How then did Neo stop the sentinels? It is worth noting that he didn't control gravity or pull any of the other fancy tricks he is able to inside the matrix. He "only" stopped five sentinels. That could imply no more than a peculiar connection with them, similar to the odd connection between Smith and Neo. His ability to "broadcast" something to them would indeed be unusual, but they were pretty close. Why then did he go into a coma? Maybe it was exhausting work.
The more important question to answer without the assumption of an uber-matrix is how Smith operates in the real world, or why no others can. Perhaps the why is easily explained by that fact that nobody else shares Smith's ability to replicate himself and exist in more than one place at the same time. Agents can jump from body to body, but not occupy two bodies at once. Smith can. Asking the follow-on question of why an Agent wouldn't just take over the body of someone about to be recalled out of the matrix simply leads one to question why they don't do that anyway, taking over the bodies of anyone who plugs into the matrix from outside. Obviously being part of the 1% has its advantages.
What is it like, being taken over by Smith? For an AI, it might be as simple as overwriting the memory of the previous process with a complete copy of one's own memory. Since people within the matrix are digital projections of their mental selves (or is that vice-versa?), a Smith-infected person would be indistinguishable from Smith within the matrix, but their real body would simply have a different brain in it. Of course, this ignores the issues of how a brain is structured, and whether links into the matrix from outside are two-way. An altered projection doesn't necessarily affect the projector, but how closely can we follow that analogy? Could activity within the matrix cause the neural pathways of a human brain to spontaneously completely rewrite themselves? Why not?
So Smith might have been able to truly replicate himself into the real world by rewriting the neural pathways of Bane, giving Smith a new body in the real world. I'm willing to accept that. Neo might have some sort of special connection with both Smith/Bane and the sentinels by virtue of his status as The One or his encounter with The Architect. I might even be willing to accept that. So I can't be 100% sure about the uber-matrix.
On the other hand, again, it might be an easier way to explain how Smith was able to travel into "the real world" and allows for two possibilities with the apparent comas at the end of the film. One is that Neo is attempting to deal with the sudden realization that reality is not real - we've heard reference to this being a difficult process for some people, especially older people. Another is to recognize the similarities between Neo's collapse and the collapse of the three bodies at the power station. Is it possible that something happened to the bodies of Neo and Bane outside of the uber-matrix, and their bodies are currently "empty" of control?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Doctor Slack
Good summary, I've been kicking a lot of those ideas and questions around myself. I'd just add that:
1) The Merovingian is clearly aware of the previous cycles, and appears to have survived through many (perhaps all) of them. Recall his constant references during his encounter with Neo to "your predecessors."
2) The Merovingian may have spent his time as an exile trying to destroy or usurp the Matrix. Note he instructs Neo & friends to "tell the fortune-teller her time is almost up."
2 - Phillip Winn
Good point. That reinforces my belief that this is still only the third version of the matrix, not the sixth as many people believe. It is only the sixth version of Zion, while matrix 3.0 buzzes along blissfully.
That might also explain why The Merovingian works so hard to keep the Keymaker away from Neo and crew. I'm torn between wondering if he was just setting up an artificial barrier, or truly being reluctant.
See, think about the role of The Oracle for a while. She spends her time trying to find The One. In the last hundred years since Zion was last wiped out, she must have seen tons of people who have "the gift". The kid could bend spoons, others can do lots of other little tricks, or they wouldn't be sitting in The Oracle's anteroom. When she first sees Neo, she says that he has the gift, but he seems to be waiting for something. Maybe his next life.
In retrospect, that seems brilliant, because Neo does in fact die before awakening to his role as The One. But what if it wasn't meant to be quite so brilliant? What if The Oracle figured that he was a pretty darn good example of The Anomaly, but not quite the ultimate? She'd been waiting a hundred years, maybe she wan't sure he was it. After all, in this film, she tells him that he finally made a believer out of her.
So ditto all of the other characters. The Agents are obviously aware of the cycle, and they spend their time crushing anyone from the outside that they can, hoping to keep The One from arising, or failing that - as the inevitably will - to crush The One before he gets too far.
The Merovingian asked Neo if he knew why he wanted the Keymaker. Had Neo known, perhaps he would have just turned him over. Probably not. Probably you're correct and he is trying to screw things up. But maybe he was just looking for a condition, a cause to achieve an effect. Just like The Oracle had been.
This line of thinking has convinced me that those screens behind Neo were not previous versions of The One. If The One was always Thomas J Anderson, The Agents would probably act a lot sooner to crush Thomas J Anderson whenever he popped up in life.
It has also caused me to think about The Keymaker. Like the other program characters, I asssume that he was aware of the cycle, existing "eternally." But maybe not. He certainly had no intention of going back to The Merovingian, ever. He spoke a bit about purpose, implying that his very existence and all of his knowledge were there for one reason: To get The One to The Architect, and presumably The Source. Thus his death mattered little to him.
Neo took the left door, seemingly against the pattern. But if he had taken the right door and reset Zion, would another Keymaker have risen up? It's difficult enough to think of The One popping up every so many years. To think that The One also need to identify and find The Keymaker during that same cycle, well, it does begin to beggar belief, no? It's a big world, even within the matrix. Fortunately, in this case The Merovingian made things easier for him. But is there such a thing as fortune within the matrix?
More questions, not enough answers!
3 - Esther
First of all: thank you for writing this very good analysis. I have a thought about one of the things you said.
Philip:
"This line of thinking has convinced me that those screens behind Neo were not previous versions of The One. If The One was always Thomas J Anderson, The Agents would probably act a lot sooner to crush Thomas J Anderson whenever he popped up in life."
