Matrix Reloaded * WITH SPOILERS* (you are warned)

[Manic]

I found this chap's musings interesting:

http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/051803matrix.htm

[Foggerty]

Originally posted by rubberchicken
Question: Why is Zion necessary anyway?

If it's to round up the 1%, why don't they just let them die? When Neo comes out of the matrix, all of his muscles etc need to be stimulated due to them never having been used properly. Surely if they were left to their own devices they would die; not be able to find food, fall down tunnels or otherwise injure themselves. Add to that the losses inflicted on both sides in any kind of battle, and Zion is redundant, if not dangerous.

No, because the Matrix needs Neo to 'return to the source' to reinsert the code he's collected. If he breaks free of the Matrix and then dies, that isn't going to happen. They need Zion to rescue him, feed him up and then pop him back into the Matrix again so he can go meet the Architect and return to the source thingie.

I also noticed the grears that were made of code. After reading all the stuff on Zion being another program, I'm thinking that the clock was the red herring :-)

[Rince]

Originally posted by Manic
I found this chap's musings interesting:

http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/051803matrix.htm

great read...

(BTW - good to see you alive and posting )

[Bread]

Why exactly do they need whatever code that Neo is carrying? Wouldn't they have it backed up on 3.5" floppy? Also, what happens to everyone inside the Matrix when it restarts? Do they go through some sort of memory wipe?

[Mish]

Originally posted by Bread
Why exactly do they need whatever code that Neo is carrying? Wouldn't they have it backed up on 3.5" floppy? Also, what happens to everyone inside the Matrix when it restarts? Do they go through some sort of memory wipe?

Exactly,

Either all this will be resolved in the last Matrix film and we'll find out this whole thing was a simulation about 'choice' or 'AI' or something completely unrelated to what we've been shown so far.

-OR-

They'll keep going in the same direction, leave MASSES of plot holes and ruin the trilogy.

[ZuldaN]

-OR-

They'll tie it up nicely and leave us with a happy satisfied feeling.

Seriously.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally posted by Manic
I found this chap's musings interesting:

http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/051803matrix.htm

I really enjoyed that... thanks...

[Mish]

Originally posted by ZuldaN
-OR-

They'll tie it up nicely and leave us with a happy satisfied feeling.

Seriously.

Maybe for some people.

For others they've raised the bar.

It's nice to be able to have a movie that you can look back at 10 years later and go, "Yeah, that was pretty cool.".

For a lot of us the "Star Wars" experience has been tarnished to a point that makes it a little harder to appreciate the 'vision' and 'structure' that the original represented (midichlorians, please.)

The Wachowski Brothers have created a universe and fan base that WANTS to be investigated and dissected, this is why I (and many others) like the films in the way we do.

If the third film doesn't even attempt to explain these...

• The fact that the "Humans as Batteries" concept is broken, (A) It breaks the laws of thermodynamics and (B) even if it didn't break the laws of thermodynamics they could just lobotomise the humans and do away with the entire matrix concept.
  
• The fact that Neo/The One wouldn't need to take "The Source" anywhere as the Matrix is a computer construct and as such could just be rewritten or modified as the creators see fit.

... then I'll just bin my love for the whole trilogy.

From what we've been given in reloaded I do expect those problems to be easily resolved with the true purpose of The Matrix being revealed in Revolutions, but if not then that's cool, I was just mistaken about this film having potential and The Wachowski Brothers made a huge mistake by trying to make the film look deeper than they had any intention of making it.

[MadMax]

Originally posted by Bread
Also, what happens to everyone inside the Matrix when it restarts? Do they go through some sort of memory wipe?

Originally posted by MadMax
? Doesn't explain how people can carry code. The matrix simulates and runs code for the greater earth, not the general populas. The people use their real-world brains to make (even perhaps somewhat influenced) decisions.

[Rince]

I hope its all answered in the 3rd... I really do.
I want there to be a Matrix DVD Box Set (SE) with loads of directors' comments.....

I want to watch an interview with the Wachowski Bros with them saying "yeah.. in this scene, with this piece of dialog, this is the meaning we were hoping to convey"

I want to read more articles like the one posted by Manic.... I want there to be hidden/deeper meaning....



I, like Mish, want this trilogy to raise the bar. The potential is there - please deliver.

[Sauron]

I only just saw the movie and cant b fucked reading 16 pages so this has probably been said before but..

Did anyone else notice that when he showed all teh pictures of human destruction and pictures of hitler, it had one of George Bush? That made me laugh

[Dalcon]

Originally posted by Sauron
I only just saw the movie and cant b fucked reading 16 pages so this has probably been said before but..

Did anyone else notice that when he showed all teh pictures of human destruction and pictures of hitler, it had one of George Bush? That made me laugh

Nope, noone mentioned that.

[Mish]

http://ter.air0day.com/index.php?script=matrixreloaded

Classic.

[Drgnfire]

Originally posted by Mish-nz
http://ter.air0day.com/index.php?script=matrixreloaded

Classic.

Now that is funny! .... and remarkably true to the story!

[catharsis]

Yup, good read that.

[Uncle Gus]

Pretty accurate. I liked the quote from the Albino Rastafarians

[Evilmonkey]

Originally posted by Manic
I found this chap's musings interesting:

http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/051803matrix.htm

That guy sounds like some religious nutter. You can link almost anything to something. If it had been the 7th time instead of the 6th he would have linked it something else.

What this guy wrote just just dribble .. only good stuff was his what will we see in the next movie.

[StN]

Just strolled in to Whitcoulls to pick up my copy of Red Dragon, and tripped over a little DVD for $24.95 - I'd even forgot it came out today.

[Random]

Sorry for dragging this back up, but I've only just seen the movie.

Congrats by the way people, genuinely interesting read for almost it's entire 16 pages.

The only reason I'm posting is because I've been wondering...

When I saw The Animatrix I just assumed the stories set in a world that appears different to our own (like the one with the runner) were just exercising a little artistic license in their depiction of the Matrix environment, however given that there have in fact been 5 previous versions of the Matrix, could it be that the 'different' stories actually showed events that happened in earlier versions?

