The Matrix

Back in 1999 when I saw the original Matrix, I had it all understood. Really, there wasn’t much to “get” beyond the philosophical stuff, which is all up to interpretation so there really is no wrong answer. Then, in 2003, came the 2 sequels: Reloaded and Revolutions, essentially a 5 hour long movie cut in half. Those movies introduced WAY MORE concepts than the first one, so much that when I saw them in the theater I was thoroughly confused and did what I do best: procrastinate. I actually figured, “I’ll analyze it later…”

Four years later, I did!

I watched the Matrix, the Animatrix, and then Reloaded on DVD and it just so happened Revolutions was on HBO-HD so I stayed up until 4am to catch that one as it aired in high definition. And the conclusion I now have is: it’s all about the Oracle.

She’s just as much a main character as Neo, if not more. Everything that happened was set in motion by her. Everything. In the theater, I was disappointed by the end of Revolutions, because I had no idea what just happened or what the conversation meant. But the Architect (the creator of the matrix) says to her: “That was a pretty big gamble.” Essentially, she risked everything–humanity, her own kind (machines), the very matrix itself–because she was a program built to study humans so well that she knew coexistence between man and machine was the only right thing to do. The problem was, she was only a computer program. She had no physical body in the real world and even if she did, she’d be a machine. She needed bigger players to go up against the mainframe, so she got them.

The Oracle eventually sacrificed herself and allowed Agent Smith to ‘assimilate’ her into his programming, so that he could use her eyes to see the outcome of his final battle with Neo, with him the victor. But the Oracle is just that good. She told Neo from the beginning “every beginning has an end,” and when Smith inadvertently said it to Neo just before he beat him in the final battle, Neo put the pieces together: “…and every end is a new beginning.” So Neo lets Smith win… he gives himself to Agent Smith, whose sole purpose at that point was to grow so large as a virus that even the machine mainframe couldn’t touch him… except at that time, Neo was jacked into the Matrix using the machine mainframe itself. Since Smith assimilated Neo and essentially became him in the ‘real world,’ the machine mainframe now had a direct connection to Agent Smith, and killed (er, deleted) him. Unfortunately, that also means that Neo dies, right? This part is up to interpretation but I think the mainframe “backed up” Neo before Smith assimilated him, and therefore Neo now exists as a program within the Matrix (possibly even given the ‘purpose’ of locating and freeing the minds that are rejecting the matrix, but that’s speculation).

As a way of saying “thanks for taking care of our computer virus,” the machines would now free whoever rejected the Matrix, and reloaded the Matrix itself to be a little more loving. Because that’s the bottom line: love. As soon as the programs within the Matrix starting having kids and creating other, new programs (like Sati, the kid in the train station at the beginning) they learned the value of love.

Or something.

Also, the “human resistance” in the real world was all set up by the machines. They built Zion (the last human city) for those that rejected the Matrix (the ‘anomolies’) in order to keep those people under some form of control. Zion could have even been another layer in the Matrix, and not actually the “real world,” but that’s all speculation.

Seems obvious now, but for some reason, none of this clicked when I watched the movies the first time. I think I actually tried to think too hard about it the first time around.