The Matrix: Resolutions

Slappy White writes "For six months, Matrix message boards were aflame with speculation, theories, predictions and outright psychotic guessing about Revolutions. Now the film is here, and this article has a humorous roundup of some of the popular theories, both those that were close and others that were, shall we say, a little off the mark." I still haven't seen this film, so I'll refrain from passing judgment, but I'm ever so happy the matrix-within-a-matrix theories were unfounded. Update: 11/09 02:38 GMT by CN : Some folks who've never seen the Twilight Zone or even the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horrors thought that was a spoiler. If you're one of those people, I'm very sorry.

Comments

The worst thing in Revolution

[yaroslav_at_yaroslav]

The worst thing in Revolution theory - they did not told us HOW EXACTLY can Neo stop machines in real world? They say something... "He is the one - so it's obvious" - but it is really not obvious. I suppose that there will be no Matrix IV, V or VI (they told us so), but there can be something like "Neo", "Neo Reloaded", "Neo Revolutions" movies ;-)

Re:The worst thing in Revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

It Did but it was in bits on peices. Neo's Brainwaves integrated with the matrix so much that he was able to control the machines outside of the matrix. When Neo died in the first movie he basically "transcended" his body. I think the Wachowskis were going for that whole mind is bigger then the body scenario. That or they just love messing with peoples heads. Theres just way too much philosophy and mixed religion in this thing for most people to understand.

I thought Revolutions was very good

[chrisgeleven]

To me, Revolutions has come the closest to accomplishing what the first Matrix did. The plot was so much better, flowed nicely, and the dialog was easy to understand yet had those hidden philosophy messages which is what made the first movie so successful.

The special effects were amazing as well.

What got me was the amazing ending. It was unexpected in someways, but totally made sense when you consider everything that happened in the movie.

Also there still is enough unanswered questions that another trilogy could be created if they ever wanted to. They will probably wait 10-20 years before doing another trilogy if they ever wanted to.

Unfounded?

[Madcapjack]

From the headliner: I still haven't seen this film, so I'll refrain from passing judgment, but I'm ever so happy the matrix-within-a-matrix theories were unfounded.

I disagree. The matrix within a matrix theory was well founded, but it proved wrong. These are not the same thing. If I told you I have a ripe strawberry in my hand, you would have the well founded belief that it is red, because ripe strawberries are red. But if it were blue, it doesn't mean that your belief was unfounded, at least until you saw the strwbrry.

Re:Unfounded?

[ArmorFiend]

a matrix within a matrix still seems to be the only explanation that fits.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, just as there's more than one way to nest two realites. Unless you're using "matrix within a matrix" to also denote a sort of heaven-and-earth religious scheme.

The source is a higher level matrix

[Anonymous Coward]

In Matrix Revolutions they say that Neo is connected to the matrix via 'the source.' Isn't 'the source' then a higher level matrix? Meaning that the 'matrix within a matrix' theories were in fact correct? I mean, duh.
And the oracle said Neo needs to be ready to be told about 'the source' just as he needed to be ready to take the red pill.
So, matrix within a matrix doubters, wake up and watch the film, you know, that thing on the screen.
It requires concentration on the plot rather than the glitzy graphics I know, but I'm sure you can try.

Er, really?

[squiggleslash]

I still haven't seen this film, so I'll refrain from passing judgment, but I'm ever so happy the matrix-within-a-matrix theories were unfounded.

They're not unfounded. Revolutions doesn't actually give a straight answer on the subject, nor any other theories.

This is what the above website has to say on the subject:

The Oracle spills the beans. "You have a connection to the Source." Then Neo kind of nods a little, and the Oracle continues to smoke, and they change the subject.

So, there it was all along. Matrix within a matrix --- pfffff. You kids. All this time, it's been as plain as the nose on your face: Neo has a connection to the Source.

The Source. A connection to it. Neo. Connected. Then they change the subject and talk about something else. The Source. Six months' wait.

Great. That says nothing. Absolutely nothing. As I say in my review, the Oracle's comment is an observation, not an explanation. It's like saying that the reason a car will not work is because it will not go. He has a connection with "the source" - and?

Lest anyone think that this is a message backing the Twin Matrix theory, it isn't that either. I thought it was fairly obvious what Revolutions was trying to do: it was leaving all of these questions open. There's room in Revolutions for most of the explanations people came up with. Unfortunately so many people wanted a nice tidy ending with Neo and Trinity living happily ever after and everything "explained" that they've kind of missed it all.

I think it's a good sequel. But then I wanted something other than the usual Hollywood mindless happy endings. YMMV.

Re:Er, really?

[Peyna]

If you're going to argue that there could be a matrix within a matrix you might as well also argue that the whole movie is just a dream, and that this entire world is just a pretend world within another.

While it is indeed possible, there is no reason to believe that it is true, since it has no real bearing on the story. In fact, believing that it were true would make the entire story irrelevant and pointless.

Re:Er, really?