I believe The One is needed to keep the Matrix alive. I.e. Zion is destroyed at the end of every cycle and they need The One to found the new Zion and to teach the new inhabitants of Zion the prophecy that there will be another One who will rescue them. The whole prophecy thing is of course just a lie the Oracle or the Architect made up to keep the "Zionists" in line, to give them something to believe in. So if the Agents would crush The One earlier there would be no way to restart the cycle. That would also mean that they don't really want to kill him but just pretend. That on the other hand doesn't sound all that likely. I don't know.
But let's assume for a minute that "reality" is in fact an uber-matrix. Then the chances are high that maybe another 1% of the people living in it will not believe that it is real, just like they didn't with the "original" Matrix. So if reality is just another matrix and there are some people who don't believe in it, this will likely destroy that matrix just like it did the first incarnations of the original Matrix. So the machines need the prophecy to give the people in the uber-matrix something to believe in which keeps their subconsciousness from triggering any doubt until The One arrives and destroys the uber-matrix and founds a new one. Maybe they need this cleansing process because otherwise some people will stop believing in the prophecy.
Of course it's an awful lot of work to make The One believe that they are actually trying to kill him and at the same time manipulating and helping him enough that he makes it to the Architect so he can destroy and rebuild Zion.
Well as you said. There's no way to know until we see the last movie...
4 - Doctor Slack
It just occurs to me that the only problem with Philip's theory that we're only in v3.0 of the Matrix (which I largely agree with, actually) is the part where Persephone shoots one of the Merovingian's vampire henchmen after telling Our Heroes that they're "from an earlier version of the matrix."
5 - Phillip Winn
Doc (#4) - Matrix 2.0 was filled with an assortment of things designed to reflect the worse parts of our nature - but without choice. It is possible that the werewolves exist from that version. But I admit, that statement does cast some doubt, doesn't it?
Esther (#3) - Watching the original movie again yesterday, I was struck by a couple of things. One is a passing reference Morpheus makes to the founding of Zion, which in retrospect can easily be seen as having been done by the previous The One. Happy coincidence, that.
The other is that the first movie is a work of art. I take back everything I said about M2 being it's equal in any way. As I watched M1, I was struck by how carefully each and every shot was staged. There was not a single scene in the movie that could have been improved by moving the camera even an inch in any direction. In contrast, the second film was filled with many more standard 1-shot, 2-shot, wide angle sequences. Much more traditional.
There were some very nicely filmed sequences in M2, don't get me wrong, but it didn't feel as finely crafted as the original. Since it had been a while since I saw the original, I had forgotten how good it really was.
Anyway, back to your comments. I'm still confused about a couple of seemingly-contradictory statements from The Architect. At one point he refers to Neo as "human," but at another he talks about the need to reassimilate Neo's code. As a programmer myself, I associate that term with software programs.
Also, why would it be necessary for The One to pick the next 23 starters? Couldn't anyone do that? Yet a comment from Morpheus in M1 (sorry, can't remember it) leads me to believe that at least this sixth iteration of Zion was definitely seeded by the previous The One, so that evidently is how the cycle has always gone. Before this time, that is.
Lots of questions, waiting for the answers. I hope that the brothers have been careful enough not to leave too many contradictory points in the dialogue. I can handle loose ends, and vague things that can be bent either way, but actual flat-out contradictions would bug me.
6 - Peter
Hello Phill, Pedro from Spain, Europe. Great job. I´ve read your theories posted on the web and thought that they were quite cueing, especially for seeing MReloaded a second time. When I watched the original Matrix today (to try to fully aprehend the story), I couldn´t stop thinking about a detail that I wanted to share because probably you have´nt sat on it: The Oracle gives Neo a cookie in M1, and I believe that cookie is what makes Neo the One, or it plays a very very important role in becoming the One... likewise the pill in M1 given by Morpheus to Neo to pinpoint his location, and the chocolate cake prepared by Merovingian in M2 to turn on the woman in the restaurant, the cookie could have an encoded program in it that somehow interacts with Neo´s digital self in Matrix... I think that it could be what makes Neo the One.
So, wild guessing, the functioning of the matrix could be as follows:
1. At the beggining of each cycle a matrix is created, giving 1% of the prisoners the choice of not accepting the program; the matrix consolidates and at the same time some prisoners free themsleves fleeing to Zion; the matrix grows to a breaking point where it can no longer persist because there are too many "freed" humans in Zion and that can alter the systems normalcy, interact with the Matrix´s plugged-in prisoners, increase the percentage of freed people (remeber they have freed more people in six months than in six years)... so a "One" must be created in order to bring and end to the cycle; the Oracle "bakes" a One (the cookie) and leeds him to the Source to be reassimilated by it, ensuring the creation of another new version of the Matrix, destroying Zion and starting the whole process from the top.
2. But I´m prone to believe more in the Oracle as being a goody, so I structured a second theory: maybe the Oracle is the creator of the first matrix (where no one suffered), an AI program capable of understanding human feelings that is outcast in the definite version of Matrix, and because of its affinity with humans, it decides to rebel against the version created by The Architect where human feelings are low, blunted. So her goal could be to destroy the second darker version of the Matrix. That would explain why The Oracle needs the Guardian´s protection(the chineese dude), something that would have no sense at all if she was the ruling program, the controler of the system ¿right?. I like to believe in her to be with the good-guys.
We´ll see in MRevolutions.
As to metaphysics, the MReloaded has been dismissed as banal and infantile. How can the biggest question of humankind posed throughout the film (that is, are we prisoners of God, creator of reality, or are we free to choose our destiny?) can be childish? That is a question some people lacking of profoundity don´t do to themselves... Olé olé olé for the Watchoski bros. for pounding our wit with it!! (pose this question to those who say the movie is childish and make them truly think about the answer... see what their reaction is.)
