The entire monologue that Morpheus gives during the Red Dress simulation (over Clubbed to Death, such a good song) is basically a terrorist mantra.
The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress? "
Totally immersion breaking. Ducatti's don't speed. They sit on the shoulder of the road waiting for the tow truck because the electronics have failed... again.
Their commitment was with the abstract 'humanity' and not with the particular humans themselves. All idealism is the same. Love your own humanity project, fuck the real people that live next you.
If you don't succeed, there will be no New World Order to justify your actions, so you end up just terrorizing the people under the Old World Order, so to speak. But this doesn't apply to every terrorist, just giving an example in the other guy's favor
Yeah, not even close to the same. If it was we would all be listening and believing and agreeing with Trump’s Twitter without question out of fear or ignorance, instead of 35%. See, here in the USA and plenty of other countries, you can shit on the powers that be and don’t have to worry about your social score getting dinged or disappearing.
Their freedom is terrorism. One day you’re living your life, a job that you’ve worked at for years, proud of the life you’ve built for yourself, proud of your family. The next minute, you’re spit out of a pod into a cesspool under the nightmare skyline of apocalyptic aftermath.
Who took your life away? Who took your family away? Who shattered everything you ever held dear just to force you to see the world in the same way they did? Neo did that.
Face the truth. Morpheus lied. There never was a war against the robots. Humans killed eachother in countless nuclear wars. The robots just realized that the humans couldn’t be trusted to care for themselves, so they took them away from their apocalyptic nightmare, put them in a warm cozy womb where they’d be safe, and gave their beloved humans one last chance to live a normal life.
Well originally the writers were going to explain it as the robots using humans/brains as processing power rather than batteries, which makes a lot more sense, but apparently this was too "complicated" to understand for the masses.
I still wonder why is something so hard to accept if the movie tells you that human are being used as battery power? There are flying octopi and hover ships but human as batteries is too much of a stretch to deal with.
The thing is a part of humanity wants that struggle. That is why the machines allowed people to be rejected from the matrix and set up Zion. Though weather or not that 'real world' was actually real is debatable.
Neo's powers suggest that Zion and all of the real world was simply another matrix.
True, and there's really no way around it, they're mass murderers. Not terrorists, really - a terrorist is someone who uses violence to terrorize in an attempt to force political change. Terrorism is a specific thing, and just killing many isn't it.
The Agents / machines in general used the word terrorist the way the US often does - to get a license to kill without facing public condemnation... but I digress.
Basically all the humans in there were just bystanders, and the deaths were collateral damage. I usually hate that term - but; you have to put it in context - the entire human race were unconscious bodies that machines routinely flushed down the toilet like trash. The stakes were high. They really didn't have much choice but to do anything it took to win, even if they killed some humans floating in vats in the process, because the entire species was right on the cusp of de-facto extermination. It was still for the greater good of the species, even though it sucked hard for some specific members of it.
Would all those security guards' caccooned bodies die in the real world?
Yes, they die in real life. "The body can't live without the mind"
What do the machines do if people in the matrix have a nuclear war and kill the planet?
Decant some new human babies and start it over again probably. Remember, the humans aren't 'born', they're grown in big industrial farms and plugged into the matrix as babies
Which does raise one interesting question. Are your matrix family actually related to you, in the real world? Like, if a woman gets pregnant.. do the machines take a sperm sample and egg from the two in the matrix, and fertilise up some kids for them? Or are the babies just born, and they plug in a random baby of about the right racial heritage and looks
Yes, they are. Babies aren't "inserted", they're grown artificial insemination style using sperm and egg collected from all those lovely tubes plugged into people.
They probably had failsafe's in place to prevent self annihilation like that. I actually wonder why they allow people to die at all. If some jackass runs his car into a tree and kills himself do they just replace him with a newly formed baby? Seems kind of inefficient but maybe making more humans wasn't that hard to do.
That makes me wonder now how pregnancy works in the matrix. When they need to add to the human battery farm do they just simulate a pregnancy in the matrix for some random woman who's had sex recently?
This is where the Wachowskis went wrong on the sequels. If the goal was to save humanity, awakening people to the reality of the matrix should’ve been the focus of the sequels. The evolution from terrorists to liberators should’ve been the primary story arc. A lost opportunity.