[squiggleslash]

If you're going to argue that there could be a matrix within a matrix you might as well also argue that the whole movie is just a dream, and that this entire world is just a pretend world within another.

Mmmmm... and? I don't really follow what you're trying to say here. Certainly it's the Wachowskis intention that you leave the film with questions exactly like that.

In fact, believing that it were true would make the entire story irrelevant and pointless.

Believing which is true? That the movie is a dream or that the "real" world in The Matrix might itself be a simulation? The former is true, but if we go along with the theory that we, ourselves, are living in a pretend world within another, then me bothering to answer the question is pointless to. I do bother anyway because whether the world I'm aware of is "real" or not, I live in it, and my choices affect it, and it affects me.

For the latter, I don't follow that argument either. Just about every explanation you can think of from the "It's the machines who lost the war, not the humans, and the machines think they're human" to the psuedo/hyper-religious stuff renders the work done within the movie pointless.

The Matrix series isn't so much about Neo defeating an artificial intelligence that has enslaved humanity as it is about the consequences of a virtual world. It has a story that's supposed to make you think about that scenario. It has several levels, from a basic story line to various codes and references designed to add additional things to think about.

I think anyone who expects anything different is going to hate M3, because if you ignore that, the film really is a complete waste of time.

Re:Er, really?

[nathanh]

If you're going to argue that there could be a matrix within a matrix you might as well also argue that the whole movie is just a dream, and that this entire world is just a pretend world within another.

Mmmmm... and? I don't really follow what you're trying to say here. Certainly it's the Wachowskis intention that you leave the film with questions exactly like that.

Because it's a lame plot device. It's called a deus ex machina; literally "god from the machine". The "It was all a dream!" version is the most cliched of them all. Any writer who uses that particular deus ex machina is a hack.

The Matrix series isn't so much about Neo defeating an artificial intelligence that has enslaved humanity as it is about the consequences of a virtual world. It has a story that's supposed to make you think about that scenario.

As others have already commented, they have thought about that particular scenario and moved onto loftier thoughts several decades before the first Matrix movie was released.

I saw it last night (no spoilers)

[sjbe]

I can't figure out what people are complaining about. It was a great movie, particularly if you consider all three movies to be one story. Granted, you have to like that sort of movie and you have to actually have an attention span, but if you do you should enjoy it. Basically if you like anime movies like Akira or the Gundam Wing series or Marvel's X-men comics (lots of action and some heavy pontificating) it should be right up your alley. I really enjoyed it.

Maybe folks are complaining about the ending. (no I'm not going to give it away) It was surprising and very non-traditional but really good too. I thought it was a great close to the story arc. Leaves future sequels as a possibility too.

Understanding the Matrix

[Dan Guisinger]

I was disappointed at first with Revolutions.

However, last night I watched Reloaded again.
You have to pay great attention during Reloaded to find your answers to the Matrix. They dont make sense if you've only seen movies 1 and 2, but they do if you've seen all 3. In particular, listen to what the architect says.

While some may say reloaded is about reloading the Matrix....note that the Matrix never did get reloaded....but something the architect says makes me think different. And it explains Neo's sudden ability to interact with the machine world outside of the Matrix.

Some "fun" observations.

[crazyhorse44]

-the "Trainman" was the gyrocopter guy from Mad Max
-the face from Tron
-the "face ship" modelled after the ships from Buckaroo Banzai
-Robotech/Macross mecha
-in the club... "CYPHERMEN" from THE INVISIBLES
-Monica Bellucci is a fox.
-in the Matrix... the programmers are all from India
-the "Merovingians" were a line of kings in Southern France before the Middle Ages who believed themselves to be direct descendants of Jesus Christ. the Catholic Church wiped them out along with the Cathars, Gnostics and the Templars.
-everyone needs to read THE INVISIBLES
-there was more but I forgot it on the way home.

Re:Personally

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, they should totally have had a matrix inside a matrix. they are dumbasses for not doing so. it would have been cool. to have an endless regression of matrices...

What would have been an even better idea would have been to have had exactly two matrices--the one that we were introduced to in the original film (the present-day matrix), and then a machine-world/Zion matrix. As expected, the present-day matrix would have existed inside of the machine-world/Zion matrix. But (here's the interesting bit) the machine-world matrix would have existed inside of the present-day matrix. The Merovingian and the train guy could have been used to explain that bit, rather than just having them there for no reason.

With it set up like that, neither matrix could exist without the other, and yet each would be equally unreal. The origin of either would be inexplicable, just like our current inability to explain the existence of the Universe.

I had it all worked out

[Monkelectric]

I've always said I should be a hollywood writer ... On a long LONG drive to northern california I figured out the only sensible way the matrix universe could work and still maintain total coherency. I was extremely disapointed in the movie when I found out, they didnt even try to explain the whole thing, so here we go for the slashdot crowd:

The universe in which the robots and humans reside is a *simulation* (not another matrix, but a simulation). The robots are vaguely aware of this, and have developed methods which allow them to manipulate the *real* universe a little. This manipulation is how they are able to program "people" and how agent smith is able to download himself into that guy. There would have been a great sub-plot about how the robots discovered this -- through their disection of humans (in the animatrix) they discover the biological equivalent of DEBUGGING facilities in humans. They discover strange indecipherable messages in biological processess. Even a monkey for a directory could have made this a memorable scene.

