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

Cafe Society
301

Why does the plot so much remind me of Dark City, Kafka, and Tron?

One plot point that bugs is the fact that Neo is essentially in cyberspace and stuck in some philosophy chat room where kung fu flamers keep flamming him while he discusses the meaning of life.

If there are levels of being (a kundalini 7 as suggested by the Architect), then the Matrix is two steps DOWN, and the zion reality is where enlightenment is needed.
So why no philosophy discussion in zion? Is it because (as I suspect the ending of the trilogy will show) that we must live in the here and now and that it’s all good (which is pretty much where every philosophy and religion leads to)?

And why no great delving into eastern philosophy? Will that occur in the 3rd movie, or will it all continue to be a skimming of western stuff?

I do like the points made about Agent Smith. Suddenly he becomes not just your run-of-the-mill cool bad guy, but a supremely important figure. A Lucifer? (Lucifer wanted not to be evil but not to worship anything below God even when God commanded him to. He disobeyed God and was banished)

302

Great post, tomyoung. Of course, Morpheus’s ship, the Nebuchadnezzar, has some associations which may support your suggestion that Morpheus is unwittingly on the wrong team.

Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylonia c. 600 BC – the biggest achievement on his posthumous resume is conquering Jerusalem and shipping the Isrealites off to Babylonia as slaves. For this reason, in the minds of many people, there is a dichotomy between Zion and Babylon, with Babylon representing enslavement and Zion liberation. Cf. the popular psalm/reggae (depending on who you hang with,) “By the waters of Babylon, we sat and wept, as we remembered Zion…” It is interesting that that Morpheus would command a ship christened in the name of someone symbolically antithetical to his people.

Like Morpheus, Nebuchadnezzar is troubled by an ominous dream in Daniel ch.4:

Maybe, like King Neb, Morpheus has got a lesson in humility coming to him-- They’ve certainly set the stage for him to take a fall-- only to be given the opportunity to redeem himself.

303

Wow, that’s really cool, Larry Mudd. Thanks for the background on Neb – all I remembered from sunday school was the part about Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego being able to withstand the fiery furnace.

On Morpheus, I also remember an interview where Fishburne said that his conception of Morpheus was that he was a barber back in the Matrix, one who had dreams of slitting his customers’ throats. I think it was in the Newsweek cover story. Hopefully he’s just a guy who takes the religion stuff too literally. I sincerely hope that you’re right and he doesn’t just turn out to be bad, that he is redeemable, because a malevolent Morpheus would be a depressing twist. But that shot of Morpheus saying “sweet dreams, Zion” just seemed so very very ominous. Maybe there will be a Smith/Morpehus role reversal, with Smith fighting to destroy the Matrix and Morpheus fighting to preserve it. Who knows?

Here’s the Darth Vader quote from three different interviews, if you’re interested. Sometimes its phrased more ambiguously, but the obi wan/darth vader thing is always there.

http://www.charlierose.com/archives/archive.shtm
(You can listen to it, but there’s no transcript.)

http://www.starlog.com/tpages/morpheus_arc.htm

http://www.darkworlds.com/ls/art_8656.html

304

It’s amazing how this thread reads like Bible study. So much significance is seen in the seemingly smallest details; every imaginable question (“why did Neo do that and not that?”) is enthusiatically and sometimes dogmatically matched to an answer. People do this same kind of thing with the Bible, which is why they can spend years and years dissecting the verses and discover new things each time.

Question:If global castrophe was to wipe out 99% of the human population, 300 years from now would the descendants of the survivors mistake The Matrix for the gospel truth?

Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

305

I didn’t see this mentioned elsewhere in the thread and I did a search too, but if this has been mentioned, please forgive: but wasn’t the Architect supposed to be Freud? I mean, who else better to try and disect and understand the human mind than Freud? Just a thought.

306

With all this talk about what Fishburne said about his character being both Obi-Wan and Darth Vader, it got me thinking about what Monica Belluci said about Persephone.

