So I just watched the last Matrix film, which I hadn't seen till now... And it's all well and good and wraps it up nicely... Well kind of lol..

One question tho....

What is the point of the Matrix?

Seems to me, machines toke over the world (reeks of Terminator lol) and capture all the humans, enslaving them to the "pods" to be plugged into the Matrix - an artificial world controlled by the machines as a programme.

So? What the point? It ain't real, it don't affect the "real world" (or lack off) so why bother?

Second question - from a human point of view.

Why are they so eager to get out? Inside the Matrix they have light, sun, clothes, good food - all the stuff you get in the real world. when they "get out" they got jack. No sun, under attack all the time, rags for cloths, slop for food - not really living is it? Surely they are far better off in the Matrix?

Lastl (lol) the machines in the real world - why? Apart from keeping the humans in the pods to carry out the Matrix - what other purpous do they have? Why bother to exist? Can't see the point!

Oh, one LAST thing (promise)

In the last film (Revolutions) Neo ends the war by dying, and thus destroying his alter ego/whatever. so the final scene, the Oracle and the Creator talk, and he says all the other humans will be free'd.

So if they all get free'd, surely there would be no people in the Matrix apart from computer programmed ones that aren't real (and aren't based on real people like the people that were in the pods) So there would be no point (well, even less point) to there even being a Matrix, so again - WHY BOTHER?

It don't make sense

 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh..... but IS IT the real world

 

Fuck sake, you think too much

 

The point is they should of stopped after they made the first film as that was like nothing else ever produced, truly a one of a kind film. The second and third films ruint it all.

 

So the machines are stoners?

 

Cool films but i've sat for the last 3 night not knowing WTF has been going on!

 

1st one - shit hot

2nd one - far too much computer generated effects and it didnt look as real

3rd one - cant remember as i aint seen it for ages and couldnt be arsed to watch it tonight lol

 

The real twist is in the architecht's speech.

Neo is supposed to return to the source, completing the imbalanced equation, which suggests that as a result of choosing 12 male and 12 female to rebuild Zion, that Zion is in fact a part of the Matrix.

Also, the point of the Matrix is to keep the enslaved humans content so they can continue to be a source of energy without rebelling inthe "real world". The machines also have AI, so the point about existing is the same for the machines as the humans -that's sort of the point of the film

 

what website did you read that off pon?

 

 

Dan - that's the simple stuff.

There's some really obvious sociological and political themes running through the film, so having studied that a bit, it was sort of obvious.

The REALLY complex stuff I have in essay form regarding this film - if you didn't "get" the film, you wont "get" these essays either!

 

Thrush mate my mrs totally agrees with you on this

However, I don't!! The orignal film was all about how despite the fact we all think we are free, we aint.

But its just a story whith a comentary on life as it is atm!!!!

Rich send me them essays be quite interesting to read. Big fan of the matrix series.

 

Read up Descartes for a start Stu (the same guy behind Cartesian co-ordinates - fucking awesomely clever man) and then I'd recommend reading up on Greek philosophy as well.

If you're not into all that then a good starting point would be 'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder (a kind of beginners guide to the different philosophies throughout history).

I agree with some of the posters on this thread though - the first film was really good and the last 2 just sucked ass.

Andy

 

It's all a game of good verses evil. The game ends when the chosen one dies. Then it all starts again. Sometimes good wins, sometimes bad wins.
We are but mere pawns

 

1) They said that the humans need mental stimuation to survive, and I guess it surpresses the desire to get out?

2) The grass is always greener.... BUT, there was that one guy that wanted to be plugged back in after he realised it sucked. It's just about how we don't like to be controlled by someone (thing) else.

3) Machines want to exist just as much as we do because they are intelligent.

4) I'll get back to you

 

http://matrixirtam.com/

 

I agree with RichPon. just couldnt' have expalained it as well.

If Zion is part of the matrix, then surely so is the rest of the world though... for Neo to return to the source does that mean he's just a program too? you can go on forever.....

 

Here's an example of the sort of stuff I was talking about - prepare for a major headfuck!



Going into The Matrix: Reloaded, I wasn't worried if the fight scenes or special effects would measure up to the first film—it was the metaphysics that bothered me. The first Matrix was such a neat allegory of Gnostic philosophy, I was more concerned with how the Brothers Wachowski could successfully extend the metaphor into three films than whether they could pull off even more virtuoso examples of cinematic ass-stomping. What was mindblowing about the first movie, after all, wasn't the fight choreography or bullet time, but its brave assertion that the banal, day-to-day reality we live in isn't the real world. In that sense, all the wire-fu was just the candy coating on the red pill the filmmakers were offering to every high school student and cubicle slave in the world. (Though, since I study martial arts myself, I found the idea of kung fu as being metaphorical for something happening in hyper-reality, a la Thibault's mysterious circle, to be pretty darn appealing.)