In retrospect, the point of the second movie would have been to demonstrate that the robots could program humans -- with food. With cookies, with pills, etc etc.

And finally, Neo, while not aware that the "real" universe is also a simulation, is able to manipulate it slightly as well -- this is why he can make shit blow up, and see without eyes.

Hollywood, I am your messiah and I'm unemployed :)

WARNING -SPOILER!

[be-fan]

Anybody else see it as just straight biblical allegory? I'm not even a Christian, and it seemed rather blatent (even heavy-handed) to me.

Neo - Christ
Smith - Anti-christ
Machine ruler - God

So when Neo becomes able to do all that stuff in the real world, its like the miracles of Jesus. He can do it because he has "a connection to the source" --- in other words a connection to the divine. When he's fighting Agent Smith, Smith loses when he finally calls Neo "Neo" (instead of "Mr. Anderson" has he had been doing up to this point). That means he acknowledges Neo's status (accepts him as their savior) and is thus destroyed. Of course, Neo dies (sacrifices himself for his race) in a very cruxification-like scene (complete with cross-shaped light right before the end). All that stuff at the end about Neo potentially coming back is an allusion to the messiah.

Or it could be something else entirely. To tell the truth, I don't care. The last two movies are pretty crappy (though I loved the first). The dialogue was truely bad --- those writers need to be shot, and the plot seemed very strained --- a lot of going from A to B because C said to.

Re:Understanding the Matrix *SPOILER*

[Josh Coalson]

*SPOILER WARNING*

Still, there are some holes in Revolutions that are pretty gaping. I think they got pressure from the studios that it was too long, or to make a marketing gimmick out of it like so: 1) cut out the philosophical stuff, leave all of the formulaic rah-rah machine/zion battle (notice a lot of other scenes that feel like they just end too quickly, like when Neo gets to cry for like 2 seconds when Trinity dies; 2) give it all back in the super-extended-directors-cut-special-edition DVD, which will probably come out after everyone's bought the regular-super-special-edition of the trilogy. Everybody (almost) wins.

post i made somewhere else right after i saw it

[honold]

i just got back, and while i wasn't as disappointed as most seem to be, i still walked away only thinking it was 'okay'.

after i saw reloaded, i thought that there were a lot of interesting possibilities. we had seen bane who was clearly smith, and we had seen neo take down a sentinel in the real world. a few possibilities, in order of preference:

1) neo became part machine as smith became part human, part of their meld
2) neo is the messiah, which translates to 'all worlds'
3) the real world is infact another matrix

#1 is a stretch, but it's believable in the world we're described.

#2 seems lame, as everything would be at face value and simply handed to us in reloaded

#3 breaks the movie's own rules. if they did that, however well they did it, it would effectively make anything able to be rendered invalid with a thought. 'oh, oops, another matrix!' it would be difficult, for example, to feel anything if a character was killed off. this would be similar to superman suddenly NOT being affected by kryptonite, which is a rule of that world.

i can look past some silly stuff. for example:
- morpheus gains 30lbs in an hour's time
- people start calling each other by nicknames ('merv', 'trin') in an hour's time
- the young indian girl and the trainkeeper seem to have no real purpose
- they should have selected someone other than an elderly african-american woman to be the new oracle
- sentinels weren't able to be shot at in previous movies; only emps worked
- for that matter, sentinels never relayed back to other computers when they found a ship
- the twins seemed to die pretty easy in that explosion

etc, etc, etc. all forgivable.

what i would have liked, however, are 2 key things:

1 would be the 'meld' explanation, having neo only have increasingly powerful machine abilities as smith has increasingly powerful human abilities. this would be another 'character learns his strengths' part of a movie, which is always very entertaining.

2 would be monica belluci being the mother of the matrix. the architect scoffed when neo asked if she was, and we can now unfortunately presume that it's just because he doesn't respect her terribly much or doesn't like her being referred to as 'the oracle'. it would make sense that monica belluci be the mother, having gone against the merovingian to help the good guys in reloaded, etc.

i would have also liked werewolves (vampires got enough coverage) to be better explored.

i feel like the whole architect scene in reloaded split the audience into 3:

1) people who don't really care, and just want to enjoy the story.
2) people who are turned off by all of that over-their-head mumbo jumbo
3) people who see potential depth and are intrigued

the people in group 1 will be the people in group 1 no matter what happens. the people in group 2 have been pissed off, and the people in group 3 are set up to be disappointed. in this way, i feel the movie delivered. why split the audience at all, then? why the semblance of complexity when there isn't any? if they had kept the end of reloaded simple, group 1 would stay the same, group 2 wouldn't be pissed and fall into group 1, and group 3 would accept that the movie has become more simple and be surprised if revolutions was anything but simple.

i don't know where i'm going with the rest of this, just dumping some thoughts. if i get some responses, i'm sure i'll have others.

