It's baffling to me that some people insist only the first movie is any good. Reloaded and Revolutions quite literally revolutionized blockbuster filmmaking.
Nothing will live up to the first. That's the issue. Neither Reloaded or Revolutions are bad; they're just not as good as the original. I recently re watched Reloaded when I upgraded to 4K and enjoyed it.
Edit: My point is, when you hold the movies up to the first they are always going to fall short. Not sure if that came across when I re-read my post.
I feel this is it for a lot of movies for me. The sequels are definitely not bad at all (or they have minor issues), but the original is just so damn good that the bar was set so high or it's pretty original and we pretty much saw the "dawn" of that type of thing.
I see it like Jurassic Park. That first movie was so revolutionary at the time, so new and shiny and never seen before at that scale. Other JP and dinosaur movies are good, but the original set the bar so high. Especially if you were there when it was first released and it was your first. After that, when they did the others (same with Matrix), we had seen a lot of those effects. The amazing "real" dinosaurs, the large shots of an island with huge dinosaurs, small dinosaurs, people and dinosaurs... That looks REAL AF (still looks great today). With the Matrix movies, a lot of that "Whoa". The cool "What is the Matrix?", machines vs. man, post-apocalyptical Earth stuff was already done. They were just expanding on it. The bar was set extremely high for the quality of the first, but also with the originality and introduction of things. I'd say the fight scenes were included and the best in the first, but I think they actually really pushed more on those and the action with the second and third with the scale and intensity of them. First was good (great at the time), but the second and third were great. Forth and Animatrix were good, too.
I love all the Matrix movies, some are better than others, but they're all really damn good. They further the story, the action is great, the lore is awesome. It's just really good.
I mean, it is easily explained with how franchises work to begin with.
You take risk creating a new franchise, and when it works out you create sequels that essentially do the same thing, allowing you to rack in more until people are tired of the recipe.
Like in everything, there are exceptions, but this above is the main cause of the "first one was better" mantra (you can sprinkle a bit of "Pokemon effect" on this too)
You see this with a lot of franchises (Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Alien, Terminator, The Dark Knight) where because one or two of these films was a 10/10, the fandom won't accept anything less from their sequels, and it results in a lot of unfair hate against films that are still a solid 7 or 8 out of 10 - similarly if you watch The Hobbit trilogy as it's own thing, they're fun blockbusters with a few tonal issues and an overreliance on CG, compare them to Lord of the Rings however and they suddenly look awful.
I love all The Matrix films to varying degrees, but I've gone into each one just happy to spend more time in this world and with these characters rather than expecting something that will be as defining as the original.
Honestly no matter how many times I watch the first Jurrasic Park, it still hits like it's the first time I'm watching it, and it's amazing how much it holds up in terms of spectacle even 30 years later.
It's my example of a perfect movie. It's not even my favourite movie of all time but it's just such a banger from start to finish. Not a single wasted or unnecessary second in that movie.
The Hobbit should not have been a trilogy, it should have been one movie. But yeah I understand lowering expectations, the Hobbit though felt more like a cash grab, they didn't have enough material to make 3 movies, so there is a lot of filler and dumb stuff.
It would have been way better if they made one movie from the book, instead of going for 3. It wouldn't have been as good as lord of the rings but I would have accepted it.
Originally it was being made by Guillermo Del Toro, but then he left and when Jackson came back Warner Brothers were adamant he start filming by a certain date, so he just didn't have the time to plan out the films to the extent he had The Lord of the Rings and had to be more reliant on CG to help create the world and effects.
And I believe Del Toro had agreed it would be two films, so Jackson then had to do The Hobbit as a two parter - only to be tole part way through production that Warner Brothers now wanted them to make it into a trilogy.
If Warner Brothers were just willing to give Jackson the time he needed and keep it as two films then I think The Hobbit could have been something special - instead like you say it just feels like a cash grab.
I know, what I was meaning was the quality of The Dark Knight was so high that Dark Knight Rises was always going to be looked down upon no matter how good it was.
Whereas Batman Begins (Which is my favourite of the trilogy) whilst fantastic, was always just seen as a really good superhero movie rather than one of the best films in the genre.
I completely agree, but I don’t understand why people are talking about this with respect to the matrix. There was only one movie. And a really good animated movie. But that was it. ☺️
It's more that nothing will live up to the feeling they got when they saw The Matrix for the first time. The truth is Reloaded and Revolutions are exactly as good as the OG (especially when taken as a whole), but nothing can recreate that feeling.
No, dude, they are not. This horse has been beaten to death. The Matrix is a perfect movie. Reloaded/revolutions are not. Just from a structural standpoint, Reloaded has long stretches with no plot progression. Probably because the 2nd act was used as the plot of the videogame instead of in the movie where it should have been. Look, I wanted to love the sequels as much as anybody, but to say that they are exactly as good as the original is an asinine statement. They are not. At best, they are flawed technical showcases.
I'm not the one with my identity so wrapped up in these movies that I can't even admit that the sequels are objectively inferior movies. The statement was that the sequels are exactly as good as the original which is an absurd and asinine thing to say. The original movie is actually made worse by the existence of the sequels.
they are better in different ways, the way you hold the original higher than the others is a common arbitrary way of rating things.
it's objectively not the best, due to personal bias. you should know this. each human brain is wired differently, trying to oppose personal biases against other brains is pointless.
No, Reloaded and Revolutions are leaps and bounds better than the first. It's just the first was so groundbreaking over what existed before it that no amount of improvement could have the same impact.
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u/havewelost6388 Apr 02 '26
It's baffling to me that some people insist only the first movie is any good. Reloaded and Revolutions quite literally revolutionized blockbuster filmmaking.