@wolverinebatmanftw said:
@vishop_ said:
@wolverinebatmanftw said:
I don't know about that. There's a Grant Morrison series called The Invisibles, which The Matrix took some pretty clear influences from, so I don't think it's fair to say that Matrix is any more original than Inception. Matrix also wears its biblical allusions pretty clearly.
That being said, I really like both movies.
Inception a bit more though.
Also, this outlines a lot of The Matrix's elements that were lifted from The Invisibles: https://everything2.com/title/The+Invisibles+vs.+The+Matrix
It all falls upon what adaptation you are basing this on. Comics are a different medium. Almost half of the popular movies are adaptations. But the inventiveness of ideas behind the execution of films is totally independent of source material if it's a different medium. The same thing cannot always be said if they are the same medium. Matrix and Invisibles have a different execution of similar ideas i.e character tropes and metafiction. Invisibles embarks upon psychics and mystical concepts whereas Matrix is a sci-fi film with a cyberpunk dystopian worldbuilding.
I mean, you could say the same between Inception and The Matrix. Not only are the tone and aesthetics totally different between each film, but Inception probes into a number of different concepts. The only thematic commonality is the exploration of reality, and our exploration of it. Even on that level, I think Inception goes deeper, as in Matrix, it's pretty clearly defined what is real and what isn't from the moment Neo is first extracted from the Matrix by Morpheus, whilst in Inception, things remain unclear from beginning to end, especially in terms of Cobb's relationship with Mal and his children, and his perception of what's real, right till the last scene. Inception also explores the nature of grief and guilt, concepts that are pretty much absent in the Matrix. And if you look at the webpage I linked, you'll see that there are several aesthetic similarities between Matrix and Invisibles too. The Matrix is much, much closer to The Invisibles in a number of aspects than Inception is to The Matrix.
You are missing the point. It's not only a thematic commonality that explores reality but also the cinematography in certain ways(both have action sci-fic subgenre). It's not the same thing about Invisibles and Matrix because when you trying to take inspiration from novels or books, the execution of that film is a lot more inventive or creative and different for the most part compared to two films i.e Matrix and Inception.
Like for instance The Departed was a remake from a Hong Kong film, Internal Affairs. Shutter Island took inspiration from a novel. Clearly the Internal Affairs had far more emphasis with respect to The Departed than Shutter Island with respect to a novel. The Departed was the least creative film by Scorsese.
Did you look at the page I linked?
There are loads of parallels in aesthetic, plot and world-building between Matrix and Invisibles. The execution has been heavily inspired.
Inception has an entirely different tone and look. The action is less focused on over-the-top martial arts and bullet-dodging. The plot is also entirely different, because in addition to the idea of how we perceive reality, one of The Matrix's central themes is also the struggle against authoritarianism and striving towards freedom by battling sinister government agencies, ideas which are all lifted from The Invisibles.
In case you didn't see the page I linked, here are the identified similarities between The Matrix and The Invisibles, which range from thematic commonalities to aesthetic and narrative ones, ie, execution-wise:
The Universe.
The film's central premise -- that reality as we know it is a computer-generated fantasy world -- is not to be found in the Invisibles. However, our universe is described as a hologram created by the intersection of two larger universes, a healthy one and a dying one. From the sick one, known as Universe B, giant insectile creatures known as the Archons are attempting to invade our world. Hence certain characters have the power to warp themselves out of reality, use one of the other universes as a shortcut, and reenter, much as Trinity can through a phone line.
The Evil.
Agent Smith and his two cohorts wear earphones like members of the Secret Service, can overrule and command squads of local police (one initially presumes them to be members of the FBI), and are based in a government skyscraper. The Archons also choose powerful figures of human authority as their agents on this plane. Among them are generals, freemasons and aristocrats who, though they claim to be serving the forces of order, are secretly driven by fear and repulsion of their enemies, much as Agent Smith confesses to Morpheus ("It's the SMELL!").
The Good.
Neo is a criminal hacker and Morpheus an international terrorist. The Invisibles has parallel rookie-mentor heroes: Jack Frost, who is a destructive anarchist, and King Mob, a wanted assassin. Thus, what is in name a much larger struggle becomes on the surface merely class war, or at worst rebellious wish-fulfillment. Invisibles operate in loose cells of five with no overarching heirarchy and little intergroup communication, much like the various ships of Zion. And the initial resistance cell that Neo encounters numbers five - Morpheus, Trinity, Cypher, Switch and Apoc.
The Wardrobe.
For the bad guys, three-piece suits and ties; for the good guys, circular shades and black leather. Morrison seems particularly offended at the theft of this detail, as he simply dressed King Mob in what he himself likes to wear.
The One.
Both Neo and Jack are repeatedly referred to as "The One" - the human prophesied to save his race from slavery, the sole being capable of it. Early in the film, to establish the mythic parallel, a character addresses Neo this way: "You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ." However, mowing down security guards with a Mac10 shows very little attention paid to the teachings of the New Testament. In contrast, Jack, who is more commonly compared with Buddha than Christ, despite being foulmouthed and often impatient, demonstrates the value of meditation, a strong distaste for violence, an understanding of the greater scheme in any given scenario, and genuine compassion even for his murderous enemies.