She said(in the TechTv special about Reloaded) that her character is a “vampire of emotions”, sucking emotions instead of blood from people. The scene where she needs Neo to kiss her like Trinity is a great sign of this.

I wonder if more will be revealed about this in Revolutions. What did she do to Neo(or take from him) during the kiss?

307

Something that I’ve been thinking for a bit.

What if it turns out that humans need the Matrix, maybe to handle all the people while the Earth is cleaned up, just as much as the machines need the humans.

In this scenario, Morpheus and Neo could become ideologically opposed to each other. Morpheus could represent the ‘pure’ human viewpoint. Agent Smith the ‘pure’ machine viewpoint With the Architect and Neo somewhere in the middle. Neo would represent a mixed human and machine world, with everyone completely self-aware, whereas the Architect represents a world where intelligences, machine and human, are only sufficiently self-aware enough to do what they absolutely have to do.

308

I read something from Monica Bellucci about Persephone, too. I thought she said something like Persephone isn’t human but some sort of program or creature that desperately wants to feel emotion and gets a charge from that, or that she once could feel emotion but couldn’t now.

A couple of things I’ve found about what she says about Persephone (could constitute spoiler for Revolutions so you are warned):

Actually, the Fantastica Daily site has some really nice interviews with the major cast members that may answer some of the questions we’ve been batting around. Some of that stuff may be spoilers for the 3rd movie, so again, you’ve been warned!!

309

I don’t think his body dies. Didn’t Morpheus have a story about the guy who “founded” Zion? One would imagine he was the prior “One” who did as he was supposed to do and fixed the Matrix, thus founding Zion for the 5th (?) time. The Architect says:

“The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program. After which you will be required to select from the matrix 23 individuals…”

So presumably if the Merovingian was a One, he refounded Zion and then what? When that iteration of Zion was to be destroyed, as he knew it would be, he got out and went into the Matrix, programming his appearance and accent as he wished? I guess it’s possible. Maybe his experiences in the Matrix, post-Zion, have made him bitter and he wants the whole thing to go up in flames. Could be.

As for Persephone: her name is derived from the words phero and phonos, which mean together “she who brings destruction.” Her abduction by Hades is often referred to as “the rape of Persephone”; he was only able to keep her for part of the year because she ate a pomegranate seed while she was there (which is why I, probably like you, laughed when the Merovingian said, “This is my wife Persephone; would you like something to eat?”) Though she is the goddess of the Spring, she did grow to love Hades, cold fish that he is, and enjoyed being the queen of the underworld. She is said to represent the duality of nature, the alternation between light and dark, creation and destruction.

How all of this is relevant to the movie is unclear, of course… here’s my theory just for the hell of it: perhaps the Matrix is Hades, and Persephone was a woman who lived in Zion, which would be the “real” world, the world of Springtime. When Zion was to be destroyed, the Merovingian took her with him (downloaded her, so to speak) by force back into the Matrix, where she now pines away, longing for the Spring of the “real world.” A woman who has been allowed to make few choices, then chooses to help Neo… I don’t know, it’s as good a guess as any.

310

I agree with the folks who think the Merovingian was one of the Ones, maybe even the first One. At this point, the information we have is that prior to Neo, all of the Ones have chosen to reload the Matrix, so the Merovingian might have elected to go on existing in the Matrix after he refounded Zion. Why would he do this? Well, perhaps after establishing Zion he regretted his choice, and opted to go back and exist in the Matrix. In other words, he became jaded and couldn’t stand living with the results of his choice. This might also explain why he is fond of surrounding himself with past versions of the agents – the ghosty and vampirey ones. It’s a little nostalgia trip for him. Why would the Architect (or whoever is in charge) allow him to do this? I have no idea.

So then, as has been posed in this thread already, why would he want to stop Neo & Co. from getting to the keymaker? I have two possible theories on this:

  1. If getting to the keymaker were so easy, someone might suspect things are not as they seem. Therefore, Neo is forced to run the gauntlet to keep up appearances (and to keep the audience entertained). (Frankly, I was surprised none of them thought it was too easy when access to the keymaker was presented in the form of a tart in the restroom. But I digress.)