Thankfully, Reloaded more than allayed my fears, even if it seems that half the reviewers either didn't understand what the Wachowskis were getting at, or else were only paying attention during the highway chase. Watching the movie, I was personally less impressed by the fists of digital fury than by the Brothers' evident familiarity with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the theology of Origen of Alexandria. Seen in the light of the books they're referencing, the movie's plot is brilliant; of course, to the non-initiate, the characters' actions and dialogue seems arbitrary and incomprehensible, and the exposition is just filler between car crashes. It would seem, therefore, that a bit of exegesis of The Matrix: Reloaded is warranted. But be warned: If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read on. There are some major spoilers.

Much like that other great Keanu Reeves vehicle, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, The Matrix: Reloaded centers around the hero's journey into the Underworld. Frazier, in The Golden Bough, notes that it is a prophetess—in this case, the Oracle—who sends the hero off on his journey, from where he returns with special knowledge. And, of course, that's just what Neo does, though it would have been a while lot more amusing if he'd had Alex Winter along. (The Oracle probably isn't entirely benign, by the way, even though she may not consciously intend any harm: She is, after all, the one who sent Neo on the path to the Core.)

Neo's first task is to rescue the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim, doing his best Rick Moranis impression) from the Merovingian, who is a daemon—in both senses of the word—left over from a previous version of the Matrix. (The Merovingians were the ruling Frankish dynasty; they were succeeded by Charlemagne's family, the Carolingians, and then by the Capetians, who thought they were descended from Christ.) The guy in the health food store where I buy my granola and soy milk thinks that The Merovingian was one of Neo's predecessors, but all the explanation I need, as well as the way I understand his obvious fascination with human pleasures, is found in Genesis 6:4—"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them. . ." According to various sources, including Kabbalah, this mating of men and angels (here, a computer program from an earlier version of the Matrix) is what produced various monsters, such as the vampires and wraiths that serve the Merovingian. Dante, bringing a Christian sensibility to the proceedings, placed these monsters in his Inferno. Thus, though the Merovingian is sort of an antediluvian remnant of the former world, he's also (as is shown by the fact that his wife is named Persephone) kind of like Hades, the holder of the keys to the underworld. What the Keymaker does, much like the golden bough the Sybil gives Aeneas, is open doors and permit Neo access to the underworld—or, in this case, the Core.

After the requisite battles and explosions, Neo gets into the Core and finds The Architect. Considering that The Architect built the Matrix, you might think that he's God. Of course, he's nothing of the sort. In Gnostic theology, it is Satan, not God, who has created the world in order to imprison humanity. It is also the Architect who is unleashing the Sentinels to destroy Zion; that is, beginning the Battle of Armageddon. It is my prediction that in the third and final film, it will be revealed that there is a power behind the Architect, and that he is the one who sent the One into the Matrix. It is also my prediction that this guy will look a lot like Neo.

The important thing is choosing what to believe from the raft of condescending exposition that the Architect inflicts on Neo. He says, basically, that though ninety-nine percent of humans believe in the illusion of the Matrix, there is that troublesome one percent (comparable to the few awakened Gnostic true believers) who refuse to believe in the created world. This tends to produce massive amounts of instability, and crashes the system. (Not coincidentally, most of the people in Zion seem to be black or Hispanic, which makes perfect sense: If you're a white suburban Matrix resident, driving your Matrix SUV to your Matrix golf club, why doubt the nature of reality?) The solution is that they allow the dissidents to escape to Zion, which they can then periodically destroy. They have also created the Prophecy of the One, who is in fact a device sent by the machines into the "real" world so that his knowledge of humanity may be integrated into the system in order to further perfect the Matrix-illusion, and then allowed to re-start Zion so that the cycle can begin again. The idea of multiple creations and a cycle of created and destroyed worlds is, needless to say, also found in theologies as wildly variant as the Mayan and the Buddhist. (And, in the Mayan reckoning, we're currently in the fifth cycle—the sixth starts in 2012.)

The idea that the Prophecy—and Zion—were just another means of control is lifted right out of French philosophy. The first movie made use of Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation; this movie seems to be dipping into Foucault and Derrida, who wrote that the systems of power and control are all-pervasive, and language is one of the ways they make their influence felt. The Prophecy is, like all prophecies, speech, and thus language. More importantly, it is a religion, and, as John Zerzan writes, the purpose of a religion is to manipulate signs, that is, words, for the purpose of control. Zion is the longed-for millennial promised land; by keeping the war between good and evil foremost in their hearts, even the freed humans are kept from doubting their own world, from thinking too hard about why things are the way they are. Zion needn't be another computer simulation; it could merely be a society created by the machines for controlling the free-range humans (kinda like grunge music was created in the early nineties to control disaffected teenagers).

Understanding why things are the way they are requires an understanding of another holy text: Asimov's Laws of Robotics. The machines, as demonstrated by Smith's need to try to kill Neo even after being "freed," don't have free will. (Likewise, in various theologies, angels and other such divine beings also don't have free will—only humans do.) The bit about the machines needing human bio-energy to survive, as Morpheus (the dreamer) explained in the first movie, is bullshit. The machines keep humanity alive but imprisoned, even after taking over the world, because they were created to serve people. In other words, the machines would like to destroy humanity, but they CAN'T. Instead, they need a human to make the choice.

