This is Revision 1. For Revision 2 click here.

An alternate title for this article can be stolen from the Cranberries album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? Mine isn't the first essay on The Matrix Reloaded and it won't be the last. Let's start with the easy stuff. Forgive me for forgetting characters names. Also forgive me for forgetting the names of philosophers.

Special Effects

Joel Silver, the producer of The Matrix trilogy said that the first Matrix movie raised the bar for action movies, and it did. He also said that Reloaded raised the bar even higher, and it did. Lawrence Fishburn said that it raised the bar for action movies becuase for the first time you could go to an action movie and be provoked intellectually a well.

The scenes with the ships (the Nebuchadnezzar, etc.) looked like they were right out of Star Wars, there really wasn't much special about them. Some of the scenes with the sentinals was impressive because of the sheer scope of what was being shown.

The fight scenes, however were spectacular. The way the actors moved was even more amazing than the first movie, and in the fight scene where Neo is fighting dozens of Agent Smiths, there are practically no cuts. The camera just moved around the scene wherever it wanted to go. It'll move in close for a punch, then spin 360 degrees around and pan up to show an Agent being thrown into the air, then it will spin around to show Neo spinning around on a pole. All without cuts. The only cuts where to where they showed a close up of the actor's face, and that may have been for dramatic effect rather than a limitation on the technology.

If you didn't know, the Wachowski brothers invented something they call Bullet Time where you have dozens of cameras all sync'd filming the same scene. You can then go frame by frame from camera to camera. Since the cameras captured different angles of the same scene, you can move the action to any one of those cameras in sequence, getting a full 360 panorama of the action. When people saw it in the first movie, it blew them away. Well, the Agent fight scene will probably do that for Reloaded.

The Philosophy

I noticed that the Wachowski brothers moved from an eastern / messianic philosophy to a largely western / post Descartes philosophy. The first movie focuses on the nature of reality - how do we know that what is real is real? How do I really know who I am?

This movie focuses on the nature of choice v. fate. The Oracle tells Neo that his choices have already been made and he doesn't really have any more choice, he's just following his destiny now... following through on the choices he's already made.

The Frenchman says that the only universal constant is Cause and Effect. The Architect tells Neo that while he has a choice, it's predictable, and indeed was planned when The Matrix was built.

This sort of philosophy is appropriate because everybody knows what's going on - they're fulfilling a prophecy. There's no real question about what they have to do. If you're fulfilling a prophecy, are you really able to choose what you're doing, or was it scripted for you when the prophecy was first made?

I'm told the writings of Cornell West figure heavily into this movie's philosphy, as do Herman Hesse (who wrote Siddhartha), Plato, and others.

See below in the links section for a more interesting overview of the philsophy behind The Matrix from a guy who really seems to know his Gnostics from his drop kicks.

The Plot -  The Good Guys

In Lajos Egri's book The Art of Dramatic Writing, he tells us that every character on the stage has to have something they want so bad that they're willing to prevent the other characters from getting what they want. It's a basic goal /obstacle, where the characters goals conflict, and they become each other's obstacles.

The main characters seem largely redundant. Morpheus fights with the other captains so he can fulfil the prophecy, but there isn't much of a fight - the Council is on Morpheus' side, so we get a passionate speech by the captain in charge of defense of the city, and then he's silenced... No battle.

When Morpheus says that the council won't punish him for his actions, that's not just brave talk... It's the truth. He faces no consequences for his actions. Between Choice A of follow the Prophecy, and Choice B of stay and defend the city, there is no choice - he follows the prophecy, and suffers absolutely no consequences (read: potential conflict) for doing so.

Trinity is needed simply as the character Neo loves and is willing to make the choice over at the end of the movie. Even when there's an opportunity for conflict when Neo tells her to stay out of The Matrix, she acquiesces immediately. Again, another opportunity for conflict averted.

Neo is the one who has to fulfill the prophecy, and Morpheus and Trinity are his support staff, so to speak. Could the movie happen without a Morpheus and without a Trinity? Absolutely. Neo could give the speeches that Morpheus gives, Neo could fight with the other ship captains. And are there ever any conflicts between Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo? No. Do they all want the same thing? Yes. The only one who wants something different is Trinity. She cares less about the prophecy and more about Neo. Neo and Morpheus, however, simply want to fulfil the prophecy.

Of course, there are shades of difference between Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity, and they're the characters the movie was given, so you can't exactly throw any of them out, but if I were the Wachowski brothers I would've focused more on giving them individual needs and goals.

The main characters - the Holy Trinity - Morpheus, Neo and Trinity - simply hop from goal to goal without even knowing why. Go see the Oracle. Go find the Keymaker. Go to the Source. They're told what to do and why to do it. None of the characters grow, or make difficult choices. By the end of the movie, are Neo, Trinity, or Morpheus significantly different from the beginning of the movie?

