Matrix Resurrections Review Thread

[Psyren]

Pitch meeting is out:



As expected, both the massive lack of stakes and the energy problem are lampooned as the nonsense they are.

The joke about the 4th wall breakage was great.

[Eldan]

As an aside, am I the only one who thinks that the heroes' powers in the Matrix ought to look more like one of those speedrun videos that uses exploits? Because that's basically how their powers work, isn't it?

It ought to look less like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qhZEAIzZGU

and more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA

or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9gxFkOz2_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yefaz8kvs94

[Dragonus45]

It's a dead horse that the movie decides to dissect right in front of us.

Pro tip: "You're wrong, your suspension of disbelief wasn't actually broken!" is never going to be the killer argument that you think it is.

It's an ancient decades old nitpick about something that doesn't really harm or change the plot in any mechanical way, and does work better for the metaphor I think, if that turns out to be what really gets you then fine but your suspension of disbelief is your issue in this case.

[Traab]

As additional comment to Bohandas, pay attention to what the hovercraft do. People plug into the chair, but the ships don't plug into anything as any kind of rule. They receive and broadcast signals over radio, which is why they can do this while in motion, as seen in Flight of the Osiris, the Animatrix intro to Reloaded. The Sentinels can find them via following their broadcast signal. And, in Revolutions, we see the machines can see Neo and resist his hacking attempts - we have visual representation of this, in a projection of a sentinel dashing through Neo. Neo doesn't arbitrarily reprogram machines because he can't. Stopping that one sentinel and making some bombs explode prematurely, are the shown limits of his ability.

EDIT: the first Matrix also implies the Sentinels can receive messages wirelessly from the Matrix. They're also implied to be physical equivalents of Agents, an idea which was later used in Matrix Online.

If they were capable of wirelessly connecting to the matrix they wouldnt need to be plugged in. What im guessing happens is the equivalent of the ships being cell phones looking for wifi hot spots, then you plug your headphones in and can listen to music through it. Neo cant just go into the matrix without that plug. Which makes it bizarre to me that he can pick up these signals being transmitted everywhere and suddenly see not just the code inside the matrix, but the flow of energy everywhere that he can use as a form of radar. And yeah in the animatrix they did it on the run, in the actual matrix film they had to stay put and fight the sentinels because if they fled or fired the emp it would have killed neo and trinity who were in the matrix. Maybe because it was a suicide mission the osiris ran for it trying to stay in range of the hot spot long enough for her to make the drop? I dunno. But it was a desperate sprint on her part knowing she was on the clock and not going to survive this.

[Dr.Samurai]

As additional comment to Bohandas, pay attention to what the hovercraft do. People plug into the chair, but the ships don't plug into anything as any kind of rule. They receive and broadcast signals over radio, which is why they can do this while in motion, as seen in Flight of the Osiris, the Animatrix intro to Reloaded. The Sentinels can find them via following their broadcast signal. And, in Revolutions, we see the machines can see Neo and resist his hacking attempts - we have visual representation of this, in a projection of a sentinel dashing through Neo. Neo doesn't arbitrarily reprogram machines because he can't. Stopping that one sentinel and making some bombs explode prematurely, are the shown limits of his ability.

EDIT: the first Matrix also implies the Sentinels can receive messages wirelessly from the Matrix. They're also implied to be physical equivalents of Agents, an idea which was later used in Matrix Online.

To be clear, there is nothing in the films connecting the hoverships ability to connect to the Matrix and Neo's hacking of the sentinels, with the neckport implant that everyone from the Matrix has. The port is just a port to receive the cable needed to connect them to the Matrix, and we are never told that it actually has any sort of wireless capabilities. That the ships do is not indicative that the ports do.

If they were wireless... why would they die when Cipher begins disconnecting them?

I recognize that there are answers to these questions, but as they go unasked and unanswered in the movies, I suspect this is little more than an online fan theory as opposed to what the writers intended to get across to the viewers.

[Rodin]

To be clear, there is nothing in the films connecting the hoverships ability to connect to the Matrix and Neo's hacking of the sentinels, with the neckport implant that everyone from the Matrix has. The port is just a port to receive the cable needed to connect them to the Matrix, and we are never told that it actually has any sort of wireless capabilities. That the ships do is not indicative that the ports do.

If they were wireless... why would they die when Cipher begins disconnecting them?

I recognize that there are answers to these questions, but as they go unasked and unanswered in the movies, I suspect this is little more than an online fan theory as opposed to what the writers intended to get across to the viewers.

The real answer is that Matrix Revolution is a bad movie and the Wachowskis should feel bad. Reloaded's plot just about passed muster if you squinted real hard and applied liberal use of the MST3K mantra. Revolution failed even that low bar.

