The Matrix - Philosophy & Secrets

Preface / Disclaimer:

WARNING! Rambling ahead!

Like most people, I loved the first Matrix movie, delved into its philosophy. I thought the second movie set up a lot of possible cool stuff, but was a bit wordy, and the third movie was a big letdown and left open a lot of plot holes.

I had a great conversation a few weeks ago with a friend of mine over some aged Irish Whiskey and cigars. After going through some more theories of what the Wachowskis were trying to say, my opinion of the movies did improve.

However, I think third movie, from a critic's point of view, was below average. It lacked a story that kept up with the compelling main characters (like the 45 battle scene that completely avoided every single major character). It also was an anti-climax as Neo never really rose to any challenge like he did in the first movie. I think the second two movies could have been wrapped into one 2 hour+ movie.

Anyway, this thread is not about my opinion about the movie - it's about the philosophy behind it - shedding some light on this garbled movie that had so much potential.
All opinions are just that - opinions. And long-winded and rambling at that

Warning: If you haven't studied or read about contemporary philosophy, you might get lost.
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Overall Theme:

The Matrix trilogy is about the inevitable meltdown of modernism, the challenge of postmodernism, and the eventual (and hypothetical) acceptance of a unification of the two. The Wachowskis have tried to predict, essentially, the next great philosophical movement.

Modernism

The modernism aspect comes from the dependence on technology, the "system". When Neo sees fields of babies being grown in the Matrix, the Wachowskis are projecting the dehumanizing future of genetic engineering. (The movie Gattaca is a great film to explore this topic alone.) Humankind's belief in science as a replacement for spirituality is vastly explored in the first movie, where Morpheus goes into great detail about how few people are concerned or even aware of truth, and would even become killers to protect their way that they have become so dependant on.

By the third movie it becomes apparent that even if Neo wanted to unplug all of humankind, he couldn't without killing them all. Even in the first movie, Neo undergoes extensive medical assistance because his body has essentially never been used. Clearly, humanity is wrapped so tightly in technology that they are slaves to it. In the second movie, a councilman points out that even in freedom of Zion, they are still dependant on machines.

Luddite attitude not the answer

If that last scene in the bowels of Zion is not evidence enough, the ending should be. Humans are given the choice to stay in the matrix or go; humans and robots are at peace; robots are learning to be more human. One of the beautiful, more sublime points that I missed when watching the movies for the first time was the natural closure that the third movie has. Rather than outright rejecting technology, the Wachowskis are establishing a sort of ruleset for technology. Like Isaac Asimov's 3 Rules of cyborgs (dont harm humans, don't let humans be harmed, do whatever a human says) the Wachowskis are looking to write themselves into Sci-Fi history by establishing a new paradym for our view of technology.

Awareness

This paradym is that we need to be aware of the technology we use. The Wachowskis showed that choosing the matrix was viable, but only after people knew it existed. The paradym stems back from some good German philosophy a la Heigl & Heidegger.

Conceals at it reveals

The concept that technology "conceals at it reveals" is central. We buy a dishwasher. We now pre-wash the dishes, buy detergent, load and empty the dishwasher, worry about getting it repaired if it breaks ... all these things we take for granted, and soon, like my roommate, we've forgotten the concept of handwashing one or two dishes ourselves. Does that mean we shouldn't use dishwashers? No, not really... it means we should be aware of what the technology entails.

Not quite postmodernism

It's not postmodernism. Postmodernism is more of "anything goes" or "any combination works". In a postmodern world, you get Toner Wars a la Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age where nanoprobes kill nanoprobes and leave a black ash all over. Or you get the hyper-privatised world of Snow Crash, where even suburban neighborhoods have evolved into self-contained mini-corporations. At this point, technology has taken over because the "anything goes" attitude of postmodernism allows it. No, postmodernism is not a permanent solution.

And it sounds simple - awareness. Like, sure, we've been endorsing education for years... what's the difference? The difference is that our education to this day is funded by and based on a system - and while wonderful teachers and professers can try and teach us to think on our own, the overall message is still, "stick with the corporations, the law, the country, the machine... and all will be fine."

