Matrix Reloaded plot discussion (Spoilers Galore, NO spoiler boxes!!)

Cafe Society
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Ok, You’ve been warned by the topic but I will try to make it clear.
This thread is ONLY for people who have ALREADY watched the movie. I could have started a thread for both those who have seen it and those who havent (there already is such a thread actually) but it would have involved tons of spoiler boxes and they are mighty annoying. I know I’m not the only one who thinks that so this is a thread completely free of those evil black things. If you use one, I shall hunt you down and unleash my scratching fury of a kitten on you. Be warned :slight_smile:

Oh, one more thing. Everybody agrees that the movie is visually spectacular,filled with eye candy, full of astonishing special effects. So let’s try not to dwell on that. This is a thread dedicated to the plot. Let’s keep it that way.

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[list=1]
[li]What exactly was the architect saying when he started rambling about the need for imperfection in the matrix? I got the gist of it but the more I think about it now, the more I’m confused. Is this the third iteration of the matrix? [/li][li]he said something about the matrix needing to crash and “reboot”. Wouldn’t the matrix crashing kill or liberate all non-awakened humans?[/li][li]How come Neo has powers in the “real world”. Is the real world in fact a matrix within the matrix? first a core matrix then a “superficial” matrix. Why does Neo he get in a coma? (I know nobody can really answer this last one)[/li][li]I have a few minor answers as well. How did the french dude become aware of the matrix. He obviously never awakened. And yet, there he is, hacking it, collecting renegade agents and even getting his hands on such trophies as the keymaker and the two rasta guys.[/li][li]If the oracle and the keymaker are actually pieces of software and mere pawns unaware of the “core” matrix, then how come the architect speaks of the oracle as a colleague. He is obviously familiar with the whole circus.[/li][/list=1]

I hope some light can be shed on these questions. Sorry if they are hard to understand, I can always to clarify upon request.

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Cast list, for reference

I was just about to start this same thread. I would like many many plot points explained. It’s possible that it’s just a bunch of nonsense strung together, but it’s also possible that I just couldn’t figure everything out from the first viewing. Anyway, here goes:

Architect, Oracle, Keymaker. All AI, right? They each had a purpose. What were they? The Oracle’s had something to do with investigating hope? What about Persephone, her husband (what was his name?), and Seraph? Were they AI as well?

What exactly was Neo’s choice at the end, and why was he given it?

How much did everybody know? Did the Oracle know about the Architect? Did Smith and the other Agents?

What was Smith doing for that matter? He was acting alone (heh) right? Just out for revenge?

This movie just royally screwed with my mind, and it’s going to take me a while to take it all in. But if anyone can answer any of these questions, I’ll be most grateful.

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I just got back myself, and here’s my take on some of those questions.

It seems to me (and this ties into one of your other questions) that the imperfection in the matrix IS Zion. Zion is the place for all those that need the imperfection in the world, something to strive for. How could Neo affect the machines, unless he still was in the matrix? Thats my conclusion.

The oracle is in on the whole need to reboot the matrix. She is the one that led Neo around, in order to get him to the point at which he’d reboot the system.

He’s another program, nearly as old as the Oracle…she mentioned this i believe.

I think Neo realizes that Zion and the “real world” are all still programs in the matrix, and collapses / goes into a coma as a result. Note, this is opinion, i’m not sure on it :slight_smile:

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Now, I wouldn’t be too hasty about this. He held up his hand and electricity nullified the Sentinels. For all we know he had been scuffling his feet on the carpet and it was just static buildup. :stuck_out_tongue: But anyway, I think we’re a ways off saying Neo has his powers in the real world.

I’m not going to buy that we’re seeing a simulation within a simulation until I see some more evidence. That’s too obvious, and after this film, I’m not expecting anything obvious. However, that does bring up another question I forgot. The Architect describes The One as an “anomaly”; this troubles me, because it implies that The One is an artifact of his design, an artifact of The Matrix. I can understand his describing something like The Oracle as an anomaly, because she’s part of the simulated world. But The One’s decisions come from the real world. (By the real world I mean the one that Zion is in.) I could only come up with two explanations for this. The first is the sim-within-a-sim thing, that the Architect actually programmed the real world. The second is that he’s meaning anomaly in some sort of psycho-history kind of way, that the real world is programmed and anticipated in a sense, but not by him. Neither of these explanations satisfy me, though, so is there another?

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Actually, the Architect said that this was the sixth iteration of the Matrix. As for the rest, I assumed that the imperfection was a necessity because of the way that humans (can’t) deal with “perfect” realities.

It would be quite easy to simply drug them into unconsciousness during the rebooting process. After all, they already have all those tubes running into them, might as well use them for something usefull.

I thought that it was obvious that the “real world” was not, in fact, real by the end of the movie. I should have suspected it even earlier, given that the Oracle knew what dreams Neo had had even when he was unplugged, and that ex-agent Smith managed to cross from the Matrix to the “real world”.