Re:post i made somewhere else right after i saw it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I agree totally, the ending of the third movie was unsatisfying for this reason: the story kept adding more layers of complexity in order to continue in the style of the first movie.

Why continue in that style? The first movie was exposition of the world, the next two movies could have been fleshing out the world more instead of continually adding more and more twists.

For example, in the first movie Zion is the alamo of human resistance. "twist!" nope, Zion is another layer of control by the machines.

From the first movie some inscrutable "overmind" machine is watching over everything, making changes to the matrix, directing the agents, etc. "twist!" the matrix is actually full of squabbling programs fighting for control.

The narrative seems to creak heavily under the weight of all this information. For example, the expository conversations become more and more abstract. In the first movie when Neo meets the oracle the conversation is character driven-- Neo doubts himself, is worried he wont live up to Morpheus at al.'s expectations of him, something we can all relate too.

When Neo meets with the oracle on the bench its all abstract. "you're here to find out why you made the choice you did" etc. I mean, not to say this was bad or meaningless, just that its hard to relate to worrying whether or not you have free will.

Another constrast: Morpheus' convo with agent smith versus Neos with the architect. As smith describes how he hates "the smell" you really get the feeling he is EEVVVILLL, this is the bad guy and you want to see him loose. When Neo is talking with the architect it is pure exposition-- the architect seems to have no agenda; I mean shit the guy looks BORED as he lays out for Neo the end of the human race.

The reason for this loss of emotional connection with the movie is that more and more of the time left over from the fight scenes is taken up with dry exposition to try to explain everything.

And still there are some weird holes which I haven't seen anyone explained elsewhere. All of these holes were introduced into stuff that was internally consistent originally by the plot twists.

What are the agents' goal/Who's telling them what to do?
When the agents are the only programs running around this is no problem-- they are the hands of the machines inside the Matrix. Now that there are apparently different factions, the question of whose side the agents are on has to be answered. Why were agents trying to kill the keymaker if he was so essential to the architect? Why does Smith need the access code for the Zion mainframes if Zion was built by the machines?

How does one isolated city with only a quarter of a million inhabitants build all that?
If Zion is the alamo, ok as soldiers pulled back and civilians evacuated they took their weapons/supplies with them. But after so much use things are looking grungy. As they do in the movies, great. But if Zion actually started from 23 people 150 years ago or whatever, then the city is growing quickly, so most things should be new. So, for example, how is it that the walkway which collapses in the second movie has been allowed to become so corroded?

Trying to keep things consistent enough to follow while at the same time adding twist after twist leaves little screen time to become attached to the characters. Without emotional attachment, the ending is inevitably unsatisfying. The scene where the little girl and seraph were caught by the agent smiths-- did anyone CARE about those two or what happened to them? Or when Dozer's sister was reunited with her boyfriend after they crashed the hovercraft into the dock?

I haven't seen 2 or 3, but

[yerricde]

I'll talk out of my ass. I haven't even seen Reloaded, let alone Revolutions, but here's what I can tell based on watching the first movie and reading the published spoilers of the second and third:

Neo can pick up the machines' communication by using his "data jack" as an antenna. Because he is The One, he can understand the Japanese-designed protocol that the machines speak to each other and can jam their control programs.

Re:The worst sequel ever

[meta-monkey]

Or, hell, why bother to send robots there in the first place? Why not just drop a damn nuke down the hole? Or pump it full of nerve gas?

Interesting facts.

[Hugonz]

In the train station, the letters on the wall read "MOBIL AVE", which, changing the order or the letters, read "LIMBO AVE" which is whre neo is, in Limbo.

When the trainman jumps across the train lines, check the destination on the train, it reads "LOOP". The lines on the train station are looped, and Neo returns to the same place after trying to get out.

Just my 2 cents.

SPOILER: Machines using humans for electricity...

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

The whole plot about the purpose of having humans in pods "generating" electricity for the machines was never explained.. The laws of thermodynamics do not allow for this, and that is why the movie seems to not be closed completely for me...

I believe there was another purpose for the matrix.. that purpose being for the humans and machines to live on earth in peace. The arthitect was trying to balance an equation which couldn't be balanced, and the oracle trying to unbalance it.. It was a power struggle between the programs within the matrix, and a freedom struggle by the humans.

But the idea that the humans were generating electricity is proposterous. I have said it since the begining of the Matrix series.. and I'll say it again. The laws of physics do not allow humans to generate enough electricity to even grow plants to feed themselves, much less have excess power to power the machines. There MUST be some alternative source of power... At maximum, if the power extraction worked at 100% efficiency, and plant growing worked at 100% efficiency (that is, ALL electricity produced was converted to light which grew plants) then there would be exactly enough food to go around for the people that were already alive. There would be no way to reproduce, and no way to have excess electricity.