From what I've seen in the thread there's no reason for me to rush out and see Resurrections. My impression from the reviews here is "not as good as the original, not as dire as Revolution", which sticks it into freebie watching territory. At least then I can fast-forward through any Neo/Trinity relationship stuff. Why they thought bringing that back was a good idea is a mystery to me, as it was easily the worst part of the original trilogy.

[Bohandas]

As additional comment to Bohandas, pay attention to what the hovercraft do. People plug into the chair, but the ships don't plug into anything as any kind of rule.

But the people need to be plugged in regardless of whether they're in a hovercraft or the power plant

If they were wireless... why would they die when Cipher begins disconnecting them?

I'll do you one better. Even if they weren't wireless why would they die when Cipher begins disconnecting them?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yefaz8kvs94

Basically that's how it should look, yeah

[Vahnavoi]

If they were capable of wirelessly connecting to the matrix they wouldnt need to be plugged in. What im guessing happens is the equivalent of the ships being cell phones looking for wifi hot spots, then you plug your headphones in and can listen to music through it. Neo cant just go into the matrix without that plug. Which makes it bizarre to me that he can pick up these signals being transmitted everywhere and suddenly see not just the code inside the matrix, but the flow of energy everywhere that he can use as a form of radar.

All common use wireless technology is based on radio wave transmissions. You don't need to guess what the ships do is "sort of like cell phone looking for wi-fi hotspot", because wi-fi is radio. The basic principles of radio communications, such as needing a spot where you can send and receive signals without undue interference, apply regardless of which specific communication protocol is used.

Why humans need to be plugged in is unclear, but we can again infer a reason from basic principles of radio communications. Take any modern phone, for instance. Each has its own in-built antenna, but they can also be connected via cable to any larger device, including an external antenna, to improve reception, receive transmissions in frequencies they can't natively capture, etc.

It's worth noting that any piece of metal has technical capacity to serve as an antenna. Yes, that includes metal implants inside a human body. It's not normal for unplugged people to be able to receive and broadcast signals, but we know it's Neo's ability, because he's shown and told to be doing it.

As far as Bane goes? Did you notice what I said about Agents and Sentinels? Even in the first movie, the Sentinels are shown communicating with radio, the Agents are shown communicating with radio inside the Matrix, and it is heavily implied the Sentinels can receive signals from within the Matrix and that they are physical counterparts of the Agents. Smith was an Agent, he knows how their communication scheme works. The simplest explanation for Bane is that the communication features of the implants are software-locked; Smith's reprogrammed them in the same go he reprogrammed Bane. This is perfectly congruent with Neo's character arc. Neo gains his new abilities after reaching the Source - which, among other things, is a rather blatant reference to source code. His abilities as the One are, again, based on him hacking the machine code. All of his out-of-Matrix abilities are explainable by him hacking the very obviously existing wireless communications of the machines.

Yes, that includes the radar. Navigation software in a modern phone works by receiving radio transmissions from other devices and using them to draw a picture of your surroundings. By accepting the Matrix, you have already accepted that a particular electric signal send through Neo's implants can draw a picture in his mind. Him being able to see the machines through radio waves is a logical extension of that and no more fantastic than what a modern phone is capable of doing.

And yeah in the animatrix they did it on the run, in the actual matrix film they had to stay put and fight the sentinels because if they fled or fired the emp it would have killed neo and trinity who were in the matrix. Maybe because it was a suicide mission the osiris ran for it trying to stay in range of the hot spot long enough for her to make the drop? I dunno. But it was a desperate sprint on her part knowing she was on the clock and not going to survive this.

You are mostly just describing plot of Flight of Osiris here. Yes, broadcasting on the run is a risk they're willing to take because they've already been found out and know they will most likely die. This does not take anything away from my points. It's proof positive the ships broadcast wirelessly. It cannot be discounted because it is intro sequence to Reloaded.

---

To be clear, there is nothing in the films connecting the hoverships ability to connect to the Matrix and Neo's hacking of the sentinels, with the neckport implant that everyone from the Matrix has. The port is just a port to receive the cable needed to connect them to the Matrix, and we are never told that it actually has any sort of wireless capabilities. That the ships do is not indicative that the ports do.

Congratulations on missing the damn point. The ships connect to the Matrix wirelessly, from which we know that Matrix can be connected to wirelessly. The implants normally connect to the ship, but this does not mean they have no native wireless capability - we can infer they do have because of Neo and Bane.

If they were wireless... why would they die when Cipher begins disconnecting them?