As the Architect reveals, Neo is not the first One, but rather the sixth. Why the sixth? The answer is that Neo's five previous incarnations represent the Five Books of Moses that make up the Old Testament. Neo (representing Christ, and thus the New Testament) differs from his five predecessors in his capacity to love. In the work of Origen of Alexandria and other early Christian writers, it is love ("eros" in Greek) that compels Christ to come down from the heavens to redeem humanity. Furthermore, "neo" means "new"—as in "New Covenant." In Neo, the machines have finally found the iteration of the One who will make the illogical choice of saving Trinity and dooming humanity. [Note to the theology geeks who've been e-mailing me: I know the difference between eros and agape, but both terms are apropos for reasons I'd have to delve into pre-Socratic philosophy to explain.]

This is the Architect's real purpose in giving Neo a choice between two doors. At once all human and all machine, rather than being a device to refine the Matrix into a more perfect simulation of reality, re-found Zion, and thus continue the endless cycle of death and rebirth—as the Architect says he is—the purpose of the One is to be manipulated into destroying all of humanity. However, not having free will themselves, the machines are not able to comprehend it in others—and thus Neo, being also human, is a bit of a wild card. It is Neo's destiny—as was Christ's in Origen's theology—to break the cycle of death and rebirth, and offer humanity a new future. This is shown by the fact that, by the end of the movie, Neo (and also, incidentally, Smith) gain power in the "real world"—which shows that he has power not only over the first—level simulated world of the Matrix, but also the second-level simulation of Zion.

 

Pon, don't you ever, ever refer to me as a geek ever again

 

i always wondered about the whole birth thing! neo looks the same as mr anderson,as it is indeed his identity,but parents pass on genes to their kids,so,does the matrix see who's shagging who and then remove sperm from the bloke and inject it in the female?otherwise they would simply grow babies and no one would look like their parents!

 

Mate, I have this whole proper geek persona that I keep hidden at all times! You don't know the half of it

 

Closet Geek's are even worse

 

but if zion is part of the matrix, then, as pointed out in the second film when neo beats them flying nasties, there is a matrix within the matrix, and even thoguh they think they are free from one they are just escaping into another matrix

what i think they hsould have done was to leave the first film as the only film, the other 2 were pointless really

 

AFPMSL!!! That is the most abstract question I've ever seen related to the matrix!!!

 

Holy christ that was hard work to read I neee to read 10 books before I go back to that essay!!!

Just the fact the machines can grow humans in pods shows they have extremely advanced bio and bio-mechanical technologies.

If they can create a humans then they can aso manipulate DNA, being computers they probably have ever person in the matrix's DNA on file.

So really just a case of when people in the matrix have a baby the machines creating a baby from a mixture of the dna stored on file from the parents.

Or a machine just takes a sample from both and grows a clone fron them.

 

your as bad as my girlfriend

she hasdegrees etc etc coming out of her ears and is really intelligent but can she understand the matrix??

can she fook

 

Euan - when that gets to be the case, then just hold up this picture and shout out "Women, Know your limits!!"

 

Pon, is that you on the left

 

 

 

The matrix within a matrix theory is often held up by those that didnt understand the plot.

Thematically the 3 movies are about: Birth, life and death. Nice little bit of info from the bros. W

In answer to the orginal question 4) The Oracle asks about those that want out of the Matrix - however not that many people will want out as they just arent aware of whats going on in there life - jsut as in our real world some people really arent aware of whats really going on in life.

Alot of peeps seem to dislike the sequels - presumably because the first movie makes it all look nice and simple then half way through the second movie you realise that things are alot more complicated than you think - alot like life really LOL!

 

because they are crap

because it's good

because the film goes all crap

word

 

Love these films and found your essay very interesting Rich Never thought of the early versions of Neo as being Christ ect. Very Profound.

 

FUCK ME -THATS DEEP

 

I personally believe the Merovingian and Persephone are former neo and trinity characters from a past version of the matrix, when neo is given the choice of saving zion and taking the architects deal or dooming all of humanity to save trinity the past versions of him took the deal and selected theyre mate as one of the 12.

There is def mysticisim in the movies such as Neo rising from the dead in the fist movie some of the pons essay post. I think the main beauty of the movies is everybody has a different view on it and only the writers can say what they truly meant, the rest is guess work.

 

That Matrixirtam.com site is a bit crap - besides the fact that he seemingly palms off his own work as some kind of Matrix 1.5 script that he 'came across'

http://www.matrixfans.net/symbolism/meanings.php

The above has an excellent interview with one of the brothers where he tells a fair bit about what it was all meant to mean.

 

I liked the shooting bits

 

I still like my version better LOL

 

I disagree.

By saying the "matrix within a matrix", you're not insinuating a specific, but just "another form of control".

That was all I meant, and having studied philosophy, and sociology, I definitely understood the plot!

 

I didn't study philosophy, and sociology, Iunderstood the plot. Not as deep, but understood it!!