All will not be fine

This is the message of the Matrix. It's a prediction of a shutdown of the system, the need for overhaul. The need to use both the ingenuity of science from modernism, and the focus on the individual from postmodernism. The matrix leaves no room for individualism, hence Neo's shock to the system as "The One" - the one, the individual being once again important in the world.

How is it the world has lost sight of this? The US stamps its coins E Pluribus Unim - one of many - perhaps evidence on how forward thinking America's founding fathers were. By contrast, the matrix is a world where any person can instantly be an agent of the system.

(end part I)

(part II)

Symbols

Symbols hold the key to the matrix. The movies are littered with one, and to the discredit of the Wachowskis, I'm not sure how much of it was well thought out, and how much was "Wow, let's throw this in here!" The most obvious use of this was in the characters, so I'll start there.

Characters as Symbols.

Neo - latin for new - the new philosophy

Neo is always making choices, and winds up choosing both. As the whole theme is the unification of modernism and postmodernism, so are Neo's choices. I could do a whole essay on his choices alone... between fear and belief, between love and duty, between survival and friendship, red pill or blue pill, ignorance or knowledge. Overall, the Matrix is constantly trying to remove choice from Neo.

Choice

Choice, then, is extremely important to the Wachowskis and their solution to the modern/postmodern problem. Choice is the natural consequence of awareness. If you are aware of the matrix, you can choose to stay or leave, etc. At the very end, Neo's ultimate victory comes with the simple decision to choose to succumb to Agent Smith. Neo has the will to go on, but he makes a conscious choice, rather than being forced into one.

Neo, therefore, exemplifies everything about

The One - Neo is part of a religious symbol, too. Obviously, a Jesus figure, in his self-sacrifice and rebirth in the first movie. He's also the student of Morpheus.

Morpheus

Morpheus acts as a father figure, a believer. Roger Ebert, in his reviews, pointed out an interesting look - African American actors were not only abound in the movies, but represented earthy, grounded figures. Morpheus, the Oracle, the commander of the Zion base, the two natural born people on the Nebuchadnezzer in the first movie, Naomi... all african american, all very strong, guardian-type figures. It's no surprise that the last human outpost of Zion is in the mantle of the earth, either.

The Oracle

A product of the system, ironically. The Oracle shows that human actions are still predictable, still bounded by a set of rules. And yet, she is pure mysticism, still dependant on the choices that Neo & others make. The Oracle is like the hypothesis where Neo is the conclusion of test results. The Oracle is also the antithesis of the Architect

The Architect

This guy screams Sigmund Freud, and if the philosophy weren't obvious enough, he looks like Freud. Freud, being one of the major contributers to modernism with his reduction of humans to a bunch of reactions to early childhood, is an appropriate choice as the designer of the system. The Architect can't understand the anomolies in the Matrix, why it fails. In fact, Smith explains in the first movie about how the first matrix failed altogether because the human brain couldn't accept a world without pain.

The architect represents the main fact that modernism - science - will never be able to explain what makes humans human. It sees choice as an illusion. Like a quantum physist, The Architect tries to convince Neo that his choice is merely a destined one, of a multitude of realities - how the architect shows Neo on all the TV screens. In the end the architect offers Neo a seemingly easy choice, which Neo shows is possible to do both, to synthesize modernism and postmodernism.

Trinity

Christian symbol - the trinity. With Morpheus the father figure, neo the christ figure, she is the holy spirit of the three, so to speak. She keeps them together, she gives them hope and love. Her fighting spirit is unmatched.

