Correct. Filming both parts II and III are already complete. It’s all SFX from here.
Personally, it ought to be one helluva ride if they keep up to the standards (and innovations) set forth by Matrix.
Being a philosophy buff I saw the Matrix as a metaphor for our world.
The ones in the “real world” are enlightened, they have opened their eyes to what is really around them, what reality REALLY is. Like the kid said: "Try only to realize the truth; there is no spoon. Then you will see that it is only you that bends.
The point of the movie, seen from a philosophical/Buddhist point of view, is that the world around you is only an illusion you create via your perception of it. The spoon does not bend, you do. The meatloaf your wife cooks does not suck in any absolute sense, it simply sucks to you.
A bunch of insects might find the same meatloaf a much needed source of nourishments days later in the dump.
If you realize that your perception is your version of reality and reality is nothing but your perception, ANYTHING is possible. Even dodging bullets, in a metaphorical sense 
Oh, and the AI were no more right or wrong than the humans in my oppinion (to finally answer the OP!). From their point of view, they just did what they had to do, same for the humans. It’s all a matter of relativity.
— G. Hrafn
I said it inthis thread, so I’m not gonna go through it again. Why can’t people think abstractly at least part of the time?
Extracting sperm and eggs from the humans, then growing test tube babies. Or tissue cloning.
Lack of choice/free will was the discussion in an old debate on this topic…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=27190
The Matrix AI is not in a symbiotic relationship with mankind. It is in a Master/Slave relationship.
While some might argue that happiness at the expense of freedom might be ok I’d have to disagree. I will assume, for the sake of argument, that the ‘current’ world maintained inside the Matrix is a much more enjoyable place to live in than the post-apocalyptic world outside of the Matrix (assuming that ‘outside’ of the Matrix really is outside of the Matrix).
So, like the traitor Cypher (Joe Pantoliano), many would prefer to be hooked up to a computer happy land rather than live in the ‘real’ world. While I can see the attraction it has one BIG problem:
Free Will is gone. Any choice you make, any thing you do has no real impact. Whatever happens inside the Matrix you are still really sitting in some exowomb plugged into a computer. Humans, as a race, have ceased to progress in any meaningful way. Travel to the stars someday? Achieve enlightenment as a race? You can forget about all of that. Mankind is living in a cage and has lost all control over its destiny…whatever that might be.
Most people consider being caged abhorrent even if the cage is gilded.
Well, the point would be that one wouldn’t know any better. Morphius even said, “Knowing what you know now, would you go back?”
Obviously some would…when Cypher was talking with the Agents, I was reminded of the old question, “What would you do if you had three wishes?”
Funny you should mention it because I had the same thought. Also remember that Cypher specifically asked that he not “remember a fuckin thing” (about life outside the Matrix) when he returns to the Matrix.
So, to your three wishes thing…
Let’s say you wish to be totally happy all of the time.
POOF Your wish is granted.
You are now a drooling vegetable hooked to life support for the rest of your natural life BUT you are happy…truly happy (whatever that is, define it for yourself).
Would that be ok for you?
… what about the other two wishes?
Hmmm, maybe this isn’t a joke. If they promise you three, they cannot simply revoke your right to the next two. Sort of a safety net for people who don’t think the first two wishes through thoroughly enough.
How about this:
Wish 1: I want to be rich.
Wish 2: I want a long life.
Wish 3: I want to be happy all of the time.
POOF You are rich!
POOF Your health is excellent!
POOF You are a drooling vegetable that is very happy!
You will now live a long life and all of that money you wished for will go to your basic lifesupport care while you lie there blissfully happy.
Is this still for you?
[sarcasm]Thankyou, Dr. Faustus.[/sarcasm
[hijack]
All Faust wished for was knowledge. The fact that he was [angry preacher voice]Condemned to Hell[/voice] for that points out a basic flaw in Christian dogma.
[/hijack]
A happy illusion is no substitute for the real world. Why? Because in the real world you can really improve your own condition instead of being a helpless spud in a machine. (Great band name, that: “Spuds in the Great Machine” :D) We as humans want to know. We as living beings have to know. Turning on, tuning in, and zoning out is not an option if you want to continue your survival.
and…
I thought Dr. Faustus was condemned to hell for making a deal with the Devil (Mephistopheles). While he only wanted knowledge he took shortcuts that ultimately doomed him.
That said I’m afraid SpinneZiege’s sarcastic reference is lost on me as I don’t see how it applies (even in a backwards obscure reference manner).
My bit on the three wishes was specific merely to illustrate a point which is would being a drooling vegetable but happy be a good tradeoff for anyone? That’s largely what you get in the Matrix. You’re living a wonderland in your head but the reality is you are a tube fed, atrophied husk in an exowomb somewhere and while you think you may be doing things you are really doing nothing much more than dreaming.
The more I think about The Matrix, the more it is implausible. How did they get every single person hooked up to the matrix in the first place? Did the AI’s just say, “Hey everyone, form a line and we’ll stick things into your head, chest, arms and legs?”
Also, I had some further thoughts on the reproduction aspect. Perhaps it would be possible to artificially inseminate. But with babies being born about every 10 seconds (I’m not sure that’s the right statistic), that would take so much maintenence. I’m sure there is also a direct correspondence to the number of conceptions. Can you imagine the AI’s workload? They’d be jumping back and forth between pods trying to artificially inseminate. Howabout the people who die every minute or so (again, I’m not sure about this statistic), the AI’s would spend all their time pulling dead people from pods, hooking up new babies, inseminating the women, feeding everyone and cleaning up their shit. It seems the maintenence alone would cost more than the power derived.