7 - Tim
Winn's Essay talked about similarities in the versions of the matrix. What do the door numbers mean? There is consistent use of door numbers 101 and 303 in both of the versions in fact no other numbers are used. Have not recorded the numbers where the doors lead but from my memory of The Matrix numbers are recorded for Thomas Andersons flat and to the exit room where Neo is shot by Smith. Room 303 appears again in The Matrix Reloaded but I cant remember where. Just another piece of foresenic information. May be worth something
8 - peterbrown
In the original Matrix, Room 303 of the "Heart o´the city" Hotel, where Neo gets shot by Smith at the end of the movie, is the same room where Trinity is nearly detained at the beggining of it.
There is a shot during the last moments of the street-chase where we see Smith looking up at the sign of the Hotel; this shows how Smith knows where Neo is going to try to exit the matrix (through the same line Trinity came in in the first place) and that is why he´s already inside when Neo arrives. Although, the meaning of the numbers, I dunno my friends...
9 - Phillip Winn
#6 Pedro/Peter - I did notice the food. The Oracle gives Neo a cookie in the first movie, which he bites. Morpheus gives Neo the red pill, which enables them to locate his body. In M2, The Oracle gives Neo a "candy" which looks identical to the red pill from the first movie, but while Neo takes it, he is not shown eating it. Could this be part of why he doesn't seem to make the expected choice with The Architect? It could play a factor.
However, I don't really think that The Oracle "makes" The One. She does seem to be acting as a filter, identifying patterns, not making them. It seems that she encounters any one of a number of people with "the gift," but is waiting for the one who will recognize it and step into it, as Neo does after being shot in the first film.
Note that in M2, she tells Neo that he has made a believer out of her. A believer in what? That he is The One? Most likely. There are other possibilities, but that seems to fit the best.
The role of The Oracle is a puzzling one, as is her relationship to The Merovingian and The Architect. All might be revealed in M3, except that the actress is dead, so that might be tricky.
#7-8 I gave up trying to track the numbers. They do repeat, and often. At first I started with the truly simple: 101 is base-2 for 5. But the Heart'o The City Hotel room was 303, so that doesn't work. I give up already. :)
10 - Tim
Further to room numbers have seen reloaded again. In the original Thomas Anderson has a room number of 101. When Neo, Morpheus and Trinity visit the Meroviginian the get out of the lift on floor 101 (Large 101 in Bright light)
11 - Tim
Further to room numbers have seen reloaded again. In the original Thomas Anderson has a room number of 101. When Neo, Morpheus and Trinity visit the Meroviginian they get out of the lift on floor 101 (Large 101 in Bright light)
12 - Pedro
Checking on the only interview the Watchoski bros. gave back in 1999, I rescued a bit of information on the "cookie" thing... they say that the meaning of it was actually explained in a scene that was finnaly deleted from the definite edit. So, I guess it had a more trivial, simbolic meaning but no factual consequences beyond that(something like "I already know that your going to take the cookie Neo... fate-determinism(?).
Anyway, I stick to the second theory where the Oracle is with the good guys fighting to destroy the second matrix and I like to think of her as the rebel AI program that created the first happy-happy matrix).
By the way, the M3 trailer shows her to be appearing...
In another line of things, the cave in Zion... any similarities to Plato´s cave? Maybe there is a uber-matrix after all and the people of Zion are not free but still living in the "cave".
I just hope that everything is in place for M3, and that all these intricate filosophical backgrounds and elaborated double meanings that we are finding in the saga have actually been put there intentionally by the directors in order to add up to a very intelligent metaphysical dissertation that might rumble the superficial values of today´s world.
Cross your fingers.
13 - smorley
I'm really enjoying these comments and theories. I have a question that may be insignificant, but here it goes.
(I've only seen Reloaded once)
I thought that I heard them say that after the machines destroyed Zion that they kept on digging. Why? What are they after?
My initial thought was that maybe the "real Zion" is down deeper. That somehow the Zion that was destroyed was generated by the "real Zion" as a protective device (firewall?) But that brings up the question of the people, could real people live in such an enviroment and would whoever is in the "real Zion" just let them die?
I know it doesn't make much sense. Maybe it doesn't even mean anything that the machines kept digging.
14 - irja
Aweseme recap & theorizing on the film. There is one question I would add to your list (pardon if this has already been asked, or if I misheard something as I only have seen the movie once)-- the question is, why are the sentinals still digging? It was briefly mentioned at the end of the movie and I believe those remaining alive were wondering the same thing.
The answer to that may explain the existance (or not) or your "uber" Matrix.
looking forward to November.
15 - Phillip Winn
#13 & 14 - I think you've both mistaken the nature of the sabotaged battle. Remember that Lock was setting up an ambush of sort at a critical point the he was sure the sentinels would pass. That ambush lost its element of surprise when Bane/Smith triggered the EMP prematurely. The sentinels had not yet reached Zion. Once they do, they'll have to dig through that rather large wall that we saw open to let the Nebuchadnezzar in.
So they're still digging for the same reason they started digging to begin with - to reach Zion.
16 - Alex
The original Matrix movie is way superior to the Matrix Reloaded. The sequel is a boring epic saga that resembles any of the formulaic Star Treck/Lucasfilm cookie cutter products. It is therefore a major disappointment.
As for the philosophical/metaphysical merit of the Reloaded, it is virtually non-existent. The reason the original Matrix is far superior lies in the fact that it brought forward questions that are seriously disturbing and touch the nerve of anyone who tends to ponder what does it mean to exist, to be alive, and so on.
