12/27/2021
Three tidbits for today:
- The well in the forest where Sati meets redpills reminds us (probably deliberately) of when the Queen of the Elves has Frodo look into his future, when Dumbledore has Harry Potter look into the pensieve, when various witches look into their cauldrons to see images of the past, present or future, etc. It's no secret that M4 has a lot of reflections from mirrors and water, and this scene shows a reflection of Sati fading into a scene of the Anomaleum.
- When Bugs and Morpheus jump out of the window pane, they fade into Matrix code. This isn't just a mere transition effect from one scene to another; remember that the entry/exit point that the hackers used to get into Neo's modal was the window pane. The fading into Matrix code literally shows Bugs and Morpheus exiting the modal. [Some people might have picked up on this the first time... I didn't catch this until the third time, and in case anyone else is as slow as I was about this, I thought I'd mention it.]
- When Morpheus is in his exomorph form, I think I'm going to refer to him as ExoMorpheus. :)
Three questions to ponder...
- What kind of relationship or "deal" did the Analyst code between Agent Smith and Neo? It seems to me right now that Agent Smith was coded to activate as soon as Neo activates. It seems like this relationship was coded between Agent Smith and Neo, not between Smith and Neo; otherwise the Analyst wouldn't have been taken by surprise at Smith's ability to get around the new bullet-time enhancement that gives the Analyst more control over anomalies in the Matrix. So, when Agent Smith perceived (correctly or incorrectly) that Neo was back to his original identity, this allowed Agent Smith to resume his old identity too. On the surface, this seems to be the case, but it also seems weird, awkward and illogical from a computer coding point of view. Why not just purge Agent Smith during the purge and have a more updated agent double as Neo's boss? I really wanted to think this new Matrix suppresses anomalies so much (because it's not giving people genuine choice - only an illusion) to the point where Smith couldn't even fulfill his purpose, so Smith embedded his own code into Neo's boss, having it lie dormant until Neo showed any sign of anomalous behavior. But this can't be the case, because Smith himself said that the Analyst "appreciates" Neo's and Smith's relationship a lot more than Neo does and seems to imply that the Architect put Smith where he was deliberately, as some kind of punishment. Another possibility: the Analyst also resurrected Bane-Smith and uses him to generate additional power for the Matrix. Not likely as the Analyst made no mention of this, but this would offer additional reasoning for why machines would EVER want to keep Agent Smith / Smith around.
- Seq says in the monorail scene, "Portal's clean. Reading our shadows." Right now I think this is merely a way to say that the portal signal is so strong that he can even see their shadows. But I'd be interested to hear from anyone who disagrees.
- Why does Neo now have more machinery around his spine than before, rather than just a single headplug? Does this let machines tap more deeply into humans' feelings? Does this allow machines to harvest power from humans more effectively? Necessary components for saving Neo's life?
12/26/2021
As I continue to study M4, I'd like to just mention three inconsequential (starting with the most inconsequential), but still interesting things I've noticed to my readers as a way to reward them for their patience.
- In M1, Machine City was called 01. The human city in M4 is Io, a number-to-character reversal of 01. I and O are also the two middle vowels of both Zion and Niobe. [This might be beyond inconsequential... it might be nothing more than coincidental, but still thought I'd mention it.]
- Hovercrafts now have a back end that moves around, resembling a scorpion tail that lays straight down behind the ship. I can't help thinking that maybe Niobe was behind this change since she said the Hammer had a "fat ass."
- Bugs said her name is in reference to Bugs Bunny. This of course connects with her white rabbit tattoo on her left shoulder. But why did she choose that name? I believe it's because when she saw Neo walk off the building ledge, Neo floats. I don't believe he flew away - she doesn't say he flew, she just says Neo didn't fall. She witnessed Neo the same way Bugs Bunny might witness seeing Elmer Fudd walk off a cliff and float in mid-air until he stops believing he's on solid ground.
12/24/2021
I'm making my own transcript as a way to "take notes." I found another transcript, but it appears to be a direct copy of subtitles, so lines don't begin with character names (which I don't consider to be a real transcript), and even if each line did start with a character name, I'd still do this on my own since the process of making the transcript helps me chew and digest what I'm watching. (The first two times I watched the movie, I was unable to watch without subtitles, I never paused, and I never stopped to think.)