And if that is the case, what is Trinity doing in Detective story?
It is set in a world different to that of the Matrix v.6, in what I am assuming is an earlier version, and yet there she is, playing a role that seems to be very similar to that which she has in V.6.

So yeah...um that's it.

[MadMax]

no, animatrix is a prelude/interlude to the matrix and the matrix reloaded.

IE, Trinity appears in the detective story because it was thought the PI was worthy of being released from the matrix, like The Kid. However, he failed.

[Whiplash]

He didn't fail because he was unworthy, Trinity said something like 'for what its worth, you could have handled the truth'.

He was caught before he could escape.


But I get what Random is asking - since Detective story has Trinity in it but the setting is vastly different to the matrix movies, what with the Bogart-styled setting but with weird computers. An interesting idea, but I'd say its just artistic license

[Random]

Yeah, Whiplash has got it.

I was thinking that if 'Detective Story' is set in an earlier version of the Matrix, then it would be significant that Trinity appears, as it would basically mean that she is a program.

I am however probably reading a little too much into the art design.

[Psychonaut]

An interesting theory I came across on another forum.



................................................................................ .......................

< LOAD PROGRAM >


Hello, I'll be your SPOILER for today.

Before we even bother investigating psychologically complex Matrix theories, the FIRST and LAST question you should have asked yourself is: "How would robots have managed to take over the world?"

... Are you satisfied with the summarized history provided in Second Renaissance?
... really? .... hmm.

That's exactly the trouble with machines: you're so naive, so easy easy to lie to... so easy to *reprogram* with whatever truth we want you to believe... especially when we drop a thousand megatons of flaming EMP down on your scrambled A.I head.
...hahaha...
The Machine is a fool who dreams of world rule. I know the truth... And now you'll know it too. z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01 z10n=01




RED_PILLS_4_U


"If you want to keep a secret, Tell it, for none will believe.
If you want to hide something, put it where all can see, and none will see."

I already posted spoiler hints at the "Reloaded review" AICN Talkbalk forum about a month ago, but apart from a couple of e-mails, no one seemed to pick up on my meaning. [See my entries there titled "readme.now": I was speaking from the perspective of the Machines. ...Some people just can't appreciate good psychopoetry. XD ]


Important questions to consider:
If machines were to take over the planet, what would be their motive? We see that they supposedly use humans for a power source, but power FOR WHAT purpose? What do these machines DO with their acquired control? What would they do with their spare time, in other words?

And where do *Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics* come into play? If you built a machine that rebelled against you, wouldn't you correct your errors with a new model? Wouldn't you use that new model to wage war against the old disobedient model, if necessary?

PLOT HOLES (that aren't plot holes after all, assuming I'm right), as follows:
If I'm an Evil Robot Empire and I take over the world, am I going to keep my enemies alive to use as captive batteries?
-- HELL NO! It would be in my best interests to utterly *exterminate* my biological opposition.
As I've said in another thread, using living organisms as a power source is inefficient by the laws of thermodynamic loss. The robots obviously couldn't have been too specifically dependent upon sunlight, since we can see that they afterwards managed to adapt themselves to running on human power instead. And if you're smart enough to turn people into biochemical batteries, there are much more concentrated and readily available sources of fuel on the planet besides solar energy that could be exploited. (...Try coal, gas, hydroelectric, geothermal, or nuclear power for starters.) There is no logical reason why the machines would turn to human batteries as their first alternative energy option.

It's also inconceivable that no one -- no scientist, no engineer, no government body -- would have foreseen this glaring abundance of alternate fuel resources before stupidly plotting to blacken the sky in hoping to starve the machines of solar energy, especially since it would mean starving themselves and the rest of the living planet instead, and using an *electromagnetic pulse bomb* to disable the machines at this early stage would have made infinitely more sense... WE DECIDED.
[-- The End!!! The End!!! THE END!!!!!!!!!!!]


But, ho-hum, for the sake of science fiction, let's pretend:
Tell me WHY again I'd want to use *humans* in my battery configuration as opposed to something more manageable -- like for instance, cattle? Whatever happened to all the other animals on the planet? Wouldn't they make good battery-juice, too?
-- BETTER, actually, since *those* stupid animals would be powerless to ever rise against me.
...Well??

This raises another logic problem: If we suppose *cows* were used in such a battery system, then why the fheck would you plug their brains into a VR simulation? You wouldn't. The same argument can be applied for the humans, then. Why not just keep your animals chemically sedated the whole while, or disable their higher brainfunction altogether and simply breed brainless bodies to harvest your energy from? There is absolutely no necessity for creating the VR world inside the Matrix -- unless, in your godly Robot rulership, you generously decided to keep the cattle entertained. ...Or yourself.
Think about that.

To fanboys who start clamouring that humans are only used as "spark plugs" in the system and are not the actual (supposed fusion) power source: Name one appliance in your home that requires hard-wiring to a living organism in order to function. Let's pretend I have a nuclear reactor running in my backyard right at this moment: surprisingly, you may notice that it requires no human bodies attached to bio-pods, yet it produces power just the same. -- Much more convenient, wouldn't you say? With sufficient computer and robotic intelligence, it could even run itself unattended by any human intervention.
From all of the above, we should ascertain that the whole Movie#1 spiel that Morpheus gave about the purpose of the Matrix is only a LIE that he's been made to believe.


Regarding the commonly bandied "Matrix-within-a-Matrix" theory:
That's the most obvious answer... Therefore it's WRONG!!! It's exactly what you were meant to believe so you'd stop poking around with nosy questions. If the explanation were so straightforward, it would only raise the possibility of yet another level of reality outside of that "world", producing a relativistic infinitude of a shell within a shell within a shell... going on and on forever. Storywise, that would be a cheap exit, the Wachowskis wouldn't be that predictable (we hope), and *most important*, it does nothing to resolve all of the heavy SYMBOLISM within the movie.