In contrast, Matrix Reloaded only manages to water down those questions, bringing them to the childish level of video game players.
The only way they could have extended the original Matrix was to introduce ambiguities, such as an impotent notion of reductio ad absurdum matrices (i.e. a matrix inside a matrix inside a matrix, and so on, ad nauseum.) But that is so boring and childish (i.e. the angled mirrors effect).
The original movie was brilliant because it mocked the process of watching the movies. We went into the theater, sank into the dream world (our level of awareness was 'pushed' one level down), and were then rudely 'awakened' when Neo woke up from his enslavement by the matrix. But, in actuality, instead of popping up from Neo's dream world, we were pushed down even one level deeper.
And that's the trick the movie played upon for the remainder of its time. Realizing that such a trick was played upon us so easily made us appreciate the depth of the questions the movie posed.
Nothing even remotely brilliant as that was offered in the sequel. The plot and the vexations are very banal in the Matrix Reloaded. I was expecting that the sequel will elaborate on the events that preceded Morpheus's awakening. Morpheus did manage to mention their forefather, a person who managed to develop powers beyond Neo's, in that, according to Morpheus, he was able to modify the Matrix and turn it into anything he wanted. What happened to that story? How was that possible? These are much more pressing questions, instead of introducing the infinite, absurd matrices (which is, yawn, oh so boring and predictable).
Also, when the first human got 'liberated', how did they survive in the 'real' world? Remember, their muscles were, out of necessity, atrophied, but at that time there was no one to resuscitate them the way they did with Neo's muscular system. Keep in mind that, have they not rescued Neo from the sewer, he would've drowned in no time.
Something's fishy, and I can almost bet that the Matrix Revolution (the conclusion, which is coming up around Christmas time this year) is not going to be able to answer any of these real questions. So, sadly, it's just another croak.
Alex
17 - Pedro moreno
Good thinking Alex, I like the way you analize the film cinematographically... but don´t forget the question, only hinted in the first movie, now fully unleashed in Reloaded:
Are you a prisoner of God (whoever he is to you; always the creator of reality) or are you free to choose?
I become overwhlemed when I try to answer it... childish? I have a law degree and I´m going into another one in film producing right now. Don´t take me wrong, I don´t want to boast, but I think it might make my point.
Anyway, I´m totally with you man, this second film is a lot lot lot lot lot worse than the previous: Matrix was superior in every single aspect (script, editing, score, and most of all vfx... one of the reasons I loved the first movie was that it was actually Keanu Reeves summersaulting over Larry Fishbourne, or Carrie Anne Moss smaking the cop´s face with her leg over her shoulder; in Reloaded you see plenty of fake Keanus that make you simply walk away).
Anyway, the story is getting better... let´s see Revolutions first, maybe it´s all part of a plan.
Take care guys.
Pedro.
18 - Phillip Winn
Alex (#16) You make it clear that you aren't interested in any discussion, merely venting your own opinion as fact. So I'm not responding to you, but for the benefit of anyone else who might read your comment.
It is a shame that Alex missed the entire point of M2. I know he did so because questions he asked in his seventh paragraph were actually answered within the movie, but he didn't put enough thought into it to realize that.
In order: The heritage of the epic saga goes back considerably farther than Star Wars, and Star Trek has never followed that cycle. Solomon said it best: There is nothing new under the sun. If you spend your life looking for similarites and being disappointed when you find them, you'll live a very disappointing life indeed, because even M1 was derivative, creating nothing new. It merely brought together existing elements in a way that was new to most people in North America. That I consider it to be a superior film to it's predecessors does not rely on it's (nonexistant) uniqueness, but on it's freshness.
M1 succeeded for many reasons, but it certainly didn't touch everybody, and even those it touched it did in different ways. Some were taken by the (old) idea that nothing is real and that only our perceived experiences form the substance of who we are. Some were taken by the idea that our very existence is unreal and purely the result of brain impulses. Others were drawn only to the action, others to the stirring Messiah concept. And some people weren't very impressed at all, either because they didn't like the philosophical questions raised or because they'd already gone through all of that nonsense in college. It is worth noting that M1 appealed most of all to a demographic that has not spent much time in college-level philosophy classes.
M2, far from watering down the questions of the original, introduced several new levels of questions at a higher level. Given as a foundation that reality can be a product of perceived experiences, how much control does the one who can shape those perceptions have over those experiencing them? What is free will? Are we truly free to make choices, or are we purely a product of our past? These are hardly video-game level questions, but more even that the question of reality, these are questions that affect each of us every day. My wife was utterly unimpressed with the philosophy of M1, seeing it as childish and irrelevant. M2, on the other hand, impressed her because these are questions raised every day in theology and in life. Questions that make a difference in how we act and the choices we make. Or do we even make those choices?
In paragraph four, I believe we come to the root of Alex's disappointment. He had a picture in his mind of "the only way" the brothers could have extended M1, and they didn't go that route. Since they dug deeper and went in new directions, apparently they wasted their effort, on Alex at least. It is a matter of much debate whether or not the brothers even tried to introduce the notion of an uber-matrix. I personally don't believe that they did any more, and that people are reading too much into some places and not enough into others to come up with that notion. However, that entire impression comes from roughly one minute of screen time out of 2:10, so there is plenty else to satisfy.
A parallel to the process of movie-watching is certainly not invalid. That's the marvel of philosophy - little is truly false, though some of it is less weighty or valid than the rest. However, it's a prety shallow analogy. If the process of watching the film in a theater helps people relate in some small way to growing up in a tub of goop, then that's wonderful. I fear that it barely scratches the surface of the depths which the brothers plumbed with their script, but again, if it helped some people, so much the better.
