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

Cafe Society
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Ok, I have a question regarding the first matrix where Neo goes to see the Oracle and he meets the little boy with the spoons.

Spoon Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon Boy: Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

I dont understand the last line, could someone clear it up for me? I know it seems simple, but I just dont get it :frowning:

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Just to get back to everybody on the hexadecimal from page 2 (or so). The hex on the news page of the website was A3B1A428. Go into the binary-entering area of the website: on the top navigation bar, all the way to the right, there’s a vertical bar with a yellow button (for the “Options” section) - click it. It will open a tray with “Help”, “Low Bandwith”, and a covered option on it, and a green square for “Binary Access”, which you should click. I’ve tried (yes, I’m procrastinating from a number of important things) all of the possible entries, and 7 of them come up with hidden stuff. Most aren’t that interesting, although I’ve got them written down if anybody wants them. Anyway, one entry, 01101111, gives you a second access area, this one for hexadecimal. (As they tell you, there are something like 4 billion possible combinations here, so I ain’t trying all of them, sorry.) Anyway, the above hex gives you the option to download a Neb assembly/virtual reality program, which I haven’t had a chance to play with yet. (The other two hexes I’ve been able to find are 98765432, from the April 10 entry of the News, which gives you the Ultra trailor, now available unhidden on the website (so don’t bother), and the hex they give as an example, CC883300, which gives a file-not-found error.)

Yes, I’ve gotten obsessed. And I don’t know why. And it’s spectacularly bad timing on my part, given that it’s finals week.

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I haven’t read the entire six pages of this thread so if this has been asked and answered just let me know.

What year is it in the ‘real’ world?

In the original Matrix we are lead to believe it is sometime around the year 2099 although they admit to not knowing for sure.

However, the Matrix and Zion have been ‘reset’ (so to speak) six times. Assuming that is true and assuming that the guesstimate of time keeps reverting to the first go-around then shouldn’t the real year be FAR past 2099?

As an off-the-cuff guess I would think the year should be closer to 3000 (the Architect says to pick 16 females and 7 males to restart Zion…how long does it take to get the 250,000 Zion now holds and multiply x6).

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I think it’s supposed to be Platonic. In our world, a spoon is a physical object that can be manipulated with physical force, but the “idea” (concept or model) of spoon is non-physical, eternal, perfect and beyond our control. In your hands, a spoon can be cut to look like a fork. But in your mind, spoon can never become fork.

In the Matrix, however, that idea of spoon is also a physical object, a string of code implanted into Neo’s consciousness. And once Neo “bends himself” or understands that spoon is just as false and destructible as the actual spoon in his hand, both of them can be manipulated. Presumably at the height of his power, Neo could erase the “spoon code” and not only eliminate every actual spoon in the universe, but make it impossible for anyone in the Matrix to even conceive of spoons.

But not even Neo has any power over the almighty spork…

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Zion isn’t rebuilt by the chosen people mating and having children. Most of the people from Zion are woken up from the Matrix. The way Tank proudly proclaims to Neo how he is a true child of Zion makes me think there has only been one generation born outside the matrix in this particular iteration of it.

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Well, in the first film Morpheus says it’s more like 2199, not 2099. Also, in his cave speech, Morpheus says that they have fought off the machines for 100 years. So I guess that it’s one century between the emergence of one integral anomaly and the next. So… 2699.

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I was thnking 2600 myself (being off by my 100 year mistake of 2099 being the start but otherwise along with your thinking) but I upped my guesstimate to 3000 because I don’t see how you can populate to 250,000 from 23 people in 100 years. It’s too late for me to try all the math but it seems hard to fathom considering you have to allow time for everyone to grow-up.

Actually…I just realized I didn’t consider ‘released’ people from the Matrix. That could add significantly to the number and breeding population.

2,699 might be the answer (give or take).

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I have to say I favor the “Zion is a matrix within The Matrix” theory… I have a bigger theory that is more of a wild ass guess based on very very thin evidence and probably wishful thinking.

My theory is this, The Matrix including the sub matrix Zion is a sort of prison/game for hackers. I never bought into the whole machines feeding off of body heat thing, it makes no logical sense really it is far too dramatic. I think all of humanity Voluntarily plugged themselves in to live near infinite lives within incredibly sophisticated and intuitive shared networks, Electronic Paradise. As anybody who has spent Any amount of time online knows if you have a good thing going there are going to be those people who find pleasure in disrupting it. To satisfy their needs the computer has crafted an intricate simulation to stimulate their need for rebellion and power… The Matrix. It may be that the only real people in this simulation are Neo, Trinity and Morpheus. Maybe only Neo. Neo will win his game, learn the truth and be allowed into a system where Humans and Machines have long ago merged into what is effectively collective being… his real choice, to stop playing the game.