Agent Smith

An obvious symbol - Smith being the most common American last name - represents the masses of humans content with the system. Humankind turning into cold, humanless beings. Smith spreads like a cancer in movies 2 and 3, the public's rejection of a challenge to the status quo. Neo wins victory at the end of the series by allowing smith to devour him, to stop combating the new philsoophy that neo represents, and instead to take it into itself as its own.

ironically, as much as Smith is an agent of the system, he loathes the matrix. In Matrix 1 he takes off his connection to the rest of the masses - his earpiece - and describes his frustrations of the world. Smith, here, is the common frustrated average man/woman, who knows that this world has major things wrong with it, but fails to rise above it and find a better way to live.

The Merovignon

My personal favorite character, because of the subtlety of what he is. ... Let me save this post and I'll start off with him, because we're moving into a new subject - secrets of the Matrix and hidden clues.

you know that part where Neo and Laurence Fishburne are fighting and jumping all over the place and they both know kung fu then Neo wakes up and goes "i know kung fu"?















that was awesome.

Secrets

really, the secrets in the matrix were kind of just a spew of fanboy references. Quentin Tarantino does largely the same thing in Kill Bill, by tributing every single film style one can possibly imagine. However, in the matrix, it's not about an homage to other filmmakers, but more just a way to feed loyal fanboys for their fanatic IRC / blog hype that has made the three movies such a blockbuster succes sin the theaters.

tangent - in Kill Bill Part 1, which came out a year or so after Matrix 2, Uma Thurman as The Bridge takes on a slew of mobsters "The Crazy 88s". They are dressed in suits, and the scene mirrors the CGI-rendered fight scene in Matrix 2 where Neo takes on the dozens of Smiths. I think Tarantino elegantly proved:
1. He can do that kind of huge fight scene without the help of CGI, and that it is vastly superior in quality.
2. That violence is ugly. (compare how gorey the Kill Bill scene is compared to the bloodless, deathleath Matrix fight scene that is a total trivial scene since you know neither Neo nor Smith can be defeated0

Go Quentin!

...

Merovignon, Older Matrixes, Older "The Ones"

This is the big secret in the matrix. Neo is not the first "The One". The architect confirms that when he says previous "anomolies" arise in the system, a dozen humans are chosen for a new zion, the rest are killed, and the system restarts again.

History Doomed to Repeat Itself

It's disturbing to think of this, because the Wachowskis are pointing out that the system that controls us has been going on much longer than we usually attribute it. (Most people call American government "the system", when it's been going on since... humans were made?) It also makes my mind spin thinking of the possibility of the matrix being around a long long time. Like Morpheus says in Matrix 1 "The more interesting question is when are we... in the matrix it is 1999, but in the real world it's more like 2199, but we're not even too sure of that."

Of course this leads to a paradox and, naturally, at some point computers did have to be invented in the first place, but it's a fun joke that the Wachowskis play with the audience in a "hey, you never know... it might be real". In any event, I put the number of versions of the matrix at 5.

Why Five?

Binary is the foundation of computers. 1s and 0s. Ever catch the number of the floor that the Merovignon resides at in his building? It's right above the elevator when Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity walk out. 101. Binary for five. Coincidence?

In Matrix 2 there are a couple strong hints to back this up. The first is the scene with Penelope. Like her namesake in Greek Mythology, Penelope is waiting for her lost love to return from a long journey. Unfortunately for the Matrix character, Penelope's love has been long lost. Her love, The Merovignon, has lost his passion, his love, his humanity.

Wha? You thought the Merovignon was a program, right?

Nope. Penelope demands a kiss from Neo (and, in the video game, she smooches Ghost and delightfully Naomi, which alone was worth the $10 I spent on it) to feel the love again. The Merovignon is cheating on her with the bimbo he gave the orgasm cake to, and he's lost all concern for humanity, only his own survival.

Who was the Merovignon?

"Your predecessors were more interesting" he said to Neo before the stairway fight scene. What predecessors? The other "The Ones" that the Architect described. Now, since the Merovignon's house did not appear on the matrix itself, it can survive multiple versions, and it is obvious that he is a collector - of old programs, of art, of women, etc.