I have tried to maintain an impersonal response, but with "Nothing even remotely brilliant...", it becomes harder. The questions and implications raised by the second film are far from banal. They press to the very root of what it means to be human, and they are universal. While not everybody has grappled (or is interested in grappling) with the question of reality, I suspect that noone has not pondered the questions of free will versus predeterminism, or strained against control.
Originally the idea was that M1 would be a center film, with a prequel and a sequel. Instead, the brothers turned that sequel into a two-part 4:30 film that stretches from M2 into M3, and used The Animatrix to fill in the backstory.
Furthermore, spelling out the backstory in detail would have ruined the entire point of the film. Given what The Architect said, the "forefather" seems to be clearly a previous iteration of The One. That is, if Neo had chosen the door on his right, he would have become the new forefather for a new generation of Zion. If these are pressing questions, why have you exerted no brain power at all to draw this obvious conclusion? Instead, you make the simple-minded conclusion that the brother delivered only an infinite-matrix cop-out, never mind that nothing of the sort is even hinted at during the movie. An uber-matrix is not the same thing as infinite matrices, after all.
The rest of your questions continue to demonstrate that you quit paying attention pretty early in the film, and also that you haven't bothered the read the post on which you've commented. I'll type slowly so you can keep up.
The first humans to populate Zion would be the 16 women and 7 men chosen by The One, plus The One himself. Since their liberations would be engineered with the help of the architect and the full participation of the system and those who normally enforce the rules (like the agents), there would be no problems with setting up the 24 humans in a new Zion, fully strengthened and ready to go.
This is pretty simple stuff, but mind-boggling at the same time. I think it's pretty clear that M2 wasn't too simple for you, but rather that you were too simple for M2. But you go right ahead and pre-judge M3. Thinking that you know more than the creators of The Matrix has served you so well so far!
19 - Phillip Winn
Well, okay, I wasn't going to say this myself, but having just read a quote that says what I wanted to say, I'll quote it:
It's from David Poland, and comes from the bottom of Friday's Hot Button.
20 - Pedro
You´ve taken the debate to higher level Phill!!! Everyone, try to keep up!
I know The Matrix Trilogy is going to be up there some day, right next to other timeless science-fiction jewels such as 2001: Odissey in Space and Blade Runner... By the way, this latter film was dismissed during it´s releasing days back in the 80´s as a boring detective story, underestimating the philosophical and humanistic implications in the background; now everybody knows where the movie lies, don´t we?
If only Phillip K. Dick was alive...
21 - Alex
Hi Phillip,
I'm very glad to learn that you've managed to get so much mileage out of Matrix Reloaded. I'd have to agree with you that it's a movie that's occasionally fun to watch, and maybe also fun to try to interpret. Still, (and please keep in mind that this is strictly from my own point of view), there is a proverbial 'fly in the ointment' that spoils it for me (and also for several other reviewers). Allow me to explain:
The original Matrix (i.e. Matrix 1) is a much more air tight movie than Matrix Reloaded (i.e. Matrix 2 for short), not only because it was much more carefully crafted, but also because it contained something that Matrix 2 lacks -- compelling inner logic. Although I absolutely agree with you that Matrix 1 is a totally derivative product (i.e. 'nothing new under the sun'), it is nevertheless a fascinating product that managed to stir plenty of quite deep philosophical discussion. Apparently, tomes of philosophical dissertations by some of the leading contemporary philosophers have been written on account of the paradoxes that Matrix 1 brought forth. I sincerely doubt that we'll see similar outpouring coming from the intellectual challenges posed by Matrix 2 (despite the fact that these challenges are much more tantalizing than the ones exposed in Matrix 1).
Now, I'd be the first one to openly admit that there are numerous and painfully obvious flaws that infest what's otherwise pretty air tight storyline of the first movie. However, even such fatal flaws haven't been able to dillute what's arguably its biggest strength -- loads of compelling inner logic. Matrix 1 manages to set the center stage so beautifully, that the storyline unfolds effortlessly, sucking us, the unsuspecting and helpless viewers, into its vortex along the way. No traces of that irresistible inner logic are to be found in Matrix 2. The second movie appears to be very contrived when compared to the first one, and therein lies the big letdown that many of us felt while watching it.
You see, the strength of the first movie lies in the fact that it didn't need any far fetched and elaborate explanations in order to present its magic. It starts innocently enough, portraying the clash of the police force with what seems to be a person with some superhuman powers (Trinity). It is clear from the very outset that the movie will be dealing with certain fantastic conjectures. But yet how fantastic and fantasmagoric, we haven't been forewarned.
Had the movie started with a voice over explaining how the machines have sometime in the future taken over and enslaved the human race etc. (essentially, spelling out what Morpheus had to do in the middle of the movie), the impact of the storyline would've been practically non-existent. Luckily, the movie creators were clever enough to take us for a ride and then shock us into the realization that the situation is way more pessimistic than we could've assumed even in our wildest dreams. And that realization was forced down our throats (pun intended) so skillfully, that it felt almost visceral.
Because of that, we were in general inclined to gloss over many of the glaring inconsistencies and holes in the storyline (which, to be perfectly honest, doesn't hold water). We were actually taken in for a ride, compelled to swallow the red pill, caught in the hurricane. This is the sole reason why the movie felt so enchanting, and why it gave rise to so much debate and serious philosophical work. Had the ideas presented in the movie been exposed in a non-visceral way, I doubt that anyone would've even shrugged or have second thoughts about it, let alone felt compelled to write a pile of philosophical treatises on his/her experiences while watching the film.