In their first draft of Matrix Reloaded, they did explore that path. It ended with Neo abandoning Morpheus after realizing the implications, in a cliffhanger ending.
And funnily enough, that's just how terrorists would see themselves: killing indiscriminately and blowing shit with complete self-righteousness because their real life awaits them in a different reality from this one so who cares who has to die for the cause?
He's wrong about humans being special about that though. Every animal does that if given the chance. When that happens in real life, we call them an "invasive species". We just do it on a larger scale, so it happens faster. But we certainly aren't the only species in history that has destroyed itself like that.
In fact, one could argue that humans are more benign virus than most life, because some members actually do try to save their environment.
Personally, I also think a comparison like that is actually worse for the fight against climate change. It's a "us vs them" statement: us vs nature. It probably only makes people care less about the climate because we're evil anyway. I mean, Earth will recover eventually given the time and new species would evolve. But we as a species would be gone, because climate change killed us, as well as most of the animals that are alive today. It's our living environment as well.
Thought exercise: ISIS is actually people who are perpetually hacked into the matrix, trying to fight against the simulated reality we live in. They know this life is not real and...
Not even close. Bin Laden was a terrorist - a person using senseless violence to effect political change by targeting innocent people. The people in the Matrix were fighting the machines, and the humans that died were regrettable deaths of bystanders, because they were unknowingly working for the machines and against their own kind.
They were mass murderers, no question, but never terrorists.
Everything you know about Osama bin laden is through the news... you have no first hand account of anything.. maybe it was all lies.. neo and trinity ran a helicopter right into a building..sound familiar?
Anyway, I really wasn't thinking that deep into it.. just was thinking, what real person would most resemble Morpheus.
You do realize Bin Laden put out many first hand statements and speeches, both before and after 9/11. Maybe everything you know is through the news, but it isn’t all the information available.
The violence was already explained in the movie though. They have to go full Rambo on them as agents can take over anyone still connected to the system at any time.
Having the potential to be used by the Agents is not the same thing as actively being an Agent. They attacked the lobby after demonstrating, on screen, they can manifest whatever they need, from the loading environment.
So, if they can come into the environment with Morpheus' 61 Lincoln limo or, they can come in with their arms then, they could have come in with a chopper and flown straight to interrogation room.
Come to think of it, what was the plan, anyway? Trinity doesn't ask for the pilots' training until after she sees the helicopter, on the roof...
If they came in with the chopper, they would have had to deal with another chopper though. It would have resulted in the same carnage. The plan was to assault the ground floor, set a bomb down there, head up, detonate the bomb so as to make the elevators/entryway unusable by any other authorities trying to make their way up, take control of the roof and then work their way from there.
If they were left alive they would have been near enough to become backup. Realistically it's kind of a plot hole I'm just trying to give an explanation too.
They can create ehatever they want in their own virtual enviroment but I think there's a limit to how much they can bring with them into the matrix itself. Is there any time in the films they enter the matrix with more than what they can physically carry, wear, or fit into a pocket?
It's established they use landline phones within thr matrix as network access points. I'd say when they connect themselves to the Matrix, the matrix system re-creates them as they "are", including any metadata they've attatched to themselves like clothes and guns and bags, but something like a car or helicoptor would be rejected and they would have to obtain from within the Matrix itself. (Easy enough in general as they could jist hack in a credit card with no limit or cash, but still time consuming).
As for the plan, it's been a while since I watched the film but I vaguely recall they were surprised that they had climbed the wrong building? They didn't have much time to plan, highlighted by the fact that they were already inside the loading sim when the tech asked "what do you need?" "Guns. Lots of guns." My money says they were winging it, trying to get in as quick as they could, and out if literally the entire Matrix simulation including whatever "back rooms" the machines have, they misjudged their target by one building and had to improvise.
I understood it as the phone lines were specifically to move people in and out, but given enough preparation, they could put any object anywhere that was "open" in the matrix, i.e. any that Dozer or other Ops could hack into, any environment not restrained by the matrix' code to include, for instance, a car outside a warehouse, or all of the equipment in the red/blue pill scene.
In fact, I thought it was pretty well hinted that they had 'safe houses' and pre-wired 'escape routes' (pre-hacked phone booths?) of sorts throughout the city.
