Matrix Reloaded -- SPOILERS!

[pkgrl]

Originally posted by stripes
The Oracle also tells Neo... what matters most is that he must understand why he made that choice. I like the connection you made with Trinity and the human race in general, rescuing Trinity then bringing her back to life could also symbolize his role for humanity:

Saving Trinity is essential, since that shows Neo cares, he's not one dimentional, he's fully rounded, and this love for Trinity is not selfish. If he could love her, he could love humanity. But this is stretching it I suppose, oh well.

Absolutely! Not that it's stretching, but I think you're right on the mark. My friends and I were talking about his love for Trinity making him different from his "predecessors" and also making him more like us, more human. He had more time (over 20 years) inside the Matrix before he was freed and he learned there how human he really was. That was his biggest obsticle in the first movie... he had to realize that he was more than human. But at his core, he's still human. We're told this over and over throughout Reloaded. The agents at the beginning say, "He is still..." "...only human" ; Counselor Hammond tells Neo that not sleeping well means that he is "in fact, still human" ; the Marovingian tells his men (when Neo stops the blade with his bare hand) "See? He's just a man" ; and the Archtect tells Neo that he is "irrevocably human."

I would also like to comment on the whole Christ angle of these movies, in the original, Neo was shot dead, but then came back to life, the resurrection anyone?

Perhaps Revolutions will be the Armaggedon of the bible(the battle in Zion), agent Smith(Bane) is the anti-Christ, and Neo the savior king? But not literally of course, but as a symbolism if we are to expand on the Christ=Neo mytho of the series?

Also, right on the money. Neo is the "chosen one" or the savior of humanity. Smith is his opposite... the "anti-Christ" for want of a better term, also the devil or fallen angel, since he once was part of the Matrix and "fell" when Neo destroyed him. Now he is "unplugged," on his own, and doing whatever he wants.

When can we start discussing those cool effects and out of nowhere gags(it was a fun brawl, what made it more fun was Neo ending it by doing his "superman thing", and all the Smiths looking speechless with a kind of WTF? look on their faces, )?

I also liked Neo's "You could have just asked", line to the Oracle's bodyguard. Neo's one cool hero.

You are SOOOOO right! I loved the effects. I can't believe that anyone can actually see the digital Neo as a digital effect... wire work always looked fake to me, but I learned quickly to accept it, and during the Neo/Smith(s) fight I just flowed with everything: the slo-mo, the rolls, the kicks, the flips, the flying, the cool signpost moves (even heard the hollow hum of the thing), and the sheer number of Smiths that showed up. I just accepted it. On the fourth viewing, I looked for places where Neo looked digital, but couldn't see it. So I'm back to just accepting everything I see.

Hugo Weaving ROCKS! I loved his mutliple reactions to Neo's flight at the end of that battle. Each one was just a bit different from the others. One was definately super-p*ssed, but another was merely curious, and another even impressed. I love seeing those reactions over and over.

Can't wait to see what others think!

[stripes]

Yeah, exactly! And I agree with the special effects, the car chase is the Helm's Deep of the Matrix!(as cited by a critic).

Yes, one Smith was annoyed, another was curious, another puzzled, and others with just blank stares, it was very interesting.

[matrixfreak]

One thing no one has discussed (unless I'm blind) is the conversation Smith and Neo had before their big brawl. Smith Said "Somehow, something was copied or overwritten..." Not an exact quote, but you get the idea. At the end of the first Matrix when neo 'dived' into smith and destroyed him, it seems as if some of their code was swaped/shared, whatever you call it. So, since Smith was once part of the Matrix and had some control over the machines, so must Neo now as well (thus Bane's abiltiy to set off the EMP and Neo's abililty to stop the Sentinels). Does this make sense? Let's elaborate.

[pkgrl]

Good point, freak. And welcome to the board! :wave:

Smith did say that something happened... something he doesn't understand. He seemed pretty mad that Neo got up in that hallway: "I watched you die." But Neo's resurrection triggered a very illogical response in Smith: he attacked Neo with hatred. I think this is when he realized that Neo had a purpose.

However Smith was resurrected (even he doesn't know) he came to feel more, become more emotional. Maybe this is how he came to realize that some part of Neo might have been merged with him. There's some element of humanity in Smith now. He has desire, drive, ambition, or, in his words, purpose.

He goes into a speach about purpose just before he tries to overwrite (or remake) Neo, when other incarnations of him show up. Purpose drives him and defines him. That's what he decides to take from Neo: his purpose.

Maybe he couldn't because Neo isn't completely sure what his purpose is: he still doesn't know WHY he's the One.

