Hey NardoPolo, you said that
I could be way off here, but I believe she was referring to Neo’s love for Trinity and how long ago the Merovingian had perhaps treated Persephone with the same love. But that was just my interpretation 
Exactly. Interpreting this to mean he’s the prior Neo is too much of a stretch, at this point.
I had questions about these 2 specifically. What if it’s not a coma? What if he’s actually woken up in the “real” world - been unplugged for real, let’s say. This only works if you accept that there are 2 matrixes.
I don’t think that the Oracle is the mother. The Architect says, “Puh-lease” when Neo mentions her. The way he says it makes me think it’s one of those cases where Neo is way off in left field. I just saw it a few hours ago and I was watching for that scene, so it’s fresh in my memory. Mr. Kiger thinks that the Zion program itself may be the mother. Anyway, just throwing some random thoughts out there…
Non plot related. . .
So I was watching, and they had the ‘council’ scene, and this guy starts talking and I think “heh heh, he looks like Cornell West” (the philosopher). . . then they swing back to him as he talks some more and I think “Holy shit! That IS Cornell West!” And according to the cast list, it is Cornell West. Now, how cool is THAT?!
Actually going back I notice that I’ve been beaten to the Cornell West recognition way back on page 5 by Achenar et al. . . back to under my little rock. . .
I see what you mean.
On the other side, since all the Neos are in the Architect’s pictures in the background at his “office”, and they all look like Keano Reeves, I guess that makes it unlikely Morovingan would be the old One.
[Quote]
On the other side, since all the Neos are in the Architect’s pictures in the background at his “office”, and they all look like Keano Reeves, I guess that makes it unlikely Morovingan would be the old One/ [?Quote]
Hmm good point Nardo, I had never thought about it that way. A lot of people were saying that it was quite possible that the Merovingian was a previous ‘One’. But yours is a good point, if he was, then shouldn’t he have appeared in at least some of the screens (or did he appear and noone picked up on it yet?) Maybe something to look for next time anyoone goes to see teh movie
ooops…screwed up the quote thingy…was my second attempt at it…sorry 
Ok…so I just saw it again and I have a few more points. As has been discussed previously in this thread, The Architect names a “she” as the “mother” of the matrix. I don’t think he was scoffing about Neo proposing that this was The Oracle. The part he scoffs about is Neo refering to her as an Oracle. I think the Arcitect scoffs at this because it is quite a romanticized notion for an intuitive program to be considered able to see the future, at least from the Architect’s point of view
I mean…if she is basically a glorified Magic 8 ball based on an assumedly huge database running the gammut of human emotion, instict, passion, fear, motivation…the odds are that she might very well have a very high chance of “knowing” what someone is likely thinking Like assuming that Neo can’t sleep ( I mean hell…the boy has a lot on his mind. I don’t think that was an earth shattering oracle oration).
I think the reason why she has come to be known as “The Oracle” has more to do with her being a part of the Matrix. She dangles a few carrots in front of their noses…feeds them just enough of the inside scoop to keep their attention focused on the task at hand…supliments this with her ability to guess quite accurately what people will do and how they will react to given situations.
How long do we have to wait to see Revolution and know what is actually going on?
I think your question about when Revolutions is coming out has been answered in this thread Honeydewgrrl (i know this mainly because I have answered this question before)
Mid November is the answer
This is my theory for how Neo was able to knock out the sentinel. My first reaction was, “ohmigod, they’re still in the matrix but don’t know it!” I figured that was the ONLY possible explanation for how Neo has powers in the “real world”. But now I am beginning to lean a little bit towards the whole “wireless” thing. Here’s why:
After Neo knocks out the sentinel, he just collapses like a rag doll. If my memory serves me, one of the last comments in the movie is something to the effect that Neo is still alive but in a coma.
THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE BODIES OF ANYONE WHO IS “PLUGGED IN” TO THE MATRIX!