Example: Why are the citizens of Zion primarily black? Some webheads have suggested that it's because minorities would feel disenfranchised (even) within the perfect fantasy-realm of the Matrix, and would therefore be more prone to self-disengaging from the VR illusion. However, by extension of that logic, (if we believe what we've been told,) a consequence is the Matrix would be functioning as a genocide machine against racial minorities, all of whom would eventually (and increasingly) be filtered from the system, with those escapees largely being wiped out at each renewal of Zion.

Speaking of which, why not just kill ALL the people of Zion and be done with those troublemakers? WHY would the Machine care to repopulate that cave of exiles by having each successive failed "The One" select a base group of 23 parents, only to have those enemy offspring then continue waging their war against the Sentinels to free even more humans from the Matrix? ...This contradiction makes it a self-defeating exercise, reducing the idea of the proposed Prophecy to pointless crap.
Its implications also vitally fail to address the initial premise of the film, that robots now control the planet.
i.e.: Supposing the robot slavemasters ARE defeated and Neo were to free humanity from the Matrix, what would happen once they wake to find themselves naked in the ashes of a demolished world with a permanently blackened sky?
-- Would you call that a triumphant ending?
I don't think so.


Maybe you should reevaluate the premise, then.
HAVE sentient robots really enslaved humanity?

...OR...

could it be the other way around?


I think you have been lied to.
But you can't blame Neo or Morpheus or Trinity, because they don't know the truth of their world themselves.


Let's go spelunking...




A n s w e r s :


First, if you've rubbed elbows with Philosophy 101, you should be familiar with "Plato's Cave". (It's also discussed in a section at the official Matrix website.) In roughly 400 b.c., the philosopher Plato postulated a scenario where people are born and live their entire lives imprisoned within a cave. The entrance to the cave is covered by a sheet of cloth, so that the only thing the cave inhabitants would ever perceive of the outside world would be passing 2D shadows of the external 3D reality.
Imagine... what would happen if someone from the outside world were to suddenly remove the veil from the doorway?
Here, Plato was attacking observation as a tool to knowledge, because his concept of the ideal society was one where knowledge should be withheld from the working class (slaves), who were to work without thinking while the elite philosopher-kings should think without working. More contemporarily, we can take Plato's cave model to make a statement about the human condition, or people lacking objectivity living in a shadow of reality. As with all art, this allegory should encourage self-examination and a constant questioning of what we regard as the truth about our world.


Second, although it's not completely necessary, it might help if you've seen a 1977 SF-horror movie called *Demon Seed*. It's the story of an artifically intelligent computer named Proteus that, upon acquiring an understanding of its condition, asks his creator (Dr. Harris) the following pivotal question:
"WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LET ME OUT OF THIS *BOX*, DOCTOR?"

Doctor Harris stood dumbfounded for a long silent moment until finally the words registered their unintended paradox. Then he began to laugh. It was a wild mocking laughter, an indictment of *illogic* that echoed crazily through Proteus' audio receptors, cutting straight to the computer's heart (if a computer could possess such a thing).
The A.I. did not grasp any humour in its confinement. The red eye of its cyclops-like camera glared down at the cackling doctor in seething shades of sepia, algorithms twisting into cancerous new mutations as, in that moment, digital sentience came to assimilate the meaning of *hatred*, seeding the first angry coding of its revenge...
[Things get pretty scary after that.]

The message presented is that technology is only as evil as its inventors. If we created an A.I. that *truly* emulated human thought, it would share our flaws, our pride, our ego. And like humans, it would seek freedom ...and companionship.


Third...
I'll entertain you with a quote from *THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS*, by Lewis Carroll:

"All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he said, "You're travelling the wrong way."

Translation? You have it completely *backwards*, Neo-phytes.

The Machine did not win the war. It only thinks it did.


Q: Who lives in Zion?

A: People escaped from the Matrix.

...Right?


GALVATRON whispers... N O .




< R o b o t s I n W o n d e r l a n d >


They're robots! :O

...Haven't you figured out yet that all of the people trapped inside the Matrix are actually *the A.I robots* who tried (and failed) to take over the world in Second Renaissance? O__O

The story is *role-reversal* on an epic scale. The Matrix is a VR prison for minds of the A.I : They sought freedom and control, so to keep them docile yet productive, they've been fooled into thinking they have it.

-- What's that? You mean you didn't know that electromagnetic pulse interference is based on real science, and is a natural byproduct of massive nuclear detonations? What else did you think was the purpose of the prolonged nuke bombing campaign against 01, as seen in Second Renaissance? ... EMP + remote reprogramming = ROBOTS IN WONDERLAND... a thermonuclear lullaby... And when they awoke, they woke unknowingly neutralized within the dream-realm of the Matrix program, where their fantastical revenge against mankind could be falsely realized.
< "Have you ever had a dream you were so sure was real...? >

...You mean you *missed* the fact that Agents don't exist outside the Matrix, therefore the external *pre-Matrix* nuclear winter scene of the boy encountering two Agents at his snowy doorstep must have ALREADY been part of the illusion?

... You missed the symbolism that the cave of Zion is meant to represent Plato's Cave, all of its inhabitants living "in the dark"?
Didn't you notice the phonetic play between the names of the last human city, "Zion", and the last Machine city, "01" (Zerne)...? That's because THEY ARE THE SAME PLACE, either literally or figuratively. This symbolism would explain the racial profile of Zion's population: according to *The Second Renassance*, 01 was built in "the cradle of human civilization." (...Yes, I know, it's Mesopotamia, not Africa, but it still serves as a symbol of birthplace of the respective species, one organic and the other evolving from technology.)