Could someone refresh my memory on who said this and when – someone (an agent?) toward the beginning of the movie says, in an upbeat way “it’s all happening just like it did before” which makes me think that all the jumping through hoops Neo has to do to get to the Architect are all carefully orchestrated parts of the program, again like a video game. This could include the hijinks with the Merovingian and his minions, and would explain why he is “allowed” to seemingly prevent Neo from reaching the keymaker.

  1. Or, if the Merovingian is really that jaded, he might want to prevent the Matrix from being reloaded, so he can “end it all,” having lost his own personal opportunity to do so when he chose the (possibly wrong) door during his own encounter with the Architect.

Here’s my little backstory that I invented for the Merovingian – when he was doing his stint as the One, he choose the reload Door instead of the Door that would save his beloved, Persephone. One in reload mode, he elected to have Persephone brought back as one of the female founders of Zion (since, at the time of the door choosing, Trinity wasn’t quite dead yet either, so it would be like hitting Esc mid-video game, right? Ok, well maybe.) Once there, however, Persephone learned that he didn’t save her, and their relationship began to decay. Bound together by this unhappy circumstance, and increasingly bummed out by living in Zion populated by eager beavers who don’t realize they are part of an (potentially) endless loop, they both return to the Matrix. Now their only hope for release from this vale of tears is to prevent the next One from reloading the Matrix. It’s really rather tragic, they both love each other and hate each other. I think this works whether Zion is “real” or simply a sub-Matrix.

Also, someone asked about how many manifestions of the matrix are going on – in my mind, there is the Proto-Matrix, which is the happy happy version that humans didn’t like because it was too happy. So I picture it being like a Claratin commercial.

After the Proto-Matrix, the machines switched to the version that resembles our real world. The Architect says Neo is currently in the sixth version (so Neo is not really the One, he’s the Sixth). Thus we have Proto-Matrix, followed by Matrix 1.0, Matrix 2.0, etc.

I suppose there could also be a Matrix 1.2, something where some minor problems unrelated to the One or Zion got fixed, but no major change. If this caused little skips or repeats of time, that might also explain why Zion seems to repopulate itself at a greater rate than one might expect from 23 people, even if they are going at it like bunnies for 100 years (even including the rescuing of other people from the Matrix). This could also explain why Morpheus in the first movie isn’t quite clear on how time is passing – the Zionists (there has to be a better name for them) might notice that time in the Matrix is not quite matched up with their time.

A goofy thing – did anyone else get a giggle at the end when Neo is explaining to Morpheus some of what he learned. He says “I know this is difficult to hear” and Reeves delivers the line in such a conversational tone that made me feel like they were discussing something relatively mundane. “I know this is difficult to hear, but I just lost your car keys.” Or, “I know this is difficult to hear, but it looks like you got turned down for that second mortgage.” Not quite up to “I know this is difficult to hear, but YOUR ENTIRE REALITY AND PURPOSE IN LIFE SEEMS TO BE AN ELABORATE SHAM.” Hoot.

311

To quote from the Fantastica Daily interview with Keanu Reeves mentioned above:

So… Zion is “real” and not simply another layer of the Matrix, and Neo is human. Or so Keanu says at least…

Barry

312

I don’t know if this has already been posted. (I just started reading the thread. But in case anyone is interested, here is a transcript of the discussion between Neo and the Architect at the end of “The Matrix Reloaded”. Hopefully it may help to clarify some of what is being discussed:

The Architect - Hello, Neo.

Neo - Who are you?

The Architect - I am the Architect. I created the matrix. I’ve been waiting for
you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your
consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will
understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first
question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also
irrelevant.

Neo - Why am I here?

The Architect - Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation
inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an
anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate
from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a
burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a
measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

Neo - You haven’t answered my question.

The Architect - Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others.

The responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: Others? What others?
How many? Answer me!'

The Architect - The matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the
emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case
this is the sixth version.

Again, the responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: Five
versions? Three? I’ve been lied to. This is bullshit.

