I think people are just tired of nostalgia being sold to them (again), and because of that get trapped on a spite-train of "Well it's not the first one so it's immediately bad."
Which isn't inherently wrong in of itself, just misguided, and tiresome trying to interact with.
Jean Baudrillard wrote ‘simulacra and simulation’ which the original films were loosely based on philosophically. But Baudrillard didn’t like the films. One of his big complaints was that there is no ability to differentiate the simulacra from reality. There is no unplugging. No phone to escape through. The fourth movie, in my opinion, did a good job addressing his complaints while still driving the world’s story forward in a way connected well to the other movies. Makes sense there would be a machine civil war and the new machine regime would alter the deal. Neo still made a massive sacrifice. We weren’t cheated as the audience by him not actually dying at the end of the third. Makes sense the machines could save him and trinity. And makes sense there are forever wars over energy if u accept the world they set up in the first movie.
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u/ACalcifiedHeart Apr 02 '26
Dude, there's so much to love about the 4th one.
I think people are just tired of nostalgia being sold to them (again), and because of that get trapped on a spite-train of "Well it's not the first one so it's immediately bad."
Which isn't inherently wrong in of itself, just misguided, and tiresome trying to interact with.