Now, compare such visceral experience with the overt cerebral doldrums of Matrix 2. There is very little compelling that I find in that movie. Yes, the ideas are eclectic, there are hints at fascinating ancient cosmologies, what with the perpetual creation, sustainment, and destruction of entire worlds (the cosmology of Krishna, Brahma, Shiva, etc.), but these ideas are presented as mere dull words. Such concepts haven't really been distilled into an organic form, in the way that the evil omnipotent manipulator idea (Descartes) had been transformed into the frightening ride in Matrix 1. Simply put, there is no one to identify with in the second movie. In the first one, we have been forced to wholeheartedly identify with Neo, to go with him through his suffering in realizing that a grave injustice had been perpetrated on him. We wanted to see him liberate himself. Not only that, we wanted to see him get even with the evil machines. And our wishes had been fulfilled at the end of the movie, which is why we felt vindicated by the whole experience.
Nothing like that happened in the second one. We couldn't identify with the semi-god Neo anymore, as his antics were now brought down to the ho-hum level. He flies around, he saves people, but so what? Most of the time, he looks even more confused than we are.
Worst of all, the second movie was so stuck in its own grandiosity that it desperately needed Deus Ex Machina, which was finally delivered in the form of the lame-assed Architect (and by the way, how much longer will we have to endure the unbearable stereotype that the smelly, unwashed masses are always to be portrayed as Blacks, Hispanos, Asians and Southern Europeans, while the well-groomed Master, the Architect, is inevitably some bloody wasp, and with a British accent to boot? Couldn't the Architect in this movie at least have been portrayed as a female, if not a non-white person?)
Just because a person utters and carefully enounciates words such as 'ergo', 'a propos', 'vis a vis' and 'concordingly', doesn't automatically mean that that person knows what he is talking about. I remember cringing while I was hearing those lame attempts at high-brow intellectualism, as I was aware that it was intended to impress and dazzle the unwashed masses of moviegoers. This form of cheap 'elitism' (read: mumbo-jumbo) is what actually ruined the second movie. It is very hard to envisage how will the third movie (the conclusion) manage to vindicate the above explained sins.
Allow me now to address some of the issues you've brought up in your thoughtfull response to my criticism. You wrote:
"The first humans to populate Zion would be the 16 women and 7 men chosen by The One, plus The One himself. Since their liberations would be engineered with the help of the architect and the full participation of the system and those who normally enforce the rules (like the agents), there would be no problems with setting up the 24 humans in a new Zion, fully strengthened and ready to go."
To me, the above Deux Ex Machina explanation sounds unbelievably contrived. It's almost like someone saying 'whatever'. It is extremely arbitrary, even whimsical, and possesses none of the compelling inner logic that graces the storyline in Matrix 1.
I guess the crucial question is this: why should I (or, we, if you will) believe the Architect? What evidence is there that he is not just another dream? If you say that it's because the brothers said so then to me it's a cop out. The brothers may have gotten stuck in some complicated maze that they've created, and decided for an easy way out by throwing in some idiotic Architect. In what sense is that compelling? There is a disconnect that I perceive here, and no amount of authority, be it Phillip Winn or Wachowsky brothers or Noam Chomsky or Henry Kissinger or George Bush etc. can possibly bring credibility to it. The real strength of the first movie lied in the fact that the brothers didn't feel the need to reach for any kind of a cop out, which is not what I could say for the second movie. In one word -- too contrived to be pallatable.
You also wrote the following:
"In paragraph four, I believe we come to the root of Alex's disappointment. He had a picture in his mind of "the only way" the brothers could have extended M1, and they didn't go that route. Since they dug deeper and went in new directions, apparently they wasted their effort, on Alex at least."
I think you've misunderstood what I wrote there. If you go back and re-read it, you'll hopefully be able to see that I've concluded that the only way they could've extended the original idea was to do exactly what they did -- introduce some childish mumbo-jumbo. So, you thought that I had a vision how they should go about extending it, and that they didn't go that route. But in actuality I saw the only way they could have extended it, which is through mumbo-jumbo, and I saw that that's indeed how they did it. So predictable, so disappointing.
Furthermore, you wrote:
"The questions and implications raised by the second film are far from banal. They press to the very root of what it means to be human, and they are universal. While not everybody has grappled (or is interested in grappling) with the question of reality, I suspect that noone has not pondered the questions of free will versus predeterminism, or strained against control."
In order to explain what I meant by the banality of such questions, I think I'd have to first explain a couple of things about myself (please forgive me for the self-indulgence here): contrary to the popular belief, the Internet is not populated exclusivelly by young people. I myself am quite old -- I'm 46 now. Some of my friends are even older, and we are activelly surfing the net, participating, contributing, and so on. There is an extensive history here -- back in the late seventies/early eighties we (meaning my friends and myself) have all been engrossed in the works by the leading theorists such as Douglas Hofstadter ("Goedel, Escher, Bach -- The Eternal Golden Braid"), Christopher Alexander ("Timeless Art Of Building"), David Bohm ("Holographic Paradigm"), Gregory Bateson ("Steps To An Ecology Of Mind") and so on. All these works were fascinating at that time (as they are today), as they've introduced ideas explored in Matrix 1. We then went on to study philosophy, artificial intelligence, and in general cognitive sciences. Today, 25 years later, I work as a Chief Architect, running a software development department. I've been studying and practising software development for the past 20 years.
Now, in parallel to that, I've been also fully involved in studying and practising Buddhism. These activities, practised full time over the course of decades, gave me an insight into all of the questions that the Matrix trilogy tries to dabble with. After a person spends many years practising Buddhism, the questions such as 'free will versus determinism' get to be resolved along the way, and quite early on. Most of the people who tend to perceive Matrix 2 as being childish are the people who have managed to go beyond the basic, infantile questions of free will vs. determinism and such. That's why the tireless reiteration of these questions (the questions of choice and purpose) that permeates the second movie sounds so lame to us.
