June 25, 2003

A few issues with our server this morning ...
sorry for the late column! -- Editor

Okay… so I’m finally doing the Matrix Reloaded Reloaded column…

I hardly know where to start.

Well, let me start with a MAJOR SPOILER WARNING.  Do not bother reading anymore if you have not seen The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded.  A.  There is no point… none of this will mean anything to you.  B. I am showing no restraint in terms of spoilers of any kind regarding these films.    You have been warned.

The reason that it’s been six weeks since I intended to do this column and the actual column became clear when I was chatting with Andy Klein, who has a similar assignment from Salon, which he has been similarly unable to nail down.  The simple reality is that The Matrix Reloaded is just half of a 4½-hour epic film that happens to be a sequel to The Matrix. 

There is a range of possible ways to read Reloaded and it is probably that parts of each of them have some validity.  But unlike any other trilogy of this impact, the die had been cast long before the second film in the series arrived in theaters.   We are not trying to figure out how the Wachowkis will “get themselves out of this story hole.”  We are guessing at what they already have in the can. 

But at some point, each of us must unload our burdens or retreat from the pot.  So here is the shit: 

The most popular theory around seems to be the “Matrix Inside The Matrix Theory.”  Lots of the mail that came in focused on this idea as the explanation for Smith’s ability to leap to the “real world” inside of Bane, Neo’s ability to stop the squiddies at the end of the movie and the significance of Neo’s “code” being required to start the seventh Matrix. 

But as most people also seem to conclude, changing the real world into just another program would be very much like the infamous “It was all a dream” sequence on TV’s Dallas.  This would leave the door open to many more sequels, since we could never believe in any finality that comes from The Matrix Revolutions.  Couldn’t everything just be another layer of programming?

The most cleverly thought-out take on the idea came from Trevor Sawyer:

“The Matrix in The Matrix = A virtual operating system (OS) running in an OS:

I would best equate this idea to Macintosh running virtual Windows.  With most Macs you can get virtual Windows.  When you open virtual Windows, it looks like windows, it acts like Windows, and it thinks it's Windows.  But the system doesn't even realize that it's running on Mac OS.  Likewise, the Matrix doesn't know that Zion is a Matrix.  I believe that the Matrix = Windows running on Mac, and Zion is the other, bigger Matrix (the MAC OS) that is running the Matrix (virtual Windows).”

Interesting.  The idea that the Matrix itself is unaware of the difference is really interesting.  But the only problem, still, is that there is no possible finality in Revolutions.  And once again, the talent involved with the movie seems to be very clear that the third film will end the story. 

So let’s move away from The Matrix In The Matrix Theory.  Let’s take a look at this from the machines’ point of view.

The key sentient programs inside The Matrix now seem to be The Oracle, The Architect, The Merovingian, Persephone, and Former Agent Smith.  I do not believe that The Wachowskis are going to add new major characters in the third film that are the “key” to the final disposition of man and machine. 

We must assume that all five of these characters know one another and are aware of the actions of the others.  Both The Architect and The Merovingian scoff at the notion of The Oracle’s moniker.  One reader wrote in with the idea that The Architect’s dismissal when Neo mentions The Oracle might indicate that she is not, in fact, the mother of the Matrix to whom he refers.  I think that is too much thinking.  

THE ORACLE - I believe that The Oracle is more than a benign fortuneteller.  She seems to be leading and reprogramming Neo’s avatar within The Matrix as Neo’s journey progresses.  First, there is the cookie from the first movie. As it has been pointed out, he was one of five potentials and became “right as rain” after eating the cookie.  In Reloaded, she slips him candy that looks, when she eats hers, a lot like the red pill from the first film.  Neo never is seen eating his “candy.” 

What is also interesting about The Oracle in Reloaded is that Smith keeps popping up wherever The Oracle has led Neo.  The Burly Brawl distracts from the fact that Smith turns up exactly where The Oracle put Neo, just as The Oracle exits.  How does he know to come there then?  Likewise, how does Smith get into the back doors of The Matrix.  He has not enlisted The Keymaster.  Yet there he is.  We know that Seraph has keys. 

Is the delay caused by the inexplicable appearance of The Smiths in the mainframe backdoor hallway a way of assuring that Neo will not be out in time to save Trinity and the baby that most if us now presume she is carrying?  Is Smith being controlled by The Oracle? 

The Oracle also sets up the meeting with The Merovingian, who does not seem to want to indulge  Neo or The Oracle.  But if The Merovingian is the Hades of The Matrix and The Architect is The Zeus, does that make The Oracle The Demter?  Demeter’s rage at the kidnapping by Hades of her daughter, Persephone, was so great that she made the earth uninhabitable until Persephone was allowed to spend half the year above the ground.  (Thus, the seasons.) 

Is it possible that The Oracle is, in fact, the ultimate villain of the piece?  Is Neo her tool to try to wrest Persephone from The Merovingian?  After all, The Merovingian is more than contemptuous of The Oracle.  He tells Neo to tell her that her time will soon be over.  He says that he has survived Neo’s predecessors.  Were they all sent by The Oracle to get rid of The Merovingian/Hades? 

And when Neo fails to eat the candy, does The Oracle use her daughter Persephone’s kiss to reprogram Neo’s Matrix avatar?  This would seem to be confirmed on some level by the Enter the Matrix videogame, which says that the kiss was an exchange of data.

More, neither we nor any of the humans have ever seen the scorched earth… at least not in either of these two movies or in claims made in the movies.  The only knowledge of the scorched earth is in a computer construct during the first movie.  Could The Oracle, the rageful mother of Persephone, be programming the idea of the scorched earth into the “history” of Zion to keep Zion dwellers believing that they should remain underground?  The Animatrix tells us about the darkening of the earth’s skies back before the machines took over.  But six Matrixes later, it would logically have happened 600 years before Neo.  Presumably, the earth is now inhabitable.  But with a Matrix lifespan of 100 years, no one knows it until they meet The Architect.  And presumably, each time someone has met The Architect, The Matrix has been reset.

There is a lot more to come, but I am writing this at 1:20 a.m. and I have a 10:30a screening.  So, welcome to the end of The Matrix Reloaded Reloaded, Pt. 1.  Expect Pt. 2 later today.  And who knows… there may be Parts 3 and or 4 to boot.  I already know what I am going to do… I am just trying to figure out why right now…

E ME:  Your thoughts are still welcome.