this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 73 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I still can't believe The Matrix is from '99. The themes and the effects hold up incredibly well, it feels far more modern.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 35 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I strongly disagree, Matrix was very much a product of its time, if it had released a decade before or a decade after it would not have had the same impact.

In the 80s as a general rule people didn't know of the internet nor were they very computer savvy.

In the late 00s cellphones started to be ubiquitous and people were using broadband almost exclusively.

So there was only a small period of time when people were familiar with the idea of telephone lines carrying data, which is a core concept of the movie (exiting the Matrix through your cellphone or laptop is a lot less cool and less prone to plot hooks).

Not to mention that the 90s were extremely gothic and grimdark about the future. I don't think a movie that the base premise is in the future humans are enslaved to machines and hooked to a large simulation to keep them from realizing they're slaves would work in any time period besides the 90s.

[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's for sure a product of its time, but it really doesn't feel like a 1999 movie. Around that time we had

  • Sixth sense
  • American beauty
  • Eyes wide shut
  • Being John Malkovich
  • Fight Club

Matrix has such a stark level of visual and thematic modernity compared to those. Maybe Fight Club comes near, but the other movies look like they're from a different decade.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 9 points 3 weeks ago

Matrix is a "work sucks" movie the same way that "American Beauty", "Fight Club", and "Office Space" was. It is a very 1999 movie.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There was also that short sliver of the late 90s through early 2000s where the slick black trenchcoat and sunglasses look was considered unironically cool.

The Matrix, Blade, Underworld, and Equilibrium all being in this era. Any movie where characters dress like this to be cool and it isn't treated with at least a wink to the audience probably either came from this time or is a sequel to something from this time.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That look become uncool 2-seconds after the Columbine shooting.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

I'd think so too, but Columbine shooting was 1999. Movies still used it unironically for another few years. In media I think it mostly went away because it got parodied to death.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

Agreed with all that, but still, don't forget how mind blowing it was in 1999. One of the only movies I ever saw twice in the theaters, two nights in a row even.

Even the trailers were wild. First time we saw one in the theater my gf and I looked at each other like, "What the fuck was that all about?!"

The Matrix was to science fiction in 1999 about what Star Wars was in 1977, so far ahead of the game it was like nothing before it.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

It was from the era when choreography mattered. You could roll through an entire fight scene and see what every punch was supposed to be doing. You had some situational awareness where everyone was.

Now we keep getting that stupid crap where they're changing the scene every punch, with so many scenes per second that you can't follow through, actually just like the fight scenes and matrix 4.