Think about it. They lie down in the chair, those horrifyingly large devices are plugged into their brains, and they go into a sort-of-coma; their bodies are still alive, they are breathing and have brain functions, but they are motionless and do not respond to the world around them.
My theory: Neo obviously figured SOMETHING out when he said, “Something is different” (still not sure WHAT he figured out!) then he tested his discovery by destroying the sentinel. I don’t think he collapsed out of shock or surprise or weariness, I think he INTENTIONALLY “plugged himself in” to the matrix without having to be “jacked in” by a physical device.
I like the idea that Neo’s powers have evolved to the point that he can travel to the matrix without the use of being physically jacked in. This means that he can effect things WITHIN the matrix while he is still in the “real world”, which easily explains how he destroyed the sentinel. (His mind simply reached through the programming of the matrix, found the computer control for the sentinel, and switched it off. This may or may not have been a conscious “search” or something he just did by instinct.)
As to how he has such awesome power above and beyond what we’ve seen before… it could just be an ability he always had but just had to figure it out (like the ability to fly), or, more likely, it is somehow the result of his meeting with the architect and/or going to the core. He may be more connected to the computer world of the matrix than he ever has before.
Obviously, I guess we’ll all know in November. But until I hear a better theory, this is what I believe.
(( So far I haven’t heard anyone say this. Haven’t quite finished reading this entire LONG thread, though, but I am close. ))
Oh, and a couple more things…
(1) I do not understand the many posters here who seem to believe that the images on the Architect’s walls are somehow the images of previous Ones.
For one thing, there are way, way more than just five images. And there have been five previous Ones.
And for another, I think it is pretty obvious that the images on the monitors are just a representation of all of Neo’s possible reactions… perhaps an attempt by the Architect’s computer brain to predict how Neo will react emotionally to his comments. The full range of his possible responses are shown, or, in a couple of cases where it is clear that he would have only one response, that response is seen on all the monitors.
I don’t think it is any more complicated than that.
(2) Also, there have been a few comments by people wondering why there isn’t knowledge by the people in Zion that there were five previous Ones… especially since there are 23 survivors from each generation to the next. (Wrong!)
I think the confusion probably comes from the subject of WHERE those 23 people come from: The Architect says that Neo “will be required to select FROM THE MATRIX 23 individuals, 16 female, 7 male, to rebuild Zion.” (My emphasis.)
Obviously, the 23 people are ALL people who have been inside the matrix up until that point, and who were completely unaware of the existence of Zion and the real world and that their lives have been an illusion inside of the matrix.
And also, I thought, obviously, ALL free humans in Zion will be killed. The Architect tells Neo, “You are here because Zion is about to be destroyed. Its every living inhabitant terminated, its entire existence eradicated.”
Thus, clearly, the knowledge of the matrix, the conflict between man and the machines, etc. “begins anew” each time that one of the Ones has chosen the right door and gone through the process of rebooting/patching the matrix.
Therefore there could be no continuation of knowledge from one “era” to the next. The freed humans, in each case, are told that their “One” was the VERY FIRST to awaken from the matrix and to begin freeing the first humans from the bondage of the matrix. This is supported by what Morpheus told Neo in the first “Matrix” movie.
I think that the sticking point is the reactions of the “picture-in-picture” Neos.
When the Architect says “I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version.,” the alter-Neos responses don’t make any kind of sense as a number of possible reactions to the same sentence. One of them asks “Five versions?” One says “Four?” Another asks “Three?” The images seem to play in reverse chronological order-- earlier, when Neo complains about the Architect’s avoidance of a question, the Architect comments, “Interesting. That was quicker than the others.” All of the alter-Neo’s register surprise at the idea of previous others, except the last one, who simply says “Answer me!”, presumably because in the first iteration, the Architect merely said “Interesting,” or some similarly noncommital thing.
The problem is, at other times they play with doing a fancy transition where the camera zooms in on one monitor and then that one becomes the “real” image of Neo. It makes for a nice visual recursion. Once, while this is happening, you clearly hear Neo say “There were five versions before me” from one of the monitors, while the solid Neo says “Either nobody told me, or nobody knows.” This really makes it impossible to say “everything in the monitors represents previous iterations of the One.”