Giant spike to the head says hello. There is very obviously both hardware and software level feedback in the system. Ever noticed how several real computer devices strongly advice against improperly plugging them in or plugging them out? These warnings exist for a reason. For example, in many older radio devices, disconnecting the antenna while the device is broadcasting, fries the whole device. In memory storage devices, removing them while data is being moved in or out can garble the data and lead to all kinds of malfunctions. Whether the technological limitations are hardware or software based is an open question, but you have every reason to suspect the latter, given what we learn in Reloaded. Zion is controlled opposition, every method of connecting to the Matrix comes from the same party as the Matrix, the whole set-up is another system of control to plug the holes in another.

I recognize that there are answers to these questions, but as they go unasked and unanswered in the movies, I suspect this is little more than an online fan theory as opposed to what the writers intended to get across to the viewers.

If a science fiction movie about rocketry builds its plotpoints on real rocket science, do you require that movie to explain all the details of rocket science? If the movie shows things moving in zero gravity a way that seems odd to you, but makes perfect sense given real known facts about zero gravity, would you dismiss any other movie-goes explaining this to you as "online fan theory"?

Because the points I'm making to you aren't simply about "what the writers intended". They're about how real technology works, and how that knowledge can be used to explain details in the movie. People who complain about these things breaking their suspension of disbelief, are complaining about things that aren't more fantastic than real existing technology.

[Ramza00]

The hoverships are wireless, all this mentions of broadcast depths and the ships are still moving when they are plugged into the Matrix.

If we want to bring our real world tech into this we should not think Wireless as a single thing. There is bandwidth and latency (think of bandwidth as the depth and width of a water, how many gallons in a section, latency is the speed the water is moving at) issues where you may need a human to have a wire connection which then connects to a big ship and there is a big satellite dish that transfers the data. Yet for less data uses one can have a wireless connection which is old school for example texts but no video. After all when The Matrix was written it was the early 90s for the screenplay and the final movie came out in 1999.

[BloodSquirrel]

It's an ancient decades old nitpick about something that doesn't really harm or change the plot in any mechanical way, and does work better for the metaphor I think, if that turns out to be what really gets you then fine but your suspension of disbelief is your issue in this case.

If you're not interested in other people's "issues", then you probably shouldn't be taking part in a public discussion of the movie.

I'm not sure why you think that this is a functional argument other than that you can't think of a better one.

[Millstone85]

Ultimately, Neo is a technopath. The character has psychic powers that first allow him to manipulate a virtual reality like no other human can, and later on to disrupt machines (and see the AI possessing a human) in the real world.

That's the trope at play here. Most everything else, I admit, is just us fans theorizing.

[Tvtyrant]

I just got back, never saw any trailers and haven't read the thread so if this review is redundant it's just me and the void :P

The original Matrix was a 90s movie at its heart, sharing the same space as Fight Club and Office Space. All of them ask the question: Once material comfort has been accomplished, shouldn't our actions matter more? A similar series of movies came out in the 1960s like The Graduate.

Neo goes out in search of The Truth and Reality, where his choices can affect change and where daily choices have meaning. By contrast the 90s Matrix he lives in gives out daily security but takes from the enslaved office man any choices. Thomas Anderson's quest is thus the abandonment of comfort for meaning.

This movie is actually two movies. The first one is actually pretty good, and the second is flat. The pretty good movie is built around the question: Did the 90s matter? Now that we are middle aged and looking back on our youth, did we accomplish anything? What was it for?

The movie is pretty clear we lost and are tired of the war, and have to hand it off to the youngs now. Xion is gone, the Matrix is still there, and the last generation aren't interested in beating it anymore but just consolidating their current gains. Neo and Trinity have turned from the war as their primary passion to developing their personal relationship, its time to settle down and focus on family for the middle aged.

Then the last bit of the movie they gain unlimited power, beat up the bad guy and go off to paint rainbows in the sky. The "sequel to an established trilogy of movies" aspect makes for a weak last third, the second movie that isn't so much about the shared experience of the viewers, the director and cast but about the plot of the world. The Matrix as metaphor parts ways a bit and the ending is worse because of it, just like the second and third movies were worse because they deviated from the Matrix as Metaphor for the 90s.

Overall I give it a strong B for Gex X and Millenials, and a C for anyone else.

[Millstone85]

The movie is pretty clear we lost and are tired of the war, and have to hand it off to the youngs now. Xion is gone, the Matrix is still there, and the last generation aren't interested in beating it anymore but just consolidating their current gains.