The Traitor.
Cypher, tired of the war and wanting his old, unenlightened life back, sells out his comrades for the promise to be reinstalled in the Matrix (a vow which I highly doubt the machines would find a reason to follow through on). When the Invisibles obtain the Hand of Glory, Boy, one of their own, apparently controlled by the Archons, steals the Hand and delivers it to (ostensibly) a federal group. When it is later revealed this group is a second, uncooperative cell of Invisibles, Boy quits the war, tired of the conflict and missing her old life.
The Alien Alphabet.
The first image in the Matrix (and the only image needed in the print ads for the sequel) is of foreign green characters scrolling down a computer screen. This is the code of the Matrix, of "reality" itself; it cannot be represented by the letters and numbers we know. The Invisibles postulates that English contains not twenty-six but sixty-four letters, the hidden symbols spelling out concepts our minds are unprepared to comprehend.
The Chemical Induction.
Morpheus's mention of Alice in Wonderland in the "red pill" scene makes it easy for us to see it as merely another version of "EAT ME" and "DRINK ME" labels (especially for those who know Lewis Carrol was a laudanum addict). However, in the modern setting of the Invisibles, characters constantly use drugs to expand consciousness and thus better perceive the threat against them, be it weed, ecstasy, smart drinks or LSD. The most direct analogue here, though, is probably the ancient blue mold growing on the walls of London's subterranean tunnels that Tom O'Bedlam(another mentor figure) and Jack smoke together.
The Magic Mirror.
The red pill, which disrupts Neo's "input-output carrier signal", causes a hallucination in which a cracked mirror heals itself, then becomes liquid, flowing onto Neo's body and engulfing him in cold, sliding down his throat until he wakes up. It's a metaphor for a dawning realization of self, and a warning that reality can be frightening. But the visual depiction used of mirror as a free-floating substance is familiar to any Invisibles reader as the four-dimensional entity that the transvestite witch Lord Fanny channels from out of her mouth and nose to absorb enemies and upload their essences into the supercontext.
- .
The Building Jump.
Morpheus tests Neo's "One"-ness with a leap from a skyscraper. ("Doubt. Fear. You have to let it all go.") Though Neo fails his goal of making it to the next building in a single bound, he does survive his Wile E. Coyote-like plummet to the simulated ground. In Vol. 1 Issue 4, Tom leads Jack in a voluntary drop from Canary Wharf, the tallest building in Britain. ("Trust me. Jump out of the dream.") Jack lands safely in Universe A.
The Kung Fu.
In both stories, Eastern martial arts play a large role in equipping the resistance, ultimately eclipsing even the abundant firearm violence. In Vol. 1 Issue 5, Boy (who is black) teaches Jack (who is white) about his potential in a dojo setting very similar to the Nebuchadnezzar's sparring program.
The Visible Timestream.
The Matrix's innovative "bullet-time" effects have been much imitated, but less discussed is the depiction of a character moving in bullet-time seen from a normal perspective: For instance, an agent moving faster than the eye can follow will appear to have ten arms or six torsos. At key moments in the Invisibles, characters are lifted out of time entirely to view themselves as they truly are: built of an infinite segmented snake of separate moments. In this way, comics uses two dimensions to represent four. This correlation, like Magic Mirror, has little in common from a story perspective, but the visuals are eerily reminiscent.
The Torture Sequence.
Earlier, you may recall, we compared Morpheus to King Mob. In Vol. 1 Issues 16-18, after losing a brawl in a bathroom, King Mob is abducted by the enemy, handcuffed to a metal chair, injected with a serum, subjected to psychic invasion, and eventually freed by his friends. Though my computer prevents me, I'm tempted to dispense with careful explication, indignantly thrust the book under your nose, and scream "JUST LOOK AT IT!" A lot of the above elements I can forgive, even despite the overwhelming evidence they create once tallied, but this scene is such a blatant lift I can only infer it was included as some kind of deliberate message to Invisibles fans: "Yes, we know that you know where we're getting all this from. Don't worry, the action will arrive shortly."
The Virus Speech.
Let's flagrantly violate a couple of copyrights here.
Agent Smith's speech to Morpheus, you may recall, goes like this:
I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.
Here's a speech Tom gives to Jack in Vol. 1 Issue 3. See if it doesn't make a little more inherent sense:
Our world is sick, boy. Very sick. A virus got in a long time ago and we've got so used to its effects, we've forgotten what it was like before we became ill. I'm talking about cities, see? Human cultures were originally homeostatic, they existed in a self-sustaining equilibrium, with no notions of time and progress, like we've got. Then the city-virus got in. No one's really sure where it came from or who brought it to us, but like all viral organisms, its one directive is to use up all available resources in producing copies of itself. More and more copies until there's no raw material left and the host body, overwhelmed, can only die.
The Gnostic Theme.
In both stories, the message that stays with the audience is of a search for truth that has nothing to do with robots or extradimensional overlords. We deliberately take dialogue out of context and apply it to our own lives. Because you and I, right now, are in fact being controlled, and we do need to wake up. It's not fiction. But it is an empowering allegory we can use for self-actualization.
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