The AI’s would be better off killing all the people and building nuclear reactors. I think The Terminator had a better plan.
But still, I think The Matrix is a fun movie to watch.
The drooling vegetable dilemma is not a good analogy for the Matrix. In the Matrix, people are able to interact with one another. Would I choose the Matrix over the “real world”? Hell yes. (I haven’t seen the Matrix, there may be downsides I am unaware of.) If you experience something, there is no basis to say that that experience is “real” or “not real” unless you have another experience to base it against. (I know an LSD trip is not “real” because I have sober reality to compare it to.) If you live your entire life within the Matrix, it is your reality, every bit as real as the reality of those of us sitting behind our keyboards reading the SDMB.
Besides, I have news for all of you. The reality you experience exists only within your own mind. It’s a conglomeration of sensory information that is interpreted by your mind. “Color” does not exist except insofar as your brain interprets the signals from the cones on your retina.
What difference does it make if you are living in a world exactly like the one in the Matrix, therefore conceiving of a reality based on input from your senses; or if you are receiving signals that are piped directly into your brain to simulate sensory input. The answer, no difference. There is a difference between the Matrix and the world outside of the Matrix, which as I understand it, is pretty unpleasant. Why would you choose that, just because you think it is more “real.”
Objecting on some kind of moral ground, such as being “caged” or “slaves” really makes no sense. One living within the Matrix would have no idea that (s)he is a “slave,” so what is the problem? They are living in a reality that is basically as good as ours is.
And for you theists, the Matrix is really no different than the idea of God creating the universe in which we live. If you subscribe to the idea that God created the universe, you will have to accept that It created our senses and everything else, so our “reality” would be nothing more than God’s Matrix.
Thanks Tzel. My point exactly.
The AIs created an alternate reality for humans because the humans and AIs could not coexist. Everyone, by and large, is happy. I think the AIs acted nobly and morally. They could guarantee that most humans would go on as normally as they would without the Matrix, and ensured their own existance in the interim.
It is not a lie if your reality supports its every detail.
and…
The people who are objecting on the moral ground of slavery (Morphius and the other rebels) have a “sober reality” to compare the matrix with. They have experienced both. 
Ok, so no one is gonna reply to my previously posted crap, so I guess I gotta do this.
You guys are a buncha weak minded, childish pussies. You’d rather be a slave to your master if your master guaranteed happiness? Don’t you have the balls to be the master yourself, instead of begging for the crumbs?
I’m so glad there have been dudes like Galileo, Kepler, and William Wallace. These guys challenged the beliefs of their time. They stood up against tyranny for what was the truth.
Go ahead, lay down and die, fat and happy. I’m searching for the truth.
edwino & Tzel
It sounds like you are saying that ignorance is bliss (as others have discussed here). While that may very well be true it doesn’t make something ok. Imagine you earn $20/hour doing job X. You are very happy with that salary and content. Now you learn that the guy next to you doing the same job no better than you is earning $40/hour. Are you still happy? What changed besides losing your ignorance? Was it ok that this was the state of affairs before you personally learned the truth?
Also, to Tzel’s assertion that reality is merely what you perceive that only goes so far. If indeed that is true then my drooling vegetable analogy still stands. What ever is going on in your own mind is your reality. You may be slobbering on a couch somewhere but your personal reality is one of utopia. However, in this case (as well as the Matrix case) there is another reality outside of your personal reality and that reality is more --real-- than your reality (if a bit less pleasant).
As long as you don’t know it exists your ignorance keeps you fat, dumb and happy. Once you know it exists however, can anything ever be the same for you? Could you ever be content to leave well enough alone knowing that you are a slave to a force-fed reality chosen by a smart computer? Can you be happy knowing that you really have no such thing as free will (you have an illusion of free will) as long as you’re in the computer simulation?
Some people prefer comfort to the truth and I suppose it’s an individuals right to make that decision for themself but it amounts to a cop-out on their part.
While I agree that a couple dozen nuclear power plants might make more sense there can be speculative answers to your problems.
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People might make more sense than typical power plants because perhaps the AI is using people’s brains for computer processing power (as others have speculated in this thread although there is no mention of this in the movie). If a human uses only 3-10% (or whatever the current thinking is) of their brain the AI can tap into the rest for its own use. Back in the mid to late 80’s I read that a computer with the processing capacity of the human mind would be in a building several stories tall and cover the state of Texas. While we’ve gotten IC circuits much smaller since then you’d still have to have an enormous bank of computers and its attendent power requirements and heat output to cope with. Using people for this provides the whole shebang with power and a nice, compact and efficient source of computing power.
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To get people into the batteries for the AI isn’t a problem either. Remember, humans and the AI were in one helluva war with each other to the point that humans intentionally fried the earth to deprive the AI’s of solar energy. Once the AI had the upper hand it probably walked around knocking people out and sticking them in the batteries. We see in the movie that the AI has autonomous robots tooling around so presumably collection of knocked out bodies was little problem for them.
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Reproduction isn’t a problem and a solution for this has been gone over in many sci-fi stories. Women would not give birth anymore. Babies would be grown in mechanical wombs. Take, say, 20,000 women and harvest the eggs from them. The male side is easy since they already have tubes hooked all over. Just milk them shudder. Put egg and sperm into mechanical womb, cook at 98.8 degrees for 9 months and there you go…a baby grown directly into its battery.
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As for the work required remember that there are robots tooling around maintaining everything. It’s not like they have anything better to do. They will work tirelessly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Simply make enough to get the job done and forget about it. As for power to make them work maybe the AI does manufacture batteries (the regular kind) for them and maybe there are a few typical power plants left running to augment the power derived from humans.
All speculation, I know, but fun nevertheless.