Or not… I tend to read FAR too much into everything.

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Okay, something I -thought- I noticed with the Architect’s speech. He tells Neo something along the lines of ‘your first question won’t be relevant’ or something like that? Debated it with my friend on the way home. The next thing Neo says is ‘why am I here?’

But that’s not his first question.

The first question he asks the Architect is ‘who are you?’

If that’s not relevant, then maybe the Architect himself isn’t relevant? Please discuss. Just gives me a headache. But the question order thing I think is important. It seems to be, at least.

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My off the wall notion:

The Matrix is ultimately benign, though it really tries to keep humans asleep in the simulation, and thus efforts to handle those who reject the program are sincere.

Here’s the deal. Earth is no more. Some cataclysm, perhaps of our own making, has occured, making the earth uninhabitable… A multi-thousand-year journey to find a new home is undertaken by a group of survivors.

Because such a trip would tend to be quite literally maddening, humans maintain their sanity via a simulation. The simulation exercises all the human need for purpose. The simulation’s weaknesses are as described by the Architect. Some folks are too strong-willed to submit to a program, and so this adventure of The One is created to keep those stronger folks occupied.

I have no evidence for this notion of a starship, save the brief glimpse of a starfield as Neo passes through the door, before encountering the Architect.

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OK, I finally saw the movie over the weekend (I would have seen it opening night, but I just got married and am in the middle of moving into a new house. I know, I know – where are my priorities? But I digress…)

It then took me two frickin’ days to read through the rest of the posts in this this thread (what is going on with this message board lately? Somebody needs to check the hamsters for a pulse).

And what do I find? The very last post in the thread comes up with the same WAG about what is “really” going on in the movie that I was going to propose. Yes, part of me wants to believe that Zion is “real” and not just another part of the Matrix. I love sci-fi stories about paranormal abilities, and I’ve read a lot of cyberpunk novels where invasive programs can take over the wetware, so it’s not too much of a stretch for me to accept that Neo somehow gained some real powers that can be manifested outside the Matrix. If this is true, he collapsed simply because the strain of using these new powers for the first time temporarily overwhelmed him.

However, the more I thought about it the more I started thinking along the same lines as Capt. Caustic. The point was made enough times that humans need machines as much as they need us (perhaps more so). And so I got to thinking that maybe the Matrix was NOT something designed by evil machines hellbent on conquering the earth, but was instead constructed by humans to keep the human race occupied and, on the whole, happy. Everything that happens in the movie is the equivalent of a video game that the players don’t realize they are playing, not just the events that take place “within” the matrix. Some players won’t be able to fully accept the “reality” of the matrix, so the programmers built in additional levels of “reality” to occupy those players.

The question then arises why such a thing would be built in the first place. The idea of some sort of global cataclysm occured to me. At first I thought that maybe the human race was buried in a cavern somewhere waiting for the planet to become less radioactive, but when I saw the doorway opening to a field of stars I thought that maybe the human race was on a gigantic multi-generation starship launched to escape the impending doom of Earth.

According to this theory, BTW, there really is an AI called “The Architect” who designed the Matrix and is running the show. He’s not out to get the human race, however – he was created by humans to design and maintain the Matrix, a task that could not be accomplished without the help of a sophisticated AI.

Anyway, that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. For now.

A few random points:

  1. The mainframe is not part of the Matrix. Instead, the matrix is simply one of the programs running within the mainframe. When programs leave the matrix (as Agent Smith wanted to do in the first movie), they rejoin the core code of the mainframe and can be reassigned to run in other similations if need be.

  2. The architect definitely meant that Zion was going to be destroyed regardless of what Neo chose. The squiddies were already on their way, and after having destroyed Zion 5 times in the past were very good at their job. Neo’s only choice was to let Trinity die and help reload the Matrix (after which he would be allowed to start Zion over again with the chosen 23 women and 16 men), or else to return to the matrix and try and save Trinity (meaning that the Matrix wouldn’t be reloaded, and as a result everybody within the matrix would be killed). Because Neo has hope, however, he believes it’s possible to save Trinity AND prevent the squiddies from destroying Zion. Whether he also feels he can prevent the Matrix from shutting down is unclear.

