Matrix Gets Egyptian Ban For Explicit Religion 1362
pajor writes "BBC News is reporting that that The Matrix Reloaded has been banned in Egypt. The country's censorship board cited violence which might 'harm social peace', but also said the 'religious themes' of the film's storyline, about the search for the creator and control of the human race, may cause 'crises'. A statement said: 'Despite the high technology and fabulous effects of the movie, it explicitly handles the issue of existence and creation, which are related to the three divine religions, which we all respect and believe in.'"
Weird (Score:2, Informative)
I for one thought the whole Zion/Rasta image was some rastafarian thing
Re:Unfortunatly (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The one thing I didn't understand (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No... (Score:5, Informative)
That is one nice speculation coming out of your ass, I'm Egyptian and living there actually and I tell you that the government is totally secular and the fact that the average Egyptian believes in God or not has nothing to do with the government right to rule, however there are laws against insulting other religions. Tsk
Re:Here's what Egypt WILL allow... (Score:4, Informative)
Schindler's List was banned in Saudia Arabia because it was too pro-Jewish, Babe was banned in Malaysia because a pig was the main character. All very sad.
Re:Perhaps the censor can explain... (Score:5, Informative)
[I transcribed this personally, there were a few places where the audio was garbled, and I couldn't make out what was being said, those are marked with "[unclear]", and a guess at what it sounded like.]
Architect: "Hello Neo."
Neo: "Who are you?"
Architect: "I am the Architect. I created the Matrix. I have been waiting for you. You have many questions and though the process has altered your [unclear] irrevocably human, ergo some of my answers you will understand and some of them you will not. Concurrently, while your first question [unclear] the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelavent."
Neo: "Why am I here?"
Architect: "Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly which, despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected and thus not beyond a measure of control, which has led [unclear] here."
Neo: "You haven't answered my question."
Architect: "Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others."
[Neos in the video screen begin asking "others?", "how many others?", "what others?", etc]
Architect: "The matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of [unclear] anomaly to the emergence of the next in which case this is the sixth version."
[Video screen Neos: "You're lying.", giving the camera the finger, laughing, "There are only two possible explainations: either no one told me..."]
Neo: "... or no one knows."
Architect: "Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the anomaly is systemic, creating fluctuations in even the [unclear, simplistic?] equations."
[Video screen Neos: "You can't control me!", "I'm going to smash you to bits", more giving the camera the finger, etc.]
Neo: "Choice. The problem is [unclear, choice?]"
[cuts to Trinity fighting. yawn.]
Architect: "The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect it was a work of art. Flawless. Sublime. A triumpth equalled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being. [unclear] based on your history, to more accurately reflect the varying [unclear] of your nature. However I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me becuase it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive program initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human [unclear]. If I am the father of the matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother."
Neo: "The Oracle."
Architect: "Please. As I was saying she stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99 percent of all test subjects accepted the program as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a [mere/near] unconscious level. While [unclear] it was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that if left unchecked might threaten the system itself. Ergo, those that [unclear] program, while a minority, if unchecked would constitute an escalading probabiltiy of disaster."
Neo: "This is about Zion."
Architect: "[unclear] are here because Zion is about to be destroyed, its every living inhabitant [unclear, terminated?] entire existance eradicated."
Neo: "Bullshit."
[Video screen Neos: "Bullshit"]
Architect: "Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. But rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient [unclear, 'at it'?]."
[cuts back to more of Trinity fighting. Nobody cares.]
Architect: "The function of The One is
Re:Perhaps the censor can explain... (Score:3, Informative)
how do you plurialize a proper name with a previously existing plural form of a general noun?
Proper names take a regular plural. Thus when talking of mathematics, it is one matrix, many matrices. When talking of movie-reality-constructs, one Matrix, many Matrixes. That's the English language for you.
Re:Here's what Egypt WILL allow... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.arabia.com/life/article/english/0,11827 ,46609,00.html [arabia.com]
Re:Fuck you Egypt (Score:3, Informative)
When Islam spread to Egypt some people willingly converted and others remained Christian which tells a lot about the tolerance of Islam, if Muslims simply killed all those who disagree with them there will be no Christians in Egypt today.
I will throw in another piece of information there are some big families that have a common ancestor and both Christian and Muslim branches of the same family.
Re:attitudes common in the US as well (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The one thing I didn't understand (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Zion... (Score:3, Informative)
And non-mythical Mormon homeland. Many businesses and places in Utah are named Zion, as the Moromons think of Utah as "our Zion".
But typically if you say "Zion" in Utah, you are referring to Zion National Park.
Visitors to Salt Lake often notice the big statue of Brigham Young downtown faces away from the Temple, with his hand outstretched to the Zion Bank building.
Actual statistics (Score:1, Informative)
Look here:
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/fgm-prov-d.htm
http://www.icrh.org/areas/fgm/medical_aspects_FGM
http://www.afrol.com/Categories/Women/profiles/eg
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm9.h
Actual figures vary between 80 and 97%, depending on severity threshold and region.
There are dozens of reports and papers on
http://www.who.int and http://www.usaid.gov
Re:Truth versus Belief (Score:1, Informative)
Dark Matter can be directly measured.
Re:It's the Zionomy, stupid, was Re:Almost (Score:2, Informative)
NGE: a bit of history. (Score:3, Informative)
If you are not afraid of spoilers, here [murdoch.edu.au] is a very good summation of the whole original series.
There was a great deal of fan consternation about the "anticlimax" nature of the series, so when Gainax got enough of a budget together, they did not one, but (again, beware spoilers) two [eva2000.com] movies [eva2000.com] to further explore the concepts originally put across in the series. (I don't know why I wound up with three Australian sites for this info...I'm not Australian.)
In any event, "Death and Rebirth" and "End of Evangelion" were a wrapup of the narrative in the series. However, no matter how neatly Evangelion creator Anno Hideaki had wrapped things up, the true meaning of the Evangelion universe continues to be a huge topic of debate. Sort of like how the true meaning of The Matrix movies are becoming a huge topic of debate...there, I brought this back on-topic.
Anyway, it has been announced that a live-action Evangelion movie (the series and the two movies were all animated) has gone into pre-production. Gainax, ADV Films and Peter Jackson's Weta Digital effects studio are all part of this effort. For a movie which will, by necessity, have to have quite an epic sweep, the resources of these three partners which have been revealed so far seem far too limited to execute the plans. Perhaps one of the Seven Families of the Movie Industry is a part of this plan. Perhaps more than one. But the big financing has yet to be revealed. So take this all with a grain of salt.
It was this possible live-action movie to which I was referring to. If they are true to the original series and the two animated movies, they will piss off a lot of religious people in all "three great monotheisms." Just like Matrix Reloaded seems to have done in Egypt.
Re:Perhaps the censor can explain... (Score:3, Informative)
Trinity can't be an agent because agents can't leave the matrix. the password she used (zion0101) suggests she knows more than the others though.
Re:The one thing I didn't understand (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The one thing I didn't understand (Score:1, Informative)