Eh now, the movie did a good enough job at adressing the happy-ending override. Yes, most machines broke the peace, and went back to enslaving humans, because the sequel needed antagonists. But Io is better than Zion was, not just because it is bigger and the food tastes somewhat good, but because it is a place where humans and AIs are relearning how to live together. The youngster Bugs gives a passionate speech about that, and the old tired Neo clearly finds it significant as he tenderly puts his forehead against the synthient Cybebe.

movie that isn't so much about the shared experience of the viewers, the director and cast but about the plot of the world. The Matrix as metaphor parts ways a bit and the ending is worse because of it

Now you are making me feel like I am an anti-intellectual or something. No movie has ever made me feel like I was "sharing an experience" with its director and cast. The actors are acting, and you can't tell if they will love, hate or not give two hoots about the final product. As for the director, we are left throwing wild guesses on whatever they were trying to say. Whereas the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, yes, that's what I come to the theater for.

[Dr.Samurai]

Congratulations on missing the damn point.

The ships connect to the Matrix wirelessly, from which we know that Matrix can be connected to wirelessly. The implants normally connect to the ship, but this does not mean they have no native wireless capability - we can infer they do have because of Neo and Bane.

That's not an inference you can make actually.

And I know that you're wrong here because it's such a simple explanation to make that the movie would have done it instead of leaving everyone (including the characters in the actual movie) perplexed at what had happened. Instead the movie tells us that the power of the One extends into the real world, all the way back to the Source. And that he wasn't ready to use this power.

Giant spike to the head says hello. There is very obviously both hardware and software level feedback in the system. Ever noticed how several real computer devices strongly advice against improperly plugging them in or plugging them out? These warnings exist for a reason. For example, in many older radio devices, disconnecting the antenna while the device is broadcasting, fries the whole device. In memory storage devices, removing them while data is being moved in or out can garble the data and lead to all kinds of malfunctions. Whether the technological limitations are hardware or software based is an open question, but you have every reason to suspect the latter, given what we learn in Reloaded. Zion is controlled opposition, every method of connecting to the Matrix comes from the same party as the Matrix, the whole set-up is another system of control to plug the holes in another.

It's a very nice theory, and I applaud you for it. If there were something in the movies to hint at this, it would be *chef's kiss*. Alas, it's just an online theory to explain away a goofy part of a sequel that never gets resolved.

If a science fiction movie about rocketry builds its plotpoints on real rocket science, do you require that movie to explain all the details of rocket science? If the movie shows things moving in zero gravity a way that seems odd to you, but makes perfect sense given real known facts about zero gravity, would you dismiss any other movie-goes explaining this to you as "online fan theory"?

I'm not a rocket scientist, so if the movie pulls out some strange rocketry interactions that look weird, all on a character that is "the messiah", yeah, some explanation is needed. Sort of like explaining time dilation in Interstellar to help people along that don't understand it.

I don't know anything about wifi and radio, so if the movie is going to make Neo into Superman in the real world, it should be explained. And not online two decades later by a random guy on the internet that happens to really like radio and wifi.

[Tyndmyr]

Why do people still care about the people as energy thing? It's a cinema sins level meaningless complaint.

Well, if they bring it back up, it's on them if it doesn't make sense. The original didn't bother me overly much, because you get the imagery with the battery and what not. Sure, it absolutely makes more sense as processing capacity than raw energy, but at least you give the machines a nice, evil motivation for why they need millions and millions of people.

This makes a lot less sense if it's just two people somehow powering everything. It's leaning really, really hard into a literal interpretation of the power of love. I like explaining it as a research project or something better. Simulating people uses power, it wouldn't produce it. The logic of Neo and Trinity being the only two real humans and everyone else being bots is...a potentially interesting thing to explore philosophically, but it doesn't address the power issue that is apparently the motive here.

Nothing quite fits about the explanations for motives we're given, so it's a little annoying.

You are mostly just describing plot of Flight of Osiris here. Yes, broadcasting on the run is a risk they're willing to take because they've already been found out and know they will most likely die. This does not take anything away from my points. It's proof positive the ships broadcast wirelessly. It cannot be discounted because it is intro sequence to Reloaded.

You don't even need to reach that far to establish that ships connect wirelessly. It's covered in the first movie, where they talk about bringing the ship to Broadcast depth, and Morpheus discusses "broadcasting our pirate signal". From the very first film, it is clear that the ship connects into the Matrix wirelessly.

The fact that a specific depth is needed is definitely clear. The ships can't broadcast directly from Zion. If they could, that whole setup would look very different.

Sentinels very clearly *can* operate wirelessly much further from the machine world and still receive orders. It seems likely that this are distinct systems, as Sentinels are never shown to exist in the Matrix.

[Ramza00]

Can we all agree … ?

That the CGI of Matrix Revolutions is superior to the movie it is remaking, Monster’s Incorporated?

[Talakeal]

Can we all agree … ?

