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

Cafe Society
501

Re the Matrix-within-a-Matrix idea:

Could it be that Zion is part of the matrix sometimes?

I seem to recall that just before Neo stops the Squids he says something like “It’s different now, I can feel them.” Is the real world different now because they have not in fact left the Matrix? Is that why he can control the Squids? That realisation may be enough to send him into a coma. Or he may have exited into the actual real world.

Maybe the machines have created a virtual Zion to match the real one. They can have the humans think that Zion is about to be destroyed, but in fact it isn’t.

Just a thought…

502

I just watched the movie and two ideas jumped out at me:

One, perhaps the Creater of the Matrix, like the Oracal, tells Neo what he needs to hear inorder for him to make his choice. Of course that would perhaps undermine the whole concept of choice, which runs preety strongly in that scene.

Two. Perhaps by choosing the left(?) door he gained a closer tie to the Matrix and can now enter it at will without the assistance of a computer. And by having a tie with the Matrix, perhaps he has gained a tie to the machines themselves. When he stops them at the end, it didn’t look very easy, it looked like they were hit by an EMP, so becuase of his connection, he can short them out, so-to-speak. I like this take because it works without involving the whole “Matrix Within a Matrix” idea which seems preety predictable…but the only way to find out is to see “Revolutions.”

503

Is it just me, or does the Architect bear an uncanny resemblance to the White Guardian from the ‘Key to Time’ plotline in '70’s Doctor Who? I halfway expected him to start sipping from a mint julep.

504

minor nitpick–
the architect does not give Neo the option of entering the source vs saving Trinity…he gives him the choice of entering the source vs re-entering the Matrix (of which a side-effect will be that he may be able to save her).

Previous Neos did not have to decide between someone they loved and the Source, rather the Source and re-entry.

It just so happens that during Neo’s decision, Trinity puts herself into a situation requiring him to re-enter the Matrix.
As for the sentinels at the end, my impression was that Neo is now connected at a low level to the Matrix at all times. If the sentinels run on a different system on the same mainframe as the matrix, and Neo is able to focus and manipulate programs on parallel systems, then he could feasibly knock them out.

505

Actually, he couldn’t save her - he Architect was right. She did die, and Neo wasn’t fast enough to save her life. As it was, he had to, well, ressurect her after she died. Which isn’t exactly “saving” her.

506

i never said he saved her, i said he “may” be able to save her. Some arguments were asking why you would put Neo in a situation where he wouldnt choose to patch the source; my point was that he wasn’t given the choice to save Trinity vs save the Matrix…it was to re-enter the Matrix (for potentially any reason) vs patch the source

other random thoughts–what if Merovingian had the same option, resetting the Matrix vs saving persephone, and chose the Matrix over love, and her life was recreated as a program for him in the newer matrices? Also, traditional vampires lust for blood after having being reborn into a physical body…would a “cyber” vampire lust for emotions after being reborn into a virtual body? If so, that would indicate the Persephone (and probably Mero.) were once real people.

And…I don’t think the architect can fool Neo about the doors…you have to realize that Neo is not physically walking through a door, the doors are just representations of his choices. Once he makes the choice, walking through the door is like hitting “enter” on your computer, it confirms that he wants to follow through with the choice he has made known to the Matrix system.

Or imagine it this way–Gateway, your computer maker(the architect) has detected a fatal flaw in it’s bios on your model of computer. Your computer will continue to deteriorate and run poorly, until the entire system fails irrepairably. Gateway cannot find the problem, but hires an outside programmer to fix it (the mother of the Matrix). Gateway takes this code, and puts it on a floppy with the code to fix this(Neo). Gateway mails the floppy to you. You now must choose to patch your bios, of which one effect will be that you must reformat and lose all of your data, or leave your computer like it is, knowing that it will degrade and eventually you will lose your data anyway. The architect can no more control the end decision than Gateway can.
The agents fight to stop Neo from reaching the source because that is what they are programmed to do. Simply put, their programmed instructions are “delete any program who becomes self aware and protect the source code from patching”. Obviously you would not want the wrong program to reach the source code. You could make the case that the programmer of the Agents left them weaker than The One on purpose, to allow him, and only him, to reach the Source.

I think the spoon is significant because it was hand made and crude. He is showing Neo that Zion is in fact real, because if it was another level of the Matrix, the spoon would be perfectly machine formed. If the spoon was to show Neo that Zion was another Matrix level, why would the child, who was obviously not The One, have an insight unavailable to Neo?