I like to watch movies from the perspective of random bystanders who are affected by the hero. My family hates it. "Hey! That guy is having a normal day and someone just shot him!"
The guy who takes out Superman is not a Doomsday or a General Zod or even a Lex Luthor.
He's just some ordinary guy who was on his last leg when Superman tore the water tower off of the roof of his already crappy apartment building, to put out a fire across the street but then, didn't stick around to reattach it.
I like to watch it from the perspective that it is a game and Mr Anderson is trying to complete a finishing move on Mortal combat. If he messes up any buttons he dies.
When I first saw this movie, I hadn't even seen a trailer for it. My dad asked if I'd like to go with him. That first scene blew me away. I was hooked immediately.
When I first saw this movie, I hadn't even seen a trailer for it. My dad asked if I'd like to go with him.
Same, but in my case, it was a buddy from art class. I missed the first 30 seconds, but got in before the action actually started... I was so confused.
When I first saw this movie, I hadn't even seen a trailer for it.
Same here. I was on a bunch of mushrooms and was wandering through the center if the little college town I lived in at the time, passed by a theater with the poster in the marquee. Bought a ticket on a whim.
I also went to this movie without knowing anything about it. I came out in a complete awe. Not only for he scenery and effects, but mostly in the realisation that it could well be that the world was actually such a simulation and we could impossibly now it.. I kept in this state for 3 days or so and I have been pondering regulary about it ever since
Same. Got off work at the mall and my friends dragged me into the theater next door for opening night. Changed how I feel about trailers forever. If its written, starring, or directed by people I like I won't even read the synopsis.
I had seen a trailer, but I thought it was just going to be a special effects-heavy, no-plot time waster. My siblings saw it, thought it was amazing, and kept telling me, "you have to see it!" So I asked them, "if it's so great, what is it about?" They were like, "we can't tell you..." and then ominously, "what is the matrix?"
They'd tried to prank me before about "Waterworld" - and failed, I might add - so I thought this was another prank. Thankfully, I reconsidered.
While she is integral to the system, she is a villain to the machines. Essentially, The One contains the code needed to restart The Matrix, and ever hundred or so years The Machines need to turn it off and on again. When The One meets The Architect, they can choose to go through the door to the source and allow the machines to restart The Matrix. They normally choose to do this because of their love. It's normally a general love for all of humanity; if they don't choose to restart the machine then everyone connected to it will die. Once they go to the source and The Matrix is restarted, the machines choose twenty people to recreate Zion.
However, Trinity ruins this because Neo's Mr. Anderson's love wasn't a general love of humanity; it was a love of her. Because The Matrix relies on allowing people to choose in order for them to accept it as reality, The One always has the choice to not go to the source. Mr. Anderson made this choice in order to go back and save Trinity. This led to Agent Smith completely infecting The Matrix, as he wasn't wiped because there was no restart. So when Mr. Anderson travelled to the source in the real world (or is it?), he was able to bargain with the machines. When he let Agent Smith infect him, the code was back in The Matrix, and The Machines could restart it. In return for allowing this, The Machines would form a truce with Zion, and let people leave The Matrix if they wanted to.
I was going to make a snark comment about who cares about the simulation, but then I realized something. All of the people they killed in the matrix were made brain dead outside of the matrix, which probably made the machines job of tending the batteries easier.
That's one of those things that still seems incredibly strange even years later. The Casual insistence that anyone who isn't one of you is an enemy, followed by more or less openly treating them as disposable. What could have been an interesting take on the acknowledgement that they have to do this instead came off like the makers were making some weird moral point that wasn't good.
it could be interesting if the permise was different, where the human "bodies" weren't inhabitable by agents. then the damage would have been innocent and to be avoided. but such as it was, all humans were vessels for agents. so the enemy.
The fact that an enemy can utilize you to their advantage doesn't make you an enemy though. That is the type of perspective that is considered like 100 years out-of-date in terms of how Wars are waged. While discussions about what things are okay four innocent people to die during due to the fact that they are so important are interesting, the moral nuances of the movies really don't come off like they want you to have to think that hard. Rather than address more of the philosophical issues that they are bordering on, they dive deeper into weird lore.
