Would have been one heck of a weird metaphor if he had sent Neo a “spork”!
Actually, she just offered it to him to illustrate the point of his choices only being made.
A Sunday morning preacher on TV just said Jesus is represented by 888.
First, I think you meant “inexplicable” to me. I agree 100% I can’t believe how many people seemed to miss this, one of the coolest and most major plot points. How do they interpret the final shot of the movie? Just some guy on the bed next to Neo? WTF?
Second, I agree again. Smith didn’t seem 100% sure what was going to happen when he picked up the phone and was just checking to see if he inded, had become human(so to speak).
I really loved this movie!
-
There seems to be much more evidence supporting the existence of more than one matrix, but of course this is what is being debated. Rather than reiterate 3.5 pages worth of thoughts and speculation, I’ll just point out that you offer no evidence other than the statement that you could not make sense of the story if it Zion were not “real”, so it must be. While I’m not discounting your opinion, afterall you could very well be correct, gut feelings don’t win court cases and certainly won’t sway the opinions of the generally intelligent people that frequent these boards.
-
It seemed obvious to me as well, but it was done rather quickly and we were never afforded a good look at the guy when Smith “infected” him in the Matrix (plus he was dressed differently when we see him again, from behind), so it’s reasonable that some people blinked and missed it or just never made the connection.
-
But why do it at that moment? There had to be more significance to it–some symbolic or functional purpose to it. I don’t buy that he did it because it was a new experience. He had days or perhaps weeks with which to experiment with his “real” body if he so chose.
When I think about it, it was that action that cued me in to who he was, so I’m beginning to think it was included primarily to alert the audience of who he was and what he was about to do. I’d like to think there were some deeper meaning to it, but other than as a part of some sort of ritualistic ceremony, I’m at a loss to say what it was.
[nitpick] Aaliyah also starred in the movie Romeo Must Die with Jet Li. [/nitpick]
[nitpick] Aaliyah also starred in the movie Romeo Must Die with Jet Li. [/nitpick]
This is pretty much exactly what I thought the explanation was. It’s the simple, clear explanation.
It clears up a few of the things that bothered me about the first one. For instance, they couldn’t really let the Matrix-world’s timeline progress forever without resetting it, so the 100-year cap before rebooting would let them run the simulation from approximately year 1900-2000, then start over at 1900 the second time around. Of course there weren’t many phones around back then for exits and whatnot, but it’s the only thing that fits with the 100 years Morpheus believes they’ve been fighting. And of course, that makes the real real-world date more like 2599 than 2199.
And that also explains how Morpheus thinks there was the One who freed the first people. That would have been the 5th incarnation of the One freeing people with the machines’ assistance.
BTW, are these “Animatrix” things relevant to the story? Are they made available for free (and legal) download somewhere, or are we supposed to wait for the DVD with them on it (I have some sort of rebate coupon for an Animatrix DVD in my copy of The Matrix, so I presume that’s coming out.)
I don’t think so. In the first film, just before the subway fight, we see Agent Smith take over the body of the bum and there is no reason to believe that his other “host body” died. I guess he could have shot himself or something, but we are not given any reason to believe that Smith didn’t just switch bodies.
I chuckled, but I was the only one. People need to watch more TV Land.
If they really wanted to telegraph the man was Smith (I am not doubting it was him of course), they should have had him pop his neck.
I did catch that it was Smith, but I could see how people could be confused. They really DID use a non-descript actor for the new Smith. I didn’t recognize him as “the guy Smith duped”. I only assumed it because of the circumstances. Heck, at the end, it took me a second to be sure that it was the same guy (I assumed it was based on the voiceover).
But to be honest, when I first saw New Smith lurking with the knife, I thought it may be a fourth-column like traitor within Zion.
Soon I realized it must be the guy Smith duped.
But I wouldn’t say one was dumb if they didn’t catch that. There were a LOT of freakin’ characters in this movie.
I saw a few earlier posts pointing it out, but not trying to explain it. No it didn’t strike a nerve. I don’t care… i’m not “pissed because of all the black people.” Frankly, if I were black I’d probably be pissed off that all the peons in Zion were black but the few important guys (and “the one”) were as white as can be. I just feel that since it was done on purpose, there must be an explanation for it. Either black extras cost considerably less than white ones (which isn’t likely… plus they had a practically unlimited budget for this film) or there has to be a plot-oriented reason for it (such as the generations of inbreeding to propagate the species… that’s all I can come up with).
Then again, if Zion isn’t real, it must be the computer making everyone black, right?
Morpheus and the guy in charge of defense are not peons.
Plus, I swear I saw a few minorities on the Council.
Two quick things.
-
Ian Bliss played Drillic on Farscape, in the episode Loosing Time(yes, it’s loosing as in for it to slip away, not lose(i.e. lost).
-
I’m serious here. For anyone who didn’t see that Smith became real in the real world, what did the final shot of the movie tell you? Just some guy is on the bed next to Neo? The whole point of the cliffhanger is that Smith is right there next to him.
-
Hello, Opal, though I don’t think I’ve seen you in here.
