Problems with the Matrix.

First off, I like the Matrix. Secondly, I'm ignoring the overabundant Christian imagery, and the rampant pseudophilosophy it inspired from people who thing they're smarter than they are, and the one really gaping plot hole (how did Cypher eat that steak?). Yeah, problematic, but the first is purposeful, the second isn't their fault, and the third can be fanwanked away if you really want. So, let me share just this.

The machines, they invented the hovership technology. They have flying sentinels. They are considerable more advanced, technologically, than we are now... and we now make semiregular excursions into space. Why, then, is heavy cloud cover a problem? At all?

Obviously they have no qualms about killing humans. So, why not just dash off above the blocked out sun, where solar energy is easily available, and nuke the planet from orbit? Move to the moon, where the lack of atmosphere is no problem. Move to Venus, where the PRESENCE of atmosphere is no problem. I would think, that the war being effectively brought to a stalemate, turning dudes into power converters (and not, I must insist, batteries) is not so efficient a use of energy as cutting and running.

Now, if they were displayed as being at all First Law compliant, there's no problem... one can't be harmed in a little pod, and killing a dude's mental avatar is sufficiently abstracted that it might be seen as not actually causing him harm, even though it kills him. But they aren't.

If they were presented as being barely able to survive on their current level of energy, I could buy it too. They don't have enough power to get into space, and the Matrix is a stopgap measure while they wait for their reserves to get high enough, or for the casualties of war to form some complex hydrocarbons. The latter will take a while longer, but IS delightfully creepy. BUT! The machines appear to be doing quite well, with the only crumb in their craw being the Zionists.

It's not movie-ruining. Oh, it take a MAJOR absence of logic to make me hate an otherwise very pretty movie. But it does make me think. A bit more than I really need to.