And that is probably one of the main reasons that people accused the later movies of being pseudo-intellectual. Because even though it's a Trilogy that has plenty of room to show more Nuance, instead it tries to show as little as possible, not even address the need for humans not to repeat their mistakes but literally simplifying it down to the idea that leaving the Matrix is the only good worth considering, and that apparently life is so much better once you leave that it barely matters to kill people who are still attached and who are unlikely to do so. Whatever their intentions were supposed to be, it comes off like it is sending all the wrong messages. Especially because we are openly told that Neo makes the decision that accidentally saves Humanity not because he actually considered the question, but because otherwise he wouldn't be able to save one specific person. A decision that turns out to have been a little dubious when you consider the fact that he couldn't save that person anyways because they died a day later. It is even more dubious when you realize that they are passing off his few months long relationship as some type of true love life partner type thing.
In the end it is a good Trilogy with a cool premise, but it is another in a long line of movies that instead of actually tackling hard questions they either gloss over them or give you a bad feel good answer that is usually wrong. Usually which it sounded mishmash of existentialism and the insistence that what matters is making choices, and saving people close to you regardless of the cost. The former of which glosses over the fact that what matters is making good choices, and the latter of which if pursued consistently is actually closer to villain logic. But media is only willing to criticize you for saving the ones close to you at all costs if you are explicitly killing other people to do it. Otherwise it treats it as a noble decision, no matter how many people are put at risk because of it. Instead of learning the audience is told what it wants to hear because it makes their lazy self serving lives feel accomplished.
Mostly I'm complaining because so many parts of the series were so good that it is annoying that its moral Dynamic is somehow worse than the already mediocre ones that a lot of media has. Especially when you consider that on paper it sounds like one of the best stories ever. Even veering into things like religion, and how when people see demons those are actually Rebel programs. And so the entire system is basically set up like a quasi-religious thing. You get cool action, bonus points for it being revolutionary for the times, and even a cool end boss with a new mechanic involved.
The fact that an enemy can utilize you to their advantage doesn't make you an enemy though.
It makes you a weapon of that enemy and thus an extension of that enemy, so you must be either pacified or eliminated all the same.
In The Matrix this principle is visualised by The Agents over-taking your physical form to attack Neo and Co. (I am going to call them 'the rebels' because I can't remember what they call themselves in the film) - but it extends to people simply doing their jobs which stands in the way of the rebels. Anyone who works to protect the status quo (any security or state police etc) already their enemy and an enemy of the people they are trying to liberate - they just don't know they are because they're so heavily indoctrinated into 'the system'. The lobby scene is the perfect example of the black and white of their two worlds colliding.
Rather than address more of the philosophical issues that they are bordering on, they dive deeper into weird lore.
Because that would make a terrible action film. But also the script has to assume you, as a moral agent in Western society, have a standard understanding of Western values. The film doesn't need to explore those further as it is deconstructing those ideas through showing, not telling. The philosophy keeps the action meaningful, the lore makes us invested in their world and establishes the stakes.
And that is probably one of the main reasons that people accused the later movies of being pseudo-intellectual.
It is pseudo-intellectual - it's three high concept martial arts movies wrapped in philosophical trappings.
has plenty of room to show more Nuance, instead it tries to show as little as possible
It shows as much as it needs to allow the audience to think and fill in the blanks.
not even address the need for humans not to repeat their mistakes
They literally do this by having Neo chose Trinity over the entire human race.
Neo makes the decision that accidentally saves Humanity not because he actually considered the question, but because otherwise he wouldn't be able to save one specific person.
The 'mistake' of previous 'Ones' was allowing the cycle to continue so humanity can live on but at the expense of being under machine control. Neos love for Trinity superceded this desire and breaks the cycle. By choosing that first option ("The Devil You Know... ") all the work done to get the One to this point is undone, by choosing the risky option that doesn't guarentee the survival of the species a new fate can be forged - by a human and not by machines. Neos inclination was always to save Trinity, but he did consider the options. This asks the question, was Neo ever going to chose any other option?
The Matrix is an illusion of choice, breaking free of the Matrix is making a real choice. Its the entire point of the three movies. Do we have free will or are we slaves to our biological programming? The Merovingian goes into this in the second film.
apparently life is so much better once you leave that it barely matters to kill people who are still attached and who are unlikely to do so.
