![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just got back from seeing (at a drive-in!) The Matrix Reloaded for the second time. I liked it a lot more the second time, but I'm still unsure what some of it means. Being that kind of geek, I do love picking apart a good movie. Hence this post.
A lot of jokes have been made about "Morpheus' Dance Party", but I think it is a very revealing scene. I picture Zion society as an extreme pyramid, with very few priviledged, technically competent people at the top supported by the uncounted ignorant hoards. People being rescued from the Matrix would have few languages or cultures in common. Children born there would have a very hard time getting a technical education. The result is a widespread, simplistic religion based around the prophesy, which is exploited by the cultural elite. The prayer meeting is Morpheus and the council member's show of political force. By hosting an orgy of that scale, they demonstrate both their wealth and the number of proles who support them. Roman mobocracy.
Inside the Matrix, we get introduced to the concept of exiled/renegade programs. We meet Seraph, the Merovingian, Persephone, the Twins and the new viral Smith. The Oracle is confirmed to be a program as well. We get a lot of magic portal action. Which is all fine, and it makes the Matrix a much more interesting venue.
We meet the Architect, who fills in some Matrix history for us. (Assuming we believe what he says.) The first Matrix was perfect and humans couldn't handle it. So the Oracle came up with a kludge of giving us the ability to chose, which led to free humans. Neo is the sixth The One, and it is all a scheme to keep the inevitable free humans under control. Earlier, we heard the Merovingian refer to Neo's predecessors, which supports these claims. My main problem with this is, if Zion has been rebuilt 4 times in the past, how could they not know about it? Maybe they can erase memories -- they did promise Cypher they would do that for him, after all.
Neo is having prophetic dreams. I can accept the Oracle being prophetic. Everything inside the Matrix can be simulated perfectly, and if what the Architect says is true, then her prophesies outside the Matrix are all rigged. But there isn't any convenient way to explain Neo's precognizance. We also see them being played on the screens behind the Architect, which gives them more validity.
The biggest thing, of course, is Neo stopping the sentinels at the very end. He feels them coming, and then not only stops them, but physically repels them. This is very troubling for me, because the obvious explanation is matrices within matrices, which is such a boring and mundane plot 'twist' that I'll be very disappointed if that happens. It could be a trick by the Architect of some kind, but that doesn't explain how he could feel them coming. I've been playing with the idea that they might be going for some kind of reality bleed-over, where any sufficiently internally-consistent (virtual) universe starts to achieve a fundamental reality of its own. Sort of like what Greg Egan was playing with in Permutation City. So the Matrix is becoming as real as the real world, so Neo's powers are starting to work there as well. This would also tie in with Smith assimilating a crewmember and controlling him in the real world. It's not a great solution, but better than the alternative. If anyone else has a better idea, I'd be very glad to hear it.
From the trailer for Matrix Revolutions, things continue to go shitty. Looks like we're going to get more lift-loaded action, which is good. The Oracle's voice-overs indicate that Smith is the real threat in the next movie. I'm wondering what will happen when the Agents see him as a threat. My guess is that the Smiths will provide the loophole for a happy ending, by being a weird new addition to the Matrix that the Architect didn't take into account.
A lot of jokes have been made about "Morpheus' Dance Party", but I think it is a very revealing scene. I picture Zion society as an extreme pyramid, with very few priviledged, technically competent people at the top supported by the uncounted ignorant hoards. People being rescued from the Matrix would have few languages or cultures in common. Children born there would have a very hard time getting a technical education. The result is a widespread, simplistic religion based around the prophesy, which is exploited by the cultural elite. The prayer meeting is Morpheus and the council member's show of political force. By hosting an orgy of that scale, they demonstrate both their wealth and the number of proles who support them. Roman mobocracy.
Inside the Matrix, we get introduced to the concept of exiled/renegade programs. We meet Seraph, the Merovingian, Persephone, the Twins and the new viral Smith. The Oracle is confirmed to be a program as well. We get a lot of magic portal action. Which is all fine, and it makes the Matrix a much more interesting venue.
We meet the Architect, who fills in some Matrix history for us. (Assuming we believe what he says.) The first Matrix was perfect and humans couldn't handle it. So the Oracle came up with a kludge of giving us the ability to chose, which led to free humans. Neo is the sixth The One, and it is all a scheme to keep the inevitable free humans under control. Earlier, we heard the Merovingian refer to Neo's predecessors, which supports these claims. My main problem with this is, if Zion has been rebuilt 4 times in the past, how could they not know about it? Maybe they can erase memories -- they did promise Cypher they would do that for him, after all.
Neo is having prophetic dreams. I can accept the Oracle being prophetic. Everything inside the Matrix can be simulated perfectly, and if what the Architect says is true, then her prophesies outside the Matrix are all rigged. But there isn't any convenient way to explain Neo's precognizance. We also see them being played on the screens behind the Architect, which gives them more validity.
The biggest thing, of course, is Neo stopping the sentinels at the very end. He feels them coming, and then not only stops them, but physically repels them. This is very troubling for me, because the obvious explanation is matrices within matrices, which is such a boring and mundane plot 'twist' that I'll be very disappointed if that happens. It could be a trick by the Architect of some kind, but that doesn't explain how he could feel them coming. I've been playing with the idea that they might be going for some kind of reality bleed-over, where any sufficiently internally-consistent (virtual) universe starts to achieve a fundamental reality of its own. Sort of like what Greg Egan was playing with in Permutation City. So the Matrix is becoming as real as the real world, so Neo's powers are starting to work there as well. This would also tie in with Smith assimilating a crewmember and controlling him in the real world. It's not a great solution, but better than the alternative. If anyone else has a better idea, I'd be very glad to hear it.
From the trailer for Matrix Revolutions, things continue to go shitty. Looks like we're going to get more lift-loaded action, which is good. The Oracle's voice-overs indicate that Smith is the real threat in the next movie. I'm wondering what will happen when the Agents see him as a threat. My guess is that the Smiths will provide the loophole for a happy ending, by being a weird new addition to the Matrix that the Architect didn't take into account.