I seen it last night too. Actually, I did notice what you mention - and definately it was done on purpose (most likely to simulate movement). Especially when you see it in SW.

Prior to going to see the movie - I had downloaded the trailer and brung it into VV just to play around with the footage. I took that one 88 image shot of him flying over the mountains (back towards the city....I won't say anything else - no spoilers here) and took Neo out of it and put in one of my own characters. Pretty neat little scence.

But I digress.

Some of the other footage, if you look at it frameXframe you will see some definate CG work - and some angels that just don't "seem right" for real time - but make perfect sense if you play it in "Matrix Time" and the CG pretty much works at that point.

Personally, I really enjoyed the look of this movie. Too bad I'm not going to get anywhere near this quality using my little Sony Digivid. But I'm sure with some playing around (and VV) I can have some fun trying!!

:-)

3 CGI companies went bankrupt rendering this -- one reason it was delayed (nothing like low bid) .. so there are slight diff. as other companies picked up in mid stream so to speak on some shots .. but that effect you see was added on purpose ..

Y'all might try to find I think the last issue of Wired magazine (Matrix on the cover). The article went in depth re: their FX and cinematagraphy, particularly the multiple Agent Smith scene.

G

I just came back from seeing it. Special Effects aside, at best I give them a 6 out of a possible 10 and only then because of couple chase scenes. All the fight scenes looked badly staged, cartoonish and phony as hell. The acting throughout the movie was TERRIBLE. I know, its an action movie, you don't really expect Oscar level acting, but Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne is this flick have as much screen apeal as two turnips. Mr. Smith upstaged both of them every time he (them) were in a scene. The only "actor" in the whole movie was the lady that played the Oracle. The original movie wasn't bad, this 2nd attempt, in my opinion, is a turkey. A typical Star Trek or Twlight Zone has better acting.

BillyBob, I 'm in agreeement with you regarding Matrix Reloaded. The effects were great, but not nearly as exciting as seeing them in the original Matrix. The fight and chase scenes went on for far too long, and they lacked emotion. I found myself bored many times throughout this movie and was glad when it was over.

The original Matrix was great. Matrix Reloaded supplies a transition to the next sequel.

A good but less than glowing review can be found at http://www.thegate.ca/reviews/matrix-reloaded.php

Yep, they raised the bar in the first one, (I enjoyed the original Matrix, because it was so odd ball different) and like in Alien where I'll wagger many were truly scared at the surprise of the alien chewing its way out of the guy's belly then how it grew and hunted the crew afterwards, the orignal was never topped by any of the sequels, probably pretty much because you have a pretty good idea what they're going to do and you're not surprised anymore.

I hope Arnold don't disappoint in Terminator III. I think Terminator II was one of the rare movies where the sequel was better, actually much better than the original.

As far as the effects, in Martrix 2 I think that all the mid air scenes were too long. It got borning. I also think they slowed them down too much, spoiling the effect.

Definately OT. I haven't seen m' reloaded yet but I think I will like it. I'm sure some of the shots were intentionally made to look a little strange. I remember in the original when the chopper crashed into the tall building, how strange that shot looked. It was intended to indicate that in all its infinite power the Matrix computer was having trouble rendering such a big crash. A lot of shots in the Matrix suggested that.

As for the Alien movies, I thought they all were excellent. The first one obviously was the most interesting but the ones that followed were pretty gripping, too, in their own way. The second one, Aliens, was right on par with the first. The third one was just a different kind of movie but still an intense struggle for survival, that the Alien movies always depicted. Some of the dark and depressing sets in the third installment gave that movie a realism that set it apart from the other two, but did not necessarily make it better.

I believe everything we saw in the movie was supposed to be there, unfortunately. The brothers ski forced us to see the first one with cool FXs, aleast we had a plot in the first one.

The Smith fight was horrible, every CGI artist nows better then to put black on a CG character and CGI artist should have to major in physics. Which bring me to my next point, If Neo can now fly and stop multiple bullets (over 100). Why can't he just wave his hand a knock over all the bad guys. Every thing has rules even the matrix world of movie making. They set rules for what could be done and how to break the rules and then let the "cool efx" slide.

What is life but a set of rules to follow - it's not that you broke the rules - they had to be there to break.

Anyway thats my 2cents,
Hunter
last rule broken, the speed limit - it's just a suggestion anyway

What spoiled it for me was the TERRIBLE writing and "acting". The special effects alone dont' carry the movie. The main characters show no emotion or humor. Think back... other super hero types like Superman, Batman, Spiderman, even Arnold as the terminator have some hook, be it some line like Arnold's "I'll be back" or Clark Kent being so timid and polite or Batman and Robin being campy with their capes, and mask, etc. what does Neo or the other "good" guys in Martrix show? It seems Mr. Smith shows the most emotion, odd, considering that's the non-human.

Good point, Mr. Smith does show the most emotion, until he is replicated 100 times. I thought Mr. Smith worked much better as a single villian. The replication and tiresome fight made the scene look like a computer game.

Hunter, I share your feelings on the storyline. I did enjoy the movie much like starwars, which was epsiode 1 and 2 were horribly directed. However I loved tha animation and I like the story line once I get past the inconsistencies.

The computer should be like God in the matrix. Why cant smith fly or anyother digital person.

Why doesn't ned use these powers to make them all stop?

ohhhh gosh I think I know why! They need to make a few cool million off and if they followed a conisistent story they could not make a cool movie meaning me and you would not go pay for it. hahah ahahhaah ahahhaha a

all in all, I enjoyed it. Funny though you feel like you have to be stephen hawkings to understand the overall plot.

I'm going to give them another 5 bucks to see if I can make any sense of it.

Auggy

also by the way Smith is the Darth Vader in this movie and is does just as good a job
as James earl Jones.

"It seems Mr. Smith shows the most emotion, odd, considering that's the non-human."

I think you may have gone to the restroom when neo encountered Colonel Sanders. Who is human? ;-)

Warning: don't read this if you just want to enjoy watching movies and TV without seeing equipment artifacts.

Regarding your original question: objects stretching instead of blurring while in motion.

Film has an interesting thing about it. Even though the frames occur 24 per second, the projector is not able to provide continuous light output. It must (for mechanical reasons) block the light output for a moment while it advances the film to the next frame. If it did this only 24 times per second, we'd perceive it to be flickering because it's below our persistence of vision threshold. So, it actually interrupts the light for a second time in the middle of displaying a frame, so each frame is "flashed" twice. There are 48 flashes per second, but the picture only changes every other flash (24 fps). Now, imagine an object is moving, and you are "tracking" it across the screen. Let's say every "even" flash you are looking right at the object, then on the "odd" flashes, the object will be slightly behind (because your eye motion is constant). Objects that you track will therefore have "double edges" due to the double-bladed shutter in the projector. This is less apparent with motion-blurred objects, and more apparent with motion shot with short shutter exposures.

Every camera system, rendering system, and projection system has some characteristic effect. For example, if you track an object left to right on a CRT display, the picture "tilts" due to the top-to-bottom scanning. If you track an object down, the picture gets taller, and if you track an object up, the picture gets ("is perceived to be") shorter.

Single-chip DLP projectors have a color wheel that temporally dices the picture up into red, green, and blue pictures. If you track a moving object (say, a white circle against a black background) with one of those, it breaks up into leading and trailing "rainbows" for similar reasons to the film double-flash.

There -- now you'll never be able to enjoy a movie again. Sorry. I warned you. One reason I'm looking forward to 3-chip DLP digital cinema is that it should remove some of these artifacts and maybe I'll be able to enjoy a movie again <g>.

///d@