Matrix reloaded - could someone please explain the plot to me?
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06-11-2003, 2:57 PM
| #4 | |
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 Needless to say these are major spoilers, so highlight to read. Stuff that happens prior to the Architecht's appearance: We have previously established that some of the "people" you meet in the Matrix are not actually humans connected to the network, but sentient computer programs. In the first film the only example of these that we are told about is the agents. But in the second we find out that there are others. The Oracle is a sentient AI, and she tells Neo that there are many others. She also says that every kind of supernatural or paranormal activity within the Matrix is actually due to renegade AIs. Vampires, werewolves, aliens - they're all actually rogue AIs. AIs are in charge of managing every aspect of the Matrix, but sometimes they become redundant and (she says) need to be replaced and deleted. At that point some of them refuse and make a run for it instead. Hence all the weird happenings. Now, there's been a prophecy (made, presumably, by the Oracle) that eventually there will come a person known as "The One", who can do almost anything within the Matrix. According to the prophecy this person will eventually find a way from the Matrix into the machines' mainframe, and at that point the war will be over. The Oracle tells Neo that to reach the machine mainframe ("the core") he will need the help of another renegade AI called "the Keymaker". This AI dissappeared a long time ago, but the Oracle has just discovered that he is being held prisoner by another AI named Marovengian, and that they must rescue him. So that's what all the confrontation in the hotel is about, and the chase on the Freeway - trying to get hold of the Keymaker. The keymaker then reveals how to get to the core - the business with the building, and needing to shut down the power, and so forth. Digression on the subject of Agent Smith: Agent Smith should have been deleted when Neo apparently destroyed him. But he chose not to be. It is suggested that some of his code was over-written by some of Neo's mind during his apparent destruction. However it happened, Smith is now a renegade, no longer under the control of the machines. More importantly, he no longer hops from body to body in the way that a normal agent does. Now he can actually copy himself into another person without removing the original. So each time he does it, he is duplicated. This process is clearly fatal to the personality of the human affected - Smith is atually downloading himself into that person's brain and deleting his mind. By doing this he succeeds in creating a version of himself in the real world, in Zion. This body, occupied by the mind of Agent Smith, attempts to stab Neo in the early stages, and is also presumably responsible for sabotaging the defence of Zion by prematurely setting off an EMP. The Architect's speech: The Architect reveals that nearly everything Neo thought was true was actually a lie. The problem, as Neo puts it, is choice. The first two versions of the Matrix failed because the brains of the humans connected to it refused to accept it. The solution was stumbled on by the AI Neo calls the Oracle: people have to be able to make a choice as to whether they remain connected to the Matrix or not. They aren't consciously aware that they have chosen to, but nonetheless they make that choice. Once the choice is available 99% of people accept the Matrix. But in order for there to be a choice, there has to be something else that one can choose besides the Matrix. Thus, there has to be a Zion - a place that people choose to be instead. If Zion ceased to exist, there would be no choice and the Matrix would fail. But, paradoxically, Zion itself can be just as dangerous. As more and more people are disconnected from the Matrix, and Zion grows, this introduces progressive instabilities into the Matrix program. Eventually it reaches the point where the whole Matrix must, essentially, be rebooted, and slightly reconfigured in the process. If this didn't happen, the entire Matrix would crash and everyone connected to it would be killed. So the machines have deliberately created "The One", by subtly controlling aspects of his life and development. The function of "The One" is two-fold. First of all, part of the contents of his mind are necessary to the rebooting and reconfiguring process. That is why the machines need him to get to the core, and that is why they introduced the prophecy to lead him there. The second part of his function is to start a new Zion after the old one has been destroyed. The machines destroy Zion, then The One takes with him 7 other men and 16 women and starts a new Zion, and the whole process then repeats itself. The Architect says that Neo is the sixth version of "The One" to arise. So five times previously Zion has grown and grown; five times previously there has been someone like Neo; five times previously Zion has been destroyed, The Matrix rebooted, and a previous One has started a new Zion with only 23 other people. The Architect expects Neo to cooperate. But there's a problem. Where the previous Ones have been strongly motivated to love all their fellow humans, Neo is focused on just one human: Trinity. The Architect gives him a choice. (Presumably he has to, in the same way that people connected to the Matrix have to be given a choice). Door number one leads to the core. If Neo goes through it, everything will happen as planned: Zion will be destroyed, the Matrix rebooted, Neo will start a new Zion, and everything will be stable. Door number 2 leads back to the Matrix and to Trinity. But if Neo takes that door then the Matrix cannot be rebooted. In only 24 hours it will suffer a catastrophic system failure and every person connected to the Matrix will die. Nonetheless, Neo goes through that door. Issues raised by the ending: The one inexplicable aspect of what has happened is: why has Neo suddenly acquired supernatural abilities outside the Matrix? One possibility is that the process of reaching the core has extended his abilities. Another, more intriguing, possiblity is that actually a lot of what the Architect said is STILL not actually the truth, and that what we have been thinking of as the real world all this time - where Zion is - is actually not real at all, but is, in itself, also part of a Matrix. What we have been thinking of as the Matrix all ths time is thus actually a simulation within a simulation, and nobody is really free at all, not even the inhabitants of Zion. A third possibility is that door number 2 did not in fact lead back into the Matrix as we know it, but into something else designed to resemble the Matrix; so that when Neo thought he had saved Trinity and exited the Matrix, he was actually still in there. I dare say there are other possible explanations. And of course, there remains the question of Agent Smith. It is the body possessed by Smith that we see lying unconscious next to Neo's at the end. | |
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06-11-2003, 7:57 PM
| #6 | |
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11-11-2003, 5:20 PM
| #12 | |
| Veteran Member | Quote:
 I hope and pray that my explanation is more logically derived and easier to understand than that! | |
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11-11-2003, 5:24 PM
| #13 | |
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I was slagging off Reloaded for having nil plot - but after reading your explanation I could see that there was more going on there that I originally thought - but that explanation that I just posted ! I think the guy has been thinking about it too much - definately a case of someone with too much time on their hands. | |
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