I reserved judgement of the movie until after I had a chance to really study it. I'm half-way through at this point. It is painful to say, but this movie is not growing on me the way the others did as I studied them. There are so many differences between this movie and the others, I can hardly count them, and very few, if any of those differences, are improvements. That said, I'm still going to make sure I understand everything I can and bring this understanding to readers of this website.
One of my disappointments is that the Matrix Online storyline is no longer part of the canon. Certain aspects of it share common roots in the original movies, but very significant parts of it were discarded in ways that make it impossible to reconcile with M4.
Opening
Matrix Resurrections, featuring Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, was released in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously on December 22, 2021. The movie unfortunately did not include Hugo Weaving (shooting schedule conflict) or Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus died in The Matrix Online, an MMO that took place between the third and fourth movies). Thank you, Lana Wachowski, for recognizing the timeless following you and Lilly created at the turn of the century and for honoring that legacy by giving your fans more.The movie was delayed in its release because of COVID-19, but this was a benefit since John Wick 4 and Matrix 4 would have been released on the same date, which means the two movies would have been in competition with each other for opening weekend sales.
I have seen the movie, but I haven't had time to completely process it yet. Please be patient as I gather my thoughts. For now, I'll just leave my predictions intact (below). Some of them came true, some of them didn't.
My Best Predictions (written after seeing the trailer, before seeing the movie)
After M3, Neo would have normally been "deleted" from the Matrix system because 1) he is no longer needed to select 23 individuals to start the next Zion, and 2) he actually chose deletion for himself right before Smith copied over him. Machines would have had permission to kill Neo. And make no mistake, Neo had to be alive at the end of M3, because the code dissemination that happened at the end of M3 to cancel/clean out rejection errors from the Matrix has never killed any of Neo's predecessors. The only way Neo would have actually died after the end of M3 is if Machines had actively killed him.
But two things gave Neo a way out of this demise. First, Neo just brokered and achieved peace for humans and machines. Killing Neo at that point would be a sign of "bad faith" under the new peace, to put it mildly. Second, keeping in mind that Neo is part of the Matrix system (a human part, but still a part nonetheless), while Neo lost his purpose to select 23 new individuals to start the next Zion, Neo did not lose his purpose to allow the Prime Program to encapsulate rejection within the Matrix into him. This would have stopped Machines from deleting Neo, or at least it would have allowed Neo the option to refuse deletion.
Normally, a part of Matrix system that has lost its purpose would be placed into Mobil Avenue if it refuses deletion. Since Neo was not actually plugged into the Matrix, placing Neo's RSI into Mobil Avenue wouldn't be possible. In order for machines to live up to their own moral framework, Neo would have been allowed to leave Machine City. This is supported by Chapter 4.1 of the Matrix Online (Machines point of view), when a character named DifferenceEngine starts malfunctioning (the same way Agent Pace does on a number of occasions during the Matrix Online storyline). Redpills recognize it as remnants of the Smith virus. He demands codes to the Zion mainframe, complains of humanity's stench, and he calls for the Oracle and "Mr. Anderson" to be killed. He says that after the final battle, Neo was provided with a hovercraft and left Machine City alive.
There is no doubt in my mind that Neo would have made a second request of Machines after his first request: save Trinity. Machines wouldn't have granted this request out of the kindness of their hearts; they would have asked for something in return. I believe Machines would have wanted to plug Neo back into the Matrix with his memory wiped so he can continue fulfilling the primary function of the One (encapsulating rejection) until he dies of old age and a new One can come along to continue the process.
This wouldn't have been acceptable to Neo; this would mean that Neo would forget who Trinity was, and they would never meet each other again, which is almost as bad as having both of them die. So, either Neo or Machines would have proposed the compromise of splitting the function of The One in half, shared between Neo and Trinity, which in a way guarantees that they will come back together. It was as good of a deal as Neo was going to get; if he didn't choose this deal, Trinity would just be allowed to die in Machine City, Machines would allow Neo to go freely to Zion, and Machines (more specifically, the Oracle) would have the task of choosing a new One.
