FoK wrote:

Senor Barborito wrote:

Fullof'splanations wrote:

#3: The reason that the *scene* (though not the orgasm itself) is confusing is: how the Hell does this prove your point, Mamigonian? That if you choose to give someone an orgasm, and they have it, that's an example of how there's no such thing as choice, since they didn't choose to have an orgasm? What the fuck? Doesn't Madmartigan choose to create the spectacle, disproving his point? Or is the disproving of the point the point? In which case, I guess maybe there would be some higher-level thinking going on... making it suspect. I'm thinking it's just an excuse to create some gay anime bullshit, much as the gay story is just an excuse for the near-nonstop kickassery.

It's there to demonstrate that human brains are completely deterministic processes - black boxes that will consistently output B when fed A when in environment X. The best thing you can say about it (being as this is rather obvious at some level - we're all made of molecules and molecules don't habitually violate the laws of physics and chemistry) is that it's a cute way of telling the entire American public to their faces "Hey you're all sheep who will do whatever we want! Our third movie could be a one-hour film of shit floating in a toilet and you'd go see it because we called it 'The Matrix!'"

--SB

Hmm. Yes, but then, no. (Note: I am neither willing to argue, nor capable of arguing, about determinism as a concept, except under the terms of this particular movie). His decision to demonstrate this particular principle on this particular woman was arbitrary. He could have done the same thing to Trinity or to Persephone (attn: Wachinovksis! THAT WOULD HAVE MADE THE SCENE MORE WATCHABLE), and yes, it would have demonstrated that those with power have the ability to take choices away from the powerless, but it still wouldn't be an example of the absence of a thing called Choice - because he chose to do it - arbitrarily. Plus - he starts the conversation by saying that his favorite language is French, so he speaks French. Another choice! There are enough examples of this type of irony that either A: The Wachowski bros. are giving us a lot of credit in their assumption that we'll catch these "rich ironies" or B: that they never got around to reading their own screenplay (which is what I'm betting, due to the Zion thing.)

I guess that one way the third movie could clean all this messiness up is by saying that pretty much all the exile characters (The Architect, Persephone, The Oracle, Madmartigan) are goddamn liars and were only serving up their determinist bullshit in preservative self-interest. For some reason I doubt that's going to happen - I suspect it will be more along the lines of: There is no Choice, Only Cause and Effect, Unless You Choose Love, In Which Case, Love Conquers All Obstacles.

FoK

P.S. Speaking of which - I have a terrible feeling that the Terminator is going to learn to love at the end of T3.
P.P.S. Freddy Vs. Jason is going to rock SO FUCKING HARD.