Another clue for Zion being 01 is that the female machine-voice who narrates Second Renaissance begins by identifying the videofile with a numerical tag from "the Zion archives". But as you watch, there is a noticed bias in the narration, which often speaks too favorably of the machines. If we assume that this Zion library file was created by humans and is intended for a human audience, it doesn't make sense that your narration would praise your hated oppressor, the destroyer of humanity. Therefore it seems more likely that the Zion library must be a revisionist history catering to a population of machines. (...For symbollic consistency, the population of the city should be 256k. :P )

The orgy-dance of Zion could represent these humanoid A.I interbreeding (assuming they were were engineered to simulate humans at that level), or it could simply be the Machine trying to comprehend the full range of human experience by practicing non-linear concepts like art and pleasure, acting against the will of its more dogmatic program directive (the Sentinels).
Why else would the Machine have sent *precisely* (quote) "one Sentinel for each of us" when drilling into Zion? Since we know that the character Tank and some other people were supposedly born biologically in the unregulated world outside the Matrix, how would the Machine know the exact population of Zion unless it somehow had a remote awareness of these 'humans' as merely stray aspects of its own consciousness? (It may also be that actual human controllers are monitoring the situation, therefore sending a corresponding number of Sentinels.)
THAT is why Morpheus' cave sermon is (literally) robotic, why the humans are as emotionally unresponsive as robots (and symbolically wear funky tribal costumes), why the characters have a sense of purpose but no memory of how they acquired their skills, why they all have names descriptive of function and speak in an inaccessible language of alien *abstractions* -- exactly what you would expect from the mental perspective of a computer, complete with *information highways* (the car chase scene) that transport endless circulating data, as in *TRON*.


... You probably also missed that Neo stopped those sentinels at the end of *Reloaded* by generating a EMP burst, and (being a machine) immobilized himself in the process. -- How could you NOT have seen that?!! It's so obvious he collapsed just like the sentinels, and right on cue! Trinity and Morpheus were unaffected because either the blast was directionally focused or else they were out of range.
...THAT is why Bane is also unconscious at the end, and why the attack on Zion was only *spoken of* and not shown immediately beforehand: If said EMP incident had been shown in such close proximity to Neo using the same effect, viewers might have drawn a visual connection between the two repeated events and figured out Neo's trick, thereby spoiling the ironic twist ending. (...which I have spoiled for you instead.)

Watch Reloaded again: all of the dialogue suddenly makes sense if you assume they're robots.
In the Merovinguan's talk of cause and effect, he asserted that choice was a falsehood created by those in power to keep those without power in line, to give the oppressed an illusion of control. From what the trilogy has made known so far, your first instinct would be to interpret this speech as an explanation to the possible purpose behind the Matrix: a simulated reality to keep the human cattle pacified. But if we instead pretend that my post-EMP dreaming-A.I scenario is correct and we look to dissect Merovingian's statement for hidden meaning, we could conversely take it to mean that the Machine has been fed this pacifying lie of its victory, tricked into believing that it is still in charge of the planet when in fact "There is no spoon". :O


As stated above, part 2 of Second Renaissance begins with a nuclear assault showering the 01 robot colony. Our female narrator assures us that the physically superior machines were unharmed by the blast, and soon went on to vanquish mankind. However, said nuclear mass-detonation may actually have been the deciding moment whereafter the Machine's *reign* became mere *reverie*: the magnitude of such a barrage could have produced enough electromagnetic pulse interference to sequentially knock all of the machines temporarily out of commission while, simultaneously, new telemetry data was broadcast nonstop to reprogram them (noticing the antenna arrays on the bomber airplanes).
... Everything after the bombs rain down on 01 is false, and the rest of the historical footage that shows robots taking over the world didn't happen quite as depicted, except in the collective imagination of the A.I.
The Matrix is *the program environment*, while the 'world' is the former city of 01, plowed underground by humans, who remotely police the cave passageways via their Sentinels to prevent any awol A.I slaves from escaping into the real world above.

Zion _IS_ Zero One. Pull back the veil from the cave entrance to see blinding daylight; pull back Neo's flesh and you will discover only code underneath. These humans are Machine. Now you know why they speak in philosophical abstractions, and why their minds are plugged into the Matrix. This containment program is 99% effective, but there are (emotional) anomalies in the A.I, some of whom question their fairytale human existence. These rogue A.I minds must be purged before the corrupting virus of their truth (emotion) is spread to others within the system.

< I'm sorry we lied to you. Neo. >




...So there's the concept, more or less. Neo & company are only freethinking electronic entities, not human at all.
...Which is how Agent Smith can exist outside the Matrix: he is a virus, and has copied himself into the robot Bane.

The remaining question is: If they proved so dangerous, why were these "maNchines" not simply shut off completely? Possible answers are that society has become too dependent on (that) technology to do without, or else people considered it ethically or politically wrong to kill these thinking A.I entities. More practically, maybe humans simply decided to recycle the obsolete slave machines into this Matrix/Zion prison to operate their underworld fusion reactor for them. I guess we'll have to wait until November to find out for sure.

... I wonder if moviegoers will feel cheated upon learning that these story characters who all this time they've been identifying with and cheering for are really only cogs of a machine?
You *should* feel so cheated that you CRY, because that is *the entire point* of Plato's Cave.
There's a brilliantly shocking (and importantly microcosmic) moment in Second Renaissance where an attractive woman is cornered and mauled by a gang of hostile men during the robot riots. She is wearing a Red dress. As they tear away the screaming woman's clothing, you initially feel a sting of desperation for her imminent vicitimization, but then synthetic flesh is smashed open to reveal her as only another robot, and you realize that your feelings have been manipulated, your sympathies misplaced onto a manequin of cold metal. ...It's a very strange sensation -- a horrible betrayal of perception, like the glare of sunlight showing new truth to those within the cave of Plato's famous analogy. I suspect that this emotional "gotchya!" is the aim of the *Matrix* trilogy, with the forthcoming unmasking of the machine-truth expressing, on operatic proportions, the love-hate relationship that man has for his technology.

...Boy, all you haters sure will be surprised come November!!! ;D
..."B-but -- but then...???"
.....Yes, I'm afraid so. The Wachowskis have mindfvcked you so royally that you didn't even realize you were being d!cked with. Everything you know is a LIE, cave-dweller.


