# Two unrelated Matrix questions. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 21, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518 "2012-02-21T12:28:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/1 "2012-02-21T12:28:12Z")
A couple of weeks ago I re-watched the Matrix. I noticed something this time around which leads me to my first question. 1. When Neo is late to work and gets chewed out I noticed his boss looks and talks like an agent. I think he is one. What do you guys think? I can only find [this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23FOaH6ZgNg) on line, which isn’t long enough. Actually, there’s another but it has no sound. 1. Making sequels was clearly a mistake. Thinking about it, wouldn’t it have been better to make a prequel? It could have been about the first “one”\* realizing who he was and then rescuing people, such as Morpheus. Hell, a movie about the war that brought about the conditions in the Matrix could have been interesting. So, since Warner Brothers wanted to cash in on a Matrix franchise, do you think that the Wachowski brothers should have delivered prequels instead? \*Yeah, according to the sequel there have been six "one"s but if it had never been made, then the “one” before Neo could have been the first. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/2 "2012-02-21T12:55:08Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > A couple of weeks ago I re-watched the Matrix. I noticed something this time around which leads me to my first question. > > 1. When Neo is late to work and gets chewed out I noticed his boss looks and talks like an agent. I think he is one. What do you guys think? > > I can only find [this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23FOaH6ZgNg) on line, which isn’t long enough. Actually, there’s another but it has no sound. I think its meant to be a thematic thing: drawing a connection between the in movie Matrix and peoples real-life lives and jobs. Neo is an Office-schlub whose life is controlled by a scary guy in a suit, and he’s unable to escape. Later it turns out that everyone’s reality is controlled by scary guys in suits, and most of us are unable to escape. Prequels are never a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/3 "2012-02-21T13:36:43Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > 1. When Neo is late to work and gets chewed out I noticed his boss looks and talks like an agent. I think he is one. What do you guys think? I don’t think there is any reason to think he’s an agent. There is nothing in film to suggest it, he doesn’t interact with the known agents at all when they show up. > [@Simplicio](#): > > Prequels are never a good idea. Well, technically the OP asked whether prequels would have been a better idea than the direction the series was taken in, to which the answer is probably yes. 😉 Prequels are pointless if all they do is fill-in backstory, it’s not necessary to show what can be imagined. The recent Thing prequel was a particularly bad example of this. An interesting prequel should tell a new story which connects to the original work in some way, possibly tenuously. ---
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/4 "2012-02-21T13:48:31Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Prequels are never a good idea. I offer the latest Star Trek movie as a counter example to this statement. As a long time fan, I thought this was as good as anything done in the Star Trek realm to date. Personally, I think the story of how Kirk came to be “that guy” is potentially every bit as interesting as what follows. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/5 "2012-02-21T13:56:30Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > I offer the latest Star Trek movie as a counter example to this statement. > As a long time fan, I thought this was as good as anything done in the Star Trek realm to date. > > Personally, I think the story of how Kirk came to be “that guy” is potentially every bit as interesting as what follows. It wasn’t a prequel. The alternative timeline means they aren’t bound by what was established in the previous films, which is the main problem with prequels. You know whats going to happen, so the film is basically devoted to setting up the inevitable. Vulcan, for example, exists in the earlier movies. (plus, while I liked the movie, the process of making him “that guy” was the worst part of it. Having him go from starfleet cadet to captain in the space of a week was stupid.) ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/6 "2012-02-21T13:58:10Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > I offer the latest Star Trek movie as a counter example to this statement. > As a long time fan, I thought this was as good as anything done in the Star Trek realm to date. > > Personally, I think the story of how Kirk came to be “that guy” is potentially every bit as interesting as what follows. You need to differentiate between prequel and reboot. The latest movie doesn’t occur in the same timeline as the show/other movies so it really can’t be said to occur before them. Example of consequences: In the new movie Uhura and Spock are a couple but in the show’s canon timeline they don’t have a romantic history AFAIK. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/7 "2012-02-21T14:07:35Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > 1. When Neo is late to work and gets chewed out I noticed his boss looks and talks like an agent. I think he is one. What do you guys think? He doesn’t though, he’s just a Suit. He’s not an agent. Besides, Agents ghost in and out of bodies to do their work, they don’t have a literal 9/5 watching over drones. > [@Nobody](#): > > 1. Making sequels was clearly a mistake. Thinking about it, wouldn’t it have been better to make a prequel? Nah. The franchise would’ve been better if it wasn’t a franchise and if they’d just stopped there. The ending was perfect, Neo says that he’s going to show people a world without borders or boundaries and where we go from there is up to folks’ (and the machines) to figure out. That encapsulates the movie perfectly. Then they made sequels… Even if they were dead set on making them, honestly, I’m one of the few folks who likes the sequels. I think they did an okay job but that nothing could’ve possibly compared with the lightning in a bottle that was the first movie. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/8 "2012-02-21T14:32:52Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > Personally, I think the story of how Kirk came to be “that guy” is potentially every bit as interesting as what follows. That movie didn’t show Kirk’s transition in the slightest. He started the movie as a cocky bastard and he ended it as a cocky bastard, with a hugely inappropriate and implausible reward for his behaviour. There has been more Kirk-development in individual TOS episodes than in this entire film. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/9 "2012-02-21T14:42:21Z")
There is a DVD called [The Animatrix](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328832/) that is several animated Matrix-universe stories. At least one of them is the back story about how the war started. I agree that the boss is just s Suit. The part I didn’t like about that sequence is that ‘top software companies’ are far more flexible. Developers rarely wear suits and work fixed hours. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/10 "2012-02-21T14:56:35Z")
For me, the problem with the sequels lay in what happened by the end of The Matrix. Neo becomes The One. He can stop bullets. He can bend time and space to his will. He can fly. Hell, he can rise from the dead. You have established that this is now who Neo is. So you can’t go back to him just punching people. Not on the highways. Not with a million bajillion agents all ganging up on him. Not with every special effects trick you pull out of your ass no matter how shiny it may appear to be. Neo is better than that now and there’s no consequences left to worry about. “Do you think that’s air you’re breathing?” No. None of it is real, especially not for Neo. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_In\_Black](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@The\_Man\_In\_Black](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_In_Black)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/11 "2012-02-21T16:29:10Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > I offer the latest Star Trek movie as a counter example to this statement. I’d like to add Missing in Action 2 to that list. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/12 "2012-02-21T16:45:31Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > 1. When Neo is late to work and gets chewed out I noticed his boss looks and talks like an agent. I think he is one. What do you guys think? Extremely unlikely that he’s an agent. Remember, to this point, the only reason agents were even aware of Neo is because he was a criminal, not because they thought he was anything special. As others mentioned, it’s foreshadowing the reveal of the Matrix. Here, he’s living within the system because he feels he has to under the control of a passionless man in a suit.. the Matrix itself is very much the same. > [@](#): > > 1. Making sequels was clearly a mistake. Thinking about it, wouldn’t it have been better to make a prequel? It could have been about the first “one”\* realizing who he was and then rescuing people, such as Morpheus. Hell, a movie about the war that brought about the conditions in the Matrix could have been interesting. I disagree that making sequels was a mistake, though I think there was a lot of potential that wasn’t realized. I think they spent way too much time in Zion; in fact, I think they very well could have done the entire franchise without actually showing it, or at least showing very little of it. I particularly felt like they blew it with how little time was spent in the Matrix in the third film. I did like the whole encounter with the Architect, the whole “role of the One”, the reveal of the Oracle. I think Smith could have been done better though. It’s cool that he was the major antagonist, but having so many copies of him makes less sense than him essentially absorbing the code of those he possesses and just having a single entity rather than hundreds or thousands. So he still gets more powerful and more intelligent and still has incentive to confront and absorb Neo, but it doesn’t get so ridiculous. I don’t like the idea of a prequel though, there just wasn’t much to tell, particularly since they could tell it all with characters we already knew and, obviously, it would be less interesting since it would just repeat. I do think the Animatrix was particularly well done and using that for creating room for an expanded universe may have ultimately been a better way to handle it. Perhaps rather than having sequels, they could have concluded it in just a single one or at least focused more on the main story line and left more of the Zion stuff to the Animatrix. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/13 "2012-02-21T17:56:03Z")