Oooh, good point. Pull up yur waders 'cause I’m gonna start shoveling. I figure your kids do exist. Remember from the first movie when you get awakened & the Matrix realizes it, you get flushed. They could temporarily replace you with a program so as not to freak out your hubby & kids. It was also explained that when you experience a strange sense of deja vu that was the Matrix making some changes to the program. So more likely is after you got flushed the Matrix rearranges things so Mommy was in a car accident or something. If the changes required in the Matrix were too extreme, maybe they just flush you & everyone else around you they can’t somehow reconcile your disappearance with. With the Agents running around stealing people’s bodies right & left, they must do a lot of rearranging anyway. I don’t think they could go back & rescue the rest of your family. They each have to be of a mind set, seeking the real truth & freely choosing the red/blue pill in order to adjust to reality. Otherwise there’d be no point in bringing them out as they’d go insane.
On to the Zion question. Some of you feel since the Architect designed Zion that Zion must then be another matrix. Am I understanding you all right?
I’m thinking the Architect planned on a Zion type place, & allowed humans to escape & build up a resistance there as a pressure valve as **Shalmanese **states, but that doesn’t mean to me that Zion must be a computer sim like The Matrix. Why can’t it be real and still planned for/arranged by the Architect? The people who live there still get their free will, hope, choice, blah, blah, blah.
Now during part of the film I remember thinking, "what if the only way to defeat Neo & crew is to make them think they made it out of the Matrix but didn’t? That would require a matrixed Zion, but wouldn’t exclude the existence of the real Zion. I don’t like this idea though. Too Star Trekian holodeck scenario. Like you wake up from a realistic dream only to find you’re still dreaming, wake up again only to find… etc, etc. An old overused story gimmick I’ve never liked much. What gave me that thought was the scene when Neo & crew were walking along a gang plank of some kind when they first arrived at Zion. Everyone had a plug on the back of their necks but Neo! I watched closely from there & it turned out his plug was above his hairline, but it still made me suspicious. Was his plug always that far into his hairline?
Anyway, I don’t trust much of what the Architect said. If Neo is as powerful as he’s supposed to be then the Architect’s got to be doing some major tap dancing to confuse & divert Neo.
I think the spoon was nothing more than the orphan reminding Neo to watch his back, trust nothing as nothing is truly real in the Matrix, and you can make your own possibilities once you accept that.
There’s a huge problem with your reasoning here: movies aren’t court cases, and the writers don’t make them so that a jury can guess the plot of the next one. The Wachowski Brothers made the movies exactly how they wanted them, and if they wanted Zion to be real it will be, no matter what so-called “evidence” you find to the contrary.
I really hope this thread is the right place to say this, but I simply didn’t like the movie.
Any movie is essentially storytelling. It’s as if the filmaker sits you down and says, “Let me tell you a story about…”
I got an entirely different feeling about this film.
I got the same feeling I would get if I was going to go out to some social event, a restaurant or a movie, with a group of people while one person, the filmaker, was playing a videogame.
“C’mon,” you say to him, “we’re all ready to go.”
“Okay” he replies, “I’ve just got to kill these green monsters, and I’ll get to the next level.”
In the interim you can just watch, over his shoulder, the action of this game which fascinates him so much.
Fascinates him.
I don’t think the filmaker was really a storyteller.
I, for one, wasn’t fascinated.
The whole thing seemed quite narcisistic to me. I think the filmaker made it for himself.
<yawn>
No, I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me. See, this is why I’m horrible at guessing race.
I paid attention to this too. What he actually says is that nobody accepted his perfect world, but 99% of people accepted the Oracle-modified world. I do not believe this is the same thing as saying that 1% of people wind up in Zion. For one thing, that was the first Matrix he was talking about; they may have improved things by the sixth. For another, perhaps those that simply reject the Matrix on their own and are not rescued are killed. And I don’t even believe that people like Neo “rejected” the Matrix. I mean, he did live in it fine for a long time. When I hear him talking about “rejection” I think of what Agent Smith said in the first film, about entire crops being lost.
Not really. His ship got back, and the Neb was immediately readied for takeoff. If his intent was to harm Neo, he could have had less than an hour to do so. So, standing in the corridor, waiting for them to come by, with a knife… One thing leads to another…
I don’t necessarily think this is the best explanation, but I just got the impression from that scene that he was unbalanced, as unsure of how to behave in the real world as Neo first was when Morpheus took him into the Construct. I don’t really think he had a plan.
I merely used the analogy of a court case to show that there must be some logic to support an argument, in anything. That the audience, or jury if you will, require concrete evidence rather than circumstantial or just mere opinion to make us believe something.
You’re right about movies and their creators. A movie could easily be made that spends 2 hours leading the audience to believe one thing, but then completely reverse it. If done for effect and with reason and logic and evidence (The Sixth Sense for example), all is good, but if done just to throw off the audience, I think we can all agree that that is just poor filmmaking.
The W Bros give ample evidence (I feel) that Zion exists in another Matrix, but the reason that theory isn’t completely accepted is that the evidence isn’t complete or concrete. Thus the debate. I was not suggesting that the poster was wrong in his opinion (though I disagree with it) but that his contention based on the fact that he couldn’t understand the concept so it couldn’t be true was illogical and should not even be put forth as definitive.
The lady in the red dress is Fiona Johnson, the woman in pink is Tory Mussett.