In fact, the new guy is the only one who has any struggle whatsoever. He fights with his girlfriend about being able to go on the ship. He also faces, even though it isn't talked about much, his own feelings of inadequacy, and whether or not he believes in the Prophecy and Morpheus.

The Plot - The Bad Guys

These guys are the main obstacles to the main characters. Neo already beat Agent Smith in the first movie, so it's little surprise when he beats him now. So they added dozens of Agent Smiths, but it's still little surprise when he beats them here and at the end of the movie. In fact, the only really dangerous part of Agent Smith right now is that he's in the Real World, but nobody knows this now except the audience, so there's no conflict for the main characters.

Agent Smith gives Neo a "I made you, you made me" speech, almost straight out of the first Batman movie. His motives are unclear. Why does he need to block Neo's passage?

Then there's the Oracle. In order to get to the Oracle he has to fight Seraph, but it's a friendly battle. I don't even remember how he found Seraph, was there any question as to whether or not he would reach the Oracle? The Oracle then gives him his mission - find the Keymaker. And is there any question as to whether or not he would find the Keymaker? Of course not - the Oracle gives him the place and time to find him.

From a movie maker's point of view, why does Seraph exist? To protect the Oracle? To give Neo a little exposition about the programming back doors? To fight Neo? He's tells Neo things the Keymaker also tells him, but earlier in the movie.

So there's the French guy, Merovingian and his wife, Persephone. They're locked into the eternal conflict of a loveless marriage. What conflict do they get when they reach this obstacle? Witty repartee. "You come to me without Why." Without a reason for what they do, they aren't in control of their own destiny is the message he gives them. And why does he not give up the Keymaker? I'm not entirely sure. I'm sure it was mentioned in the movie, but it didn't make much of an impression on me.

Then in the elevator - did we do everything we could? More questioning choice and fate. Then Morpheus announces they did everything right and the door opens and Persephone tells them she will take them to the Keymaker if Neo will kiss her.

A subtle conflict, but we all know that he'll do it. And not only does he do it, he suffers no consequence from Trinity for doing it... just some dirty looks before the fact. Trinity backs down way too easily.

And once they get the Keymaker, Merovingian comes back and - small conflict between Persephone and Merovingian - there's a fight. Now, Merovingian is fighting as far as I can tell just because. It was time for another fight scene. I know there was a deeper reason for him to want to fight, but for the life of me I can't remember why.

The next twenty or more minutes are a result of this conflict - the fight in the lobby, the highway chase scene. Neo is conveniently transported to the mountains because he's so powerful that it's silly. So powerful that the highway chase scene simply wouldn't happen if he was there. In fact, I got the feeling that he was playing with the people he was fighting with. That he could end the fight at any time.

Also, it's more obvious in this movie than the last, but they keep coming up with clever ways to make guns useless so they can fight with swords and fists. Neo can stop bullets ("when the time comes, you won't have to" dodge bullets) and there was another scene with Morpheus (I forget which) where guns were conveniently made useless.

Now, while the audience goes back to Zion (does the audience even care about Zion? Are we given a reason to care about Zion?), everyone stays in The Matrix with the Keymaker and prepares for the final battle of the movie.

During this whole time I felt the movie was winding down and Morpheus was summarizing what they would do in the third movie. I hear that this part ties in heavily with the video game, and that could explain the extreme jump cutting and the bad editing, but I also suspect they were running out of time and Hollywood told them to make the movie shorter.

What are their obstacles here? Take out the power plant - done by a minor character in the time it takes The Keymaker to tell them it's what they have to do. Again, here's a part where they're simply told what their next goal is and blindly do it. Then the scene in the hallway - Agent Smith is a conflict, and now Neo isn't alone, so he has to protect the Keymaker and Morpheus, but we're not sure why Agent Smith is here. He's become the random wandering monster from old D&D video games.

The Keymaker too is a two dimensional character. We're not sure why he exists other than to serve as a MacGuffin, a plot device "Find the Keymaker." He knows they're coming and knows he has to help them fulfil their destiny. He then gives them their next task. Again, very old D&D video game. Another gripe about the Keymaker... he has the key to a door they didn't know existed. He's the solution to a problem they don't know exists until they meet him.

So now we get to Trinity going back into the Matrix to help Neo fulfil his destiny. In an ironic, clever twist of fate, she thinks she's helping him fulfil his destiny by getting him into that room, but in reality she's helping him fulfil his destiny by endangering her life and forcing Neo to make a choice. Which brings us to....

