Is everyone understanding the Planet of the Apes reference in today’s strip? Just making sure. It’s a pretty old movie, y’know.

Man, who would have thought that a storyline that started out making fun of The Matrix would end up here? Sometimes you gotta go where the muse takes you… kicking and screaming…

As far as The Matrix Reloaded is concerned, I think I’m seeing it tonight. At least, I hope that’s the case. I don’t know how crazy the lines will be. I gotta squeeze in Down With Love at some point as well. I’m a big fan of those old Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedies. Pillow Talk is a great flick.

But I digress. Back to The Matrix. It’s been getting some mixed reviews. Some critics are complaining that the film is hollow, that there is no human element and that it’s drowning in special effects.

I can’t decide if I’m going to give two squirts of piss over this or not. I mean, I’ll be honest. The first movie didn’t really clobber me over the head with it’s philosophical ramblings and peppering of Eastern mysticism. I thought it was cool they were aware of it, but audiences acted like The Wachowski Brothers (TM) freakin’ invented it!

In my opinion, it’s the concept that propels The Matrix. And granted, it’s probably lost a little bit of its power since the Y2K heebie-jeebies everyone was worried about in 1999 proved to be nothing but a technical boogeyman. The climate has changed. Perhaps our reaction to this material will change as well.

I also have to give the benefit of the doubt that the movie I see this weekend is only PART of the finished whole. I feel like most negative reactions should be put on pause until The Matrix Revolutions comes out in November. Until then, the jury is out.

Whatever the outcome may be, it’s evident that these movies have tapped in to a “trust no one” facet of the youth zeitgeist that has not had an outlet up to this point. I foresee The Matrix spawning all sorts of extra multimedia to support the mythology. They’re already off to a rousing start with The Animatrix and the video game Enter the Matrix which both expound deeply into the lore of the series. Pretty soon you’re going to start seeing cheap-ass novelizations. R.A. Salvatore, I’m looking at you!

If you haven’t already checked it out, we now have a forum and it’s off to a strong start. I encourage you to sign up. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

You may also notice that I stripped the images from the navigation bar up top and replaced them with text links. As the site progresses, I’m becoming more and more conservative when it comes to bandwidth consumption. I’m starting to dump some of the frills and setting my sights on more fluid design and download times. We’ll see what emerges.

I’ll be back later if I can think of more garbage to spout…