I have heard arguments that the machines figured out quantum physics, etc.. but if they did that, why not have nuclear power generators? Why not have solar pannels in space? why not move to Mars? These questions all prove that humans were not needed to generate electricity...

Others tell me that is just a plot hole that I have to deal with, but if it is, then somebody didn't even attempt to do their homework. There are THOUSANDS of ways more efficient and easier to generate electricity without the sun than to harvest humans in pods. Yet so many people still think that is why the humans were inserted into the matrix. bogus.

That being said, where are all the machines in the real world? There are sentinels and crop growers, but these were all there to maintain the matrix. What about all the other mahcines that roam the world? Did they still exist? Or did the machines insert every program into the matrix so humand and machines could occupy the world together without conflict?

I think the whole idea they are trying to get across is theological. There are 2 worlds, the physical world, and the machine world (matrix). Just like before christ, there were 2 worlds, the supernatural (god[s]) world(s), and the natural (human/physical) world.

I believe there will be some more matrix movies.. not necessarilly named "matrix" but something else. I think the era of the matrix is ended in Revolutions, which is why the title is named such...

These are just all IMO... Please comment and argue and disagree :)

Spoiler warning.

[ebbomega]

They don't say that. They say "The powers of the one extend beyond the Matrix." That makes sense. Assuming The Matrix is in the air (and as such hackable to the Freedom Fighters), Neo's expanded brain power (Ability to see beyond the Matrix) may very well enable him to connect with the Machines in general. Nobody really explained in Dune: Messiah why Paul could see when _he_ was blinded other than his "special" powers as Kwizatz Haderach, but nobody seemed to complain there....

Why I didn't like it.... [spoiler]

[sumbry]

I've already seen it twice. I saw it the first time and was so dissapointed, upset, pissed, angry, whatever that I vowed never to give the WB another cent. Then of course, some friends went to see it again the next night so I tagged along deciding that I needed to give it another chance and to see if I missed anything.

After seeing it twice, yeah there was some stuff I missed. Yes I liked it better/hated it less the second time around. I see so many people commenting that "if you didn't like it you didn't get it" and I'm here to say that I didn't like it, but I sure as hell got it.

I just think it could have been so much better. The Matrix Trilogy could have been the sickiest Sci-Fi of all times. Serious. It had that much potential. The first Matrix was already in my top lists of movies. It totally got me by surprise (as it did to everyone) and made me leave the theater in pure wonder. I remember walking down the street and just wondering - "Can I run a little faster than I think I can? Or jump just a little higher?"

This launched me into a quest where I bought tons of philosophy books and read tons of stuff online and I was happy.

With the announcement of the trilogy (and sorry but if anyone believes that this was always a trilogy from the beggining you're smoking crack) I figured that we were going to go from Matrix 1/Philosophy 101 to Matrix 2 and 3 and Philosophy 405! Instead I was dissapointed.. because Matrix 2 and 3 were basically just stories. They kind of hinted at going deeper (think Plato and his cave analogy and the Matrix in Matrix which everyone was expecting) but really only skimmed the surface.

I'm not mad that the machine war ended, I kind of expected that. But I also expected the Matrix in a Matrix theory. And if it had ended like that, the ending would have been more open than it is now! Imagine a Neo telling everyone that they're still in the Matrix. Imagine them getting out of that Matrix. Then imagine them asking "How do we know we're not still in the Matrix" and then just ending it! That's about as open ended as you can get! So saying that I didn't like the movie because it wasn't wrapped up all nicely is weak.

Going from that, the whole scene with the Trainman...it could have led to a whole slew of new ideas but instead it didn't fit the movie at all and had it been removed no one would have noticed or missed it. That scene could and should have talked more about what it is exactly to be a machine and to be human. Maybe we are exactly the same things. Maybe we do work in exactly the same way. Maybe we find out that the machines had been integrating biological components in themselves for years and thus became more "human." Maybe we find out that humans had been integrating more mechanical components in themselves for years and become more "machine."

Maybe we find out that once you leave this Matrix and go a level up to the level of Zion and go a level up past that we find out that the Oracle, Architect, etc all of them were actually just players in the game. They didn't create the Matrix either but just existed in it just like us and just added another level to it and they don't know how far up it goes either. Maybe we find out that the more levels up you go, the wackier the story gets and it just never ends.

The WB gave me months for my mind to wander with ideas. They had years while they were building this. I just expected a whole lot more and got a whole lot less. Did I expect to much - yup. Should I have set my sights lower - yup. But in all honesty I think they just lost sight. Someone said it before, they got all this money this time around and completely lost the art of story telling in the process.

Go watch Bound if you don't know what I mean. That movie had the lowest budget out of anything they've ever done and I still think it was completely SICK and love it and would put it right below Matrix. It's just a story but the way it's told is awesome.

Now lets examine the huge p

They did say why

[KalvinB]

It's because he's part of the source. It's understandable why you'd miss the two lines of dialog where he asks the question you asked and the oracle gives the answer I just gave you considering how every explaination was just a side note between action and reaction shots.