There are strong arguments for either interpretation… I wonder if the inconsistency is a result of of the sound designer or foley mixer getting sloppy with the script, or deliberate obfuscation and equivocation on the part of the Bros. W, just to encourage eight-page message board threads about their movie.
Those Neo’s aren’t the same Neo’s, they are tangents in time.
Some people think it’s what Neo is thinking and feeling, but it’s actually threads, like imagine if Neo had made other choices earlier in life, he would have said something else when he met the Architect.
Hence, the camera zooms in and glides through the time thread that happens.
Morpheus says: “what happened, happened and couldn’t have happened any other way”.
It’s cause and effect. Destiny vs choice.
Also larry, about your machine theory, I’m really tired of typing but anyway, my point was humans != machines, the computer you’re looking at = the matrix.
humans make machines != the matrix, machines != matrix,
humans != matrix != machines.
I think the fact that at the end of the scene, we see all of the screen-Neos walk toward the same door as our Neo eliminates the possibility of the screens representing previous versions of the One, since Neo was the only one to choose that door.
Not even sure what you are talking about. All the Neo’s fill each screen that they are on. Admittedly, I’ve only seen the movie once and a lot happens in that scene. But I don’t remember any PIPs. Then again, probably I don’t know what you are referring to.
Again, not sure what you are talking about. Whenever the Architect said something, the Neo’s on the screen reacted with anger/laughter/confusion/etc, different EMOTIONAL reactions. There was so much overlapping dialogue that I do not remember any of them saying “four”, “three”, etc. I guess I’m going to have to watch the movie again (something I already planned to do, anyways, before this discussion).
I think that is a pretty big logical leap, even assuming that you heard more than I did. Again, I think the deduction that the screens are just showing different POSSIBILITIES of Neo’s emotional reactions make a lot more sense. Having one say, simply, “interesting” hardly indicates to me that this was the “first One”.
Also, and I think this is the biggest argument against the various Neo’s on the Architect’s monitors being images of the previous Ones… there is absolutely NO evidence that the previous Ones all LOOKED like Neo and/or had the same name. Let me explain further.
Morpheus told Neo in the first movie that long ago there was a human, the first to awaken from the matrix, who woke up and freed the first humans. The One told them that he would one day return. A “religion” built up around the fact that one day there would be another One, which Morpheus obviously believes. Even if these incidents had happened one hundred or more years ago, don’t you think that they would have kept records/drawings/paintings/whatever of what the One looked like and what his name was???
In all the time in the first movie that Morpheus spent trying to convince Neo that he is the One, don’t you think he would have mentioned, “His name was Neo and he looked EXACTLY like you.”??? That would be a fairly strong argument, I would think, to a doubting Neo. But Morpheus didn’t do that, which indicates to me that the previous Ones were NOT “other” Neo’s but simply different human beings who had similar powers to him.
How is this a “problem”???
The fact is, this is just a nice visual directing trick by the Wachowski’s, which is in fact IDENTICAL to a shot used in the first “Matrix”. When Neo is about to be questioned by the Agents (towards the beginning of the film, the scene in which Neo is “bugged”), the shot begins showing a number of monitors with the same image; the camera tracks in on one of the monitors which then blurs into “reality”. Same shot exactly.
Obviously, I can’t read the minds of the Wachowski Bros., but I doubt that this was meant to mean anything in either film… other than being a cool shot or (perhaps?) foreshadowing in the first movie that that interrogation was being watched by the Architect(!). Cool if true, I think.
I don’t think this supports your theory or mine. Either of us could interpret this to back up our ideas.
Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Well, I guess I’m biased because it is MY interpretation, but I think the evidence supporting my theory is much stronger! I still fail to see how the fact that Neo has different reactions on the screens indicate that what is being shown are somehow “previous” Neos.
