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..."The Matrix" was the only one of those movies (except maybe "Evil Dead," but that's another era) that I ever thought made any sense to have a sequel to, because it ended in much the same way that the original "Star Wars" did: the good guys won this battle, but the war raged on, so at some point you were going to have to tie up all those loose ends. In "Dark City" (as best as I can recall) the Strangers were basically defeated, meaning you would definitely have to stretch material to get a sequel. I've heard all sorts of rumors of a "Donnie Darko" sequel, yet that makes no sense whatsoever. If there ever was a movie that should stand alone, "Donnie Darko" is it -- it's pretty darn finite. "eXistenZ" and "Thirteenth Floor" certainly didn't suggest a sequel -- again, much like "Dark City," you would have been stretching the material, probably beyond its capacity. "The Matrix" probably deserved sequels, just not the sequels it got.
Prequels rarely ever if ever work, half of "Godfather II" being by far the most prominent exception. The problem always is, you know what is going to happen eventually, and few people seem to be able to get around that problem (obviously Christopher Nolan did once, as well as a few directors of true story historical pieces, though even most of those don't work if you know too much about the subject matter; take "A Beautiful Mind" -- almost everybody I know who saw it that already knew the "twist" in the man's life was unimpressed by the movie; those that didn't know the twist were mostly impressed). I'm no fan of full-blown prequels, although I don't have a big problem with taking one little minor character and blowing up his life in a movie of his own. I think a true prequel to "The Matrix" kills some of the original movie's mystique about as much as the sequels did. I say this not having seen "The Animatrix," but from what I've heard, far too many questions have been answered that would have been better left alone. Which is ironic, considering how many questions "Revolutions" DOESN'T answer that it should have.
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