So we know the Merovignon is a survivor from the first matrix. In fact, he is the first "The One". He was the first one to, as the architect describes, choose to continue humanity to the next versions of the matrix. ... Okay, it seems like a stretch. But, let's throw in the last piece of evidence. HIS NAME

Merovignon's Name Significance

Like all the other characters in the Matrix, the Merovignon's name is important. Morpheus is the god of the underworld, just like he is the respected spiritual leader of the subterrainean Zion settlement. Neo is new, and an anagram for One, Smith is a common name, etc etc.

In real life, the Merovignon family in France is widely believed to be of the bloodline of Christ. Well, if you believe Christ married Mary Magdeline and had children, but that's a whole nother topic of conversation. The family is supposedly kept in super secret to protect their identity.

And so the parallel is now clear. The Merovignon's identity is hidden. He's also the bloodline of The One - like Neo, who we've established is the Christ figure... the bloodline of Christ!

Ah, so it becomes clear. The Merovignon was the first The One, who chose to preserve the system rather than go for love, and has through the iterations of the matrix lost his humanity, as Penelope has lamented. His floor number - 101 - or five, is the iterations of the matrix, and he is threatened by Neo who seeks to replace him.

Because that's what The Matrix movies are about - escape from this cycular reinvention of culture and religion by our reliance on science and technology, and coming to a true synthesis of body/mind, spirit/science, modern/postmodern.

... (end part 3)

Synthesis & Symbols

Body / Mind

body = Zion, humanity
mind = Matrix, robots

Zion's leaders are mostly african american, earthy colored, the whole city is in the earth.
Zion's scenes are all about what makes us deeply human - the love scene between Trinity and Neo, the rave scene where people dance around barefoot in the mud, the leaving of food for Neo... the grittiness of reality, of the innards of the body.

The Matrix - very airy. Scenes in the matrix almost always include the sky. Agents are white (and, in case it's not painfully obvious, the skincolor isn't meant to be racist, but the colors themselves are important for symbolism - look at the move "Hero" or "House of Flying Daggers" for use of color symbolism - both of which in the same genre of kungfu flicks that Matrix resides in) The architect thinks - computers compute, etc etc - all mind aspects


Choice / fate

The Oracle brings this up in movie one - would neo have knocked over the vase if she hadn't have told him about it? Would Neo still make the same decision to go for Morpheus if he thought he was The One?

Again, Resolution

The Wachowskis seem to emphasize here that knowledge itself is not the most important thing. Neo is able to save his friend, to make the tough choices, without knowing the outcome ahead of time. And yet, if the outcome was predetermined, as the Oracle had said, why had she not told him? Because, as Morpheus says in movie one, "You do not have to know the path to walk it". One must be instead be simply concerned that they are doing the right thing - awareness that they are walking the path even if they don't know where it leads.

A focus on living well and not just survival. Beautiful.

The dualities that the Wachowskis propose are all solved with a very Eastern concept of awareness. Perhaps this is why the whole movie is a kung-fu flick, or perhaps it's the other way around - a natural result of the Wachowskis' love of the genre, of the culture.

Certainly it's how the machines resolve their conflict at the end - not only aware of their existance, but aware of their actio

And so many other things... I could go on another 8 posts of notes, but now I'm out of steam. I apologize for the rambling nature of these posts, but it was all meant as food for thought, to spur discussion. So, there you have it, the matrix. And why couldn't they have made the movies as good as the philosophy behind them?

Actually, you have them backwards.

Tank loads Neo's mind with fighting knowledge, Morpheus walks in, Neo goes, "I know kung fu!", Morpheus says, "Show me" and they fight.

Ok, now that I read all that and have something to wrap my mind around...how about a comparison between the portrayal of modernism in Lord of the Rings and The Matrix? LotR has a lot of themes of industrialism (Sauron) and pastoralism (Hobbiton).

LoTR is almost sheerly Luddite. Tolkein was horrified by the industry that he saw lay to waste the landscape of Britain, and of the war machine it created.