The Architect. The Architect is the AI that built The Matrix. The first Matrix was a "sublime" and elegant creation, but according to Agent Smith in the first movie, we rejected it and "entire crops were lost." So they added a flaw - choice. We now had the choice to be in The Matrix or to not be in The Matrix. That choice inevitably lead to a rebellion and a One, who had to make the ultimate choice:

1. Destroy the Matrix - Everyone in the Matrix will die, but Zion will be saved
2. Let the Matrix continue to Exist - Everyone in The Matrix will live, but Zion will be destroyed.

The One has a great love for humanity, so he always chooses to let the Matrix exist. Neo is unique in that his love for humanity manifests itself in the form of love for Trinity.

This scene is mostly The Architect spouting psychobabble at us, and I'm sure people re-watched The Matrix hoping to get just a little more out of what he was saying. "This is good shit yo, it's from the Wachowski brothers. I don't know what he's saying, but it's deep."

While the seeds of the choice equation where seeded throughout the movie, it didn't really prepare you for the rapid fire exposition that the Architect gave us. This is the Matrix's "I am your Father Luke" speech, only much more drawn out.

For the first time in the movie - for the first time since the first movie - Neo struggles with his role in The Matrix, and all his thoughts are humorously displayed on the television screens in the room. We also go through several television screens, which hasn't happened since the first Matrix, almost as if to say, there are several versions of this scene happening concurrently, and you could choose which one to be in.

But as we've been told repeatedly since he ran into The Oracle, his decisions were made a long time ago, and he's simply acting on them. He has no why, he just reacts.

Symbolism & Miscellaneous Notes

The Spoon. Kyle West on the Alternate Reality Mailing List said his significant other pointed this out to him. Why did Neo get a spoon while he was in Zion? Was it just to tell Neo that he was liberated, or was it to send a message - there still is no spoon?

The Red Pill. My girlfriend pointed this out. The Oracle gives Neo a piece of candy. Now, the first Red Pill that was given to Neo was "a trace program designed to disrupt his input/output carrier signal." Could this piece of candy also be some sort of program?

Room 101 is re-used over and over in this movie. In the first movie Room 303 is the room Trinity is in, and Neo is in room 101 - Neo = One, Trinity = 3. Well, Room 101 is back in this movie, and nearly any room with a number is room 101. From George Orwell's 1984, Room 101 is your own personal hell.

In the original Matrix, once Neo accepts that he is the one, he runs through all the previous scenes in the movie (an oracle type apartment, etc.) to return to the beginning - Room 303 where Trinity was in the very first scene. Agent Smith knows that Neo is headed to this hotel room. It is in this first room that Trinity brings him back to life, now a resurrected Messiah. Jesus rose from the dead in 3 days.

While we're on the subject of The Bible, Morpheus is a John the Baptist character, telling everyone about the coming of the Messiah. Cipher is a Judas character, betraying him and leading to his ultimate death, though in the movie Cipher betrays Morpheus not Neo.

The Matrix fits squarely in the Cyberpunk genre, which is why telephones figure so prominently, it's a convention of the Genre... The telephone is how you connect to the internet and cyberspace.

What is the society of the machines who created The Matrix like? What do they do with all this energy they collect from the Humans? Where would Agent Smith have gone once he had obtained the codes from Zion? He hates The Matrix, but what exists outside The Matrix?

Each of the main characters has a signature move. Agent Smith is very aggressive, so his move is punching. Morpheus has the eagle where he jumps up in the air and comes down with his knee. Trinity has the scropion kick where she kicks you from behind her head. Neo has a triple kick.

Technology in The Matrix is similar to technology outside The Matrix - the Bug that was planted into Neo is very similar to the Sentinals that hunt the hovercraft. The same musical motif is used for both in the first movie.

In the beginning of The Matrix (the first one) Neo is afraid of heights. By the end he can fly.

Watch the credits for Reloaded to the end, you get a preview of Revolutions.

During interview, Keanu keeps referring to The One as being the birth of compassion. They also refer to Zion as the bottom of the Rabbit hole.

Added Tuesday May 20: Ph0rk on Kuro5hin.org pointed out that "Didn't you notice that everyone spouting the deterministic propaganda was a program? Isn't obvious that programs would think that way? (Including the bit about causality, if you believe in only causality, thats not too far from determinism.) Just because the oracle and everyone else says it is one way, doesn't make it so." It makes sense to me that a program would believe things to be that way. Inside a computer every program exists for a reason, unlike humans who are brought into the world without being given a reason for being. Someone else pointed out that Morpheus similarly spouted "fulfill the prophecy" propoganda, but it may be that he simply swallowed what the Oracle told him. This is definately a possibility, and I think the play between fate and choice is fun, though heavy-handed in this movie.

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