507

Newbie alert! :slight_smile:

What a thread, wow. After I finished the first 9 pages I went to see the movie again. It was interesting to watch for things mentioned here. I don’t buy the “matrix within a matrix” theory either simply because it would stink as a premise. Some thoughts:

First, poor Morpheous. He loses his ship and then finds out the prophecy is bunk. Neo could really blow his mind and tell him the truth about the Oracle. I suspect, however, that something will occur in Revolutions to prove Morpheous at least partly correct. Otherwise, he will come off as a bit of a lunatic.

You know how you sometimes learn a new word and then hear it everywhere? I had never heard of the Merovingian. But I just read “The Da Vinci Code” and there is that word again. It was suggested that Merovingian royalty was directly descended from Christ.

Thanks to whoever mentioned staying for the trailer after the credits. I didn’t the first time. I think Revolutions will play out the whole man/machine mutual dependency angle. Obviously, Neo and Smith are symbolic of that. They won’t be able to destroy one another for do so would be self-destruction. In the trailer they punch at the same time and both go flying backwards. I took this to be a prelude to the realization that they had just walloped themselves.

Much more to think about. Hope I didn’t bore anyone too much.

508

I would hate to see a good first post go unrecognized. Welcome to the Straight Dope wakimika. I hope you stick around. I should warn you however that this place is addictive.

509

Does anyone know where I could download the trailer for Revolutions? Here in Ukraine where I’m spending the summer, movie theatres aren’t even showing the credits for Reloaded, let alone what comes after the credits.

UnuMondo

(Note, this is not a file-sharing request, for all I know it could be legitimately available somewhere.)

510

meaningless aside Re: Bane/Smith cutting his hand:

Did I imagine it, or did Bane cut two parallel lines into his palm? If Neo is the One, is Smith the II?

511

sorry if someone has already said this and I just missed it in the last 10 pages.

I think Neo’s coma is somehow an evil plot of the evil agent smith now in Zion, something about the dramatic music when they showed him in the coma next to neo made me think he had it planned all along and was about to jump off the table to kill Neo.

Also, he had that conversation with himself about “things going exactly as before, well, not exactly”

Neo’s powers in zion could somehow be a function of that.

512

Hi. I’m clearing my throat and humbly stepping in for a little fun…

To introduce myself, I’m a huge sci-fi fan, think The Matrix is a very intriguing plot concept, and i don’t give a damn if the perfectionists don’t like it. They need more prozac.

I’ve read pages for hours. I love the discussions. I have to admit I haven’t read EVERY page, but I’ve done some searches and I can’t really find anything in this group about some issues that have been bugging (NPI) the ever-livin’ daylights out of me.

Allow me to elaborate:

  1. Where is a discussion about the “Red Pill”. I want to know what is hypothesized/cited about finding someone in the matrix with something that isn’t really real.

  2. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH INSTALLING A TRACKING DEVICE IN SOMEONE IN THE MATRIX? Agents seem to be able to track them just fine without them. I could rant about this, but I won’t. They install something in …nope. I’ll stop.

I’d love to hear all about it.

P.S. I liked Zion and thought the whole concept of the Rave was to communicate the pure essence, rawness of Humanity in it’s primal, tribal core. The very farthest thing from machine. S.E.X.

513

Actually, they seem quite unable to track people w/o them. With the tracking device, they presumably know (lowjack style) exactly where Neo is at all times. Otherwise, they resort to:

  • searching his workplace, just like any law enforcement officer would (an expected haunt of Neo’s); remember that, until he chickens out on the ledge, they have no idea WHERE in the office building he is–they just know that he works there, that he’s been leading a shady life on-line, and that he came into the office that AM (presumably by asking his co-workers); nothing supernatural about any of this

  • keeping aware of him through plugged-in humans who see him; but this only seems to work when the observer sees something REALLY freaky (like the homeless man in the subway watching Morpheus dissolve into the phone or the weirdo Smith-Neo fight in reloaded)–presumably, this sends an alert to Agent Command Central, or whatever

514

I guess it’s more of a technical difficulty:

Like Cypher says, I know when I put this steak in my mouth the matrix is telling me that it is juicy and delicious…but it’s not really there. So, I guess the idea is that by installing a “bug” they are really coding something, but I’m still not sure about this…How do they put something that doesn’t really exist in material form into a virtual simulation of something and have it actually DO something in the real world? Am I having a break with reality?