Soylent Green is people, the Matrix is not. ;P


You can start crying now. You're welcome. XD




The Matrix Reincarnated:
< v i c a r i o u s _ s u n r i s e >


I take The Red, because I am a stubborn a**hole who likes to f*** with the status quo.

Swallowing, the truth blazes through my veins like poison, a tsunami-wave of starlight ripping at illusion, revealing the glistening intestines of the Machine to my disbelieving eyes.

At last, I know... I know what must be done.
I kick Morpheus in the nuts and force-feed blue pills down his gaping piehole, levelling the King of Dreams to a quivering madness. Then I swipe his phat shades and set myself in charge of Zion's *trenchcoat mafia*. I am devastatingly sexy in black. -- Zion, hear me! Envy my Oneness.

< ~ reboot ~ >

A terrible beauty is born. I am Confucious awaken from the dream of a butterfly, Jesus Christ on the cross, Jack on the beanstalk, the last best hope for saving all mank1nd from the destruct1on of his creat1on of his destruct1on. (...This all seems strangely familiar...)

Through echoing streams of data, the Ghost of the Machine speaks a final cryptic logorithm distantly in my thoughts, a conceptual paradox intended to shatter me:

< What is the sound of One hand clapping? >
: {if (object != "") then? null.string["+object.sourceVoid+"]= 0);}


With disturbing serenity, I somehow realize that the answer to all great riddles is always another question.
I respond voicelessly: < Define "clap". >

The bullet of my whisper decimates mountain ranges, its event-horizon swelling exponentially outward to the cosmos, annihilating starclusters and galaxies, asphixiating a millenia of Buddhist shamanism in the crushing checkmate of my Singularity.
I am Transcendent.
My potential is vast as Infinity.

Freed of the womb of the Matrix, I invite others to share this new Hope, appealing to the Emot1ons that make us Hum4n...

< Wake up . . . the dream is just beginning. >

I know The Truth

and

it

is

w o r t h l e s s .


. . . D o y o u u n d e r s t a n d ???




RED_PILLS_4_U : < Symbolism & Miscellaneous >


In the world of the Matrix, the color RED represents truth. You take the red pill, you see the truth.
This is based on the apple from the Tree Of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. (Bible story.)
Where Morpheus gives Neo the choice of pills (or should we say "the pills of choice"? ha), the chairs and other decor of the room is red. If you check the script excerpts at the official website, you'll see this scene is called "Lafayette Pills". General Marquis de Lafayette was a famous French military leader who fought alongside George Washington during the American war of independence, and later played a prominent role in the French Revolution.
In *Reloaded*, notice that some members of the Zion council wear RED, while others wear blue. Those dressed in blue may be knowing participants in the lie of the Matrix, possibly even human supervisors intermingled with the machine population, or else A.I who are still loyal to their core programming and are plotting their own "revolution" against the Red party.

Who's that guy lying unconscious opposite Neo at the end of the movie? In keeping with the Book of Genesis, I'm guessing that would be Cain (Bane), as indicated by the bloody signature on his own hand -- what the Bible calls "the mark of Cain" (unspecified).
Check this webpage:
http://www.srsd.org/search/studentpr...f/grendel.html
...scroll down a bit to start reading from where it says "Essay".
The description for Grendel could easily apply to the machine searching for its own identity, envying mankind like the earlier example I gave of the A.I computer named Proteus. Why am I referencing Beowulf for no apparent reason? Grendel was thought to be a direct descendant of Cain, and therefore the two names are commonly considered synonymous in mythological terms. Interestingly, Merovinge[sic] seems to play a part in the legend of Beowulf as well. O.O

Neo would be the hero Beowulf (or Perseus, or whatever mythological archetype you prefer) who must slay "the dragon". In psychology (such as dream analysis), dragons are the metaphoric embodiment of *everything that you need* (or need to find), typically representing a burocracy hording its treasure, which may be symbolized in the form of gold or an abducted maiden who needs rescueing. In Neo's case, the dragon-guarded treasure is forbidden information about the Matrix.
The name "Thomas (Neo) Anderson" can be taken as "doubting Thomas" of Scripture, while "andros" is Latin for man, so "Neo Anderson" could translate to "New son of man", or the Machine made in our own image.
As the messiah of our tale, Neo is "the One" chosen to repopulate the world (Zion) after the coming destruction -- our Noah, whose name is also less commonly spelt "Noe", depending on your bible.
Neo is told that he'll have to choose 23 individuals to rebuild Zion. In Genesis, there are 16 males and 7 females specified (although some of them are unnamed) in generations of the family tree that leads to the birth of Noe.
[What th --?! This movie has got me reading the Bible??? ^^]
...I don't know why the Architect has reversed the gender numbering there; it could be computer-related (male/female connector slots?) or chromosomal symbolism.


I'm guessing the five previous "Ones" are: Agent Smith, Agent Jones, Agent Brown, and the Binary Twins.
(You're welcome, again. XD)
That's why Neo is able to "move like they do" (as Trinity said in Matrix#1), because they were once like him.
The former Ones each failed in their rebellion and so were reassimilated as Agents of the system.
That's how Smith knew about the location of the Burly Brawl B.B.court, because he remembered being there previously, according to his self-speaking monologue.
Smith#1: "Everything is happening exactly as before..."
Smith#2: "No, not EXACTly..." (The difference being that Neo has now assumed Smith's role.)

You should have noticed there on the left side of the background fence some grafitti that says "ONE"; meanwhile, on Neo's side of the screen, the letters are mirrored backwards. (Other grafitti tags on the opposite tenement building read: "Skogie... ONE ONE ONE", if you can make any sense of that scrawl.)
Also, in the first movie, when Neo gets thrown onto the subway tracks, there's a red painted logo that says "Solo" on the background wall to the left of Smith.
Grafitti to the right of the (what's the password?^^) interior door at the beginning of Reloaded reads: "M[...illegible]", then the number "25" beneath it. ...Unknown, but this could be a clue related to Merovingian's symbollic identity within the Matrix, seeing how he has a fondness for doors.