That the CGI of Matrix Revolutions is superior to the movie it is remaking, Monster’s Incorporated?

I was actually thinking that myself.

[Bohandas]

LOL! It really is Monsters Incorporated!

[Trafalgar]

I finally saw the movie on HBO Max at watch party. Its still not at my local theater because they have extended Spiderman No Way Home for another week. Overall, its a successful nostalgia based cash grab that's worth streaming at home but not watching at a theater. The first 2/3 of the movie is pretty good but things go downhill after that. I have no intentions of watching it again.

Spoiler: Things I liked

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-Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann Moss still have a really good screen good chemistry. You can feel the connection between them in the scenes in the coffee shop.
-Yahya Abdul-Mateen II makes a decent "New Morpheus". I had to point out that he isn't actually Morpheus to friends of mine, he is a program written to be like Morpheus. I liked the loud clothes, they provide a nice contrast to "Old Morpheus".
-I liked Jessica Henwick as Bugs. In fact, I think they should have made her part bigger.
-I liked the added lore including Io, synthients working with humans, the machine civil war, etc.
-I like the ship design, how it combined the Matrix Hovercrafts with insect like machine tech.
-I liked to see Niobe back but it would be interesting to see an interaction between her and New Morpheus.

Spoiler: Things I didn't like

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-The fight choreography was nowhere near the standard set by the original. The original Matrix combined Hong Kong Cinematic Kung Fu with Hollywood Special Effects and was awesome. Matrix Reloaded, while not as good as the original, still had a couple of good fights, most notably the fight between Neo and Seraph. Revolutions was another step down with special effects replacing much of the original real world effects. The fights in this movie were mostly boring with Neo just doing a force push to end it.
-I did not like Jonathan Groff as Agent Smith. If they didn't flash a still of Agent Smith when Groff first appeared, I wouldn't have guessed he was Smith. Groff's mannerisms and way of speaking just doesn't feel like smith. I think they should have thrown more money at Hugo Weaving to bring him back. Smith/Weaving vs. Reeves/Neo is integral to the Matrix series.
-Neil Patrick Harris was just being Neil Patrick Harris in this movie. I kept expecting to break into song a la Dr. Horrible.
-They did the whole "Take a step forward if you volunteer" cliché.
-They shouldn't have brought back the Merovingian. For me, that's the point the movie starts to go down hill. In both Reloaded and Revolutions, Merv is part of the plot, the heroes need something from him. In Resurrections, he is just a minor obstacle to be brushed aside and forgotten.
-They establish that the analyst can do super bullet time that makes him invincible. But in the finale, Agent Smith can beat it somehow. But Agent Smith didn't show any signs of this ability in his earlier fight with Neo. My read is that this was a lazily written deus ex machina.
-The Zombie apocalypse climax was dumb. I lost interest after that.
-I am a bit of an attack helicopter geek so this is just me being triggered but the helicopters at the end looked really fake. They just CGI'd some rockets and two miniguns on a civilian helicopter and called it good. The miniguns locations wouldn't work in the real world. They should have just CGI'd in a real world attack helicopter.
-I am a Rage Against the Machine Fan. The original ends with "Wake Up" by Rage and had me leaving the theater all psyched up and ready for more. In my opinion, one of the best movie endings ever made. Matrix Resurrections also ends with "Wake Up" but played by a cover band. At first I thought "A cover of Wake Up, how mediocre" but then I heard a trumpet. The cover band replaced some of the guitar licks with a horns section. WHICH IS ******* LAME!.
-Christina Ricci is given top billing in the closing credits. I couldn't remember her being in the movie. Google tells me she was a corporate exec who I think only had a single line. What a bait and switch! I mean, is she friends with Lana Wachkowski and Lana is giving her an easy paycheck? Doing what Adam Sandler does in his movies, giving a quick payout to his old SNL buddies?

Spoiler: Things in the movie that raise questions

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--These are neither good nor bad, just things I think worth discussing.--
-Neo created the modal and "New Morpheus". The modal is as good as the matric and challenges experienced hackers like Bugs. Morpheus becomes a fully function synthient. Which means Neo can create artificial intelligence and recreate the Matrix. These are more powerful abilities than anything he or Trinity displays in the movie. I mean, couldn't he code a synthient that can beat the Analysts super bullet time?
-So is Trinity also the "one"? So Neo and Trinity are the "two"? But Neo was always in a binary opposition to Agent Smith. Is there a another Agent out in opposition to Trinity? Or does anyone have these abilities if they can free their mind enough?
-Io is supposed to be a city of Synthients and Humans living in harmony. But when Niobe gathers the Captains together to discuss the mission, everyone is human. Are only humans in leadership positions? Why are their no synthient captains?