Hey, here's something else I remembered. During the Key Maker's story about the building that houses the "source", Neo has another vision, one in which the building itself seems to be infected, growing blemishes or tumors that knit together, then explode. The fact that these blemishes are the color of fire, and that Neo explodes out of the building in a blaze, is it simply a vision of what his action would do to the Matrix?

[dbuckingham]

Just thought that I would add my two cents worth on the Agent Smith v Neo theories.

It was quoted in a earlier post that when Agent Smith attacks Neo in the big brawl he attacks with Malice, I believe that this is partially due to the fact that Agent Smith hates Neo for what Agent Smith has become. At the end of the first movie where Neo defeats Agent Smith and as a result has changed him for the second movie (Agent Smith indicates in his talks with Neo that he has changed, something happened to him to make him different, he is no longer an Agent in the essence that he was, he is now a separate entity existing within the Matrix). And I believe this is where the a larger part of the issue is!

In the first movie where Agent Smith asks to speak to Morpheus alone, he tells Morpheus that he must have the access codes to Zion’s mainframes for he "cannot stand it here!, it is the stink of it" (something like that anyway). Smith indicates his hate and discuss of the Matrix and wants out of it and is prepared to do anything to get out. However this changed when Neo did what ever he did. Now Smith is trapped within the Matrix, the one place he did not want to be. That is enough reason for Smith to want revenge against Neo.

Having said that, i still see the possibility that his circumstances in things may have changed with his new "re-incarnation".

Also something that a few colleagues at work have discussed concerning Neo stoping the Sentinels within the tunnels: We are given the impression that Neo has stopped the Sentinels somehow, However, it is only moments after the sentinels are defeated that the second ship appears to rescue Neo, Trin and Morph, is it possible that this ship used its EMP to disable the Sentinels? The something different that Neo feels could have been interference/turbulence caused by the EMP shock wave.

I have sort of discredited this thought for I would not think that the other ship would have to have been powered down to fire the EMP, but it is possible that it could quickly power up again and go? Also they potentially would have said something in their discussions on board.

Just some thoughts.

[Tabitha]

Hello! Thought I'd weigh in, I have just seen the film, and am still processing it all. I have been having a look over the above posts, and am struck by how much detail you lot all remembered - I found the film to be an incredible info-dump. Did you all take notepads in or something?

I am quite impressed with the overall experience, although I am quietly hoping that there is an unexpected explanation for Neo's powers in the 'real world', and that if they do decide to go down the route of telling us that the 'real world' is actually the Matrix, they make a good job of it, 'cause right now it seems far too obvious that that is the solution.

As shown in all the previews, the scene where Neo fights the multiple Smiths for the first time was pretty amazing, but I personally thought the CGI was too obvious in one or two places, and that really detracted from my enjoyment of the scene. In particular the segment where Neo runs along the Smiths as he swivels around the poll. Just looked a bit too fake for me.

And choices, choices, choices. Neo's choice, offered by the Architect reminded me of the choice he was told he would have to make regarding Morpheus' death in the first film. Well, maybe it's not exactly the same, but the scenario, combined with him bringing Trinity back to life, much as he brought himself back to life at the end of the first film, seemed a little too repetitive.

I want to watch this again, soon, and many times! Forgive my nitpicking, I enjoyed it really!

[stripes]

Concerning the note pads

I also brought my lap top, just in case I got tired of using my pen. No, your right, its incrediable how we remembered. Anyway, I also noticed that the Burly Brawl seemed a little too digital. Here's possibly a explanation: before Reloaded was released, I read a article on this fight scene, and the Wachawskis intended it to look anime, so I can see why it was made to look almost cartoonish.

I agree, this fight scene was amazing, my favorite fight sequence next to the chase.

[timdgreat]

As far as im concerned i liked the CGI effects in the Burly Brawl, instead of subtracting from the experinece i thought they made it look cooler, I mean Neo and the Smiths are supposed to be faster and be able to move in ways that would be impossible for regular people, so when i saw scenes that were obviously CGI i just thought of them as the charecters doing something that we wouldnt see regularly so thats why it looks so diffrent

A new question i thought up after seeing it a 5th time:blush:

doesnt the archetect say that the matrix will be destroyed if Neo goes back to it to save Trinity? If he did then why wasnt it destroyed? (i beleive that the reason it isnt destroyed later is cause of Smith taking over everything, but it seems to be that he wouldnt have the power to stop it from being destroyed, so why wasnt it?

This point^ confuses me :rolly2:

[cersei]

wow, been looking around for some intelligent chat about Matrix Reloaded and am so glad to have found it here. here are my 2 cents anyway..

SPOILERS AHEAD...