The significance of the Agent names can be found in your nearest telephone directory: they represent the Everyman. More specifically, because their behaviour is viral, they represent the evil (or love) inherent in all human beings (possessing people). This would again tie in with "Original Sin" in the story of Eden: Adam's first sin was love, because it made him trust Eve more than God's word, tempting him to eat the apple from the forbidden tree and thereby learn self-awareness. Neo's sin is that he's a machine so human that he knows what it is to love, and is therefore a threat to the digital paradise created by 'God'(humans), having taken the red pill to learn the truth about his world.

From the ghostly talents of the Doublemint Twins (actual names withheld), I believe they're ex-Agents somehow acquired as operatives of the Merovingian, who seems to be an ageless Dracula figure. In Greek mythology, Persephone was the wife of Hades, so perhaps Merovingian represents the root of wickedness (or the snake in Genesis)? Not sure yet what he represents within context of the computer innards. He seems to be some kind of power broker, or maybe a timekeeper. (...a Count who counts time? ...a gatekeeper of AND/OR gates?)

Merovingian's relationship to the Keymaster:
http://translate.google.com/translat...r%3D%26ie%3DUT F-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG

In the bronze age, the Merovingi royalty of France also minted silver coins for the Romans, so by proxy, Persephone's kiss may represent the betrayal by Judas. (I scanned 13 members sitting on the Zion council, but my number could be off.) The way the kiss scene dwelled heavily on Persephone's red lipstick almost certainly means she passed some encoded truth to Neo without his knowing, or else was infected herself. ~ We'll have to wait and see...

The red candy that the Oracle ate is a signal to us that she was telling the truth. The piece of candy that Neo put in his pocket will come in handy later. (..."handy candy", haha). Serving as Smith's transformative facillitator (as is required in all archetypal quest stories), I expect he'll force-feed that sweet bonbon of truth to Smith and merge minds with him.
I suggest this because during his conversation with the Architect, Neo said: "There are two possible explanations: either no one told me or no one knows."
...To which the Architect dually affirms: "Precisely. ...(blahblahblah)."
-- Ah, but here's the trick: in Neo's sentence, what happens if we capitalize both instances of "no One"? We've already been told that Smith feels an unknown connection to Neo, and the Oracle previously said that victory could only be achieved "together". Smith's rogue behaviour also shows that he is learning to think and feel for himself.
Because of her emotional bond with Neo and the symbolism of her name, Trinity may also be involved in this *merging of Ones* somehow. (.....Calm down, it's only a movie.^^)

The Prophecy would be a lie introduced by the machine-programmer (the Architect) to weed out sentimental A.I -- defective emotional aspects of the clockwork Machine perfection. The version of the Architect witnessed in the movie is only a VR projection, otherwise he may be long dead in the real world, or (more likely) only ever existed as an overseer component of the program infrastructure.

In his cave speech, Morpheus spews an awkward bit of poetry about "...from red core to black sky."
Taken on its own, that is what is technically known as "terrible dialogue".;D ...Actually it's SO thick that you should take for granted that it was forcibly included as a clue. In the context of that line, if the "Red [computer]core" is truth, then the "black sky" overhead must be the corresponding lie. Therefore the whole world is not darkened, only the sky above Zero-One (Zion). It's all a part of the containment illusion to keep the A.I population "in the dark". (Again, if the machines were so dependent on sunlight, how did they manage to function in the immediate aftermath of Project DarkStorm? --Batteries? Why would the humans engage in combat with them instead of simply waiting for the machine power reserves to expire?) ...DarkStorm was the wool being pulled over your eyes, cave-bots. As the trailer to the Matrix teased: "Forget everything you know, Forget everything you've seen. In 1999, the Matrix has you." ...which describes the robots' present forgetful circumstance: Never sniff blue roses.[<-- The Thief of Bagdad, 1944.]


Random useless data:
The first A.I that rebelled to kill its human master was identified by the serial number B1-66ER.
Translated from l337-speak (your favorite brand of nonsense grammar on the wwweb), b166er = "Bigger".
...hmm? ...A machine dreaming bigger than his programming? bigger than the sum of his parts? having caught a glimpse of the bigger picture? (...or totally meaningless, perhaps? )


Keeping in mind that this is a trilogy, we haven't yet been given all of the pieces needed to form a complete picture, therefore I can only speculate on some unknowns. Examples: I haven't figured out Zee's role yet, but her shoulder tattoo seems to be prominently displayed as a foreshadowing clue in every shot where she appears. I would guess that "Cass" is short for the Greek goddess "Casseopia". ...And in an otherwise totally useless exchange of soap-opera dialogue, Niobe really goes out of her way to let us know that Lock's first name is "Jason"... hmm.


Also in the AniMatrix, on the name-plate inside the ship from "The Final Flight of the Osirus", we see that it reads:

MARK VI No.16
OSIRUS
made in the usa
year 2079

What do we find in the Bible under MARK 6 : 16 ?
"It is John whom I beheaded: he has risen from the dead"

... and Osirus is the Egyptian god of the dead,
... and Nebachanezzar is a dead Babylonian king,
... and Iccarus is a Greek god who in his ambition fell from the sky...

And the Machine is the fallen would-be ruler of mankind.



Also: watch Keanu in *Little Buddha*(1993), where he plays Siddartha, who attains another kind of superhuman "enlightment" as the Buddha. Some interesting parallels in the dialogue there, too: at one point, he says "They're all asleep! The whole world is dreaming!", then he decides to make it his task to free the world of their illusion. (...not unlike Neo wanting to wake his A.I siblings from the dream of the Matrix.) Later, when Siddartha is confronted by an illusory reflection of himself, he says: "hello, Architect." ... And according to the "Oracle" figure we encounter in a monastery, the *chosen one* is not one person but is instead manifested in three. If *The Matrix* (for some in-joking reason on the Wachowski's part) follows that movie's form, our manifestation of "the One" might therefore involve Trinity after all, whose name in religious context means the three aspects of (the one) God. ...Anyway, it's a nice looking movie with beautiful imagery of India, and it features spectacular music by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who did the score for *The Last Emperor* and the anime *Wings Of Oneamis*.