People who find these questions fascinating are typically people who feel the urge to cling on to the image of the omnipotent old man with white beard who exists somewhere beyond this 'valley of tears'. Such people have a huge craving for getting the final answers, for someone telling them that everything will be all right, that they will be the chosen ones, and that all their grievances will be vindicated. They seem to need to be assured that the prophecy will be fulfilled.
For us who don't feel the need to grasp for such illusory crap, this whole process is rather bemusing.
Finally, you wrote:
" I'll type slowly so you can keep up."
Feeling morally, intellectually, and otherwise superior to others is a sure fire sign of inner confusion. Just because there are people out there who have been at it for much longer than you have, and who way back when got their answers to the questions that are bugging you right now, doesn't mean that such people are much stupider than you are. Granted, I'd be the first to admit that I'm actually quite a stupid person, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't able to understand all those things you're pointing out that happened in Matrix 2. I just found those answers to be very unconvincing, and I felt that there just was too much smoke-and-mirrors thrown in. The movie simply collapsed under its own weight.
So, in the end, it's just a shallow kung fu movie that uses some of the intriguing concepts, waters them down, and then uses them as a backdrop, as an excuse for the seemingly endless sequences of boring fighting scenes. It's a damn computer video game that is built on the premise that a movie meets a comic strip. A pinnacle of the nickleodeon philosophy.
Much ado about nothing.
22 - Phillip Winn
Actually, we do not disagree on this: M1 was indeed much more tightly crafted than M2. While many people seem to be relying on faulty memories of M1 and forgetting that it took weeks, months, even years, for the mythos surrounding the first movie to build up, there is no mistaking the level of craft in the first film. Script aside, every shot is perfect. There is no scene in which I ever think "this is a standard 1-shot, or 1-shot, or wide-angle, or whatever." In the second film, however, while there are many moments of cinematic genious still, there doesn't seem to be the same level of shot-by-shot care in the visual story that the movie tells.
However, I still believe that the script problem with M2 is not because it is self-contradictory or simplistic, but because it is radically more complex and disquieting than the first film.
That is, for all that M1 blew people away, it did so largely on the basis of a very simple idea. It was easy to maintain internal consistency of a sort because there weren't a lot of ideas competing for space. M2, on the other hand, asks a lot more questions, many of which are far more uncomfortably applicable, perhaps too much like our own questions to enjoy.
To your specific statements: I don't dispute that M1 is much more air-tight. It dealt with far simpler issues and was a standalone movie. Once M3 is out, we'll be able to compare M1 with M2+M3 and see how they stack up.
I do dispute the idea that there won't be the sort of outpouring of philsophical consideration from this film as the first. Give it time, and I think the issues themselves will lead to lots of contemplation.
I don't find the storyline contrived, perhaps because it picked up exactly where my own thinking had left off - What challenge is there in life for a god? Neo might have been bored for the previous six months, and he might still not feel as if his own life is in danger, but the film starts with his foreboding over Trinity's death, and ends after a choice - apparently between the survival of the entire human race and his own emotional satisfaction. His confusion is the point of the film - even with super powers, he is not really in control. That seems like a natural progression to me, not contrivance.
Getting Cornell West into the film - now that was contrivance!
I'm sorry you didn't relate to Neo. I'll grant that he is less of an everyman than in the first film. Still, he grappled with issues that I have grappled with - that I think most people have grappled with. What is my place in this world? What choices do I make? How much am I a product of my unbringing, or the circumstances of life that surround me? Nature vs nurtures - what about choice?
The appearance of The Architect might be a deux ex machina, except that everything has lead up to that point, and we knew to expect something strange. Morpheus' prophecy hinted at it, all of the programs running around loose hinted at it, The Oracle hinted at it, and on and on. If it had come out of nowhere, I might buy your argument, but it wasn't unexpected, so I really don't.
The seeding of Zion seems to be an integral part of the cycle, not a magical way to explain away where the first free humans came from. Obviously there was some need to satisfy that question, sure, but it isn't just tacked on, but forms the basis of Neo's choice, an integral part of the story, so again it doesn't feel like deux ex machina to me.
Within the movie, they address the idea that The Architect might be lying. Morpheus says the same thing, and Neo cuts that off, saying only, "I believe it." Sure, knowing that the actors involved all back that up helps, but within the movie, credentials are established. It doesn't help that we're all basically sitting at a six month intermission, though.
Your belief that they introduced some childish mumbo-jumbo seems to be predicated on the belief that there is an uber-matrix, or reductio ad absurdum matricies. As I pointed out, I don't think I agree. I suspect that the brothers never intended for people to believe any such thing, but maybe they did hope to plant that impression. In any case, I don't think that's what happened, negating your point. I could be wrong, however, we'll find out in November.
Kudos on reaching the age of 46. I'm in my thirties myself. In fact, some of why I appreciate the second film so much is that it seems to leave the teenagers behind! However, suggestions that questions about determinism vs free will are infantile does grave injustice to those who have spent their entire lives pondering just such questions. That you've decided that you have the answer to an unknowable question speaks much, but not about the question - about your presumption.
It could be that you simply mean that there is no practical application of that question in day-to-day life. That much is true, in that regardless of how much is determined for us, we don't know all of the factors involved so we still act out of our free will to the best of our knowledge. Then again, there is no practical application of much of anything in any of the Matrix films. That's the point.
To follow up a paragraph is which you denigrate as "infantile" such questions and call the quest for answers "bemusing" with a sentence about feeling superior to others is quite rich. Do you see the irony?
