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The most philosophically bad movies you've ever seen

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Agree with a lot of the movies so far (with the possible exception of The Game).

Two of my own additions:

The Last Samurai: Tom Cruise as an American soldier in the 19th century who goes to live among the Samurai in Japan. This movie glorifies a very brutal, misogynistic, and death-loving culture. Skip this movie and watch the miniseries Shogun.

The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions: Just the fact that Cornel West has a small part in this film as one of the Councillors of Zion should be hint that there is some very bad philosophy at work in these sequels to the awesome first film.

Check out Confused Matthew's reviews of The Matrix Sequels

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Waking Life - Animated post-modern, mystic, philosophical trash

I didn't care much for the explicit philosophy, but I liked Waking Life a lot as an accurate portrayal of a dream experience. It's unfair to mix it with the other horribles in this thread, I think.

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I didn't care much for the explicit philosophy, but I liked Waking Life a lot as an accurate portrayal of a dream experience. It's unfair to mix it with the other horribles in this thread, I think.

The whole movie was explicitly bad philosophically. It belongs here much more than some of the other movies people have posted.

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The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions: Just the fact that Cornel West has a small part in this film as one of the Councillors of Zion should be hint that there is some very bad philosophy at work in these sequels to the awesome first film.

Cornel West also was one of the two people participating in--and talking much more than the other man, New Age-ist Ken Wilber--the "philosophical commentary" in the trilogy. In the commentaries, he claims to be close friends (they both do, IIRC) with the Wachowski Brothers. I have watched it a few times, a long time ago, back when I was first getting into philosophy. Comes in the "Ultimate Matrix Collection". I have it. :)

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Philosophy aside, that movie just sucks. It makes me wonder what happened to M. Night Shyamalan. Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs were all outstanding movies. Then he punished us with The Village, Lady in the Water, and The Happening, all of which are probably in the top 20 worst movies I've ever seen.

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You know, am I the only one who thought The Matrix was awful.

Second.

It had some innovative visual effects, yes, but not really spectacular. The story of Machine vs Man is a tired old rethread going waaaaaaay back to the earliest stages of the Industrial Revolution. But what really bugs me is that lots of people (none here thus far) say they like it because it's a "philosophical movie."

When pressed to say exactly what the movie's philosophy is, they do a really bad impression of Kiff Kroker "Ah...ummm. tscha... er.. ah..."

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Second.

It had some innovative visual effects, yes, but not really spectacular. The story of Machine vs Man is a tired old rethread going waaaaaaay back to the earliest stages of the Industrial Revolution. But what really bugs me is that lots of people (none here thus far) say they like it because it's a "philosophical movie."

When pressed to say exactly what the movie's philosophy is, they do a really bad impression of Kiff Kroker "Ah...ummm. tscha... er.. ah..."

The movie poses philosophical questions, but doesn't really try to answer them. How can you watch that movie and not see the philosophical questions that it poses?

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.... alas, when they made the sequels, they decided that the philosophical "discussion" and fight scenes were what made the movie a success, and exagerated both. The philosophical content of the second movie was a completely incoherent babbling, and the fight scenes were pointless since by that time Neo could just leave if he wanted to. I didn't bother with the third movie.

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The movie poses philosophical questions, but doesn't really try to answer them. How can you watch that movie and not see the philosophical questions that it poses?

You know, we had this discussion last year. In lieu of repeating myself, I offer this link:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...matrix&st=0

Enjoy

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You know, we had this discussion last year. In lieu of repeating myself, I offer this link:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...matrix&st=0

Enjoy

I remember that conversation, but didn't remember that it was you. I'll just rehash my same point, which is that the philosophical subtext is undeniable. Whether you think it is good/bad philosophy or whether you think is does a good job addressing the issues is not the point. The point is that it is there and that virtually everyone who watches it recognizes it...even people (like myself at the time, as well as all my 16 year-old friends) who have absolutely no knowledge of philosophy.

.... alas, when they made the sequels, they decided that the philosophical "discussion" and fight scenes were what made the movie a success, and exagerated both. The philosophical content of the second movie was a completely incoherent babbling, and the fight scenes were pointless since by that time Neo could just leave if he wanted to. I didn't bother with the third movie.

The third is better than the second, but that isn't saying much. The reason the first one was cool was because it had innovative special effects, incredible fight scenes, and a just-below-the-surface philosophical subtext. The other 2 were basically showcases for ridiculously long fight scenes (which were less cool than the first, since they weren't new anymore) and outright philosophical sermons.

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Second.

It had some innovative visual effects, yes, but not really spectacular. The story of Machine vs Man is a tired old rethread going waaaaaaay back to the earliest stages of the Industrial Revolution. But what really bugs me is that lots of people (none here thus far) say they like it because it's a "philosophical movie."

When pressed to say exactly what the movie's philosophy is, they do a really bad impression of Kiff Kroker "Ah...ummm. tscha... er.. ah..."

I just thought it was tired old Hollywood bastardized Plato. <_<

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