Marcus Chong was sorely missed by me in the Matrix sequels. It was one of the first things I didn't like about Reloaded - the minute I realized Chong was out, I thought "Uh oh..."

I don't know Chong, nor do I know how reasonable or unreasonable his dealings with the filmmakers were. What I do know is that these movies made everyone rich and I also know that they could have made a slightly better set of films with Chong included in the sequels. They lost the actress playing the oracle (not a contract dispute, but an untimely death...sadly) and that was a significant blow also. They needed every continuity aid they could lay hands to, I began to feel the breaking of the fourth wall very palpably and I think others did to. The illusion began to fail and my faculty for suspension of disbelief was pushed to its limits.

I heard the dispute arose over $250,000. What did such an amount really mean to the makers of the Matrix since they were awash in money? When I heard that amount was the basis of the dispute, I was pretty disheartened to realize that those made fabulously wealthy were not apparently inclined to share the wealth with those that were at least partly responsible for everyone's financial success. That seems a shame. Greed should not rule over artists in this way, even though I understand that filmmaking is also a business. But like I said, everyone was rolling in money anyway. They had the money to spare.

Somewhere else someone mentioned the Crispin Glover and Back to the Future sequels mess. It's important to remember that Glover won that dispute. If the makers of a movie don't want to pay someone's asking price to make a movie, then they don't get to use his likeness or mannerisms either. And hey, continuity of that type matters to some of us. These actors are not just cogs in a big machine, they are possessed of unique gifts and attributes and deserve compensation commensurate with what everyone else is earning with these blockbuster successes.

Is there some reason these Hollywood *beep* can't share the wealth?

Marcus Chong was not a background character - he was one of the key players in the first movie. He was Neo's trainer and everyone's main support while they were in the Matrix. He actually had a lot of screen time and I think the audiences liked him a lot. A lot of the audiences responses were suggested by Chong's performance - he was our surrogate audience member in the movie. He wasn't a main actor on the stage of the Matrix itself, he was the guy back aboard ship watching it all on the computer screens. Kinda like us watching it on the big screen. Filmmakers use characters like that very purposefully - when they smile, we smile; when they wince, so do we. The audience identified very closely with Tank.

That's an important role; but you have to understand the role to see how important it was to the overall success of the first film.