This is how I understand the situation to be...The Architect made the first Matrix which though "perfect" to him was flawed and humans rejected it...hence the "Mother of The Matrix" (and contrary to some, I do not think this is the Oracle since on Neo suggesting her name, the Architect says, "Please!" as if to dismiss that silly notion) suggested a solution where the 1% humans whom would reject The Matrix can be placed into "Zion"...I believe this means a separate programme which though still plugged in, these "rebels" would make the "choice" (an artifical one as it seems, a theme in Reloaded) to be free...

However, depsite his best attempts, this near perfect soution still has an anomaly which turns up eventually...ie Neo...and if left unchecked, this anomaly will threaten the entire Matrix (and hence also Zion/Real world programme) thus all humans...

To solve this, the Oracle progamme is created, which with help of other programmes like Keymaker, guides Neo into this "prophecy" which purpose is NOT to free Zion but rather to guide Neo back to the meet the Architect, where he can be persuaded, due to his inherent love for humanity, to enter the Source door, thus reintegrating his code and allowing a reboot (hence The Matrix Reloaded...such a clever title in hindsight)...

This has already happenend 5 times before in what seems like 100 year cycles (and if war in Animatrix is accurate, then the REAL world must be about year 2600's but it appears to each Matrix like 1900's/2000's and to each Zion rebel as 2100's)...When Neo returns to the source, Zion is destroyed, both literally as those humans plugged into the programme is killed and also represented in Zion by the sentinel attack but Neo can choose 23 humans currently in Matrix Programme (by the way, 23 coz 23 human chromosomes?) to rebuild Zion ie inserted into a new Zion ver 6.0 programme...(hence fulfilling what Morpheus says back in The Matrix about another whom could "manipulate the Matrix and freed the first of us").

What is different this time? Trinity. I believe each reload/version of Matrix has only a few constants inc. Neo & Oracle but others like Morpheus and Trinity changes from version to version (since the Machines do allow them to have "free" runnning otherwise). This time, Neo's love for Trinity overwhelms his love for humanity in general...and even though the Architect purposely shows him that Trinity dying and in fact will die (another constant is the Machines do not seem capable of lying.....neither the Architect or Oracle ever does if you listen to what they say carefully), he still chooses emotion over logic and exits via the Matrix door instead

So this opens up a whole new can of worms since from this point on, things are no longer in Machines control as it had been right up to this point....Neo is changed since returning to the "real world" hence sensing something is wrong and being able to stop the sentinels as such...this causes him to fall into a coma.....

Bane too falls into a coma since he is taken over by Smith (also explaining why Smith can inhabit the "real world" since it is only another programme) he too can manipulate the real world which he did in foiling the counter-attack or saving himself from the sentinels...using this ability (first time anyway) seems to cause one to fall into a coma, perhaps as a failsafe by the machines as humans not meant to alter the real world programme..

Smith too is a new unknown element for the Machines...he is a self-replicating programme ie a virus and hence could seriously threaten the entire system since if left unchecked, could theoratically take over everyone in the Matrix/Zion.

So....still many questions left....

Who is the Mother of the Matrix? Since genders seem to be maintained ie "Father"is the Architect and Mother will be a female..the only 2 viable choices (if you think the Oracle is not) are Trinity...or Persephone (or is she an older version of Trinity as Merovingian is older version of Neo?)

Is Neo even human? It would seem more likely that Neo is a programme/anomaly that arises from the Matrix itself and not from any human host...it would explain why he can alter the Matrix and also why the 5 previous The One also looks like Neo/Keanu Reeves. Is his ultimate sacrifice to give himself up to save humans, thus unintentionally fulfilling the false prophecy?

How will it all end? "Happy ending" with humans being freed from machines? "Sad ending" with humans realising they can never be free of the Matrix/Zion? I think the clue as said by Counciller Hahn and The Oracle is Machines and Man working together and needing each other to survive....

well, roll on Revolutions!

[Tabitha]

Hey! You beat me to the "MOther" questions! Welcome to the board.

Neo "The Oracle..."
Architect "Please"

This "please" could either be interpreted as a "You silly humans and your mythologies for everything"; that they are referring to the same person/program, but the architect is just being disdainful... Or, the "please" could imply that suggesting that the rogue program, the oracle isn't in the Mother's league.

I think the "She" is either the oracle, or else someone or something we simply haven't met yet. I don't understand how it would be Persephone - why would she be spending all her years hanging around with that pretentious idiot? And Trinity? Well, there is the whole Messiah thing happening, but I certainly hope we don't encounter any *actual* pregnancies in the third movie :rollseyes: I doubt that Trinity is a newer incarnation of a female equivalent to Neo, as there seems to be the suggestion that his love for her seems to be a much stronger link to humanity than any of the previous "Ones" have had.

To solve this, the Oracle progamme is created, which with help of other programmes like Keymaker, guides Neo into this "prophecy" which purpose is NOT to free Zion but rather to guide Neo back to the meet the Architect, where he can be persuaded, due to his inherent love for humanity, to enter the Source door, thus reintegrating his code and allowing a reboot (hence The Matrix Reloaded...such a clever title in hindsight)...

This has already happenend 5 times before in what seems like 100 year cycles (and if war in Animatrix is accurate, then the REAL world must be about year 2600's but it appears to each Matrix like 1900's/2000's and to each Zion rebel as 2100's)...When Neo returns to the source, Zion is destroyed, both literally as those humans plugged into the programme is killed and also represented in Zion by the sentinel attack but Neo can choose 23 humans currently in Matrix Programme (by the way, 23 coz 23 human chromosomes?) to rebuild Zion ie inserted into a new Zion ver 6.0 programme...(hence fulfilling what Morpheus says back in The Matrix about another whom could "manipulate the Matrix and freed the first of us").

Ok, here's where I start to get very confused.

Neo is left with two choices:
1) Sacrifice Zion, but save the rest of humanity living out their lives in the Matrix, which will be rebooted once Neo goes through the door on his right?

Can anyone expand upon the new Zion? Does the Architect offer to unplug 23 people from the Matrix and 'give' them to Neo to start a real-world Zion from scratch? Or is this some kind of virtual Zion? Was Persephone's boyfriend (sorry, can't remember his name) a program anomaly, or is he living in the real world too? If it is a real-world one, why don't the few survivors pass down a more useful legend than the one about "The One"? Couldn't records be saved?
Have I totally misinterpreted this?

His other choice is to...
2) Try to save Trinity, knowing that he doesn't have enough time. Zion will still be destroyed, but the people plugged into the Matrix will also die (or be unplugged?), and the machines will survive without their little duracells for a while.

By the way, I really really like your interpretation:
"a solution where the 1% humans whom would reject The Matrix can be placed into "Zion"...I believe this means a separate programme which though still plugged in, these "rebels" would make the "choice" (an artifical one as it seems, a theme in Reloaded) to be free..."

Nice catch on the 23 chromosomes thing - but something else that might also be linked to this, did anyone notice the composition of the council? I am pretty sure it was about twenty, and there were definitely more women than men. Hmmm, the last generation, perhaps? And this might give the Councillor's discussion with Neo on the engineering level - about how Machines and humans will have to symbiotic on some level, even if the humans win - a bit more depth, perhaps?

As much as it pains me to think it, I am almost convinced that what we have known as "The Real World"tm for these past two films, is going to be revealed as another level of the matrix.
My reasoning? Almost certainly that Neo having superpowers in the real world just doesn't fit, does it? Smith being able to control a human being beyond the Matrix is also suspicious, but most of all, the things Smith said in the first movie, and the Architect echoed in Reloaded. Humanity wouldn't buy a perfect world? It resisted the programming when it was presented with perfection, and the day-to-day miseries of the late 20th C were much easier to sell to our psyches.

Lets take that one step further - what do we all do in our spare time? Read books, watch movies, play computer games, watch television. A lot of our lives are taken up by immersing ourselves in various works of fiction, and what better action-adventure role playing is there for the computer hacking, SF-fan minority than imagining we are all part of a huge conspiracy in a post-apocalyptic future, where nothing is what is seems, and everyone really IS out to get you.
So, you make a more complicated fiction for the minds of those who might actually figure it all out, well, maybe they wouldn't, but you kind of see what I'm getting at, right?

Ok, that was a stream of consciousness kind of thing, not sure if any of it made sense...



I think this movie raises far more questions than it answers, and I am very very happy I won't have to wait three years, like the gap between Star Wars movies!

[cersei]

Thank you for kind words. Well, let me try to answer your questions about Zion...

I believe Zion is (and always been) another sub-programme created by the Machines to continue enslave those resistant 1% to make them believe they are uplugged. However since the anomaly (Neo) persists each version of Matrix, the whole programme has to be rebooted.

This can be done for The Matrix but for those pesky resistant rebels in Zion, termination is necessary. However because the Machines can predict future resistant people whom will arise, a new ZIon must be created. Neo, if he returns to source, can identify these 23 people (with resistance tendencies?) whom can be "unplugged" (not literally but just made to think they are) to form Zion and start building a new population between breeding/freeing more minds....as I have said, it fits with Morpheus saying in first film about another "one" whom could manipulate the Matrix and freed the first of us...

Merovingian (a name for family believed to have descended form a child between Christ and Mary Madelyne) is another rogue programme which has been around and survived previous Matrix reloads (hence being "an old programme", having faced previous Neo's and also a man of power.....is he an old Neo which refuse to be deleted?)....

We have yet to be shown any REAL WORLD as what is shown is just another programme/layer of the Matrix...is there even a real world at all? Only the W Brothers will know and we will have to wait 6 months

[Dave]

Nice insights on the number 23 and the names, Cersei. Welcome to the board, and your nice comment about our "intelligent" discussion.

I'm sure that the numbers and names are important clues to the plot, because they were in 'The Matrix' too -- Morpheus being the God of Dreams, Neo being an anagram of One, etc.

On the Architect "Please" quote, I just thought he wanted Neo to stop interrupting him, though I'd have to watch it again to be sure. Since I've only seen it once, rather than the three times some people have (is that four times now???) I'll have to give way to your better memories.

[dbuckingham]

.http://www.geekroar.com/film/archives/000256.php

A good site worth looking at, in particular it has the transcript for the Neo / Architect discussion. There are also a lot of other good posts up there. Might be helpful for some people.

Dan.

[cersei]

I am not sure if the Architect says "Please" in response to Neo asking if he meant the Oracle as the Mother of the Matrix coz:

1) The very thought that The Oracle could be considered as the Mother of the Matrix is silly notion to the Architect

2) The name "Oracle" given to this simple guiding programme which does not really have any future-telling abilities is silly

3) He does not want Neo to keep interrupting him...in which case he has not confirmed nor deny if the Oracle is the Mother he is alluding to...

What other movie can you have such deep debates about a single word eh? hehe and in one action one with bullets/kung-fu/car chases too

[pkgrl]

Welcome aboard, dbuckinham and cersei! :wave: Good to see more people in this discussion, too!

First, I think dbuckingham's right in dismissing collegues' theory that the other ship fired its EMP just when Neo stopped the machines. I think Neo did indeed stop them himself. In fact, when he says "something's different," I think he's demonstrating for us something that happened to him when he left the source. I think acting on his decision to save Trinity changed him.

And Tabitha:

did you all take notepads in or something?

As a matter of fact, I did. :blush:

doesnt the archetect say that the matrix will be destroyed if Neo goes back to it to save Trinity? If he did then why wasnt it destroyed?

No. As a matter of fact, the Architect said that Neo's failure to return to the source would result in a system-wide crash that would kill everyone connected to the Matrix, not destroy the Matrix itself. While this may be true (and are we assuming that, as a being of reason, the Architect only tells the truth?) it would take time for the crash and subsequent effects of it. (Did I mention that I taped a bit of it, too? :blush: )


Okay... now that I've finally caught up and read all the newer replies, I just have one thing to say:


You're blowing my "Neo fighting to become god" theory all to he[[! Good on ya!

Okay, I still have more to say. :blush: This is the first time I've heard a coherant explanation for how Zion and the "real" world could still be another layer of the Matrix:

a solution where the 1% humans whom would reject The Matrix can be placed into "Zion"...I believe this means a separate programme which though still plugged in, these "rebels" would make the "choice" (an artifical one as it seems, a theme in Reloaded) to be free...

Sounds likely to me. Thanks, cersei!

As for the Architect's "please," I always thought it sounded dismissive, like there's no way the Oracle could be the "mother" of the Matrix... but it made me sad and wonder if it was added in because Gloria Foster died before she could finish her part in Revolutions. It may be that the W bros had to scramble and rethink another "mother" of the Matrix, then added in the Architect's dismissive "please" later. Remember, Reloaded was originally going to be released last year, but the pick up shots lasted a lot longer due to Alleya's(sp?) death. Real life intrudes on the making of the Matrix, too.

As for the previous versions of the "One," I don't think that they looked like Neo at all. I think the images on the TV screens behind Neo and the Architect are all Neo... throughout his "childhood." They're images that Neo will recognize. Notice that many of them are images of what happened to him in the original movie. I think, especially if cersei is right and Neo is just another program, that his "look" changes every time as a way of trying to disguise itself from the Matrix. Why else would it have taken Morpheus and the others so much longer to find Neo? Remember that Morpheus told Neo that it was risky "freeing" Neo's mind at such a late time in his life because the mind has trouble "letting go" of the Matrix. Most minds that are going to be "freed" are so released at a younger age. Thus, the other "potentials" in the Oracle's apartment were all children.

And I tried to count the councel members, and it looked like 12, not 23.

P.S. If we're counting, I'm up to 6 viewings.