The sequels were a bad idea, but making prequels was even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/14 "2012-02-21T20:05:00Z")
I just thinking that Neo’s boss (apparently his name is Rhineheart) might be an agent because besides dressing like them, when he talk to Neo he talks slow like they do, he addresses Neo like they do, and what he says is obviously meant to put Neo in his place. Yes he’s late, but it also sounds like something said to keep Neo in his place as part of the system. > [@](#): > > You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken. I can so easily see agent Smith saying those exact words to Neo (before finding out that he’s the one, of course). ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/15 "2012-02-21T20:17:24Z")
Well yeah, that’s part of how the directors are drawing the thematic connection between the Matrix and the real world. Something I noticed which has no relevance to anything is that in all three movies they have someone sitting at a desk like Mr. Rhineheart and making the same hand gesures while talking to whomever they’re talking to. EDIT: There’s also the fact that the agents just pop in and out of whoever they need to. Not just sit around as a “normal” person with a day job. ---
**Author:** ![Sri\_Theo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Sri\_Theo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sri_Theo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/16 "2012-02-23T14:46:43Z")
I did hear once that the original film was supposed to be a trilogy, but they couldn’t get the funding so they crammed everything into the first one. When that was a massive success they had to try and rework everything to be a trilogy again. That scene with Neo in the phone box was how the directors saw the whole deal ending. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/17 "2012-02-23T18:45:14Z")
> [@](#): > > I did like the whole encounter with the Architect, When the second movie came out, I couldn’t understand why everyone was talking about him meeting the Architect, since it seemed pretty clear to me that Colonel Sanders was just another program lying to him through his teeth to stop him from opening the door that would have won the war for the humans. In fact, there’s no reason at all to think there’s _any_ truth to what he’s saying until the last scene of the third one where we have Col. Sanders and the Oracle talking. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/18 "2012-02-23T21:14:18Z")
What happens to someone who gets “over-written” by an Agent? In the first movie, the Agents are grabbing people left and right as they chase Neo, presumably abandoning them to skip ahead in an effort to intercept Neo again. Are these people killed? Do they “wake up” as though they’d fallen asleep? ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/19 "2012-02-23T21:20:56Z")
> [@Sri\_Theo](#): > > I did hear once that the original film was supposed to be a trilogy, but they couldn’t get the funding so they crammed everything into the first one. > > When that was a massive success they had to try and rework everything to be a trilogy again. That scene with Neo in the phone box was how the directors saw the whole deal ending. Yeah, I read that on here before, which is why I was thinking that since they put all of the good parts in the first one, then maybe it would have been better to make sequels instead. Of course it would have been best to make nothing, except maybe go ahead with the Animatrix, but I think the studio would have gone ahead with more movies, with or without the wachowski’s. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518/20 "2012-02-23T21:41:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What happens to someone who gets “over-written” by an Agent? In the first movie, the Agents are grabbing people left and right as they chase Neo, presumably abandoning them to skip ahead in an effort to intercept Neo again. Are these people killed? Do they “wake up” as though they’d fallen asleep? I’m thinking the second one. Except for the the pilot who got shot at point blank range. When the agent jumped back out of him, he remained dead. And as for agents jumping in and out, remember, they do have default bodies. Agent smith has Hugo Weaving’s body for example. So yes, they do have bodies when they’re not jumping in and out of other people’s bodies [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-unrelated-matrix-questions/613518.md?page=2)