  3. Neo should have known all along that he wasn’t the first “One.” Morpheus told him in the first movie that there was previously a man who gained the ability to control the Matrix and escape, and he was the person who founded Zion. When I watched the first movie, this part never made much sense to me. If there was a previous “One” who could control the Matrix, why didn’t he do everything that Neo was expected to do? What happened to him? Why would he be reborn as Neo? The answer, of course, is that the previous “One” (who was actually “The One” number 5) did do everything that Neo is expected to do, including reloading the Matrix and helping 23 women and 16 men “escape” to found Zion (again). He then obviously lied about what happened to the people he liberated.

  4. I didn’t read any deep meaning into the fact that one of the orphans gave him a spoon. I took it to mean simply that the orphan had since been freed from the Matrix and was sending the spoon as a way of telling Neo that he [the orphan] was now out in the “real” world.

The one really confusing part for me, though, is what, exactly is Neo? The Architect claims he is “irrevocably human.” But then he talks about Neo being the “remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent in the programming of the matrix,” which makes it sound like Neo is actually a “glitch” in the programming and not a human being at all. Maybe all the Architect means is that an inherent flaw in the design of the Matrix means that after 100 years there will inevitably be somebody with the mental abilities that Neo posesses, but I still don’t see how that is possible if Neo is human. I mean, whether somebody has the power to perceive and control the Matrix or not would be determined by genetics, right?

OK, my brain is starting to hurt again, so I’m going to leave it at that. I really enjoyed the movie, by the way!

Regards,

Barry

272

Wow, this actually got me to de-lurk. Congrats guys.

My question is: If the “Zion World” is not a sub-matrix, then why do the machines keep remakining it? It’s the one threat to their utter dominance of the world. Why keep refounding it with the most powerful members of each generation? Just for the challenge?! Why not wipe out all opposing humans in one fell sweep and be done with it?

I say they need “Zion World” as others have noted as a sub-Matrix for those who reject the original. Otherwise, why keep it around?

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Wow, this actually got me to de-lurk. Congrats guys.

My question is: If the “Zion World” is not a sub-matrix, then why do the machines keep remakining it? It’s the one threat to their utter dominance of the world. Why keep refounding it with the most powerful members of each generation? Just for the challenge?! Why not wipe out all opposing humans in one fell sweep and be done with it?

I say they need “Zion World” as others have noted as a sub-Matrix for those who reject the original. Otherwise, why keep it around?

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Oops, newbie double post.

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I don’t know whether Zion is real or another matrix (I don’t think it matters much), but I agree with those who say it is allowed to exist by the machines as a kind of safety valve for the 1% people who reject the matrix. But the whole machine/man conflict is a kind of red herring for people in Zion, another method of control. People who question the first matrix get shipped to Zion, where they are given an illusion of choice, thus satisfying their skepticism. So any given person is either dreaming in the matrix, or dreaming that they are fighting to save humanity from the machines, when in fact they should be questioning that reality as well. Neo is the first person, whether a One or a regular person, to take the additional step by questioning the point of Zion/machine war and religious prophecy. As for the choice the Architect gives him – between merging with the source to improve the Matrix and in return getting to repopulate the destroyed Zion; and saving Trinity but dooming humanity to destruction by machines and by a Matrix-wide failure – he correctly recognizes this as a false choice meant to keep him under control. There are no machines to menace Zion.

Morpheus was the name for the Greek god of dreams. In Zion, he says something like “Sweet dreams, Zion.” Morpheus also says something like “my dream is dead” right after his ship explodes, and after Neo makes the “wrong” choice. I think this is because he realizes Neo is waking up to his big lie. This may be why Neo’s able to short out the sentinels, and why he can sense that the machines are slinging a bomb at them. Morpheus’s speech in the cave is the real giveaway, though. If you buy the theory that the goal of all political rhetoric is to get people to trade their skepticism away in order to be a part of something with meaning, or to give them the illusion of choice, then that’s exactly what Morpheus does. He whips Zion up into an anti-machine frenzy so that he can do their thinking for them. Plus the speech practically takes place in Plato’s cave, complete with dancing shadows. And a cave is also pretty metaphorically appropriate for someone pulling the wool over the eyes of the masses. All of this is in keeping with the Wachowskis’ apparent like for Foucault, Cornel West, and contempt for Bush, for example. I think Morpheus’s religious conviction is there to tempt Neo and Zion away from the true path of understanding, and that Morpheus is serving the interests of the Matrix in Zion. That’s also why Lawrence Fishburne made that comment about how his character is like “Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi in one” comment on Charlie Rose. Neo will see past all of this and bring peace and harmony to AI and people, if in fact there is any difference between them. So anyway, Morpehus is like the Devil tempting Christ with lies and dreams.

