The Matrix: Reloaded

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If I have to sum up the story, you've been living under a rock. Ever since the first movie came out I've been unable to grasp the hype that surrounds the philosophy of The Matrix. Well, I shouldn't say i can't grasp it, because I can. It's a bunch of teenagers who never did the required reading in High School being suddenly struck by the fact that there's a world outside the suburbs that has existed for thousands of years without MTV. Without sitcoms, music videos, shock jocks, or reality TV these cultures and civilizations devised things such as art, philosophy, religion, dance, sculpture, theatre, and lore. The Wachowski brothers have collected sound bytes from major philosophers and the synapses from the back of prognosicative 20th century literature, blended it together with our modern love for imaginary violence and dreams of being superheroes. What we get is an action-packed ride through dangerous situations that exist because they're cool, peppered with references to the nature of free choice, the nature of love, the nature of consiquence, and the nature of loss. I guess I shouldn't be so elitist and should feel happy that there are movie like Matrix opening the way for more serious examinations of the nature of humanity and morality, but when all people really pick up is "there is no spoon" it's hard to believe that people will go see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because they liked how The Matrix made them think.

I do enjoy these movies, really, I promise, but I also have to admit that my ability to enjoy them is dampened by the mass cultural acceptance, vocally flaunted as being on the grounds that it's "deep," followed by a wide scale apathy to venture beyond The Matrix. I don't know how many people I've wanted to kick in the teeth because of conversations like the following.

"Man, I loved The Matrix. It was so deep."
"Yah. Hey, if you liked that, you'd probably like Blade Runner too."
"Never heard of it."
"It's a little bit older, but it's really good. Has alot of the same kinds of ideas."
"Uh, I dunno if I'd go for that."
"well, did you like Equilibrium?"
"Oh yah, that was cool too. It was like The Matrix. You know, deep and all."
"Yah, alot of the ideas in those two came from movies like Blade Runner, Brazil, 1984, and A Clockwork Orange. You should watch them some time."
"I dunno. I really just like The Matrix. It's got bullet time."

I'm normally more positive about these movies, but for whatever reason this is what's on my mind about it all right now.
I've talked before, with friends, about the challenge that the W brothers must have faced in wrting the second two movies, the third in particular. Tehy had two much material to fit into one movie, so they split it between two. It basically breaks down like this: zion is threatened by the machine attack which some believe can be prevented by The One, and the machines are threatened by the Smith virus. We spend the entire second movie focusing on Neo trying to avert the war, only to find out that the prophecy didn't refer to ending the war in a way that those living would find favorable. Like the architect says "there are levels of survival we are willing to accept." The idea was that they were exploiting the flaw in the anomaly, that The One would feel the same about humanity, that The One would be willing to accept certain levels of survival, a general survival of humanity as a whole, over the survival of any one individual particularly when the alternative results in a fatal system crash and the destruction of humanity. At the end of the second movie Neo takes the choice that is supposed to ultimately lead to a fatal system crash (the consiquence of the unbalbancing factor individual choice inflicts on the system) a system crash that is never mentioned again. during the second movie the Smith viruus spends it's time on a personal vendetta, trying to destroy Neo. the threat that it poses on the system as a whole isn't mentioned, really, until the last quarter of the third movie. The first three quarters of the third movie are spend preparing for the physical attack of the machines and trying to get Neo out of Limbo. Having things spread across the two films in such a chunky manner is rather disorienting, tending to make the two feel llike they don't really correlate with each other, the interaction with the Architect having no impact, and the Smith threat coming out of nowhere. Ultimately, the big hole in the ending of the third movie is that nothing is done to prevent the ultimate fatal system crash. So, one could look at it in such a way that Neo struck a deal with the machine god that freed those who wanted to be free and condemned those who didn't want to be free to die in an eventual fatal system crash that there is no way to prevent because there is no more One, dooming the machines to the "certain level of survival" they were prepared to accept.
Of course none of this is apparent from actually watching the movie. It all has to be inferred, not from analysis, but from an attempt to figure out what the hell happened.

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