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[ Tuesday, June 10, 2003 (3:37 PM) ] ( link )
The Matrix Rethought: Two weeks ago, I saw The Matrix Reloaded for the second time. I thought of some new theories about the film back then and thought I'd post them up here. WARNING: Some small spoilers are ahead. Then again, the film is still plenty fun even without being "surprised" by some of the twists.
As a side note, this site has some interesting predictions as well, including one prediction (similar to my earlier one) that the world with Zion is just another computer simulation encircling the Matrix.
Anyway, here are two theories that might be consistent with what the movies have said so far--and where the Wachowski brothers are likely to go.
First: Solipsism
The Wachowski brothers say they love philosophy. The Matrix is just the latest pop phenomenon to discuss the hoary brain-in-a-vat problem: because all of our knowledge of the external world comes through our perceptions, how do we know that we are actually perceiving some external world rather than being fed those perceptions by a machine?
The natural conclusion to the brain-in-a-vat problem is some sort of solipsism, the belief that you are the only real thing in the universe, and that the world around you is just a dream that you're having. Because the Wachowski brothers want their films to be taken seriously as philosophical movies, I think it's entirely possible that the whole trilogy will end up as being entirely a figment of Neo's imagination. (Or maybe Morpheus's--who knows?)
This is supported by some of the weird things that happen in the end of the second movie. Neo brings Trinity back to life--why? Because he wanted to. And he stopped the sentinels in the "real" world. Why? Because he wanted to. Not to mention that the whole getting superpowers thing is a stereotypical teenage fantasy scenario: it would make sense for Neo the dreamer to create a world in which he had godlike powers, held the fate of the world in his hands, and got to sleep with leather-clad babes. (Well, only one--but how about that kiss with Persephone?)
Solipsism would, however, be something of a lame ending to the trilogy. Also, it can't explain why he's in a coma now: I mean, if he's unconscious, the whole world should just stop. So I guess it doesn't work as a plot twist. But it's consistent with a lot else in the film.
Second: The Computer as Background
So far everybody's been assuming that there are two parties in the world: the humans, trapped in their little pods and plugged into the Matrix, and the machines, who run the whole shebang. But wait: the only evidence we have of that is from the dire pronouncements of Morpheus in the first film, and then the self-serving pretentions of the Architect (and other machines) in the second film. Sure, it's great for freaking out the little warm-blooded creatures to say that the machines run everything. But I think it's also possible that, in fact, both the humans and the bad machines are players against a larger background.
Perhaps the Matrix as a whole--and even the real world--is a self-running autonomous system in which the humans and the machines fight. Neither party has very much control over it: the machines have considerably more control than the humans, but they're still fighting against parts of the system that they don't understand. They just misrepresent the nature of those antagonistic parts to the humans, e.g. Neo. Instead of admitting that the Matrix is a larger background system, they instead say that they're merely trying to weed out their own bad apples, or that they control all the little aberrations that are messing things up. What the machines don't want to say is that they are the aberrations, and the system would run perfectly well without them.
How could this story possibly be true? Here's one possible backstory that might explain the true origin of the Matrix. A long time ago, humans (and only humans) fought a terrible war. As a result of the war, the sky was darkened. Faced with imminent extinction, the world's leaders got together and came up with a plan: in order for the human race to survive a sun-less Earth, the world would pool its resources, stick everybody into self-sustaining life-support systems, and wire everybody into a virtual-reality system that replicates ordinary life. Everything would be run by a huge computer system that monitors people's systems, recycles out the old and processes the new, and keeps track of the virtual reality world. (Perhaps a few humans are left out in the real world to monitor the computer.) Soon, the world community finishes constructing the pod plus virtual reality system, which comes to be known as the Matrix. And everybody who survives is plugged in, their memories are wiped out, and the whole world goes into hibernation.
Who, then, are the machines? Clearly the computer system set up in this scenario would be enormously complex. In fact, it would probably have some sort of evolutionary software set up that could adapt to changing needs; it would involve some sort of complicated programming and hardware configuration (quantum computers, chaotic computing?) to deal with the enormous task of simulating an entire world while still running the real one. And such a complex system will have problems: in particular, bugs and viruses. Yes, the machines are viruses, spawned somewhere in the computer code and rampaging their way through the system.