And since he's part of the source, the "real" world (where the escaped humans hang out) isn't really the real world since he can only control what the source controls. Point for "matrix in a matrix" theorists.

I think what's mildly ironic is that the reason people hated Vanilla Sky is because the last 15 minutes they pretended the audience was full of morons and explained everything.

Matrix: Revolutions didn't do that. They gave short stark answers which answered the questions but in a way that left it open for interpretation.

What did Agent Smith do the the Oracle? You get all of 3 seconds of seeing her lying on the ground where the Agent Smith that took on Neo used to be standing. Sure they could have gone into extensive dialog about why he needed her to defeat Neo OR they could leave it open.

They did that with everything. The answers are all there. They just don't spell it out for you. If they had they'd just be wasting time repeating Matrix 1 and 2.

Personally, my theory is that they knew all the neat questions and how to "show" them as is good story telling but couldn't "show" the answers even if they really knew them. That's the standard problem with philosophy. Most of the great writters have a brilliant ability to ask deep questions in interesting ways but they never give you an answer. They just send you back down the mountain to seek it out yourself.

I'll definitly be picking up the DVD when it comes out. I think people went in with a mindset that is was all action and "sucked" and so, like you, weren't paying attention when answers where offered.

Reloaded was the same way. I went in for the action and picked up much more detail when I got the DVD and watched it more closely.

Ben

Re:Why the smiths died......

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I think that when Neo let himself be absorbed by Smith, he effectively "inserts his code into the Matrix" (or whatever), which is what the architect says will reboot the Matrix. Notice: The architect says that there have been 5 Neos before, and each ends up deciding they will reinsert their code into the Matrix, restarting the process. He seems overly confident Neo will do the same, and yet isn't surprised when Neo chooses the other door.

So they all the Neos chose the other door. Just think of it this way: The oracle implies waiting for Smith is what she always does. The end result of the whole thing is that Zion is mostly destroyed and the number of humans is greatly reduced, and the Matrix gets restarted, and everything goes on. This looks suspiciously like what the Architect says will happen, only differing in the number of humans that will be left to restart Zion.

Much has been made of the question as to how humans in Zion have such high technology. The answer: even telling Neo that he is one of many and bla bla bla him choosing the other door, that's all still *another* control. Zion is never totally distroyed, just destroyed enough to keep them in check, and the cycle goes on. They wait long enough for the history to fade, and then a new Neo pops up.

Anyway, it's a theory.

Re:Personally

[feed_me_cereal]

Personally, I subscribed to the theory that the ending might actually be...... good! I guess that was the most nutso theory of all.

Three main things that they got wrong (spoiler)

[teval]

I didn't like the movie at all, mostly because of 3 reasons. There where others too though. 1. The machines keep their promises. Why? I'd just say, "Nice, Neo's dead... kill the humans now" What do they have to gain from the peace now that Neo is gone and he did his part? 2. The swarms of things flying all over. Why did they fly in packs so they can be hit all the time? If they dispersed how it's logical they would have been more effective in killing those APUs. None of them managed to notice the missles very easily. If they are such advanced machines could they not figure out "Oh.. missles, let's go after what shot them" And with all those thousands of machines noone saw those people with the rocket launchers? None of them shot at the resuply people? Well.. not quite true... one or two did, but still. Anyone knows that you want to go for the resuply lines first. I have more complaints about the machines.. but i'll stop there :) 3. Why did they not keep EMPs? I mean... Zion put them all on ships. why not put say... 30 of them inside the dome.. and just keep detonating emps once in a while to kill the drones. Whatever is left.. they could have kept all their ships back and destroyed, or those APU things could have handeled them. Why did they waste all their ships? Just 3 major observations.. there are more. like that entire huge gate, it was held by 1 chain.... that's not really plausible.

Re:Why the smiths died......

[nizo]

This was kind of the theory I had, but I do still have one question (maybe I missed something) but why did agent Smith say the Oracle was his mother (right before he assimilated her, she said something like, "you son-of-a-bitch" and he said, "you would know Mother".) Was she responsible for creating agent Smith (would make sense, since she said she tries to "unbalance" the equations, while the Architect tries to "balance" the equations.)? Also, from the first movie when agent Smith is interogating Morpheus he states he wants to escape the matrix (literally? or figuratively?) I got the impression his job would be done and he would cease to exist (he would be free) if Zion was destroyed, which was why he wanted the access codes. At some point I will have to go back and review a few scenes (especially the one in the second movie with the Architect) and see if anything is more clear.

Re:You understood the ending (spoilers, natch)?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Did you notice the glowing cross and wings when Neo was being charged full of energy from the Source?

Re:They destroyed a potentially awesomeTrilogy...

[danielrm26]

I forgot about the mechs not having protection for the pilot; that was lame. Throw a rock at their head and it's game over.