[Bohandas]

Has anyone else had the thought that the heroes from the Matrix series are basically equivalent to the villains from Birdbox?

EDIT:
Like, both groups' basic deal is "come, everybody should see...this intensely horrible thing that we found"

[Millstone85]

Things in the movie that raise questions--These are neither good nor bad, just things I think worth discussing.

Alright, here are the answers I came up with. So yeah, headcanoning hard.

Spoiler

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I mean, couldn't he code a synthient that can beat the Analysts super bullet time?

He could, and he did. That synthient's name is Smith.

Somehow, Neo keeps transferring his true potential, the power to fully take over the Matrix, to the program who hates him the most.

Even modal Morpheus was initially put in the shoes of "Agent Smith" within the training simulation. You have got a problem, Mister Anderson.

So is Trinity also the "one"? So Neo and Trinity are the "two"?

In Reloaded, Neo was revealed to be the 6th One, the anomaly that emerged from the 6th version of the Matrix. Resurrections takes place in the 7th version, so perhaps Trinity became the 7th One.

Surely the Architect knew better than to keep any previous One alive, but the Analyst rolled the dice and lost.

Why are their no synthient captains?

The Mnemosyne looks like the Nebuchadnezzar, except more insectoid like the machines themselves. So what if, in addition of having a human captain, each Io ship was also its own synthient captain?

[Trafalgar]

Spoiler

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He could, and he did. That synthient's name is Smith.

Somehow, Neo keeps transferring his true potential, the power to fully take over the Matrix, to the program who hates him the most.

Even modal Morpheus was initially put in the shoes of "Agent Smith" within the training simulation. You have got a problem, Mister Anderson.

Spoiler: Coding

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But the difference is Neo accidently imprinted himself on Smith in the first movie. Neo consciously coded New Morpheus with no help from the Analyst. And Morpheus is accepted as a full synthient by the crew. I guess the real test is whether Neo can do it outside the Matrix but I see no reason why he wouldn't be able to.

Spoiler

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In Reloaded, Neo was revealed to be the 6th One, the anomaly that emerged from the 6th version of the Matrix. Resurrections takes place in the 7th version, so perhaps Trinity became the 7th One.

Surely the Architect knew better than to keep any previous One alive, but the Analyst rolled the dice and lost.

Spoiler: One

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But in Reloaded, Isn't Merovingian revealed by his wife to be a former One? So there are three Ones in the current Matrix?

Spoiler

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The Mnemosyne looks like the Nebuchadnezzar, except more insectoid like the machines themselves. So what if, in addition of having a human captain, each Io ship was also its own synthient captain?

Spoiler: Pilotting

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It's an interesting idea, but I don't think its the case. There is a conversation where the pilot is introduced as the best pilot in the fleet and someone says "except for the synthients." Or something to that effect. So I would be surprised if any of the ships are conscious. I can't see a synthient ship needing any pilot, much less than a synthient one.

[Dr.Samurai]

Spoiler: One

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But in Reloaded, Isn't Merovingian revealed by his wife to be a former One? So there are three Ones in the current Matrix?

I don't recall that. Merv is a program, and he says something along the lines of "We have survived your predecessors, and we will survive you". He seems familiar with the concept/cycle of The One and has a sort of cynical view of it.

I may have missed more than that though.

[Traab]

I don't recall that. Merv is a program, and he says something along the lines of "We have survived your predecessors, and we will survive you". He seems familiar with the concept/cycle of The One and has a sort of cynical view of it.

I may have missed more than that though.

His wife was talking to neo and said that "Once, he was like you" But im pretty sure she was just talking about how he treated her the way neo treats trinity. With love.

[Millstone85]

Spoiler: Coding

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But the difference is Neo accidently imprinted himself on Smith in the first movie. Neo consciously coded New Morpheus with no help from the Analyst.

Spoiler: Coding

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Well, somewhat consciously.

In the scene where Neo becomes aware that something has gone missing from the modal, we see him become unsure whether he is at his desk in front of his computer, or if he is observing the code from the inside.

I think it was the same when he programmed the new Morpheus. One moment he is a video-game programmer playing with old files, the next he is the One shaping a bubble of virtual reality, then he is not sure what he just did.

But in Reloaded, Isn't Merovingian revealed by his wife to be a former One?

I don't recall that. Merv is a program

im pretty sure she was just talking about how he treated her the way neo treats trinity.

Yup, though it did spawn a popular fan theory.

Spoiler: Pilotting

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I can't see a synthient ship needing any pilot

Spoiler: Piloting

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I imagine that to be a common problem for the new alliance. The synthients could easily replace humans in all things, but then Io would be just like 01.

