Analyst: Fail-Safe

At the end of M4, the following dialogue takes place:

Deja Vu (the Analyst's cat) seems to serve a special purpose in the Analyst's Matrix, most likely a kind of "security key" required to change the reality of the Matrix (change bluepills' memories, repair structural damage, etc.) when something goes wrong. Remember also that Sati spoke of the fail-safe, when she says that a fail-safe was triggered, but the Analyst halted it, convincing the authorities that Neo will return voluntarily. Deja Vu is probably also the Analyst's mechanism used to trigger the fail-safe himself if something goes drastically wrong. Our first clue is that after Neo is shot in the head by Smith in M4, the Analyst remakes reality, and Neo wakes up in the Analyst's room. The first thing he hears are the bells of Deja Vu. The final clue comes from the fight scene in Simulatte. The Analyst is desperately trying to make his way to Deja Vu, but the cat is scared away by someone falling down behind the bar between the Analyst and his cat.

Deja Vu also serves a second purpose in M4: the obligatory villain's cat, imitating the famous cat always held by James Bond's arch nemesys, Ernst Stavro Blofield (leader of the organization Spectre), or any number of other villain cats (Enter the Dragon, Inspector Gadget, The Godfather). And right on cue, when Neo falls into the Analyst's trap in Trinity's garage, just like with James Bond villains, the Analyst discloses everything to Neo even though doing so isn't really necessary - how he manipulates Neo through bullet time, how he extracts power from Neo and Trinity, etc.

But to be perfectly honest, I think there is a bigger purpose to these lines. Before I say what that purpose is, let me explain the clues that pushed me to this conclusion. For one thing, after Neo says, "We have a few questions," Trinity doesn't ask a question. She makes a false statement, and the Analyst corrects it. What makes Trinity's statement even more odd: why would it bother Neo and Trinity that the Analyst tried to activate the fail-safe? If the fail-safe resets the Matrix back to version 7.0, a Matrix model that gives humans in the Matrix more freedom since they have authentic choice, wouldn't that be a good thing? If Neo or Trinity could have triggered it by capturing Deja Vu, surely they would have triggered it themselves. Accusing the Analyst of triggering the fail-safe, or bringing up the fact that it was triggered at all, seems a little strange.

Where did this lead me? I believe these two lines serve as a conclusion to all the self-reflective "meta" stuff in the beginning: they serve as a message from Lana Wachowski to you and me, telling us that once Warner Bros. (the "suits") read the wacky, hyper-meta script of M4, Warner Bros. saw that the sequel wasn't going to show the respect to the franchise's own loyal, core audience that they deserve, and the "suits" tried to do everything they could (rightfully so) to cancel the movie and/or have other writers revise it (they tried to activate the fail-safe, to reset the movie franchise back to what it was, as a standalone trilogy and nothing more). Warner Bros. ultimately did not have control over the script itself (Neo's source code), probably due to a contract negotiated 20 years ago, so Warner Bros. didn't have any ability to... pull the plug, so to speak. If my speculation is correct, I would be more disappointed by Lana Wachowski for being so willing to taint the artistic perfection that the first three movies are and to use you and me as tools to engage in behind-the-scenes politics (highly disrespectful to the audience), than I would be at Warner Bros. for forcing a sequel to be made with or without the Wachowskis.

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Morpheus