But the human designers of the computer system weren't all dumb. They knew there would be problems with a system so complex. And so they built in safety measures: e.g., Neo. Here's somebody who is authorized by the system to fight the computer viruses. His purpose is to serve as a countervailing measure against the forces of chaos, restoring order to the system and eliminating its aberrations.
What about Zion and the "real" world? If the real world really is the real world (i.e., an external world), then that too could be part of the huge system set up when the world war ended. Then Zion, and Neo, would in fact be just another system of control--but one of ultimately human origins. (The Architect and the various other machines would just be BS-ing here: they're trying to freak out Neo into thinking that he's following their plan, when in fact he's following a human plan.) This would make a lot of sense. After all, if the robots really did tear up Zion every time, how did a few humans (23?) manage to rebuild that huge settlement? How did they construct all those hovercrafts, those energy generators, those pools that so puzzle Councillor Hamann? And why does nobody remember the previous destructions of Zion? Answer: there were no previous destructions. Those were all lies by the Architect and the other viruses in the system. Zion exists so that the forces that would counter system failures--the viruses, etc.--would have a safe haven outside the system to fight back.
On the other hand, the "real" world might be another simulation. In that case, it could be still another system of control (from the humans' side) set up to deal with system failures. But it could also be something a little more subtle. After all, the original human architects of the computer system wouldn't want it to run forever; the point of the Matrix would be to keep as many humans alive (and happy) as possible until the sky cleared and the sun returned, at which point the system would ideally shut off and people would emerge, blinking, into the new world. Perhaps some humans were left out in the real world to wake everybody up. But there might not be any humans left in the real world--or else those humans are now dead. At any rate, the system has its own built-in count-down timer. As the timer counts down to zero, the system itself either kicks in a shut-down mechanism, or naturally begins to disintegrate. The Zion world then becomes a sort of intermediate step, a way to accustom people to the idea that they're living in a computer simulation before *BAM* the wool is really pulled from their eyes and they're put into a fresh new world, with its pall of smoke and ashes only recently removed. The machines are either a deliberate part of the system, meant to start waking people up, or else a deliberate breakdown of the system meant to freak people out so that they'll wake up. (They might also be a subtle way of indoctrinating people with the idea not to rely so much on machines in the new world, as a way of avoiding the problems of the old world that led to the sky being darkened in the first place.) The third film would end with everybody waking up into the real, real world, holding hands as they emerge into green fields, singing birds, and blue skies.
Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking: this is all contradicted by the Animatrix shorts. And I did think of all this before remembering that the Animatrix shorts give the history of the Matrix: and it's nothing like what I'm saying here. Then again, the Animatrix shorts (at least the ones giving the history) come from Zion's archives; perhaps the historical records kept there are also unreliable? (That's uncertain.)
Random Thoughts
And some random thoughts. - In the scene with the Architect, George W. Bush's picture does pop up on the television screens, right when the Architect is describing "the varying/various grotesqueries of your kind."
- Although the fight with the hundred Smiths is very cool, on a second viewing it becomes very clear that many of the shots are computer-animated. You can tell because there's a preternatural sleekness to Neo's coat during those shots--and an unusual deadness to his face (even beyond Keanu Reeves's usual deadpan).
- The Merovingian is a little freaked out by Neo. He says something along the lines that he's defeated every one of Neo's predecessors. But if Neo really is just another layer of control, what kind of "defeating" is supposed to happen? Isn't Neo meant to beat all the bad guys until he reaches the Architect and the white room with the two doors? If he is, then there's no good reason for the Merovingian to be freaked out, or to threaten Neo with destruction. On the other hand, the Architect may just be lying: Neo isn't another system of control, he's the key to breaking the system. And that's why the Architect gives Neo the choice he does at the end: the machines know that Neo will try to save Trinity, and now they're trying to wig him out by making him believe that he's just doomed Zion to destruction.
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