Same with the Red Pill. How do they track Neo in the real world with a “Bug” they give him in the matrix?

I tend to lean more toward the Alice in Wonderland theory…Zion is probably just another door. But then again, that’d be a lot to cover in 2.25hours.

515

Thanks Algernon. :slight_smile:

I’m getting the feeling that we are meant to interpret Neo as not fully human anymore. He is now part machine. Whether this was done entirely through the conscious mind in the matrix or combined with material downloads (pills) doesn’t matter now. He is now empathetic towards humans and machines. At the same time, Smith is now part human. Whether or not his attitude towards humans changes remains to be seen. As for Neo, if the brain is full of memory and electric firing synapses, it would be acceptable in the movie scenario for his brain to accept downloads. That is why he can now sense the machines in the real world; they both carry the same programming language.

All of this makes me wonder if a line from the first movie was a tip-off: during his training, Morpheous asks Tank how Neo is doing and he replies something like “eight hours straight, he’s a machine”, ha ha.

Also, I agree with those who thought the Bane/Smith situation was confusing. The first time I saw the film, I thought Neo dreamed about Smith getting into Zion. I think the ambiguity was intentional. Maybe it was a weak part of the movie, but perhaps the intention was to reinforce the link between Neo and Smith and their (shared?) consciousness.

516

First post 11 pages in. Yikes.

My thoughts:

  1. Every major program has lied. The Agents lie. The Oracle lied to Neo. These lies were needed for plot purposes. Yet everyone assumes that the Architect is 100% telling the truth, even when some of his points make little sense. If rebooting the Matrix is needed-- then just do it. You need to cull the losers from the pack- just send them to a island that eventually gets nuked. Setting up Zion and the One are wayyyyy too elaborate a method. Especially seeing the Agents keep killing all of the possible Ones (and did kill Neo, except for Trinity’s intervention). Why have the Agents at all if the sentinetals always destroy Zion. If they know where Zion is, what is the obsession with the access codes? Maybe some of what happened is planned for, but everything?

Oops- meeting time.

Back on my Smith-Neo merge being the key issue thought, along with the problems of rogue programs.

517

Also they French program who had the Keymaker program lied.

Also, while rogue humans seem to be an issue, the reboots do not seem to be helping with the bigger problem, which is rogue programs. Are they rebooted too? Seeing the Agents came within 5 seconds (or less) of killing Neo and keeping him from the Architect, his “plan” seems even less likely. And if the keymaker is dead- how does the next one get through?

In any event, the merging of Neo and Smith doesn’t seem to be part of the “master plan.” Neo seems to have gained some control over the machines outside of the Matrix (could tell the sentinals were coming and was able to stop them-- at a high price). Smith seems to have been able to escape control, replicate through viral reproduction, and amazingly enough actually leave the Matrix through the viral transmission to a human in the Matrix (while still being in the Matrix as well).

Who was the Oracle afraid of- the Agents or the Architect? Why wasn’t Neo a threat to the Architect? Why not just dive into him too? He is just a program. The whole multiple Ones/reboot thing just seems like a tranparent attempt to recapture the “gotcha” feeling of the first movie. In a way, it reminded me of the jokes about the overly elaborate death/ traps in Austin Powers.

Oh, and the whole lets holy dance/crappy speech, and even crappier sex scene was complete dreck and should have hit the editing floor. Oy. :mad:

518

**

They weren’t trying to track him in the real world that way, if that’s what you mean. They were trying to track him inside the Matrix, for when he met Morpheus. It wouldn’t be doing anything in the real world - just acting as a ‘software’ transponder in the matrix.

**

Well, they can ‘inject’ programs and code into him through food - that program in the pill was designed to make his brain put out weird outputs or whatever which made him drop out of the Matrix.

519

SenorBeef and Toadspittle:

Thanks! I was having a really wild mind spin on that stuff.

This is fun:)

Maybe I should get out more?

To see Reloaded again.

520

I noticed a line towards the beginning of the movie inspired by Dune. It wasn’t an exact quote of Herbert but the content of the sentence was the same. Did anyone else notice it? I can’t remember what was said and I was hoping someone on here would be able to help me.

Now that I think about it, I believe it was from Dune Messiah. I don’t know if that helps or not.