I responded to your first post, which upon rereading is just as empty as it was. Based on that post, I could only assume that you hadn't bothered to expend any though, since you asked questions that were clearly answered within the film, ignored major plot points and so on. If you were turned off by what you saw as simplistic philsophy and didn't bother watching the rest of the film, that's fine, but that doesn't make the movie banal or childish. Far from it.
Since I now know that you're capable of thought and just chose not to bother when posting your original comment, I've typed this quickly, knowing you can keep up.
I don't claim to have all the answers, and I'm surprised that you would. But while M2 isn't as finely crafted as M1, it maintains consistency and adresses a lot more than the original film. In November, when adequate comparisons can be made, I think we will find that M2 is far more complex than the first film, though less visually stunning.
23 - Pedrobrown
Alex:
Not to annoy anybody, but... what´s the answer to the question "Are we prisoners of God (whoever he is to you; always the creator of reality; maybe reality in it´s self) or do we have free will to choose?" Please, if you have the answer, I need to know.
24 - Pedrobrown
By the way Alex, please read my comment posted at the end of "The Matrix: Shooting Blanks"... it´s what I think of the movie alone, not of the filosophical background of it. Also, please excuse my english grammatical and orthografical errors, I come from Spain and I can say I have to hone up.
Thanks.
25 - Alex
OK, so we do agree that the first movie was much simpler and more elegant than the second one. For you, however, that's a sign of a weakness, while for me that's a sign of its accomplishment.
As we all know, it is much harder to be succinct than verbose. That exactly is the reason why Matrix 1 made a much more lasting impression than its sequel. The original Matrix managed to be much more succinct, without missing the beat. And that in itself is not a trivial task.
"However, I still believe that the script problem with M2 is not because it is self-contradictory or simplistic, but because it is radically more complex and disquieting than the first film."
I agree with you on that. The script is indeed radically more complex and disquieting in the Reloaded. But why is that necessarily a good thing? Anybody can go out of their way and blow things out of proportions and introduce fantastic twists and turns into the storyline. Still, that doesn't automatically mean much. The storyline is there primarily in order to deliver, and this one didn't really deliver. It just managed to muddle things up.
But I have to give it some credit -- Matrix Reloaded was so bad that it did manage to deflate the ridiculous pomposity of the first one. I was curious to see the original film after being severely disappointed by the sequel, and I must say that the original doesn't lend itself to be viewed the way it was before the sequel came out. For whatever reason, everything now seems to be falling apart. It seems overly naive, myopic, untenable. The myth has been destroyed, which is probably a good thing.
If you don't believe me, go back and watch the original movie, and you'll find yourself feeling cheated somehow.
"The appearance of The Architect might be a deux ex machina, except that everything has lead up to that point, and we knew to expect something strange. Morpheus' prophecy hinted at it, all of the programs running around loose hinted at it, The Oracle hinted at it, and on and on. If it had come out of nowhere, I might buy your argument, but it wasn't unexpected, so I really don't."
The very definition of the 'deus ex machina' is that it's a cop out for the creators of the drama. So, naturally, everything in the drama leads to the appearance of the deus ex machina at the critical point. I don't really get your argument. How is the plot in the Reloaded that uses the deus ex machina trick different from the standard application of it in the Greek tragedies?
"Within the movie, they address the idea that The Architect might be lying. Morpheus says the same thing, and Neo cuts that off, saying only, "I believe it." Sure, knowing that the actors involved all back that up helps, but within the movie, credentials are established. It doesn't help that we're all basically sitting at a six month intermission, though."
Just because the characters in the movie discuss the possibility that the Architect may be lying, and then deciding that he isn't, does not give us enough assurance to conclude that the Architect not himself delusional.
"Your belief that they introduced some childish mumbo-jumbo seems to be predicated on the belief that there is an uber-matrix, or reductio ad absurdum matricies. As I pointed out, I don't think I agree. I suspect that the brothers never intended for people to believe any such thing, but maybe they did hope to plant that impression. In any case, I don't think that's what happened, negating your point. I could be wrong, however, we'll find out in November."
I don't care for the uber-matrix idea. I'm just under the impression that the original Matrix was concieved to be a standalone product, which was subsequently elaborated upon, once the creators realized how successfull it was. In order to build the platform for cashing in (read, the franchise), they reached out for some far fetched twists and turns that, frankly, leave me quite cold. Whatever the final resolution may be (and even there I'm skeptical, thinking that they'll just leave the doors open for the later trilogy, or something like that), I'm sure it will be just some sort of a quasi-deep philosophical mumbo jumbo. In other words, I'm not convinced that the authors do possess sufficient amounts of high quality intellectual substance to really offer anything beyond the cookie cutter comic strip nickelodeon pseudo-philosophising. In short, a nauseating fusion of all sorts of incompatible fragments of ideas available to anyone who is not adverse to making a trip to the library. Such form of the wannabe mentality just doesn't hold water.
"However, suggestions that questions about determinism vs free will are infantile does grave injustice to those who have spent their entire lives pondering just such questions. That you've decided that you have the answer to an unknowable question speaks much, but not about the question - about your presumption."
Just because someone may spend his/her entire life pondering some sort of a question, does not mean that the question is not infantile (and, by the proxy, they themselves being infantile as well). A person can reach ripe old age and still be mentally infantile.
"It could be that you simply mean that there is no practical application of that question in day-to-day life."
No, that's not what I'm talking about.
"Since I now know that you're capable of thought and just chose not to bother when posting your original comment, I've typed this quickly, knowing you can keep up."
Thanks for your concern. Still, it didn't seem to have made any difference.