And the fact that they didn't have any EMPs inside the city was questionable. It's true that you lose your computers if you pop one, but that at least buys you some time. To put a finer point on it, if it was such a bad idea to have an EMP then they wouldn't have been waiting anxiously for the ship to show up with one.

-danielrm26

Re:Everything WAS explained (Spoilers, of course)

[Daetrin]

I will say that this movie has the most hidden religious and philosophical imagery I've ever seen...it's all way more subtle than Reloaded (who noticed the glowing cross and wings when Neo was killing Smith?

Yeah, subtle like a brick to the head.

Let's start out with Smith-in-hijacked-human-body refering to Neo as some kind of Messiah. Of course the term Messiah, combined with the facts that Neo had just been horibly blinded, if he was really blind he was going to get his ass-kicked, and although Neo dying was a possibility it was way too early for it to happen, immediatly led to the conclusion, "He's going to be able to see with his new and improved real-world mystic powers, just like Paul in Dune." Sure enough, when all seems lost, Neo suprises Smith-3749 with his ability to see, and proceeds to kick his ass.

Having already set up the messianic theme, it was pretty damn obvious when Neo assumes the crucified position during the final fight. Oh look, he's sacrificing himself to save humanity, just like christ! Oh my! Not only is he in a crucified pose, he's got a big glowing cross superimposed on him! And now he's got giant glowing angel wings! And now he's dead and being carried away by a god-like figure, and look! More glowingness and angel wings!

The only way they could have been any more obvious was if the Oracle had extended her final speech a little bit, from "I think we'll see him again someday," to, "I think we'll see him again someday, in three days when he rises again!" I started to groan about the point the blatantly obvious cross of fire was superimposed over Neo, and had a hard time paying serious attention to the rest of the movie while i gagged on the over the top christian imagery.

As for the rest of what you said, i mostly agree. The theme behind Neo's destruction of Smith was pretty clear, but i really would have liked to have known more details. Was it a fundamental incompatibility between the two "Ones," like a matter-anti-matter reaction? Was it Neo acting from within the Smith collective? Was it the Machine acting on the Smith collective with Neo as a conduit? (That last seems possible given the behavior of the machines in the real world when Neo was taken over, need to watch a few more times to be sure.)

The bit that annoyed me was that it wasn't apparent that Neo actually took any action once he sacrificed himself. Although someone else has pointed out that this is consistent with the passive nature of christ, it doesn't really fit with what i expected of Neo, christ figure or not. It was clear after the first half of the fight that Neo wasn't going to win by physically beating Smith, but it didn't have to be through total passivity, there was a lot of middle ground that could have been covered.

Neo became _the_ tool - Oracle the manipulator

[relativePositioning]

Neo was told by the Architect that his role was to fully express the instability in the matrix and at the architect's cue, to enter the door and share his code with the source. Both losing Trinity and his defiant self, but saving humanity.
Neo would have none of this

So in the end, he joined directly with the source, lost Trinity and himself, and saved humanity.

It turns out that the Architect and the Oracle are much more similar than at first glance. The architect is an old-school architect that plans everything out before-hand and forces everyone into this "perfection". The Architect generally hates choice as it is too complex to adequately design for during the design phase.
Humans generally hate being forced and like to think that they have free choice. Some people hate being forced so much that they can't stand being forced into something nice and generally pleasant for them. These people are the remainder of the equation that the Architect can't abide. With the architect alone, the matrix consistently failed because of these people that couldn't stand to be forced. It is the Oracle control mechanism that works for this last remainder.
Neo did exactly what he was supposed to, but only because he was manipulated by the Oracle into thinking that it was his decision. The Oracle pulls, the Architect pushes.
It is the Oracle that is guiding the changes in Neo from one version of Neo to the next. She influenced Trinity's feelings for him and she influenced his development. She was designed to create a workable Matrix (because the Architect couldn't do it on his own), but she is also fighting for power against the Architect. At the end of the third movie, she holds a great deal more power than ever before. She has changed the fate of Zion and the way in which the one passes his hidden bits to the source (much to the displeasure of the Source having to physically make an agreement with the human).

Further, I think the Matrix proves deeper than what we are shown and I think that Smith's monologue to a drugged Morpheus in part 1 reveals it. He talks of how the first Matrix was a utopia that was a failure because humans define their existance through misery. He says that this human problem lead to the present Matrix. The present Matrix is not particularly miserable, perhaps unpleasant in areas, however, Zion and the real world are a very unpleasant reality (destroyed world, perpetual hiding, constant fear of attack and death). I also assert that the Matrix and Zion/real world are actually inside another Matrix. For the people that don't like being told what to do even if it is pleasant. For these people, the machines have created a truly deplorable place, but one of their own choosing.
The humans that can't take the Architect's grand lovely Matrix have their very own hell-hole of "truth" and "reality".
Many of the programs are aware of this and look down on the sheep and the masochists.
The strongest evidence for this higher level Matrix however, is the Oracle's power. She can "see" the future. This of course is drivel, that is, unless there was a higher level of abstraction above the Matrix that was shaping and guiding the Matrix beneath it. The Oracle has access to this higher-level Matrix and that is how she can predict what is going to happen.
Because she is a comparative God that lives within the Matrix, she is far more powerful than what she appears and that is why her powers are of such a lustful nature to the Frenchman. She does after all, have her own angel.
Whatever lies above the Matrix is unknown. This higher-level Matrix explains away the whole "human battery" thing, but not the stupidity in which the "real humans" accept it.