The Oracle says to Neo “you’ve made a believer out of me.” To me, this means she has helped Ones in the past, who have ultimately all made a choice that uncritically accepts the whole machine/man conflict – they have chosen the safe door that repopulates Zion. She knows Neo is different, and will make the dangerous, irrational choice (based on love) that will finally free humanity, ironically fulfilling the true meaning of the prophecy (the truth in the lie) and overcoming her cynicism. I agree with those who assert that Merovingian is a former One (there’s somebody to be cynical about). There’s not much evidence, but it seems right.

I apologize if I’ve restated things others have posted - I had to write down all my thoughts just to keep them straight about this movie. And I thought the movie was fantastic, obviously.

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Some more points after a few more viewings.

  1. It seems there was indeed a change in the brain or electrical wiring of Neo when he entered the “white room” at the end. One of the first things the Architecht says is, “despite the change, you are still irrevocably…human.”

I believe they established within him the wireless connection he has to the Matrix. What Smith has to do with this is beyond me.

  1. The architecht does make the Oracle sound evil. It was due to the obsession the architecht had with mathmatecal perfection that “he” was unable to design a Matrix 99% of people would accept. The Oracle was able to help because she was not so obsessed with perfection; her job was analyzing human beings.

What he does not tell Neo is how it came to be that she suggested the “the One” plan. It sounds as if she intended to help the machines all along.

  1. A question, then. Doesn’t the architecht make it sound like there have been 4 or 5 previous Ones, bringing the total to 6 versions of the matrix? How many matrixes were around before the Oracle developed the “the One” plan?
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Mahaloth:
I agree that the Oracle is most likely the “mother.” I think everyone would agree that the film points most clearly to her as such. But there are good arguments that Persephone could be it, mainly because she’s much more clearly interested in investigating human emotion, per se, than the Oracle; and because the Architect scoffs at Neo’s suggestion that hte Oracle’s the mother. (I agree that he’s probably just scoffing at that name for her, but it’s ambiguous.)

There are also those who argue Trinity is the Mother program, as she’s the one who assists and actively inspires Neo’s important choice and emotion. But probably not. I guess we’ll see in November.

And on your first point, I agree. I think it was the interface with Smith that gave Neo his powers over machines in the real world.

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By the way, the complete transcript of the Architecht conversation is at

http://www.theantitrust.net/articles/viewarticle.php?articleid=108

So, in point 1. above, the exact line is, “You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human.”

The process??

Also, Marcus Chong is sueing the Brothers.

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[quote]

The one really confusing part for me, though, is what, exactly is Neo? The Architect claims he is “irrevocably human.” But then he talks about Neo being the “remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent in the programming of the matrix,” which makes it sound like Neo is actually a “glitch” in the programming and not a human being at all. Maybe all the Architect means is that an inherent flaw in the design of the Matrix means that after 100 years there will inevitably be somebody with the mental abilities that Neo posesses, but I still don’t see how that is possible if Neo is human. I mean, whether somebody has the power to perceive and control the Matrix or not would be determined by genetics, right?

[quote]

I’ve wondered about this too. My off-the-cuff WAG is that if all of this is inside some computer-generated world with viruses and programs, Neo is… a patch?

[quote]

Originally posted by DEVA
I am really wondering about the children of the matrix that are saved. This is what I’m thinking: My husband and I have two sons. Well, if a crew in Zion rescues or “unplugs” me from the Matrix then I am naturally going to be like: Where the hell is my family? GO GET THEM TOO! Do my children really exist or are they just programs?

[quote]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember seeing a scene whilst the trio are in Zion and people are following Neo around like he’s Jesus. Some women are shouting at him things like “I have a son… daughter… please look out for him/her…” as Neo’s getting read to leave Zion. I took this to mean “Mr. Neo Man, please find/look after/unplug my kid and bring them here to be with me.”

[quote]

Originally posted by MikeRochenelle
As for what that MEANS, I don’t know. But that seemed to be the message.

Answered by Bryan Eckers
It means the Tick will save the day.

[quote]

Heh heh. Well, we know for sure it won’t be Tank.

Spooooon!!!

:eek:

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Sorry, apparently I’m crap with the coding.