The main problem is they are leaning too hard into the spectacle and not putting enough into the story and characters that would make the movie appeal to a far wider audience. The Matrix is still a cultural icon because of a combination of awesome special effects, memorable characters, and creative scenes. The original Jurassic Park still stands out as one of the best movies ever made, because it has awesome special effects, memorable characters, and creative scenes.
That is also before the massively inflated budgets for the last two Tron movies. They could have saved a significant amount of money by cutting down some of the special effects fight and chase scenes and instead showing more character interactions to make those scenes memorable. The later Matrix movies fell into that trap too, but not to the same extent. I keep bringing up The Matrix because if someone asks “What was that series of movies where the people go into the computer and fight computer programs?” that vast majority of people are going to say The Matrix.
The matrix is a classic because it took a basic philosophical idea (Plato’s cave) and told an interesting story out of it. The visuals and zeitgeist are what took it from a nerd movie to one of the most iconic films ever made. The visual language of it is still used. A political movement over a decade after the movie came out named themselves after a scene in the movie. People still talk about the ideas behind it and will say they’ve “left the matrix” as a way of describing a less than zen “enlightenment”. By combining an idea the average person could get their head around, but might be a bit heady for some of them, and a modern for the time fear (these computers seem to be more and more controlling us rather than us controlling them) it got people discussing it and remembering it.
I’d argue the other Wachowski masterpiece, sense8, was also so good because it took philosophy 101 (you can only truly know yourself) and told a story around it (but what if some people could know each other as well as themselves), it just had the misfortune of being kinda boring for the first few hours.
I think a lot of screenwriters could take a hint from that. Rather than trying to just tell a story, try to write a story that is built on ideas that you want to talk about or have people talk about. Try to create a harmony of aesthetic and plot with the point. And producers need to not try to shove these stories into easily marketable shapes. No story is great without risking being bad
The main problem is they are leaning too hard into the spectacle and not putting enough into the story and characters that would make the movie appeal to a far wider audience. The Matrix is still a cultural icon because of a combination of awesome special effects, memorable characters, and creative scenes. The original Jurassic Park still stands out as one of the best movies ever made, because it has awesome special effects, memorable characters, and creative scenes.
That is also before the massively inflated budgets for the last two Tron movies. They could have saved a significant amount of money by cutting down some of the special effects fight and chase scenes and instead showing more character interactions to make those scenes memorable. The later Matrix movies fell into that trap too, but not to the same extent. I keep bringing up The Matrix because if someone asks “What was that series of movies where the people go into the computer and fight computer programs?” that vast majority of people are going to say The Matrix.
The matrix is a classic because it took a basic philosophical idea (Plato’s cave) and told an interesting story out of it. The visuals and zeitgeist are what took it from a nerd movie to one of the most iconic films ever made. The visual language of it is still used. A political movement over a decade after the movie came out named themselves after a scene in the movie. People still talk about the ideas behind it and will say they’ve “left the matrix” as a way of describing a less than zen “enlightenment”. By combining an idea the average person could get their head around, but might be a bit heady for some of them, and a modern for the time fear (these computers seem to be more and more controlling us rather than us controlling them) it got people discussing it and remembering it.
I’d argue the other Wachowski masterpiece, sense8, was also so good because it took philosophy 101 (you can only truly know yourself) and told a story around it (but what if some people could know each other as well as themselves), it just had the misfortune of being kinda boring for the first few hours.
I think a lot of screenwriters could take a hint from that. Rather than trying to just tell a story, try to write a story that is built on ideas that you want to talk about or have people talk about. Try to create a harmony of aesthetic and plot with the point. And producers need to not try to shove these stories into easily marketable shapes. No story is great without risking being bad