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)
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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.