And I still think the evidence is very strong that the previous Ones – or at least the one Morpheus knew about – did NOT look like Neo. And if even ONE of the previous Ones did not look like Neo then it blows the “monitors-showing-previous-Ones” theory.
I think delibrate obfuscation on the part of the Bros. W. is a MUCH, MUCH more likely possiblity than “sloppy” sound design. I seriously doubt the latter. With hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the films, I doubt that the Bros. W. would let sloppy sound design ruin (what could be) the most key scene in the entire trilogy.
I think it is much more likely that the Bros. W. are just playing with our heads, and in fact the reality may be neither of our theories. I’m sure that they left us plenty of red herrings and mis-directions throughout the film.
The worst possibility… perhaps… is that the monitors showing different reactions by Neo could mean absolutely NOTHING other than a cool idea the Bros. W. had. All the debate on message boards like this could be meaningless.
Or the “meaning” behind it could be deliberately vague; as a writer, I know that sometimes even the writer does not fully understand why they did something. It is very easy to over-analyze and to assume that the writer meant something that they never intended in the first place.
I guess we’ll know in November. Hopefully! :rolleyes:
Hah!!!
I didn’t even think of that one. That is the single most powerful argument against that theory I’ve read yet.
Can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself.
:smack:
Apropos shy guy, at the end of the scene when the Architect gives him the choices, all Neo’s stand still, in the same position as the ‘normal’ Neo, which also eliminates any possibility of the screens showing his emotions.
In this situation he would obviously have tons of thoughts and emotions, and those would show up on the screens as the others did, right?
So, scroll up to my post about tangents in time, I think it’s quite correct. 
I just got back from seeing it a second time, and I have new insights:
First, I believe that Neo had some machine code inserted in his brain at some point in his life. Perhaps through the agents, perhaps through a code food (like Merovingan gave the woman), or perhaps when he goes through the door of light. Either way, I believe that part of Neo’s mind carries machine code that suggests things, which is why The One has a purpose within the Matrix, and I believe the code is inserted when the machines notice that yet another systemic anomaly has popped up. Then, if he makes it to the core, he will be predisposed to choose to rebuild Zion. The architect even says “your predecessors were designed…” etc. He also implies this when he talks about the change in Neo, and how he’s still human…so he’s not all program, but part program.
I also am almost positive that Merovingan is one of the previous Ones, but that when The One goes to the core, the human part of them dies, and the mental projection continues on in program form, essentially transforming that one part of code inserted into the brain into the entire brain. This is why Persephone says “he used to be like you” and now he doesn’t love any more. When he was “The One” he loved like Neo does, and when went to the core, he lost his human emotions and became pure Matrix code. I am inclined to think he is the first One.
Perhaps this code in Neo causes him to have powers in the real world, but I’m more on the side of Real World is the outer layer of the Matrix. The architect mentions that the Matrix works if the people have “even the illusion of choice.” Meaning that the choice to leave the Matrix is there…but it’s an illusory choice, as they will still be plugged in when they leave.
The Oracle is a wild card: She, like everyone else in the movie (even Morpheus) refers to everyone having a purpose, and I think is leading Neo towards accepting his programming to serve the purpose, vs. the choice he has as a human.
Anyway, November is going to rock…I can’t wait to see what happens, and I think that the whole Smith vs. Neo for control of the Matrix looks to be the issue, two anomalies fighting it out!
I made y’all a a little mp3 file taken from the bootleg copy of the movie that I’m relying on until the DVD is released. (It’s only 66k.)
The audible responses from the monitors are “You’re lying, that’s bullshit!” “Two.” “Three?” “Four?” “There were five Ones before me.” (Along with some hysterical laughter.)
During this, the camera zooms in on a monitor in which Neo is saying “There are only two possibilities-- Either noone told me, or noone knows.” “There were five Ones before me” is heard simultaneously with this, and the audio for that utterance is now tinny-sounding, as if it’s coming from a monitor, although I suppose it could be the voice of the Neo we’d just left. (I hope that’s decipherable.)