But yeah, not my best theory.

[Tyndmyr]

-Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann Moss still have a really good screen good chemistry.

I dunno, I wouldn't say that the two of them *ever* had great chemistry? I mean, sure, they're supposed to be together and what not in all the movies, but I wouldn't consider their romance to be particularly compelling in any of the films. It's...almost an obligatory action movie romance. It *slightly* impacts the plot because of the whole Oracle thing, but that's about the only thing that makes their relationship interesting.

I like both actors, I just don't think they really fit together in that way.

In agreement about pretty much all the rest, though.

[Dr.Samurai]

Speaking of Merv, and Trinity, and the... "chemistry"... on screen:

Spoiler

Show

At some point my mind stops really digging into whatever the writers are going for, and a lot of stuff goes over my head. So I'm not sure what the significance of Trinity being "the One" in Resurrections is. My initial reaction, in this thread even, was that this doesn't jive with the previous trilogy. However, this thread reminded me that this is another iteration of the Matrix, and therefore there would be another One. So everything that was true before regarding Neo and Trinity and Smith is not necessarily true now.

I think.

That should be the case, except this movie seems very tied to the previous movies.

I almost wonder if Neo and/or Trinity is always The One? Like every "predecessor" is either Neo or Trinity. And they're simply getting better and better. Merv doesn't take Neo seriously at first as he has survived the previous cycles before. When Neo stops all the bullets, he concedes "Okay, you have some skill. Kill him". When Neo stops the blade with his bare hand Merv raises an eyebrow in surprise, but the subsequent blood has him say "You see, he's just a man".

This seems to indicate that there are varying levels of power/competence/threat in The One. Neo appears to be The One's One, as he allegedly is the only one to choose Love over Zion, and not only that, pull it off. At the end of Resurrection, Trinity is remaking stuff in the Matrix with the snap of a finger. So maybe she's achieved an even higher level of Oneness?

[Psyren]

Speaking of Merv, and Trinity, and the... "chemistry"... on screen:

Spoiler

Show

At some point my mind stops really digging into whatever the writers are going for, and a lot of stuff goes over my head. So I'm not sure what the significance of Trinity being "the One" in Resurrections is. My initial reaction, in this thread even, was that this doesn't jive with the previous trilogy. However, this thread reminded me that this is another iteration of the Matrix, and therefore there would be another One. So everything that was true before regarding Neo and Trinity and Smith is not necessarily true now.

I think.

That should be the case, except this movie seems very tied to the previous movies.

I almost wonder if Neo and/or Trinity is always The One? Like every "predecessor" is either Neo or Trinity. And they're simply getting better and better. Merv doesn't take Neo seriously at first as he has survived the previous cycles before. When Neo stops all the bullets, he concedes "Okay, you have some skill. Kill him". When Neo stops the blade with his bare hand Merv raises an eyebrow in surprise, but the subsequent blood has him say "You see, he's just a man".

This seems to indicate that there are varying levels of power/competence/threat in The One. Neo appears to be The One's One, as he allegedly is the only one to choose Love over Zion, and not only that, pull it off. At the end of Resurrection, Trinity is remaking stuff in the Matrix with the snap of a finger. So maybe she's achieved an even higher level of Oneness?

I suggest you don't think about the ending too much. The writers certainly didn't.

Spoiler

Show

No matter which approach Neo and Trinity take with their new world - they are either going to be condemning a bunch of humans to slavery or a bunch of synthetics to starvation. Instead of solving the actual problem set up by the franchise, which is working together to fix the damn sky so there's enough energy to go around without keeping an entire species in pods. But if we do that, there's be no more sequels, so...

[Ramza00]

Spoiler: Coding

Show

But the difference is Neo accidently imprinted himself on Smith in the first movie. Neo consciously coded New Morpheus with no help from the Analyst. And Morpheus is accepted as a full synthient by the crew. I guess the real test is whether Neo can do it outside the Matrix but I see no reason why he wouldn't be able to.

Spoiler: One

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But in Reloaded, Isn't Merovingian revealed by his wife to be a former One? So there are three Ones in the current Matrix?

Lore from the MMORPG

Spoiler: Merv

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Note this lore is purposefully written as "rumor" so while it is worldbuilding we have an unreliable narrator problem.

But Merv is an operating system program from a former matrix per the Kid Blog in that game. But that is an unreliable narrator problem.

This explains a whole lot when you combine it with other quotes from The Architect, The Oracle, Smith, Merv himself, etc.

Neo is the 6th anomaly per the Architect aka he is the 6th "the one." Likewise per Cypher he is the 6 possible The One candidate that Morpheus adopted, with the previous 5 dying when they tried to fight Agents.