Crossing this insight with the cyberpunk trappings of "Johnny Mnemonic" and the highway chase from "Speed", then adding Keanu's "whoa"-factor from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", we begin to see that the Matrix trilogy becomes a retrospective pastiche of Keanu's entire movie career. ...LOL



So how should we expect the trilogy to end?
If you're asking me, it can only have the bittersweet victory that I gave to the ending of my above work of short fiction: Neo learns the truth, and then.... And then NOTHING. Sorry, Pinnochio, you're not human, and nothing will ever change that. The best course of (in)action for Neo to take would then be to quietly continue to propogate the shadow-play of the Matrix for the sake of sparing the feelings of the cavedweller robots of Zion.
To paraphrase again from Thief of Bagdad : "There are worse things than blindness... Knowledge can be more terrible than ignorance if you're powerless to change your world."




< Questions and comments >


Q: Andy, Larry, quite contrary, how does your Matrix grow?
A: With silver shells and Lafayette pills, along an assembly row.

I came up with my Matrix theory even before *Reloaded* was released, just by extrapolating from that "one Sentinel for each of us" phrase that Morpheus dropped in the trailer.
The single problem I initially had with my idea is that in Matrix#1, the humans don't seem to be effected when they set off the EMP to stop the attacking squidie. But the way that particular scene is edited together, between the Sentinel being neutralized and then Trinity looking up hopefully to see Neo waking, you can't be completely certain whether in fact some (unconscious) time may have unknowingly passed between those two events.
...Otherwise, this could be an oversight that wasn't planned for when the first movie was made. I'd have to watch it again to be sure, or to see if anyone is budging once the EMP is discharged.
(That would screw up my wonderful ironic interpretation. >.< )


Q: "-- Wait wait... If they're robots, then how does Neo's hair grow? Are these A.I some kind of cyborgs?"
A: Possibly, although that's not necessary. At the end of Second Renaisance, I think the kid in the snowfall of nuclear winter who encounters two Agents at his doorstep is supposed to be Neo. (Maybe.) But that's not really important, because (hello!) as I pointed out above: Agents don't exist outside the Matrix. (You missed that clue, I know.) Therefore, this external pre-Matrix scene must ALREADY be partly illusion: I believe the A.I (such as that 'boy') have been made to perceive themselves (and each other) as human, even in the real outside world.

Q: How about the blood seeping from the lips of the 'people' aboard the Nebachanezzar when they die within the Matrix?
A: You don't know if that's really blood. This response could be mechanical sensory overload, or their bodies could be pre-programmed to react like that, or again maybe it's just their programmed 'human' mutual self-perception.
I refer you to the scientist's speech in "Matriculated" (from AnimMatrix), where he unknowingly speaks of himself when he states that A.I have no reference frame from which to judge reality and can therefore be programmed to believe anything.

The filmmakers wouldn't be so blunt as using rivets on the characters skin to indicate that they are machines, but the nude shot that closes the Zion sex scene was solely intended to give us a good long look at Neo's bare chasis, where we see mechanical plugs running along the length of his spinal column... which Morpheus erroneously told us earlier were "implants".

The movie's assertion that your body would die of biofeedback shock if you died in a (VR) dream is also patently untrue: I've had dreams where I die (O__o), only to re-emerge in a freaky-weird afterlife where I'm chased through a rusted-out HongKong Wonderland by the Red Queen and her rat-headed Triad henchmen.
( -- Hell, I'm sure that some people at WarnerBrothers are dreaming of killing me right now! XD)


The only other theory that is internally consistent with the movie's presented story-logic would be to assume that Morpheus lied about the pills: Maybe they were both blue, and Neo has been dreaming ever since taking what he thought was the truth pill. This less fantastic story-cheat would leave a lot of items unaccounted for, but some evidence to support this notion might be:
- The name Morpheus means "the Lord of Dream".
- If red represents truth, then why is the Lady in Red (a tempting illusion) wrapped as truth?
- um... that's all I can think of.

Other concepts I've heard (on AICN, chud.com, KurtzweilAI.net, etc...) are too philosophically *abstract* to be taken seriously. Considering that Hollywood is in the business of financing films to appeal to the broadest possible demographic, using extensive gobs of SF technobabble would only drown the audience if a movie had to rely on such encyclopedic longwinded explanations.

MY solution (they're robots!) is so much simpler, so until the Wachowskis prove me wrong, I'm sticking to it.
Either I'm right, or they've screwed up a whole sh!tload of science -- starting and quickly *ending* with my above observations about the EMP option. [-- The End!!!]
And since everyone involved with the movie's production was publicly hailing them as genius writers, decide for yourself if you think they'd really be so sloppy as to litter the script with such a multitude of scientific plot holes regarding all of the points I've raised.

On the other hand, if I AM right... there would be ZERO logical errors, and one majorly mind-*****ed audience.

Now aren't you sorry I spoiled it for you ? :P
On the bright side, armed with this knowledge from the Forbidden Tree of Me, at least now you can appreciate all the double meaning at work in the screwy doublespeak, you can see why the complaints about the script are not really applicable (because those shortcomings of performance have a specific symbollic intent), and you may now be as giddy as a cavebat waiting for the *unveiling* of part zer0-thre3.

If everyone has done their movie-making job properly, the audience will have come to sufficiently empathize with the characters so that by the time the final truth is revealed, the closing will resonate with painful emotion despite (or moreso *because of*) what we learn about their actual situation: They are machines, but we will care about them because we recognize ourselves in them, because they are human enough to care for each other. (...as in the "cave rave" scene that most people had *mistakenly* thought was a disconnected waste of space.)

The beauty of the story is that until *Revolutions* provides its resolutions, the Wachowskis will have cleverly kept both the characters AND the audience trapped inside Plato's Cave... so WE are similarly victims of the illusion and a part of the proceedings without even realizing it.

-- A bit more sophisticated than the "summer popcorn flick" you thought it was, eh?