My point is that the times we are living in reflect on our philosphies. LotR was written in the 50s and was against industrialism. I guess I find it interesting that two of my most favorite stories deal so much with philosophy. Good night! I can't think this late

Hiro is my hero.
I felt a warm-hearted camaraderie reading your posts. Not many people in my life who enjoy thoughtful analysis of movies ( or other else for that matter! ), and I wish I had more time to process and reply! Alas, work beckons me. Matrix is a movie containing several levels of information and it's good to read that others get as obsessed ...urrr ... attracted to the metaphors and symbolic images as I do. How about Vanilla Sky? Yes, it got panned in the theatres ... but had some thought-provoking messages ... at least for me. Perhaps I'll take a stab at describing my perceptions and analysis at at later date.
Thanks for posting this Hiro!

- dis
(sci-fi geek wanna-be)

hiro, that was a very interesting musing on kill bill. it's an amazing comparison and i agree, the kill bill scene was much more effective. i wonder if tarantino was deliberately challenging the matrix 2 scene. i will have to watch them both back to back later this week.

I found the Matrix Trilogy interesting but I do have a few questions. Maybe you could answer them.

1. Larry Wachowski is a transexual. Why didn't anyone change gender or race while in the Matrix? They changed hairstyle and clothing but the deviation from their real life self was minimal.

2. In the third Matrix Neo and Trinity fly their "ship" above the clouds and into the sunlight. If it is relatively easy for two humans to fly above the dark clouds and into the sun, then why haven't the machines just created structures to harness solar power above the clouds? Likewise, why haven't their been attempts to clean the world? Do they need humans for more than power?

thanks for posting this Hiro. That was a very interesting analysis!

Closer to home, many people in SL must make the choice between our own little Matrix (SL/games/TV/other media) and RL. I personally prefer to see it as an extension of RL (because it is in the realm of shared perception) but of course that's only with the awareness of its differences and most importantly the Choice to participate or to not.

The problem in RL is not that the System exists (for I always believe there will be some form of it where there is Society) but how much must we rely on one particular version of it. How many options do we have? Can we opt out and still survive and prosper or are we forced via circumstance to conform even we'd rather not do so. Are we even aware that it IS possible to opt out or that other paths exist and/or are viable? By this i mean, being truly capable of how to pursue those alternatives not just that they exist.

In the Matrix people percieve what the Machines choose to present, which shapes peoples reality. A similar effect is increasingly occuring with the consolidation of our media. I don't really believe that the Media (or those who shape our perception of reality) is involved in a conspiracy to present superficial information. However, I do think that their short term interests and the long-term interests of the public are not necessarily coincidental and are in fact diverging.

Do we fight the Machine, conform or reach a compromise? If we compromise what will be the long-term consequences of that compromise? Can we do so without sacrificing what is essential to us and to our future prosperity? The pursuit of individual and community happiness?

On the flipside, can the System afford to make its own compromises? Does it have to? In my observations, I've noted that large groups/systems/nations are much like Animals. They function very much according to their lowest common denominator and often that is those who only see what it is in it for them in the short-term, only act in their own interests and don'tinclude the needs of the community of which they are ostensibly a part of and only have respect for the threat of sheer force/power and are typified by an almost total lack of idealism (regardless of what they profess for the purposes of social manipulation and expediency).

This is a kind of reality that must be factored in when dealing with this sort of entity. If you can shape its reality so that it percieves it is in its best short term interest to deal with you it shall, if not, it will seek to do its own thing regardless.

Attempting to harmonize these interests (as exemplified by the Democratic, Communist and Socialist Experiments) is probably the one of the challenges we've faced in the past
and will continue to do so in the future.

If ya want philosophy, read a book. I found the matrix to be philosophically preachy and simple. It was like manga that took itself even more seriously *shudder*

*stir stir*

hey, i agree that the matrix had plotholes and the last 2 movies were, from a screenplay point of view, sub-par.

but...

1. Rule of storytelling in movies - if it's not needed to forward the theme of the movie, don't include it. Is there some way you think having a transexual in the movie would have forwarded the theme of the movie?