For me, Revolutions was as much of a teaser for the next movie as anything. The revolution brought us back to almost the same place (except that Zion doesn't need to be rebuilt, but rather continues). The one has fullfilled his designed role (in a slightly different way than normal) and the cycle is set to repeat. Along with the Oracle, I expect to see Neo again some day.

relativePositioning

This is about as mind-bending as a Turing machine

[eclectro]

Interesting comment. Essentially you are saying that even though Neo went through the door that the Architect didn't want him to go through, the end result was the same. However, this is not the case as there is peace between humans and machines, where in previous versions of the matrix the machines end up destroying Zion. I think what you mean to say is there is "balance". But you can use this idea to explore the theme more deeply.

Drawing a conclusion from this line of thought, the Architect would have preferred if Neo went through the door that he wanted him (Neo) to go through because the desired outcome would have been achieved through predictable (i.e. safe from the machine's point of view (The machines are deterministic also and exist in a deterministic reality) rather than the unpredictable unknown outcome that Neo chose by going through the door that he wanted to go through. Neo went through the door he did because of his love for Trinity, and love (at least from the movie's perspective) is filled with unpredictability and unknowns.

The big threat to the machines is the Agent Smith program invading their own (the machine's) systems. This is another unknown that the Architect must be aware of but does not discuss with Neo. This is why the matrix would need to be either reloaded or destroyed. It is interesting -- nowhere in the Architect's speech does he say that the machines will destroy the matrix as Neo refers to a couple of times - (and hence kills their human batteries power source), but instead refers to a system crash that kills the humans. I will post the discussion Neo had with the Architect at the end of this comment.

Perhaps this is why the machines have to kill all of the humans in Zion (rather than keep around a few to regrow new batteries with) -- because the Agent Smith program is capable of invading human brains now, a la Bane. Remember - in previous versions of the matrix they successfully destroyed Zion five times before, but they still have their human battery farms each time. And the Architect tells Neo that if he goes through the door, he wants him to to choose a few humans to rebuild Zion with. A necessary but predictable evil that the machines know how to deal with. However, they do not know how to handle an Agent Smith program that wants to claim the matrix as his own. This is useless for the machines because the reality that Agent Smith wants to create (all humans in his own image/reality) is just as incompatible with humans as the perfect matrix was.

Remember when Agent Smith meets with the Oracle, he says "hello mother". Remember, the Architect refers to the "Oracle" in passing as the "mother" of the matrix. The Oracle is the mother of "choice."

Hence, Agent Smith represents "choice", more specifically "choice gone wrong", or from the perspective of the machines "control gone wrong". Agent Smith is all about control. Neo, on the other hand represents "ability to choose". Agent Smith wants to defeat "ability" to choose. However, Neo sees this at the end, and realizes that by "choosing" to loose and let Agent Smith kill him (if that's what he does), he actually wins the battle because the battle is about choice, and not strength. Agent Smith "chose" to win. He didn't have to, but the arrogance of ultimate control (power) seduced him in making the decision to. Thus achieving control over choice, or put another way, having ultimate control is having ultimate choice, while Neo, by giving up choice (to win) obtained ultimate control.

You could say that Agent Smith was "blinded" by his "arrogance", while Neo was blind could "see".

It's interesting that when Blade Runner first came out, everybody dissed it as mediocre, but time has proven the critics wrong. I suspect the same thing might happen here.

And the Hollywood ending everybody is whining about not having? -- it's hidden.

As I was thinking this through as I was posting, all my dominoes may not be lined up perfectly -- I will let other posters clean it up for me.

Re:Everything WAS explained

[Scrameustache]

The Oracle said the power of the One reaches to the Source. This is why he can feel anything connected to the Machines, including Smith in the real world. That seemed obvious.

Yeah, like saying "just because".

How the fuck is that an explanation of anything? Oh, you are "connected" to the "source".
What is the source? How is he connected to it? None of that is explained in the supposedly final chapter.

Smith entering Bane is less obvious

Lessee, he can take over the minds of people connected to the matrix. The zion hackers send their mind in the matrix and then send it back to their body. He sends his mind in the matrix, Smith replaces his mind with a copy of himself, and then sends that back to the body.

I really have a hard time seeing how anyone can have a problem with that. The body cannot live without the mind my ass, plenty of mindless people all around.

I will say that this movie has the most hidden religious and philosophical imagery I've ever seen...

You poor, poor blind man.

You either have never seen anyting worth seeing, or you think that glowing crosses over crucified christ wannabes constitutes "hidden religious imagery". Either way I pity you.