Neo: There are only two possible explanations: either no one told me, or no one
knows.

The Architect - Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the anomaly is
systemic, creating fluctuations in even the most simplistic equations.

Once again, the responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: You
can’t control me! Screw you! I’m going to kill you! You can’t make me do
anything!

Neo - Choice. The problem is choice.

The scene cuts to Trinity fighting an agent, and then back to the Architects
room

The Architect - The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was
a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental
failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a
consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being, thus I
redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying
grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I
have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a
lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection.
Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive program, initially
created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father
of the matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother.

Neo - The Oracle.

The Architect - Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a solution whereby
nearly 99.9% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were
given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near
unconscious level. While this answer functioned, it was obviously fundamentally
flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that if
left unchecked might threaten the system itself. Ergo, those that refused the
program, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating
probability of disaster.

Neo - This is about Zion.

The Architect - You are here because Zion is about to be destroyed. Its every
living inhabitant terminated, its entire existence eradicated.

Neo - Bullshit.

The responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: Bullshit!

The Architect - Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. But,
rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have
become exceedingly efficient at it.

Scene cuts to Trinity fighting an agent, and then back to the Architects
room.

The Architect - The function of the One is now to return to the source,
allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime
program. After which you will be required to select from the matrix 23
individuals, 16 female, 7 male, to rebuild Zion. Failure to comply with this
process will result in a cataclysmic system crash killing everyone connected to
the matrix, which coupled with the extermination of Zion will ultimately result
in the extinction of the entire human race.

Neo - You won’t let it happen, you can’t. You need human beings to survive.

The Architect - There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept.
However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the
responsibility for the death of every human being in this world.

The Architect presses a button on a pen that he is holding, and images of
people from all over the matrix appear on the monitors

The Architect - It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five
predecessors were by design based on a similar predication, a contingent
affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your
species, facilitating the function of the one. While the others experienced
this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis,
love.

Images of Trinity fighting the agent from Neos dream appear on the
monitors

Neo - Trinity.

The Architect - Apropos, she entered the matrix to save your life at the cost
of her own.

Neo - No!

The Architect - Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the
fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both
beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the
source, and the salvation of Zion. The door to the left leads back to the
matrix, to her, and to the end of your species. As you adequately put, the
problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we?
Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the
onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An
emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious
truth: she is going to die, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

Neo walks to the door on his left

The Architect - Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion,
simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest
weakness.

Neo - If I were you, I would hope that we don’t meet again.

The Architect - We won’t.

313

Yes, I posted the link to it not that long ago at all.

314

Alright I will give this a try.

1.) The Architect said that Neo had only two choices. But, did he really have at least four? Stay there, kill him, door on left or door on right.

2.) I believe that Zion is another type of Matrix. The reason for this the Architect said something about tracking every influence in Neo’s life in and out of the Matrix. (Please correct me if I am wrong about this).

3.) Hi Opus.

315

First, off, WTF?

Anyway, I’m a big pusher that Neo has been given some wireless connection to machines, that he can tap into them without a plug in his head. Only he and Smith(the one in the real world) have it, which is why Smith said, “You are aware of the connection between us then?”

I think the third movie will ultimately be Neo versus Smith, the winner getting ultimate control of the Matrix. I know teaser trailers tell us little, but both the theatrical trailer and the one in the videogame make it look like Smith becomes the big bad(Buffy terminology will never die!).

316

People, the Oracle said that the Merovingian is a program. Ergo, he can’t be a One. Or the Oracle is lying.

317

And she would lie, would she? I mean, it’s not like she’s some sort of “mother of the Matrix” who is leading Neo on the path to reloading it.

Where would we get that idea?

318

That should have said, “wouldn’t lie”

319

Correct me if im wrong, but if we go along with the idea that Neo is a program created by the Architect to provide humanity with some salvation and hope, then technically, can’t the Merovingian can both be a program and ‘The One’??

320

On a side note, i’ve just realized that my signature (which I’ve had for over 2 years now), kinda goes with the whole idea of the matrix…Cool :smiley: