Unplugging The Matrix Why the sci-fi franchise went south. By Matt Feeney Posted Friday, Nov. 7, 2003, at 11:07 AM PT The good news is that the conclusion of the Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Revolutions, is not quite as terrible as the second entry, The Matrix Reloaded. Reloaded was downright infuriating, with its portentous monologues and willful rejection of narrative coherence. Revolutions, as a thudding sci-fi war movie, is merely disorienting and unfathomable. From the standpoint of the original it is profoundly disappointing, but it does have its own romantic and martial intensity. The bad news is that that, in tandem with Reloaded, it achieves a kind of cumulative badness that will permanently and unfairly stain the reputation of the original. How did something so good go so wrong? It seems that, in conceiving their pair of sequels to The Matrix, the writing and directing team of Andy and Larry Wachowski overestimated the profundity of the original's philosophical musings. The resulting ponderousness might have been excusable, except that they disastrously misidentified which of those musings was most important to the original—namely, the Matrix itself. In the sequels, the Wachowskis ditched the conceit of the Matrix, the computer program in which all of humanity, save for a few thousand enlightened souls inhabiting an underground city called Zion, is unwittingly trapped. That, in turn, removed virtually everything distinctive and meaningful about the original film—its hipster skepticism, its strangely compelling logic of human striving, and, perhaps most fundamentally, the storytelling discipline that imposed a gorgeous economy on almost every scene. The Matrix, it turns out, is nothing without the Matrix. Brevity is the soul not only of wit but of the paranoid buzz of the best sci-fi action movies. It's instructive, in light of the sequels' maddening long-windedness, to remember how teasingly elliptical the original Matrix was, not only in its exposition but in its most memorable dramatic moments. The deliciousness of our introduction to Trinity—her gravity-mocking, gloriously abrupt dispatch of four clueless cops—is of a piece with the utter coolness of her introduction to Neo, which is the movie's first bit of exposition: "Hello, Neo." "How do you know that name?" Neo's story, then, starts with a question, a mystery (whose effect may have less to do with its philosophical intimations than with the fact that the Prodigy's "Mindfields" is blipping and slamming apocalyptically in the background). After Trinity breathes into Neo's ear, "It's the question that drives us," the encounter climaxes with Neo forming that question, on his own lips, apparently for the first time: "What is the Matrix?" This entire conversation, despite its tentative, druggy pace, takes about 90 seconds. Continue Article -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Denby, in his New Yorker review of Revolutions, argues that the original Matrix rested on a host of "clichéd science-fiction elements," in that "n sci-fi, the machines are always taking over." But Denby achieves this dismissiveness only with the aid of hindsight. I bet when he was first confronted with The Question—"What is the Matrix?"—he didn't know the answer, either. And if he's any kind of movie buff, he found the Wachowski brothers' way of hinting that there was something both irresistible and dreadful about that answer—of conjuring paranoia out of Neo's skepticism and existential vertigo out of his discoveries—to be pretty damned cool. But The Matrix did more than just pose The Question. Even after Neo learned the truth about the Matrix, he had a few things to learn about himself, the ostensible One. Denby is correct, in a strictly empirical sense, when he identifies traditional sci-fi elements in The Matrix, but the movie actually takes the form of a bildungsroman, an old-fashioned quest for understanding. Luckily for the audience, in the first film Neo's epiphanies occur not in contemplation but in action. Every action sequence in The Matrix—from Neo's training fights with Morpheus to his final destruction of Smith—is also a step in Neo's process of discovery. These scenes are not only streamlined and thrilling, but revelatory. The long action sequences in the sequels have no point at all, which the Wachowskis try to compensate for by drawing them out and cramming them with more digital bad guys. One result of this is that Reloaded contains the most spectacular chase scene that you will ever check your voice mail during. Another thing that the original got exactly right, and that the sequels lose control of, is style. The overcooked grooviness of Trinity's fetishy patent leather and Morpheus' pince-nez shades was a guilty pleasure, no doubt, but it was part of a weirdness that had yet to be explained. It signaled their status as demigods: Whatever the hell the Matrix was, it had something to do with the fact that these people, in some vague but objective sense, were way cooler than everybody else. The sequels use the leather-clad bodies of Neo and Trinity, within the green-filtered Matrix palette, to generate some striking compositions, but they feel like just compositions, art photography. There is nothing left for these style riffs to signify, which makes them feel not just inert, but, when viewed as expressions of Zion's hippie earnestness, kind of dorky. The Matrix—the conceit that most of the human race was living in a virtual dream-state, awaiting deliverance from a rag-tag gang of hackers and visionaries—is an extremely fertile dramatic device. It is the question that Neo had to answer and the obstacle he had to overcome. It is the cosmic basis for both early-Neo's groggy alienation and late-Neo's unique brand of whoop-ass. It provides a narrative structure in which some giddily convincing sci-fi pathos emerge: paranoia, dread, existential bravery, transcendent romance. It affords plausible-enough background explanation for some of the most inventive, deftly realized action sequences ever shot. And it offers a pleasing pretext for draping this whole cluster of effects in really cool clothes. But what it doesn't provide—and what, until the sequels, I didn't think it pretended to provide—was philosophical insight. It seemed fitting that, by way of signaling their philosophical influences in the original, the Wachowskis had Neo pulling from a shelf not Plato's Republic nor Descartes' Meditations, Western philosophy's signal treatments of the appearance/reality problem, but Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard is the French postmodernist who comes closest to the stony spirit (and the philosophical sophistication) of the freshman dorm: "Dude, what if this all isn't, like, really reality, but instead it's, like, a simulation of reality?" (And, yes, Neo's copy of Simulacra was itself merely a hollowed-out hiding place, the appearance, so to speak, of a Simulacra. Sigh.) But in the sequels the Wachowskis drop the enduring but pleasingly simple appearance/reality problem, which is where the Matrix's real buzz comes from. They instead treat Morpheus' incoherent and New Agey murmurings about Fate as the central issue, which is a real buzz-kill. First, it leads to a series of numbing litanies on human agency. Reloaded airs out four distinct theories of causality and action: Neo's insistence on free will, Morpheus' benign fatalism, the Architect's malign fatalism, and the Mervingian's scientific determinism. This is boring enough, but worse is that, with Fate displacing Reality as the central pseudo-philosophical issue, the Matrix loses its central place in The Matrix. Though Neo and his crew continue to nose around the nooks and crannies of the Matrix's program, both sequels ignore the fate of people still trapped. We no longer get to participate in the giddy, awful process of enlightenment and emancipation, and the fragile semblance of logic that drew from the original's tidy dualism totally collapses. (Reloaded signals its abandonment of even the pretense of coherence when Neo, head bowed and hand extended in the stance of a Pentecostal faith healer, stops several real-world machines in their tracks. By this time, the audience's response is, "Ah, what the hell. Why not?") The Fate we're supposed to care about is, alas, that of gloomy Zion, where Jada Pinkett Smith sets the tone with her scowl. Much of the action in Zion consists of legislative hearings held by ponderous middle-aged counselors dressed not in snazzy leather but in canvas smocks. (Cornel West, the poster boy for dreary academism, plays one of them.) This lends the proceedings a neo-medieval vibe that is totally out of keeping with the original Matrix but weirdly, grimly familiar from other sci-fi franchises. The Wachowski brothers, moved by some inscrutable nerd-muse, apparently decided that the one glaring flaw of the original Matrix, besides the whole superfluous Matrix thing, was that it didn't feel enough like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I'll go ahead and post my impressions of the movie as well... I won't say that I didn't like it - I thought it was just OK. Kinda disappointed how there were still a fair share of unanswered questions. Didn't like the way the final battle between Smith and Neo ended. Not much good action - shooting the million identical looking sentinels gets pretty lame. Some parts were cool, but all in all, too much philosophy bull**** that I didn't quite understand. God everytime the frenchman or the Oracle opens their mouths, it's a streaming pile of BS. The first Matrix was one of the best movies I've ever seen. Reloaded was pretty decent - the killer action sequences were its saving grace. Revolutions just wasn't that good.
i've seen it a few times b/c i downloaded it after i went to see it in the theater....and the movie left me wonder....ummm...what's wrong here....was the movie really that easy to understand....compared to the other 2, where there were hidden ideas and made u think ....this movie was plain jane and straight forward.....i thought the movie was ok....just left me specchless....b/c i was wondering is that is it....i think the ending climax was kinda weak....the fight seen was really awesome visually, but kinda sucked, and like the previous guy said...dragonballz like....but overall i like it....i have to rate it last in the series....Matrix then Reloaded and Revolutions.....i think there should be a 2nd trilogy w/ the Sati.....however u spell her name, i wouldn't be surprised if there is.....
I think both sides were fighting under the assumption that the only way to win is to totally anhialiate the other because that's what they're opponent is thinking. Yet in the end, both sides realized they need each other to survive and realized the only true way to win is to not fight at all (Wargames anyone?)
The banter between Leah and Solo, C3PO & R2D2, Solo and Chewbaka? The furry little Ewalks (sp.)? The goofy stereotypical character from the Phantom Menance that they shut down in Clones. I am not saying Lucus didn't spend on lot of time on effort on having some coherence to the plot and on the story--but there was always a healthy sprinkling of cheese throughout the series (especially the original 3)--most of it intended IMO. This is dead on my take as well.
The explanation for the Oracle's change was much better in the videos from the game that I saw than in Revolutions. If I remember, in the game she says that Sati's parents helped the Merovingian obtain deletion codes for the Oracle in exchange for Sati's safety. The Oracle allowed herself to be partially destroyed because she thought that Sati would be very important someday.
See, to me, that's just Lucas' writing. For it to be intended the script has to be self aware in some way. As godawful as Batman and Robin was, it was clear that they were going for cheese, for example - the 60's sound effects during the fight - and that's intended. The banter, C3PO/R2D2...that's just the writing, in an attempt to create 'funny' characters. The Ewoks were Lucas appealing to the younger audience. Jar Jar was a dismal, disastrous combination of the two. I don't know..I just don't see it as intended. Look at the 'drama' between Anakin and whatshername...as lame as writing gets, but never really seems to be that way on purpose. They are actually supposed to be serious scenes. The thing is - for as creative a person as lucas is - he can't really write dialog and is a subpar director. That's why EMPIRE is one of the best...he didn't direct.
Wow..there was a lot of action...endless action. Pretty good. Not awesome or anything...just a continuation of the Matrix... Neo dies!
im sorry i do not see how its possible not to think that this is not better then reloaded. i thought reloaded was pretty good. but i found myself to be very bored at times. (at least more then the 3rd one.) i also think revolutions is cornier then reloaded, maybe thats why some of you like the 2nd better. the matrix 9.5 reloaded 6 revolutions 8 those are my scores...
I was bored from the minute the movie started, to just before the Smith-Neo fight scene at the end. That scene was the only scene in the entire movie that matched the multitude of amazing scenes in Reloaded. In terms of an action movie, not a film: Matrix - 9 Reloaded - 10 Revolutions - 5
I actually thought the movie was pretty good, but I was pissed they didn't explain ANYTHING. The Oracle (and Neo) alluded to his ability to stop Sentinels, but the reasoning was God awful. Still, the Neo-Agent Smith fight was awesome, and the Zion action held my attention. Plus, the guy who played Bane did a DEAD-ON Hugo Weaving impression (much better than even my famed Smith impression ). I'd say that Revolutions was better than Reloaded, but both pale in comparison to the original. Heck, put both sequels together, and they STILL won't compare to the first one... --------- SPOILERS ------------ What the hell was the whole "Trainman-Limbo" thing about? Was that even necessary to the general plot? I understand that the Merovingian was Hades. He's head of "Club Hell" and has Persephone as his wife. Plus, he's in charge of "Limbo" in a way (for programs and I guess Neo, too). Why mix religion and Greek mythology? What's the point? I wish they better explained how Neo beat Smith at the end. Sure, I can deduce how it was done, but it's not clear at all. I think it has something to do with the Oracle triggering something in Neo (so he finally figures it out) and the Head Machine Dude sending a virus protection program through Agent Neo (or something akin to that), but what do I know? It was just one of those "take it as face value" kind of movie scenes. Trinity's parting scene went on WAY too long. Think of it as Revolutions' "rave scene." We get it: They love each other. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Sacrifice is a b****. Yadda yadda yadda. More action, please. Morpheus did jack all movie. One measly fight scene. Seraph was equally disappointing. How come Seraph didn't fight the heroes to ensure they were actually who they said they were (a la Reloaded)? "Love is just a word." "Karma is just a word." Oh, yeah, Wack-job brothers? Philosophy is just a word, too. I can make up cool-ass proverbs, and pass them off as wise. "It is not Revolutions' dialogue that stirs the soul; rather, the soul stirs from the listener's level of karmatic reaction." Neat, eh? I've said absolutely nothing, but I am now VesceySux the Wise. A truce between machines and humans? Huh? Why would the machines do that? Do they really expect peace? Did they even watch the Animatrix? Um, so humans "scorch the sky," yet there's sun above the clouds. As someone else in this thread pointed out, why wouldn't the machines just build really tall towers and harness the sun's power? Okay, as a Jew, I really know nothing about Christianity (or most other religions for that matter). Someone enlighten me on whom each character represents. (My wife and I were discussing this.) Neo = Jesus. Trinity = Mary Magdalene. Architect = God. Oracle = Holy Spirit. Agent Smith/Bane = Anti-christ. Morpheus = Paul(?). Cypher (Joey Pants from first movie) = Judas. Are we on the right track?
If you had to pick someone, I would guess it would be John the Baptist. John was "in the know" baptizing people in the wilderness, showing them the real meaning of life. Morpheus was releasing people out of the matrix. John the baptist knew that he was nothing compared to Jesus (that whose sandals I am unfit to tie...) Morpheus knew that his job was to bring the One out of the Matrix, but that his power was not comparable to him. There are several flaws in that analogy, the fact that Morpheus doesn't die is one, as John the B was beheaded in prison.
Well if Neo is to be viewed as Christ then he must be both man and program/machine...so the trainman limbo scene was a consciousness equal to one with the mindset of Christ who really doesn't know they are Christ...sort of Neo's welcome to being a messiah...not excactly Catholic Trinitarian Theology but something to that effect is what I think they were going for... As far as Neo being Christ, I know that is what they were going for but there are way too many flaws in that... All the bad programs are Devils and demons, good programs like the Oracle and such are angels... Smith is of course evil, Satan...I don't know if he has any good in him... so its hard that he represent the devil even the devil has a good in that he exists...so Smith is more like the permeating and infectious evil that... Trinity stands quite simply for the Trinity....The ship logos or "word" ...i.e. the father utters a word and that word is Christ...so either Neo is what man is called to be through Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Father as brought to you by the logos or word...or they were just feeling fun and fancy free with their symbols... Morpheus and the others could be any of the disciples...doesn't seem like they tried to hard to connect any of them with each other... The architect doesn't neccesarily equal God...although its probably not to far off.... Anyway, as a Christian Allegory the thing has more holes in it than swiss cheese (especially the high use of the Lord's name in vain, which I was waiting for most of them to be smited for, but never happened) unless they just want to keep it simple and say, Neo learns that Love, or his position as savior is more than just a word..its a connection, one that he must make with all of the other humans...and then he dies for his people...yada yada yada
Mulder, you're exactly right. That was my wife's suggestion. I just plum forget about John when I posted (hence, the question mark after Paul). Thanks for reminding me. A-freaking-men. Your analysis of Trinity is interesting. I looked up "Merovingian" on the internet and found a curious article. Apparently (according to the author), the Merovingian kings descended from a race of "fallen angels." Satan, as we know, was a fallen angel. Hades and Satan are somewhat related. Perhaps there's my connection...
why do you guys think that this movie and others (starwars :attack of the clones) have so many pointless love scenes in them. i can completly understand some, but reaching in grabbing the heart. and trinity taking soooo long to die in what i think is suppost to be the climax of the movie. and also in (clones) rolling around in a field laughing, or when senator amha dalla sp* jumps down at the end of the movie and kisses the bad actor guy on the neck. its just really cheesy, and everyone complains about it. i just dont understand why they do it. there are plenty of chick movies out there why do they try so hard to incorporate it into what are esentially suppost to be guy movies. ~just dumb, but maybe they will learn some day.
I still don't understand how Sati ended up with the Oracle, and why the Merovingian would help the Oracle obtain her if he wanted the Oracle dead.
Well every story ever told is ultimately a love story....its kind of hard to get away from...just a matter of excecution, which they do do quite cheesely..I didn't mind though...
I didnt mind as much in the matrix movies. but attack of the clones is just plain bad. theres just so much i can take, and they surpassed it.
Spoilers - spoilers - spoilers Deconstruction of the Matrix http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/051803matrix.htm http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/031109matrix.htm by Ken Mondschein "First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth, The everlasting seat of all that is, And Love." —Hesiod Due to some oversight on the part of Warner Brothers, I had to wait until the Friday after Revolutions' Wednesday opening (and the Tuesday press screening) to see the last chapter of the Matrix trilogy. No matter: I took Friday-night kickboxing class at the dojo, crammed a bite to eat into my gulliver, and met my friend Gwinny at the Union Square movie theater for the 9:45 show. There's no better place to see an action blockbuster than surrounded by a bunch of sardonic NYU film students, and no better state of mind to see it in than just after having had some guy's knee rammed repeatedly into your solar plexus. Like its predecessors, Matrix Revolutions references a slew of canonical texts. Unfortunately, in addition to Platonic philosophy and Scholastic theology, these texts also included World War II movies, J.R.R. Tolkien, Aliens, Return of the Jedi, "Dragonball Z," and the bonus-round stage of Galaxian. There was a bit less kung fu in this one, the pace was quicker, and large portions of the special-effects budget was spent on constructing technological toys that would make good action figures. This means that the movie might seem more intellectually vapid than its predecessors, but it wasn't—it just decided not to bore everyone by showing the action rather than talking about it. Though it's a bit simpler than the original Matrix and Reloaded, the Brothers W still managed to get a fair bit of important ideas in. In brief, Revolutions' metaphysical themes can be summed by two very important quotes: "Love is just a word," and "Because I choose to." Oh, yeah: This is totally filled with spoilers, so consider yourself warned. "Love is just a word." When the movie opens, Neo is in Limbo, sharing an immaculately clean train platform with a lovely South Asian family who are en route to bring their daughter, Sati ("righteousness"), to the Oracle. The product of two programs, Sati serves no useful purpose, and so she is queued for deletion, but her parents, themselves daemons from the false computer world, don't wish their beloved daughter to be consigned to the great recycling bin in the sky, so they're taking her to where she'll be safe. But their actions are a bit perplexing to our hero. "You… love?" Keanu asks Papa Program, furrowing his brow ever so slightly. "Love is just a word," he replies. Yup. "Love," like "righteousness," or for that matter, "yellow" is just a word—but it's also more than that. Plato posited that these concepts—or Ideas—have actual existence and form, albeit in some transcendent form that we, being shackled in our material bodies, cannot experience directly. However, we can know them indirectly—an action is good, or a flower is yellow. These concepts passed into Christian theology when Augustine, writing in the fourth century, located these Ideas in the mind of God. In the Middle Ages, this position—called "Realism"—was challenged by another called "Nominalism." Whereas Realists held that there was some essence, some "quiddity" ("thing-ness") that makes something what it is—say, that makes a chair a chair or an elephant an elephant—Nominalists held that these were just words. After all, at what point is a chair no longer a chair? It can't be mere functionality—you can sit on a desk, too, while it's possible for some modern artist to create a chair that looks like a chair, but that is impossible to sit on. Likewise, at what point in genetic manipulation is an elephant no longer an elephant? At its most radical, Nominalism holds that there is no essential essence to anything, and things are only what we call them by convention, and that the words we give things do not match what they may actually be. Reality is fundamentally unknowable and, by extension, meaningless. This belief has theological implications, as well: Is there such a thing as Justice? Good? And, if not—never mind what this says for the possibility of personal transcendence—what was the point in striving for an unknowable ideal? Is the struggle to make the world a better place even worth the effort? In many ways, the Nominalist vs. Realist debate parallels the New Linguistics and postmodernism. Writers such as Derrida hold that language is just a series of signs not necessarily linked to the reality of the world. Baudrillard (whose work I'm more familiar with, and whose book Simulacra and Simulation makes a cameo in the first Matrix movie) writes that our society has made a fundamental break with anything that's real. When Baudrillard writes that the first Gulf War didn't really happen, he doesn't mean that people didn't really die in the Middle East and my friend Tony didn't get into a firefight with some Iraqis, but rather that for most of us, our perception of the event, how we experience it in our own universes, is entirely a media construct. We live in a world devoid of any real meaning. What the Wachowskis seem to be doing here is taking this thesis—that we can know truth and use it to give meaning to our existence—and its antithesis and arriving at a synthesis (shades of Hegel). Our names for things may be just words—but the things they signify really exist regardless of our ability to describe them. It's an important point, because without it, the rest of the events in the movie don't make much sense. And so on with the show. Passion and Warfare Much has been made of the fact that the Merovingian and his wife's breasts have fairly limited screen time in this installment. There are two reasons for this: One is that Monica Bellucci may be one of the most beautiful women in the world, but she smokes like a chimney and in the wrong lighting—i.e., not in a BDSM club—it really shows. The other reason is, as I pointed out last time, the Merovingian is a signpost, not a destination. He's one of the d(a)emons in Hell, not the Devil himself. In this case, he's just there bringing Neo back from the purgatory where he learned his important lesson about love and back to the "real world"—and finally ending his Dante-esque journey through Hell. Before he goes, however, he has to visit the Oracle, the Matrix's resident incarnation of the goddess Sophia ("Wisdom"), to get the 411 on what's up and refuse another red pill. (Note, however, that the song playing is Duke Ellington's "Beginning to See the Light." Mary Alice's Oracle is as good as can be expected as she helps Neo figure out exactly what he has to do. If Reloaded was a journey into the underworld, a la Dante's Inferno, then Revolutions is both the Battle of Armageddon and the story of Christ's Passion. No, it doesn't exactly follow either narrative, but then, the story's already bounced through half a dozen myths. Splitting the cast into two groups, besides reminding everyone of The Lord of the Rings, serves a symbolic purpose, as well. On the one hand are Morpheus, Niobe, and the defenders of Zion, representing Neo's disciples in the material world. On the other hand are the characters who represent metaphysical principles: Neo and Trinity, who set off towards highest reality, the machine citadel that controls all life on Earth. Neo's blinding by Bane is significant, and not only because his physical pain evokes Christ's passion (from the Latin passio, or "suffering"). Blindness, and vision, have special meanings in this movie—the Merovingian asks Trinity for the Oracle's eyes, and, later, Smith literally takes them (along with the rest of her body) when he assimilates her. (Note that he calls her "Mom"—with the Architect, she's the co-creator of the Matrix universe.) Though in Hebrew culture, the blind weren't especially blessed—in fact, anyone with a defect in their sight wasn't allowed into the Temple (Leviticus 21:20)—the Greeks saw otherwise. The poet Homer is widely depicted as blind, and, more significantly, the seer Tiresias was also visually challenged. (Tiresias, history's first transsexual, had spent seven years magically transformed into a woman. When Zeus and Hera had a dispute over whether men or women get more pleasure out of sex, they naturally asked him. Tiresias responded that out of ten parts of pleasure, women get nine. Angered, Hera struck him blind, but Zeus, to compensate, granted him the gift of prophecy. It would have been better if he had asked for multiple orgasms.) Similarly, blinded to the sometimes-false perceptions of his "real" eyes, Neo can now "see" the computer world more clearly with his mind. We've now reached a higher plane of reality than the Matrix or Zion: he's journeyed to the center of power, the light that casts all the shadows. It's like he's walked the Pattern and he's in the middle of Zelazny's Amber. Just like St. Paul, he was struck blind, but now he sees—albeit a bit differently. He can only see true reality—the power that controls the world. Neo and Trinity in fact reach the light quite literally: Evading the defenders of the machine citadel, they burst up above the clouds, and, in a glorious apotheosis, Trinity sees sunlight, actual sunlight—the first person to do so in hundreds of years. And then they crash back to earth, and Trinity is transfixed (wonderfully foreshadowed in the shot of Keanu Reeves in the pilot's seat with the spiky pylons in the background). Obviously, Trinity could not go on with Neo. Her death is both a plot point and theologically necessary: To fulfill the Christ parallel, Neo himself has to die at the end, and how is he going to do that with her around to save his ass? Also, if Trinity represents divine love, he has to go to the unholy place without her. ("Why have you forsaken me?" Jesus asks on the cross in Matthew 27:46.) **** just happens like that in these extended metaphors: Dante couldn't hang around with Beatrice and Petrarch didn't have a happy ending with Laura, either. So, Trinity goes (symbolically) back to heaven, and Neo goes on without her. (Whether due to the tension of what was obviously intended as an incredibly sad moment, or whether because of the shock of seeing Keanu Reeves actually display emotion, the NYU film students all chose this moment to crack up laughing. Personally, I don't think he was acting. His ex-girlfriend Jennifer Syme, who had delivered their first child stillborn in 1999, died in a car crash in 2001. The man has had enough sadness in his life.) "Because I choose to." "Why get up, Mr. Anderson? Why keep fighting? Peace? Love? Illusions. Constructs as artificial as the Matrix itself," Elrond sneers, vamping as good as he ever did in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Neo's answer, of course, is because he chooses to. His offering himself for cyber-crucifixion by the giant floating Wizard of Oz head/Goatse man/Eye of Sauron-thing in the machine fortress is a matter of choice; his choosing to fight Smith was a choice; his allowing himself to be assimilated by Smith was a choice. And, as I mentioned in my exegesis of the last movie, Neo, being human, has that which the machines cannot fathom, nor control: Free will. Previously, Neo chose not to re-enter the Source because of his love for Trinity (who, as her name implies, represents the divine, and divine love for all humanity). Here, he chooses to keep fighting, even though it is pointless. What keeps him going is clearly not erotic love for Trinity (since she's dead), but agape, love for all humanity. Smith, on the other hand, is the Antichrist, Neo's equal and opposite. He has brought on Armageddon: The Matrix, the false world, is now entirely his. It is a gray, rainy universe of white men in suits, a corporate fantasy-world of unending conformity. In its sterile, terrifying monotony, it is stripped of joy, meaning, and life. There is no diversity, no choice. Because Smith has no true free will, he can't fathom it in others. Everything, for him, is predestined—he's foreseen it. And that is his greatest weakness. Neo defeats him not with kung fu, but with his will. Peace, love, and all that jazz might well not be real at all, but he chooses to keep fighting for them, anyway. It's not a rational choice, but in choosing it, he makes them real—and in so doing negates Smith's nihilism. Alas, just as Trinity couldn't have survived the final encounter, neither could Neo. (What kind of life could they have, anyway? They're archetypes, not characters. What would they do, raise a bunch of clichés?) So, Christ-like, Neo returns to the Core—ascending to computer heaven, if you will—as was originally intended, but, as the Oracle says, he'll be back one day. In the final scene of the movie, dialogue between the Architect and the Oracle (that is, the creator-goddess Sophia), it is revealed that Neo has brought free will to everyone in the Matrix. It's like Christianity: Those who want out of the illusion, who choose to believe in peace, love, and all that, can depart the false world. But with choice comes responsibility: We have to make up our own minds as to what our destinies will be, and we have to act on it. If we decide that the false world of Agent Smiths is not for us, and that love, justice, righteousness, etc., are real, then they are real. It's not an ending worthy of a Schwarzenegger movie, but it's far more profound. Me, I personally preferred the end of Michael Moorcock's Corum series, where the gods are all killed so mankind can decide its own fate. Which makes me wonder when the **** someone will make a movie out of Elric of Melniboné. Now THAT would be worth deconstructing.
