of its new place. The Smith subplot now feels rushed and does not feel like the logical conclusion to Neo’s journey (because it isn’t). The squeezing together of the two films makes an already convoluted plot even weaker – look at the ships for example. As the films begins, Ship #1 The Nebucaneza returns, but ship #2 waits for the Oracle. Ship #2 returns, so #1 leaves with ships #3 and #4. Ship #3 gets blown up, then ship #1 is also blown up, at which point ship #5 turns up and takes the crew of ship #1 to find ship #4. Five ships with no characterisation of the crews is too many but at least over the course of two movies they progress the plot, here the flaws of the sequels are highlighted rather than reduced. Similarly, the inclusion of every Neo fight scene from the movies means we spend most of the time watching him engage in pointless fights (agents, to seriphim, to smith, to meriovingian guards, to smith again). Finally, the inclusion of Sati, and the Architect at the end doesn’t make much sense. Sati may have been hard to edit out, but the use of the Architect would be plain confusing to somebody who had not seen the original, not to mention his dialogue with the Oracle doesn’t really work without the plot developments cut from this edit.

On the plus side, the Epic Edition did remind me how much I enjoy the sequels in spite of their obvious flaws, but the films are designed to be separate. Putting the films focus on Zion is a good idea, and it works for the first half, but by the second half the edit is trying to be something which the source material does not allow.

I do not mean to put down a labour of love, and my review is only harsh due to my ridiculously high standards; for me a true fanedit is one that manages to improve on the original film – a feat in itself – and can be viewed with absolutely no knowledge that it is an edit (for example, Star Wars Revisited, Black Knight Rises, Spiderman Redemption). There are some good ideas here, and some very high quality editing, but the final product isn’t for me.

Overall ratings
DVD menu: 8/10 simple, with excellent selection of shorts.
Sound 6/10 the dialogue is very quiet and the action is far too loud, although this might be simply from the original. I did find myself having to constantly change the volume while watching.
Narrative 6/10
Editing 8/10 (a few technical errors)

Review by gugliemo — June 24, 2011 @ 4:23 AM

Geminigod,

Much much better than the originals. First I want to say that it is technically near flawless.

What I like:
1. With the new Oracle being brought in quicker, it does flow with the movie quite a bit more
2. The dance sequence is there, but cut to bare minimum so that it makes sense and the audience can stand it
3. Glad to see Smith not being able to come out of the Matrix and getting rid of Neo having powers out of the matrix.

My one compliant:
I have never been a fan of the first Neo vs Smith fight (CGI wise it’s horrid and it runs too long) ….. so personally I would have went directly from the Oracle talking to the Merovingian’s place. I think cutting this action sequence also makes the action Sequence at the Merovingian’s Manor and the Car chase better.

Iffy about:
1. I have never been a fan of the original ending, always felt it should have ended at Morpheus’s scene.
2. I do agree that there is technical end to Neo and Trinity’s part in the movie and that feels missing.

Definite 8/10

Review by revel911 — June 10, 2011 @ 6:01 PM