As for the coma, well, perhaps Neo “woke up” after he discovered that the “real world” was actually another Matrix. Or perhaps whoever monitors the Zion-Matrix (as opposed to the Matrix that we learned about in the first movie) realized that Neo had discovered the truth, and they unplugged him, drugged him, or did something else to incapacitate him.

I had thought that he was another program. If he’s not, well, the original One managed to awaken himself, didn’t he?

I believe that the Architect is just another program, too. The mistake you’re making is to believe that all the programs that you see in the Matrix are somehow dependant on the Matrix. I would assume that the programs are all running on a super-duper-mega-computer, and interfece with the matrix the same way a program on your computer interfaces with, say, a video card.

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I’m not going to attempt to answer some of the questions, as I’m still digesting everything myself, but there is one thing that did catch my eye, and I may need to re-watch the first movie to verify this.

In the first movie, after Neo was rescued, I recall a scene in which Morpheus was extracting the superfluous ‘plugs’ in Neo’s body - specifically, a scene of Neo’s back with the plugs being removed. Yet in Reloaded, we clearly see (several times, no less) that Morpheus, Trinity and Neo still have a great deal of plugs on their arms, chest, and spine.

I doubt that this is a gaping plot hole, and that I most likely simply misremembered what happened in the first movie, but could someone clarify this for me?

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Okay, here we go:
1: The whole war with the sentinels and the rebellion formed in Zion all takes place in a 2nd matrix. A matrix within a matrix, that is designed to subdue those who are resistent to the original matrix.
2: The 1st try at the original matrix was utopian and failed because no one would accept it. So it was re designed and now that is the current matrix that neo woke up from. Those who do not accept this matrix and wake up from it, wake to a whole new matrix that contains Zion and the war and that whole deal.
3:The 6 matrix’s that the architect speaks of are just re designs of the 2nd zion reject matrix if you will. There is always a “one” that is led to the core system by the system [the oracle is controlled by the machines in order to lead the one to the architect] Then the one makes a choice, either to save zion, or to save the ones he became close with in his matrix. IN EITHER CASE, THE ZION REJECT MATRIX IS DESTROYED AND REDESIGNED. Zion is then rebuilt with the “one” waking up new people to lead a new rebellion. (Morpheus speaks of this in the first movie about how there used to be a “one”. All the past “ones” chose to save Zion thus re designing the zion reject matrix to weed out the imperfections. Neo was the first one to choose to save the one he loved over the choice to save all humanity.

Because of all this and the 2nd zion reject matrix, neo now has powers that he never thought he had in his alleged “real world” [ZION MATRIX] This is a giveaway to this matrix’s existence. As a result of the use of this new power, he goes into a coma. SO does agent smith when he uses this new power in the 2nd matrix as a human.

Any problems you find with this, think about them before posting because i beleive with this hypothesis i can explain all the happenings of this film epic.

thank you

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[ol][li]Neo can “feel” the sentinals in the “real world”, and can affect them with his “powers”.[/li]
[li]The Oracle knew what Neo had dreamed. This doesn’t seem possible unless he is still plugged into the Matrix at some level.[/li]
[li]Ex-Agent Smith travelled from the Matrix to the “real world” by infecting someone.[/li]
[li]All the little coincidences where the timing of events in the “real world” and the Matrix line up exactly. Example: Neo has dreamed of Trinity falling from a building, and asks her not to go. A catwalk in another hovercraft just happens to kill the operator and (presumably) pilot, resulting in said hovercraft’s destruction. Now Trinity must enter the Matrix in order to save Neo.[/ol][/li]

Perhaps there are no humans. Perhaps all humans are simulated, and none exist in the actual real world. Perhaps there was a catastrophe, and technology had advanced to the point that the remaining humans knew of their own pending destruction, were unable to prevent it, and decided to copy their minds into a computer simulation as their last hope for survival.

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Joe Random, those are all good points, but, 2 and 4 can be explained if you believe in fate, as Morpheus does and the Oracle seems to. 1 and 3 we only saw a glimpse of, so I’m not ready to draw any conclusions from them.

But I can definitely see your point. I think it’s a reasonable conclusion, and I admit my main reason for disliking it is aesthetics. It’s too much like (spoiler for The Thirteenth Floor):The Thirteenth Floor

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You’re all wrong. The architect says that with the Oracle’s design, only 99.9% of beings in the Matrix accepted it. This led over time to too many people questioning the Matrix, so they planted humans in the computer made city of Zion. He even mentions the number (23 female, 17 male, I believe). Hence, this is the sixth iteration of the Matrix because it has to end every once in a while to take care of the .1% who won’t accept the program.

And absolutely, are you saying that the stab-Neo guy was agent Smith?

And as to the existence of the second Matrix, I think it is safe to assume this, as Neo both feels the sentinels and kills them with whatever hand-power he has.

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Hold on, multiple people mentioned Smith in the real (Zion) world. Where the hell was he?

