The Matrix: Reloaded: Explained

Well there is all kindsa stuff in this movie that is not blatantly obvious. Hopefully, I can give you my take on them and what I think they mean. Unfortunately, it has been about 2 hours since I saw it and the stuff is starting to fade a little.

THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS!!!! DON”T READ THIS!!! I MEAN IT!!!!

Agent Smith’s Ear Piece: After being “Disrupted” by Neo, Agent Smith seems to have become a uncontrolled process. That is what the ear piece signifies. He no longer takes orders from the Matrix system. This becomes important later.

Agent Smith’s New Power: His new power is essentially a reprogramming of an individuals mind. Usually this isn’t a big deal as he is only reprogramming people still attached to the matrix. Of course it does make a lot of him, but the really bad thing is that he accomplished this on someone that is free of the matrix. This could have a profound effect later.

The Oracle: The Oracle is nothing more that a program, but she is a program that is an essential part of the matrix. She is the part that creates and deals with the various choices that people in the matrix might have. This is how she knows what is going to happen. She is the one that effects the choices.

The hall of doorways: Essentially backdoor paths through the matrix. Effectively paths between modules of the matrix. You must have a key to open these paths. Consider each location in the matrix as a module and the path between each of them as a socket. These are sockets in those modules that are not connected to anything or are able to be remapped to other places.

The Key Maker: The only way to get through these doors apparently. Since he was in exile apparently there is a newer version of him or something. I would liken him to a GPG program. The doors are a encrypted socket and he is the one with the passphrases.

The White Twins: This was something that I thought was pretty cool, but they completely glossed over it. The two guards for the keymaker were werewolves and the two White Twins were what I would call wraiths. Essentially they are programs that have “somewhat” learned to modify the parameters of the matrix. The Oracle talks about it, but there isn’t really any reason for her to be talking about it then. The only thing that really stinks about the whole thing is that one of the people that Neo fights in the Medieval fight scene is one of the Werewolves, but Neo kills him with a regular weapon.

Neo, his powers, and the Matrix: The architect, stated that Neo was the product of an equation in the matrix that was introduced by the Oracle. This equation was an irregular one with side effects that could not be predicted, but could be controlled. That was basically what the whole two movies were about. In order to control is unpredictable equation an elaborate cycle was created. Neo is apparently the eighth iteration of this cycle, but at the end of the movie he chooses a different path than the last seven. Neo’s power’s derive from the irregularness of the equation. He is able to effect large scale changes in the code and data in the matrix as a result of this odd behavior.

The Choice between Saving Trinity or Joining with the Source: I am not sure of a couple things here. First there is something that Neo carries which the matrix needs to continue to function correctly. I think I missed why the matrix needs that though. So Neo could either give this code to the source, or he could go save Trinity. Previously, all of the “Ones” choose to give whatever code they contained to the source in order to save all of mankind, apparently none of them had a significant other in their lives. Neo chose to save Trinity though and as a consequence of that has doomed humanity to die. My guess is they plan to try and save everyone someway in the next movie. I wonder if Neo joining is essentially a bug fix for the code that runs the matrix?

Mr. Smith’s Motives: Despite what it seems the machines of the matrix don’t want mankind to die. As a matter of fact they have done all they can to get them the option to stay alive. The only people they wish to kill is the rebels that are in Zion. Though they also have some interest in keeping Zion around in some form as well, since it helps to bring The One’s to them. This is why if Neo would have selected to join the source he would have been allowed to pick several people to repopulate Zion after its destruction. Mr. Smith on the other hand doesn’t want mankind to survive. He instead wishes for the destruction of all mankind. This is what he would have accomplished if he had stopped Neo from entering the room with the Architect and if he killed him. This is along the lines of what he talked about in the first movie when he was interrogating Morpheus.