Passage of time
Unfortunately, this deal carries another harsh consequence: unfortunately for Neo and Trinity, the Matrix doesn't need to be reset every 10 or 20 years. It needs to be reset every 100 years. Neo and Trinity would die of old age long before that. The only way their joint functions of The One could come together before death is if they are somehow transported several decades into the future, when the Matrix is approaching its inevitable crash. The soonest this could happen would be something like 50 years from the end of M3, so that in another 50 years (when Neo and Trinity are both 80 or 90 years old), they can come together to reset the Matrix.
We've already seen from the comic Goliath that Machines have the power to distort the passage of time for humans in a simulation. The main character, Goliath, is able to perceive living out many final years of life in the last 20 minutes of time he had in the real world. Achieving the opposite, making 50 years seem like very little (or no) time, would presumably be much easier, as it wouldn't require improving "on the basic human design" by improving "processing speeds and reaction times" (quote taken from Goliath). It would require either 1) slowing down the passage of time drastically and having "the mind make it real," or 2) some kind of physical body preservation, such as cryo-stasis. In the first case, it would require Neo and Trinity to be in their own simulation separate from the Matrix with a different rate of time passage. But I would wager it's something more along the lines of the second possibility.
Deja Vu
We know from watching the preview of the fourth movie that the science of erasing/changing human memories is a science that machines have not perfected. Sometimes memories come back, either clearly or in a more vague sense of deja vu. But actually, this isn't new; we also know this from the Matrix comic Deja Vu well as one of the Sentinel editions from The Matrix Online (Jan. 24, 2005), when people had strange memories of rainfall (referring to when Smith had completely taken over the Matrix). Literally every person in the entire Matrix had to have their memories of this worldwide rainfall wiped, and Machine-controlled newspapers and other media outlets had to offer explanations of massive rain storms in order to get bluepills to accept these "deja vu" memories as part of their normal reality.
The Real World's Impact on Script
What about Morpheus? He appears to be younger than Morpheus was in the original three movies. In some movies, the audience is supposed to pretend that the same actor is the same person, but as we've seen in the Matrix movies, even when an actor dies in real life, like when Gloria Foster died after making M2, the Wachowskis don't take the lazy way out and just ask the audience to ignore it. In Gloria Foster's case, the Wachowskis altered the plot to give the audience a reason to observe and embrace the new actress: the Merovingian obtained the deletion code to the Oracle's "shell" (presumably as part of the deal with Rama-Kandra), but to the Merovingian's disappointment, the Oracle was able to find a new shell.
Same thing with the Marcus Chong, the actor who played Tank: he got greedy with contract negotiations and tanked his chances of appearing in the second or third movies [insert rimshot here], so the Wachowskis gave him as little attention as possible. In a conversation between Link and Zee, Tank's death was mentioned in passing but never explained. Had the Wachowskis offered a specific explanation, I assume it would have been tempting for the Wachowskis to offer something like this: Tank healed from his wounds, and then a month or two later, he slipped in the shower while bending down to reach his soap, hitting his head on the ground and dying instantly. Wisely, the Wachowskis did not give into this temptation, and they left the story up to the imagination of the audience.
So, part of this "younger" Morpheus could just be the new actor. But still, the Wachowskis could have hired an old actor, but instead they hired a young one. Since Morpheus died (see below) in the Matrix Online video game which takes place immediately after M3, trying to imagine why this would be the case is like herding cats in my mind. But the most plausible explanation I can come up with is that after Morpheus was killed inside the Matrix, his body wasn't found where it should have been. Niobe suspected he must have been captured by machines, which would imply Morpheus is still alive (or he was resurrected the same way Trinity was), so Niobe would naturally spend her whole life trying to find him in 01 (Machine City), engaging in covert missions in the Matrix and even possibly in the real world.
It seems that while some programs/machines age (such as Sati, who has aged between the third and fourth movies), some do not, such as the Merovingian, a program who is between 600 and 700 years old but who obviously appears to be at a nice prime human age. This makes me wonder if maybe Morpheus won't even be human; maybe he'll be a program like we saw in Matrix Online, with Cryptos (see below). But in any case, whatever machines did to Morpheus (or whatever Niobe discovers in the process of searching for Morpheus), Niobe finds something unacceptable, and she is highly motivated to go to war with machines and free everyone from the Matrix.