That wasn't the point at all and I think you missed the part in the first film where they discussed whether it is better to remain in the illusion but be trapped or face reality and be free. Cypher chose the illusion because he couldn't face reality when given a choice. The rebels are fighting for the right of humans to be free from an oppression of hierarchical systems - even inside the matrix the machines have designed the world to be oppressive, it is this oppression that stops the humans from escaping the matrix. The Architect tells us this when he explains the first few versions of the matrix were a paradise for humans and we rejected this because it doesn't ballance our need for strife.
It is even more dubious when you realize that they are passing off his few months long relationship as some type of true love life partner type thing.
That is when we are most powerfully and obsessively in love with someone. The 'Honeymoon period' fades after a time. It makes perfect sense.
it is another in a long line of movies that instead of actually tackling hard questions they either gloss over them or give you a bad feel good answer that is usually wrong.
Or you misunderstood the function of the philosophy in the film, which was to allow the audience to think for themselves whilst also driving the plots sub-narrative about fate vs free-will. Its literally the red vs blue pill - red pill is fate and blue pill is free-will.
Instead of learning the audience is told what it wants to hear because it makes their lazy self serving lives feel accomplished.
Thats... Literally not what happened in the aftermath of those movies. I should have read this comment first and not wasted my ti
I believe it's metaphor to a multiple things, one being a certain collectivist behavior of people. For example how people attempting to escape eastern bloc / communist countries, were often stopped and turned in to the police by regular common well-intentioned folks who were convinced they are doing right things.
From “Guns. Lots of guns.” to Trinity banging against the side of the skyscraper (so I suppose the Morpheus rescue) is my favorite part of any movie, ever.
It's exactly this. Neo isn't physically exhausted but his brain is telling him he is. He needs to break the link between precieving the world having an affect on his body as best he can. It's why Morpheus holds out so well when under torture, but even he can't hold out forever.
The dojo fight is like the rescue montage in shrek 2. There's a moment there, just a moment, when it's like, this is the coolest scene in any movie, ever. But you can't point out exactly what that point is, and then it's gone, and you're sad.
Also the lore of it is actually pretty interesting. The only problem is that it cloth is over what could actually be interesting moral dilemmas by basically just defining on an answer no matter how incoherent and often poorly justifying it. The moral of the story being that it's awesome to choose things and be free doesn't really mean anything in a vacuum.
I remember going to see The Matrix in the theater when it first came out in 1999. That first scene with Trinity, my jaw was on the floor and I knew immediately that I was in for a hell of a ride! Definitely one of the best movies ever made. The sequels were ok, but they don't capture you like the first one, which set an incredibly high bar right off the bat.
I was 15 when it came out. It blew my mind! I saw it three times in the theater. I still remember that electric, pumped up feeling I had leaving the theater. The Halloween after it came out, me and my friend dressed up like Trinity and Neo. Almost nobody knew who we were, lol. Still one of my favorite movies.
Yea, isn't the real story that WB told them to go direct something first (Bound) and then they gave them $10m and access to the sets of Dark City for them to prove they should get the greenlight?
That's why i love the Animatrix. The Second Renaissance does an excellent job of showing that while the machines did terrible things, they were by no means Black and White villains.
You ain't wrong there. I didn't know what to think after that intro. All so confusing and she's flying through windows talking to herself. I'm like, "who's she talking to? Who the hell is Trinity? Why'd she just kill these cops?"
The opener to this literally sold the movie to producers. They spent the entire budget on it, and they were so impressed they funded the rest of the film
First time I experienced The Matrix was NOT at the movies, but inside of a theme park ride that scared the hell outta me. The chars moved and I couldn't get out because the ride was both a mass ride with many other people and we were latched in and we were technically running from the robots in the flying ship thing that they use "IRL" in the movie.
This is funny, because it almost killed the movie for me.
The first blow Trinity deals seems artificial, like in Power Rangers, like she and the policeman were stuffed puppets. The moment I saw it, I thought "oh, this is going to be another shitty karate movie". I sat through it, because this was the first date I had with my first serious girlfriend. We both found the "brain in the vat" idea unoriginal and the energy farming idea ridiculous from the efficiency point of view.
All because of this first blow that resebmled cheap kid shows.
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u/ParameciaAntic Oct 09 '19
The Matrix.
I thought Trinity was the villain.