Neo tightening his grip on the chair: At the end of the movie Neo is flying to save Trinity. As he starts to realize that he isn’t going to get there in time, you see him tighten the grip on the chair in the real world. I am sure this was really just to show that he was determined to get there, but I had a thought about it that I think might be pretty cool. After he tightens his grip on the chair you see him start to fly faster in the matrix. I think this is because by tightening his grip on the chair he felt the chair more and it solidified in his mind more that the matrix is not real. This allowed his mind to bend the laws even more which allowed him to go faster. Not unlike Trinity’s kiss helped his mind to realize that he had not died at the end of the first movie.

Neo’s Death, Trinity’s Death: In the matrix if you die, you die in real life? Yes, but wait… now we have seen two people die in the matrix and not die in real life. What gives? Well it has a lot to do with your minds perception. In the first movie Neo died when Agent Smith shoots him. His heart then ceases to beat and his mind shuts down. This is because the matrix has told his body that it is dead and the mind has accepted that. Trinity then kisses him and he realizes that he is not dead. His mind having realized this restarts the bodily functions that it had stopped controlling. Neo’s mind, still connected to the matrix, reactivates his Avatar and he then has a greater control over the matrix and his powers. This is because his mind has realized more fully that the matrix is not real and the signals and sensations that it sends his body are not real. Trinity does not experience this effect as supposedly her mind is not as open to this process as Neo’s. Trinity’s death is resolved somewhat differently. While Trinity is dying Neo reaches into her Avatar and removes a bullet from it. What he has essentially done is remove the references of a bullet form Trinity’s avatar. This is little different than removing a bug in computer code from a program. Trinity then dies in the matrix and the matrix sends signals to her body to cease its functions. Once it has done this it then drops the signal to Trinity as evidenced by the “NO CARRIER” on the readout screen. In order to bring her back to life Neo does two things. Reaching into her avatar he re-establishes a connection to her mind and then changes the code that represents Trinity’s avatar so that it no longer references her as dead. The matrix then signals Trinity that she is alive and her mind restarts the functions that it had stopped controlling. Neo should be able to accomplish this process on anyone in the matrix as long as they have not been removed from the hardware to connect them and it hasn’t been so long that they brain has used all oxygen and it no longer functions (about three minutes I believe).

Neo’s newfound powers in the real world: I am at a loss here. One possibility that I have is that the real world is actually another matrix that they are in. Neo’s mind might have started to realize this after seeing the total control the matrix has over him even when he is outside of it. Another possibility is that when he entered the source and talked to that Architect he somehow integrated into his mind a part of the machine’s system. That coupled with the hardware in his brain might be allowing him some access to the machine’s neural network that they must be using to communicate. He then linked himself to the machine’s coming after them and shut them down. In the process of doing this he also shut himself down.

Iterations of “The One” and Zion: Apparently they are currently on the eighth destruction of Zion. Each time it is repopulated with rebels and then destroyed after “The one” is assimilated. Why do they do this you might ask? Well a 99% acceptance rate would still leave a large amount of people that do not accept the matrix. Assuming a population of 6 billion people, that would leave sixty million people that do not accept the matrix. Allowing the rebels to remove themselves from the matrix, places them all in a central place to destroy. It also keeps some semblance of harmony in the matrix. The important thing to remember though is that while the cycle has repeated itself eight times, the people where not the same in each one. Just because there was a Neo, Trinity and Morpheus in this iteration, does not mean that in the others there was. The only thing that has remained the same in each iteration is the machines and their programs. That is why all the other programs know about all the others. They have played this game before. I also think that is why some of the programs are attempting to stop Neo, they are tired of the system and want the humans gone. You must remember that these programs and machines have intelligence just like a human. Boredom is something that I am sure they can accomplish.

The monitors in the Architect’s room: Notice that after each statement the Architect gave the Neos in the different monitors all gave a different reaction. This happened every time except one. These different reactions where supposed to be all the different reactions Neo could have. The one time that it didn’t happen was the one time that supposedly there was only one reaction. This was to show that the matrix was a timeless entity that contained all reactions and all possible outcomes. This is attempting to show that what he humans think is randomness in our thoughts has already been determined and expected in the matrix.

Geez there is a lot here. Hopefully it isn’t too out of touch with what they were really going for.

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