Matrix trilogy re-examined
The other day, I decided I’d rewatch Matrix — hadn’t seen it in a while and it was on TV, but that was in the colder part of the house, so I dug out the DVD and put it in the PC to watch. Ended up also watching Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.
The first thing I noticed is the movies haven’t become dated. I found that really surprising even though there’s a acoustic coupler used in the first movie — it’s not intrusive and it is easy to give a pass to where tech and movie have diverged. But the thing is, that they did a great job of creating the matrix-artificial environment so that it holds up today so many years after it was first made.
I think part of that is that the central core of the movies isn’t about the virtual reality of the matrix. It’s really about choice, control, and power. Doubting Thomas (Neo) Anderson is removed from the matrix older than when most people are removed and he has some difficulty in coming to see the reality of the outside vs the control of his life he thought he had inside the matrix. He also has to deal with others looking to him for answers when he doesn’t even know the questions.
A friend hated the films because she felt that once they learned that it was an artificial environment that everyone would just be able to do the things “The One” could do. But to me, it’s not that simple. Even today people can believe so strongly in something that no matter what proof you give them, they will continue to believe as they did. First impressions do count. For an example, we had a rabbit that was a dwarf. When our second rabbit came into the house as a youngling, the dwarf attacked the young one. The young one wasn’t a dwarf and grew up to be about 5 times bigger, but was forever cowed by the tiny one because of that first impression. When you grow up “knowing” something to be true it’s very hard to unlearn that something — no matter what that something is.
What is reality when it can be changed? Were the citizens of Zion really out of the matrix since in movie 2 Neo stopped the machines with his mind. There’s a lot of ambiguity but also a lot of fodder for long discussions over the nature of reality, choices and their ramifications, the nature of power and its uses, and the man/machine interfaces becoming so prevalent in our society.
It’s nice to occasionally revisit a movie and find it’s still fresh and thought provoking.