(Originally posted 12 December 2003)

Now that the semester is over and I actually have time to do things like go to the movies and talk endlessly, ‘Matrix: Revolutions’ has moved on and I’ll probably have to wait until it comes out on DVD to see it again. Which is frustrating, because there were things that I did want to see again.

As to why I liked the movie… It was not any one thing. All things considered, I should have hated it, since there were many action scenes that made me motion sick, and it’s science fiction, which I generally don’t like. But despite all that, I liked it. Then again, Andy always said one of the strange things about me was my ability to take things (like music) that just seemed okay, and say “but listen to that bass line! (or whatever) it’s perfect!” so I suppose that may have something to do with it.

So what was it about the movies? First of all, as a trilogy I thought it worked well, and some of the things about which other people complained I thought were important and integral. There was a shift from movie one to movie three in the amount of time spent in the Matrix as compared to the “real world” with more and more time being spent in the real world and less time being spent in the Matrix. This made sense because Neo and the other characters were shifting away from the Matrix and into the real world, not just physically, but emotionally as well. And I think this also signifies the diminishing importance of the Matrix. We hope that as peace blossoms between the humans and the machines, they will be able to work together to create a world where the Matrix is unnecessary, although one where humans can ‘plug in’ to interact with the machines as they so desire. (For as we see in ‘Reloaded’ and ‘Revolutions’ the humans are able to use this technology to their advantage in many ways, which would remain important even after the peace.)

It also made sense that Morpheus was less prominent of a character as the movies continued, for as the lord of dreams, or as the prophet, his time was passing. The Messiah had arrived, people were awakening in greater number from the dream of the Matrix. But just as the Matrix was to continue, so must Morpheus.

As I discussed previously, but fully deserving of another mention, is the resolution of the conflict. One of the things that I focused on in ‘Reloaded’ was the talk between Neo and Councilor Hamann, where Councilor Hamann was obliquely trying to tell Neo that destroying the machines wasn’t going to solve anything, but Neo didn’t get it. “The difference is that we can turn these machines off.” Well yes, you could turn off those machines, but then you’d be dead. Not the greatest compromise. Learning this lesson, as well as the ‘humanity’ of the machines, was the point of Neo’s time in Limbo/the train station, and his interactions with the two programs who were attempting to save their daughter. He had to realize that there simply destroying the machines was no solution and would not make everything better. There were, as mentioned in the first movie, millions who would be unable to accept being unplugged, this destroying the Matrix would in destroy these humans. And there would be people like Cypher who would not want to live outside the Matrix, who would not want to live in reality. If that is the choice, then they should be allowed to make it. Keeping Zion from being destroyed was important, but just as important was keeping this millions still trapped in the Matrix alive. Allowing them to live and make the choice whether they wanted to live in the real world or in Zion. And we must consider the free will and rights of the machines. They are not simply creatures to be turned off and on at our will. They have self-awareness and free will, and thus must be treated with the same rights that humans would be treated. Not realizing this was the mistake that the humans made initially (as was shown in ‘The Renaissance Parts I & II’ in the ‘Animatrix’)

Free will is something that extends not just to those who escaped to Zion, but also to those who remain trapped in the Matrix, as well as to the programs that populate the Matrix, and the machines the populate the real world.

It was this ability to live up to the ideas of free will, and to extend them to the machines that made me so happy with the ending of ‘Revolutions’. As John Donne said “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”