As stupid as the logic is in this one, I remember liking it because it was actually pretty exciting and action packed, in an era when the show was getting ridiculously stiff and stagey. Check out that two-parter about the weapon that kills you with negative emotions—the exciting action climax is everyone standing…

"Del beaucoup…bel doco…bucka…bogo vista!"

Hmmm, Hudson Hawk. Good comparison. Of course, I loved HH as a kid at least partly because it WAS so manic, so maybe that explains my affection for Smoochy as well.

The "phantasma" element is probably a factor, but to me it goes beyond the mere physical presence of the effect. There have been very well-done physical effects that aren't as creepy as some of the things you see in classic Doctor Who, or the baby in Eraserhead, or the mid-80s TVO series "Read All About It" with its…

So Susan does come back? I've always wondered about what happened there.

I think you're generalizing a bit too much, but yes, I do find it fascinating that it's possible to "use your imagination" on bad effects on old TV shows, and that the audience was regularly called upon to do so. The classic Daleks ARE a little creepy, even to me, born far too late to enjoy the original show on a…

I think the idea is that the First is literally everyone's evil side. That's why it doesn't have a personality of its own, it's just a mirror. Which makes it quite creepy at first, though they make the mistake of trying to embody it at one point, and they don't always follow through as well as they could. And let's…

Isn't "The Foundation" the one that features that moronic Loony Tunes sequence with Jerry chasing Newman around the building? Which…yeah. I felt my heart sinking when I saw that sequence. S8 and 9 do have their moments, but that was pretty much the point at which my expectations were adjusted downwards for the…

The funniest aspect of that is that Kramer obviously doesn't get Jerry's comedy at all. He specifically never mentions politics.

Characters behaving like allegories instead of people? Yep, it's an Andrew Niccol movie!

Prole Hole, I agree that the movies are often awkwardly executed as movies, though maybe not to the degree you indicate, but I was responding to your claim that the movies weren't clever and that the philosophy was just a "fig leaf". I think that the ideas and themes of these movies are quite well thought-through,…

Well hey, this is why I said I don't really understand Godel strings. I just know a few people mentioned them in conjunction with Neo when Reloaded came out. Thanks!

Yeah, I think if you need to sum up the big problem of the sequels it's that the Wachowskis were far more interested in the ideas than the narrative. However, I found the ideas fascinating, so to me they still mostly work.

Again, I disagree that it's "pseudo-profound", I think it's actually quite intelligent and well-realized (whether that's profound or not). You can argue that the talkiness makes for bad cinema and I won't disagree, but they weren't just throwing random words on the screen, they were carefully developing a thesis. See…

Oh definitely, there are some missteps in terms of rendering these ideas into an entertaining and coherent movie. But as I said elsewhere, you often see people stepping up to defend movies with great ideas but faulty execution, but with the Matrix sequels it seems like people won't give them an inch, refusing to…

Well, no, that's not correct. Two things happen to prevent the crash. One is that the humans and machines make peace, with the machines halting their destruction of Zion and entering a new paradigm whereby the humans are allowed to share some agency with the machines (it's not fleshed out in great detail, but it…

Noel did a pretty good job in the article, I thought, but OK, some thoughts:

I've got to say, it's really bizarre how consistently hateful the geek crowd is towards these movies. You'd think the sequels would at least rate a cadre of defenders (like myself) but they're few and far between. Most of the My Year of Flops movies can find a bunch of people willing to go to bat for them, but not…

Well, uh, yes, the Matrix isn't about orgies and underground raves. These people were outside the Matrix. That was the whole point.

This is a common criticism of the sequels—"Oh, they think they're so profound, but aren't"—and I find it lazy and knee-jerk. The Matrix movies as a whole are far more idea-driven and sophisticated than most movies I can think of, particularly big-budget SF blockbusters, yet for some reason that ambition gets them…