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Smith was the man that cut his palm with the knife, and then went up to Neo’s group while they were heading back to the ship.

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Oh, thanks. I didn’t pick up on that.

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Okay, here’s an alternate explanation. It’s actually very similar, but not totally. What if the real world is exactly that, but Neo actually has some sort of magical powers, like a superhero? And the Matrix is written in a very fluid and natural programming language that emulates the real world, so that people in the Matrix correspond to real-life people? Like, say, a brain pattern in the Matrix can overwrite a real-world brain pattern. This would explain how Agent Smith is able to escape to the real world.

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Would you mind repeating what you remember about the Architect’s explanation of the Oracle? I thought this was important at the time, but I don’t think I caught it all.

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Well, I’m not abs0lutely, but I’ll still answer :wink:

The stab-Neo guy was the guy who Ex-Agent Smith infected just as he was about to exit the Matrix. The fact that he was walking around in Zion means that, after the infection, Smith picked up the phone and, well, exited the Matrix.

Now, if you’re of the opinion that Zion is just another Matrix, then it would appear that Ex-Agent Smith actually managed to make the transition from one Matrix to the other, with only his physical appearance changed.

If you’re of the opinion that Zion is real, then, well, maybe the infection screwed up the guy’s mind, giving him some sort of multiple personality, or a personality overwrite.

Me, I’m sticking with the Zion-isn’t-real theory.

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My take on the situation:

As for the anomoly in the matrix: it is in the matrix by design. What the Oracle is given credit for discovering is the fact the the simulation fails if it is neccessary for the humans to be forced into being there. In order for things to run fairly orderly, the matrix must be designed in such a way that the humans can choose not to be in it. I don’t know what the technical reasons for that would be, but that is why Zion exists, that is where people that have woken up go. I think one of the Animatrix shorts deals with that, a human in the matrix wakes up spotaneously, with no outside interference.

Somehow, this built in imperfection will inevitably lead to “The One” exitisting, and what the One does is reboot the Matrix. The destruction of Zion is timed to coincide with the One’s arrival in the Core, and he is told that he must reboot the Matrix, or let everyone in the Matrix die. This is The One’s “purpose,” to clean the slate on the Matrix. But, like everything else, he must do this willfully. The machines forced the hands of all of the previous “The Ones” by destroying Zion and offering to let them re-found the city. Neo, however, goes off and saves Trinity instead of going into the Core to begin the re-booting process.

What is agent Smith? Smith has gone completely viral, and is trying to take over the Matrix, or the Core, or whatever he can. He is power hungry, and nothing more. I beleive that it is even more obvious after watching the trailer for “Revolutions.” You did stick around for the “revolutions” trailer, right?

Is Zion real? Well, there are two possibilities here. First, “the real world” is a simulation, but the simulatipon that those who choose not to be in the Matrix choose to exist in. It allows those who want to wake up, to wake up without really interfering. Everyone there still chooses to be “asleep,” as is required for the simulatiopn to function properly, but its really just a pit-stop on the way down the rabit hole. Those who are inclined to wake up get their curiosity satisfied, and they get an evil-empire to work against, so they don’t even question “Is this it?” Neo, however, has now truly woken up, but must still stabilize the Matrix to save everyone else.

Or, the sentinals have just been programmed to avoid killing Neo at all costs, as he is the only human worth anything to the machines. He is the One, the one needed to re-boot the simulation. Take your pick.

On preview: The dreams could be explained by the Oracle reading Neo’s pattern in the Matrix. If his entire brain is dumped into the broadcast, she should easily be able to pick through his memories, or even to have planted dreams during their last encounter.

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askol, I really like your explanations; they make the Architect’s statements more clear. However, if the digging to Zion is timed to coincide with Neo’s reaching the Source, which event causes which? The digging seems to have started first, but they were waiting for word from the Oracle at the beginning of the film, and that set him on his path. Or is it just another coincidence that they happen at the same time?

My friends didn’t want to stick around for the credits. :frowning: But I’ll be seeing this film again soon, and I’ll be sure to catch the trailer at the end. :slight_smile:

Oh, and everyone probably already realizes this, but what the Architect says really explains the title of the film, doesn’t it?

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Achernar, seeing as the artifacts in the simulation that caused the One to wake up were designed into the simulation, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine that the machines aren’t somewhat able to track the progression of the errors in the matrix. Also, at the end of the events in the first movie, we could end up with the Architect buzzing his assistant and saying “Some bozo is flying around as if he’s Superman. Double sentinal production,” or something like that.

I’m still undecided as to the “realness” of the real world. If Zion isn’t real either, why does Neo need to go back into the City simulation in the third movie? From the trailer, Smith seems to be the primary antagonist, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Has anyone played the computer game? I’m prety sure the game is to be considered canon, and that it reveals additional plot. Does anyone know if the Animatrix shorts are strictly considered canon? There is so much franchising going on, things may get real confused real quick. Lets hope that the brothers were able to keep a tight leash on everything.