I think Matrix copied Teminator. If you think about it the two universes could be same. (Terminator in the beginning and the Matrix later on)

"Vintage 2004."

That was incredibly lamo. People in the future won't have shoes. They'll have hover sandels that carry them everywhere.

I suppose you could say that, but the Matrix gave it such a great twist that it seemed orginal. Terminator was more of a "time travel epic" thing. The Matrix did more things along the reason why it happened and made a much better story out of it. And besides, I think the Matrix was a lot more succesful than Terminator, it will stick in peoples memories longer than Terminator...

It's kind of funny, both movies had bad actors as the main character...

Yeah, but I heard the special effects were choice.

Well, I didnt see the movie anyway... What it is is another will smith cookie cutter flick. We alredy have like five of those.

Will Smith doesn't have "better" movies. He has stuff.

PS. Getting the Asimov book, ASAP.

~Valdir

Please throw yourself into moving traffic.

k thnx

~Val

Well, that didn't take very long at all. Let me defend my position here before you wish vehicular death upon me.

Tolkien was a linguistics and history professor. He was a big idea kind of guy, and he was very good at those big ideas. He developed intricately detailed histories for this world he called Middle-Earth and managed to populate it with rich a wonderful races. His descriptions, though dry, managed to evoke incredible imagery.
However, rich and wonderful races and cultures do not automatically equate to rich and wonderful characters, and this is where the story fails for me. The main characters seem rather vapid. I know their trials and tribulations, but their real motivations are cloaked in prophecies, destiny and other mystical forces. Tolkien doesn't let them talk their motivations out to each other, and thus the reader is left in the cold as to why the characters do the things that they do. Although I understand the plight of the characters, it seems to me that they are thrown from one plot point to the next. Tolkien doesn't give them the plot space to really think, and, consequently, the story just doesn't grab me.
So, yes, I like the plot, but the author left me to infer the characters' motivations rather than just be straightforward about them. Simply, I don't like it.
Tolkien is a professor. He was a brilliant man, but he was not a very good writer. Much of the story is written with a dry, textbook tone. It's just the meat and potatoes of a plot without getting the spicy details. His descriptions are very detailed, nearly to the point of inducing sleep. They are much more befitting a script rather than a novel, and this is something that Peter Jackson understood very clearly. He used those descriptions to design the incredible set pieces that were used in the films. He used the descriptions of the characters to perfectly cast each part - the casting itself is done so well that one cannot read the books without seeing Elijah Wood as Frodo, Sean Astin as Sam or Slugg from the Goonies as Sauron's Liutenant.
I see The Lord of the Rings as the pinnacle of the epic film, and there can be no doubt that the books kickstarted every single fantasy genre. Without LOTR, we simply would not have the level of fantasy fiction that we have today. So, that's what I see as the good and bad of it.
If you want an example of rich and rewarding fantasy literature, pick up China Mieville's Perdido Street Station.

The Lord of the Rings. Excalibur. To Kill A Mockingbird.

Those are just three great films that were adapted from books. LotR was, of course, taken from J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy trilogy. Excalibur was adapted from myriad sources, including The Knights of the Round Table and The Once and Future King. To Kill A Mockingbird was taken from a book that every high school student in the US has seen.

Here's a list of great movies adapted from video games:


I rest my case.