Other Elements: The Matrix Online
After watching the recent preview, it is inevitable that at least some elements from Matrix Games: The Matrix Online (MxO) will come into play in this movie. This was a massive multiplayer online game that continued the plot line of the Matrix movies with the blessing of the Wachowskis. Players had the option to play the game from the point of view of 1) a Zion human, 2) a machine agent, or 3) a Merovingian exile.
- Clues were given throughout the storyline that Neo was still alive and was planted back into the Matrix. Perhaps the biggest clue came from The Kid's Blog (below), where a user named "Nicks" pointed out that a woman named Sarah Edmontons (anagram for Thomas Anderson) suddenly woke up from a coma and walked out of the hospital, bypassing all security guards. Some time later she came under the protection of Seraph, whose purpose of course is to "protect that which matters most."
- As part of the machine-human truce, redpills who hacked into the Matrix couldn't be killed because an "auto-jack-out" feature that would be applied to everyone upon death, preventing one's body in the outside world from dying. This is presumably the real reason why Neo didn't actually die in the first movie or third movie... and may very well be the reason why Trinity didn't die in the second movie, if machines also gave her the same protection. There are hints in the fourth movie's preview that suggest that Trinity and Neo together play a special role when coming together.
- There were very clear clues here and there throughout the Matrix Online plotline that bits and pieces of the Smith virus survived. Movie preview screenshots reveal the actor Jonathan Groff not as "Agent Smith," but just as just "Smith," two names which are distinctly apart from each other in the scripts of the three movies, to distinguish between Smith the agent and Smith the virus. This suggests that he does not survive as an agent but instead as either an exile or, more likely, a continuation of the Smith virus.
- Machines wouldn't give Neo's body back to Zion, even despite all of Morpheus's acts of "terrorism" demanding Neo's body back. Specifically, Morpheus set off code bombs that would reveal the Matrix to everyone in the vicinity and cause massive rejection of the Matrix.
- A character called "The Assassin" appeared. He was always seen around dumpsters and could disappear into flies to transport himself through hard-to-get places, such as going through the tiny holes in an air duct vent. The Assassin killed Morpheus, and Niobe vowed to avenge him. The Merovingian admitted to controlling the Assassin, but insisted the bullets given to the Assassin contained code that would prevent Morpheus from ever hacking back into the Matrix, but apparently someone put "kill codes" into the bullets instead.
- A character called "The General" played a role throughout the game, and he was older than the Merovingian. I think he was probably used to police other machines before the Matrix. The General hated "The Frenchman" (the Merovingian), I assume because the Merovingian probably would have assumed control of most sentinels who lost their purpose due to the truce (sentinels without purpose would make a good addition to his army). The General wants to rekindle war between humans and machines, so he pretends to ally himself with all sides while manipulating them against each other.
- Niobe was the loudest voice advocating for the avenging of Morpheus's death by going to war with the Merovingian. She allied her Zion forces with The General and his followers, and even formed a temporary alliance with Machines. (Machines and the Merovingian are natural enemies anyway.)
- A character named Cryptos (a fallen Zion officer) reappeared and started performing magic shows for people, apparently reinserted into the Matrix as a Cypherite given system access to perform acts that appeared to be magic (disappearing into a box and reappearing into another of various other boxes located around the city), with memory implants that cause him to supress redpills and manipulate bluepills to encourage them to remain bluepills.
- The Kid from Animatrix: Kid's Story formed a group called E Pluribus Neo, a group devoted to doing "what Neo would do." Eventually they started setting off massive code bombs that were worse than what Morpheus set off, trying to free everyone at great risk to the truce (both machines and Zionists considered E Pluribus Neo an enemy). The group ran a real actual website (The Kid's Blog) at mxo.blogs.com/cryptos (no longer a valid address) as if it were a part of the Matrix fiction universe itself rather than an omniscient Matrix fan website like the one you're reading right now. E Pluribus Neo and Cryptos represent two extreme factions within the Matrix, one wanting to set everyone free and destroy the Matrix, and one wanting to preserve the Matrix and destroy (or reinsert) all redpills.
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