At any rate, I don’t see how “Two,” “Three?” or “Four?” can be interpreted as Neo’s alternate emotional responses to the revelation that he’s the sixth iteration of the One.
At other times, the monitor gimmick could be interpreted as branching possibilities of the current iteration, such as when all the monitor-Neo’s are reacting angrily with “You can’t control me!” “You can’t make me do anything!” “I’m going to kill you!”, while the “real” Neo calmly says “Choice. The problem is choice.” On the other hand, if you choose to consider the monitor-Neo’s representation of past reactions, it might make sense that the earlier Neo’s might react viscerally to the idea that they’re not really in control of what they do, but the 6th Neo, having the benefit of the hindsight that he’d thrown more-or-less the same pissy little tantrum about it five times in a row, might be more inclined to accept the idea of at least a degree of determinism constraining his reactions, and actually think about the ramifications about it.
I know it’s a logical leap, that’s why I characterized it as a presumption. But stick with me: The Architect has just introduced the idea that he has had a carbon-copy of this conversation with some others. All of the monitor-Neo’s react with surprise at this revelation, except for one, who says “Answer me!” This does make sense if you consider the monitor-Neo’s to be the previous iterations of the One. Of course, you could also choose to believe that there’s just one alternate branch in which Neo is monumentally uninterested in the idea that there are others, is still really fixated on receiving a direct answer to the question “Why am I here?” and simply considers the idea of multiple Ones totally irrelevant to the whole situation, and unworthy of pursuing, while all the others are unanimous in their curiousity about the idea.
Another large reason I have for favouring the “Previous Ones” interpretation over the “Possible choices” interpretation, is that the Wachowski Bros have, from the beginning, taken the ontology and philosophy of the Gnostics as a source for the their story, and have remained consistent with it. Considering that, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Neo to truly have choices, since, according to the Gnostics, [ul][li]The god of the material universe, whom they call the demiurge, or Divine Architect, is insane. He has created a world which is more accurately a prison. In their natural state, men and women have no free will, and merely move through their lives like so many billiard balls in long and pointless game of pool, until things degenerate to the point where the Architect decides it’s time to tear the whole thing down and start over.[]The Divine Sophia, who the Architect considers to be an inferior, is actually his creator, and out of sympathy for human beings works behind the Architect’s back to send the Saviour into the material world to bring Gnosis to human beings, so they can acquire free will, and escape from the artificial hell-world of the Architect.[]After this is done, the Architect’s created world is utterly destroyed, the Architect gets his comeuppance by being imprisoned, and the Saviour “Enters the Bridal chamber” with his spiritual spouse. (It sounds kind of icky, but Mary is referred to as a Triune one-- “Mother, Sister, Wife.” This is probably because Mary was such a common name that coincidentally, Jesus’s mother, sister, and “close personal friend” all shared that name. This might explain “Trinity” better than the familiar Daddy, Junior, & Spook.)[/ul]Sorry for the tangent. The point that I started out with, is, to the gnostics, the Architect equals absence of choice. It seems contradictory to place such a figure in a context which seems predicated on the idea that there really are millions of choices that can be made. The Architect’s whole spiel is “Neener neener! I’ve created you to exist in an entirely deterministic universe, and there’s bugger-all you can do about it.” It doesn’t make sense for him to look at a bank of vid-screens showing a multiplicity of choices without going into an apoplectic rage. As far as he’s concerned, Neo’s a puppet, built to purpose. What he doesn’t know is, that Oracle that considers to inconsequential tricked him into building a sort of “trojan” in human consciousness, that allows them to break the chains of determinism when certain conditions have been met. [/li]
The Architect still considers that he is the “Prime Mover” and everything in his mechanistic construction is going to unfold exactly the way he planned it. He is going to be pissed when he realizes that it just isn’t so.
Whatever capacity it is that allows Neo to actually make free choices has not been demonstrated yet. Expect some histrionics from the Architect when he cuts loose.
(Previews)
Got that right.