2. I suppose if you have to pick at this, one could say that the storms were violent / corrosive to either construct or sustain a building that tall.

I need to get my big Matrix fan friend in here! I think you two would have a lot to talk about!

As for my comments, Neo punches a lot of people and they shoot and stuff... it's all good

excellent observations.

I alluded to this in my original post, but what's disturbing is how long this has been going on. Ever read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" ? Same difference... scary how ancient the system is.


The answer, according the Wachowskis, resides in Neo. As Morpheus describes when he tells the prophecy of "The One" - there comes a man who could alter the matrix to his own will.

Morpheus is not just talking about Neo, but here he's a mouthpiece for the Wachowskis. They are really saying that each and every one of us has the ability to do this, to change the world with our will. It's a very uplifting sentiment, for sure. The key, then, is awareness, as I stated the overall theme is.

Imagine a society where all citizens were aware of the system and not apathetic to the wool pulled over their eyes. True democracy, for sure.


You describe this well, as an animal. I believe that the system is very flexible, more than the powerful people might let us believe. I think it's a matter of that while the system is flexible, it does shake off its leaders when it does change. So it's our leaders in the system that really keep us down - certainly a good argument for term limits and retirement age

We also can't predict how our willpower can change the system. But, in this respect, the Wachowskis don't seem to think that's important. Neo repeatedly does what he feels is right and tries to save his friends, and he is rewarded for it by being able to do what everyone thinks is impossible. In movie 1, he both rescues Morpheus and saves his own life, which from the Oracle's prophecy, we would think was impossible. In movie 2, he saves Trinity, and he is able to set into motion a chain of events that saves Zion.

Clearly then the Wachowskis believe that the way to act in life is simply to not accept the choices given to you, and to always do what you think is right, regardless of how impossible the outcome may seem.


Yes! Precisely.

I'm willing to bet the reason No. 3 ended like that is because of The Matrix Online.

Wow, hadn't conceived of that til now, but given how integrated the matrix revolutions video game was, I think you're right!

(I was hoping for another Animatrix... that was fantastic!)

Yeah, if you read the plots given so far in The Matrix Online (which has dropped its NDA, so you actually CAN read the plots ) it does tie directly after the third movie. Truce between Zion and The Machines so that the Redpills have limited access to The Matrix etc. It's pretty cool really.

Hiro, you need a spell checker man. Also, you seriously need to lay off the crack pipe.
The Matrix is a popcorn movie. A really good piece of entertainment. At least the first one.
It's not a way of life, or a big fancy message. The Wachowski brothers aren't enlightened philosophers, they are a couple of ex-carpenter hippies who like Anime and sci-fi.
Have you even SEEN them? They're the "40 years old and still teenagers" type...
The Matrix sucked after the first movie, and it presented nothing really original.
You can find its central themes in many, many, MANY anime series, computer games, and I'm willing to bet they all came from books written during the "golden age" of sci-fi.
If you watch "Ghost in the Shell", "Serial Experiments: Lain", play "Beneath a Steel Sky", read Frank Herbert's "Dune" series... you'll see a lot of similarities.
Heck, the concept of "uploading" yourself into a computer is rather old, and you can find the exact same kind of spinny-rotatey "zero-G" fight scenes in the "Hong Kong Action" genre of movies dating back to at least the 70s. See "Hero", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" for some recent examples.
Actually, some scenes from The Matrix seem to have exact parallels to "Ghost in the Shell"
scenes.
A friend of mine even made a video montage with scenes from both movies running side by side.

The Matrix - all of em, were pants. Utter cack. Total rubbish.

There were about 3 good scenes in the first movie. The other two stank completely. Overblown, overhyped BS.

Will you take the blue pill or the red pill? Buddy, if you're watching the Matrix I'll take the sleeping pill thanks.

That's my analysis, anyway

Keanu was perdy tho

He may be pretty, assuming you like that kinda thing, but he's a fucking terrible actor.

Yeah... I wasn't really watching his acting