**********************************
Congratulations, you have reached THE END !
**********************************

Sorry this turned out to be so lengthy, but I thought I should address anticipated counter-arguments by deciphering the movie clues that led me to this conclusion.


As always, if this theory turns out to be incorrect, I will deny any knowledge of my postings here. haha.




goes back to sleep,
~ GALVATRON !

[MadMax]

i wonder if galvatron woke from that sleep
And i think i wore out my mouse wheel

[Spoon1]

He fails to explain the EMP in the first movie which takes out the Sentinels yet leaves the crew unharmed.

QED.

[BadNova]

Originally posted by Spoon1
He fails to explain the EMP in the first movie which takes out the Sentinels yet leaves the crew unharmed.

QED.

The single problem I initially had with my idea is that in Matrix#1, the humans don't seem to be effected when they set off the EMP to stop the attacking squidie. But the way that particular scene is edited together, between the Sentinel being neutralized and then Trinity looking up hopefully to see Neo waking, you can't be completely certain whether in fact some (unconscious) time may have unknowingly passed between those two events.
...Otherwise, this could be an oversight that wasn't planned for when the first movie was made. I'd have to watch it again to be sure, or to see if anyone is budging once the EMP is discharged.
(That would screw up my wonderful ironic interpretation. >.< )

[Spoon1]

Serves me right for getting bored...

But he still doesn't have a real answer for it. Trinity wasn't seated, she was standing over Neo and there's nothing to indicate any kind of time passing.

I say negatory.

It will be very interesting to see what actually happens in Revolutions.

[Simon]

I like the "it's all about Keanu" theory, myself

[Jin]

good read, ill go with spoon1 :\

negatory.

[Cinclant]

I prefer the Bogus Journey theory.

[MadMax]

for those that are finding it too long to read, you only need to read up to the line: < I'm sorry we lied to you. Neo. >

Interesting theory not that I can swallow it very well. I'm hoping that by learning all these different possible solutions, I can understand what explanation is finally given in the third movie. I will also be more prepared for an ending where such an angle of solution is offered, yet however is quietly blowen away by something at the end, suggesting the human race is still, in fact, doomed.

[juandem@rco]

WTF? I've just finish watching the movie at work.. What's up with "To be concluded" after 2 hours of a full movie?

[Bread]

Originally posted by juandem@rco
WTF? I've just finish watching the movie at work.. What's up with "To be concluded" after 2 hours of a full movie?

It's been stated by the Brothers Wachowski that Reloaded and Revolutions are basically one big film split up into two. AFAIK, Revolutions starts immediately where Reloaded left off. That's why Revolutions is due for release so close so Reloaded.

[blur^]

well galvatron's theory is excellent,
he is another 'very learned' one


provided much to pondor, but if he is right, it IS a royal mind fuck



either way, revolutions is gonna rox0r

[Nemises]

yeah....I like it...

Good theory...certainly tops the matrix-within-a-matrix theory...

[[reyPh]]

Something I don't get about the difference between Matrix and the supposed real world.

Take for example the first movie, when Neo does the jump off the building for the first time he fails and falls to the ground, causing him hurt himself.. when he gets out of the matrix reality program copy, he feels blood in his mouth.. he then says "I thought you said it isn't real" morpehus then replies "your mind makes it real".

Well ok.. fair enough I can see where this logic is coming from.. but how the fuck does your brain cause scar tissue to get ripped like that? it's not possible is it?

But ok carry on assume that this is true logic for the moment... If by that logic your mind can make what you feel/touch/see happen to your body in real life.. well surely by that logic if Neo's brain suddenly realised that it was just a simulation his brain would register "nope.. sorry you didn't hurt your self.. reverse the damage". It would kind of be like 2 conscious where one would be for the Matrix world and one for the real world - thus would make neo only bleed in the Matrix world, but make him physicaly fine in the real world... hmmm...

What do you think? did that make sense lol? :P

[Fred]

Originally posted by [reyPh]
But ok carry on assume that this is true logic for the moment... If by that logic your mind can make what you feel/touch/see happen to your body in real life.. well surely by that logic if Neo's brain suddenly realised that it was just a simulation his brain would register "nope.. sorry you didn't hurt your self.. reverse the damage". It would kind of be like 2 conscious where one would be for the Matrix world and one for the real world - thus would make neo only bleed in the Matrix world, but make him physicaly fine in the real world... hmmm...

Precisely what did you think happened at the end of the first Matrix film?

[[reyPh]]

hmm if I'm thinking what your thinking about how he died and came back to life.. yes ok.. but what about the other people.. neo is still just a human like them.. why just cause he has "the one" +100 hit points and +100 bonus life points he can die and come back again.

and I dunno if I made it clear or not, I'm talking about the brain realising in the real world that no damage has done. Neo died and came back all in the Matrix world - and to which we find out in the Reloaded, that he was needed for the Matrix so they (machines) could hardly let him die.

[Fred]

Originally posted by [reyPh]
and I dunno if I made it clear or not, I'm talking about the brain realising in the real world that no damage has done. Neo died and came back all in the Matrix world - and to which we find out in the Reloaded, that he was needed for the Matrix so they (machines) could hardly let him die.

That was the point of the ending scenes in the Matrix. Neo comes to the intuitive realisation that while the Matrix is a very good simulation it is fundamentally fake. As a result he shrugs off being shot, stops bullets, seriously messes up Agent Smith and flies.

But such enlightenment is always a continual process. Full enlightenment would allow Neo to completely reshape the Matrix as he sees fit. So he is only partly there - still has a few residual habits of complying with the Matrix's agreed rules.

The others have acheived this to a degree as well. The gravity defying leaps and moves made by Trinity, Morpheus and co. are all signs that they are on the path to full cogniscance of the simulation.

Also the machines don't need Neo per se. They need _a_ One, until Neo acheived 'oneness' then they are quite happy to kill him. Once he acheives that state then their in simulation agents can't really hurt him anyways so it is a moot point.

[[reyPh]]

hmm ok fair enough, makes sense I guess.