But before the modern matrix The Oracle helped built was a paradise matrix and a nightmare matrix. We know Merv adopted programs from the nightmare matrix, and that the nightmare matrix occurred prior to the 6 anomalies.

----

The purpose of an Operating System in computer science "is to know things", which is precisely how Merv describes himself. (If you want other definitions one of the definitions of an OS is scheduling tasks, executing applications, and controlling peripherals, aka a trafficker and controller of information) and this is what Merv still does in the modern Matrix of movies 1, 2, and 3. Sure it is an underground unofficial "illegal" operating system but it exists and everyone knows it exists and it has been incorporated into the control system. Likewise Merv can still do stuff with the train station, help smuggle exile programs, etc.

An operating system job may be to know things, but The Oracle provides a different type of knowledge than what The Architect or Merv try to do. An Oracle's job is to try to predict things and how her prediction works is to understand things not as "phenonmenoa" (the external things that can be measured such as cause and effect) but as things onto itself which goes by the word noumenona and thus understanding things internal which is where we get the latin phrase "know thyself" which can be traced back earlier to the Greek Oracle of Delphi, and before that on the outer temple wall of Egyptian Temple of Luxor.

Merv wants the eyes of the oracle both for petty reasons of revenge (The Oracle kind of replaced his purpose) but also it is a skill set he does not possess. Like wise it was the Merv who tried to kill The Oracle and this is how they explain the actress change to Mary Alice after Gloria Foster died during the filming of movies 2 and 3.

I suggest you don't think about the ending too much. The writers certainly didn't.

Spoiler

Show

No matter which approach Neo and Trinity take with their new world - they are either going to be condemning a bunch of humans to slavery or a bunch of synthetics to starvation. Instead of solving the actual problem set up by the franchise, which is working together to fix the damn sky so there's enough energy to go around without keeping an entire species in pods. But if we do that, there's be no more sequels, so...

Going to have to disagree here Psyren

Spoiler: Is there an enemy is there a problem

Show

The Matrix of Movies 1, 2 and 3 is a Zoo even though the machines were harnessing energy from Humans.

Most humans "did not want to be free", they were not dysphorics (unable to bear the simulated reality of the matrix, their mind rebel against it.) It was a problem with 1% of the humans connected to the Matrix. And if those 1% stayed connected to the matrix for too long without the One providing new input to the prime program then the whole matrix crashes harming both the 99% and the 1%.

There are many ways to solve this problem. For example you can have multiple matrixes running simultaneously in parallel with the multiple matrixes being smaller but it is far more redundant / secure. Likewise there may be a way to harness the dysphorics to be better able to find which of the 1% to unplug and have them voluntarily lives in various smaller villages of Zion and this could be acceptable to the Machines. So on and so on. Also the concept of The One itself is a dysphoric who can see the code of the matrix itself and is better at programming certain aspects of the simulation than the machines are. After all if you want to model a mugging, you can model someone stealing another person wallet and a physical injury involved with the mugging. Or you can model a person walking into a wall, and then voluntarily giving their money to the other person. It is the same inputs and outputs if you have limited knowledge and this is how some the machines besides a few like the oracle see humans.

You do not need to unplug everyone from the Matrix as a goal, unless you have a philosophical reason where living in the simulation is bad for all humans and not just the humans who find it impossible to bear. And even though red pills are not all dysphoric, Cypher figured there was something that was off with The Matrix and thus he took the red pill, but the capability of him having regrets and wanting to be plugged back in means one form of dysphoria was worse than the other form of dysphoria, that or he never found reality unable to bear and he just noticed something was off with the matrix with his unconscious mind.

-----

Of course trying to cure the sky could be a goal if The Matrix was real, but the whole point of the series is there is always choices, but nothing is a utopia and how you navigate those choices is more interesting than trying to imagine a world with no negative choice. The journey including the negation is part of the fun of this specific story.

[Dr.Samurai]

I suggest you don't think about the ending too much. The writers certainly didn't.

Spoiler

Show

No matter which approach Neo and Trinity take with their new world - they are either going to be condemning a bunch of humans to slavery or a bunch of synthetics to starvation. Instead of solving the actual problem set up by the franchise, which is working together to fix the damn sky so there's enough energy to go around without keeping an entire species in pods. But if we do that, there's be no more sequels, so...

Ironically...

Spoiler

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I feel like if they went that route, with the humans and synthients desperately trying to survive against the machines so they can clear the sky and usher in a new era, and the stakes within the Matrix being directly tied to the fate of the real world, there may be potential for more sequels.

Whereas I'm not sure there's going to be another sequel any time soon after this.