posted
OK... I just finally saw this last night. I was fairly blown away and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.
I agree that the Oracle is the "mother" that the architect was speaking of and that he merely scoffed at the title Neo gave her. It would seem that she is there giving her "guidance" for the sole purpose of identifying the current incarnation of The One and eventually bringing him back to the Source.
I see an extremely larger metaphor going on here that addresses the very nature of belief. Morpheus has, what amounts to a religion in his belief in the Prophecy and The One. His faith is absolute, but he finds out that everything he has ever believed has been a lie. In the first movie, he was the dispenser of truth, now he has to swallow it.
So one of the questions the movie asks is, "What if everything you believe about your existance one day proved to be wrong? What would you do?"
In the movie, the Architect is quite obviously supposed to represent God (white beard and suit and all). All the myriad exiled and obsolete programs inhabiting the Matrix seem to represent lesser Gods or Demons as has been mentioned before. Some of these programs even seem to have henchmen programs working for them like the guys that Neo fought in the mansion and the Vampires that Persephone blows away.
It's certainly a more complicated set up than we're lead to believe in the first film and it must be set much, much, farther in the future than Morpheus believes if Zion has gone through six 100 year incarnations.
Registered: Oct 1999
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In the movie, the Architect is quite obviously supposed to represent God (white beard and suit and all).
If I recall my gnosticism, an apparent source of inspiration for the writers, Satan created the world to trap humanity. Not all villans dress in black, especially in these movies.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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"Like the Star Wars movies!"
Well, yeah, Lucas's inspiration for the Force et all is deeply rooted in Eastern mysticism and Buddhist philosophies, as are many of the Wachowski's themes.
So one of the questions the movie asks is, "What if everything you believe about your existance one day proved to be wrong? What would you do?"
Your world would collapse... literally (for Neo) AND figuratively (for Morpheus).
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
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Werewolves, it would seem. Supposedly, Persephone is a vampire herself, though I think that might be something the actress said somewhere that didn't actually show up in the film.
"Satan created the world to trap humanity"
The Demiurge, which isn't quite the same thing. There were as many gnosticisms as there are other Christian sects, but I don't believe most held that the world was created specifically as a trap. It was, in the traditions I can recall, either a side effect of the bifurcation of the One True God, or a twisted attempt at mimicry on the part of the Demiurge. Humans do happen to be trapped in it, but it wasn't created out of the hope of doing so.
quote: In the movie, the Architect is quite obviously supposed to represent God (white beard and suit and all).
Actually, I thought he looked like Robert E. Lee...
quote: Supposedly, Persephone is a vampire herself, though I think that might be something the actress said somewhere that didn't actually show up in the film.
I think she said something along the lines of her being able to remove/sample people's emotions, which is what (I think) was intended with her insistance that Neo kiss her like she was Trinity; she wanted to feel love again. Reminds me of the Polymorph from Red Dwarf, actually. Only with less saliva.
quote: It's certainly a more complicated set up than we're lead to believe in the first film and it must be set much, much, farther in the future than Morpheus believes if Zion has gone through six 100 year incarnations.
Unless... the Architect was lying to Neo to try and get him to do the 'wrong' thing. Also- if the machines are defeated what does humanity do then? Can Earth be restored or are they gonna have to live underground for ever more. Or emigrate to Mars
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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Of course, Neo probably would have saved Trinity anyway, and screw humanity... again.
As for what happens if we beat the machines, really, anything we do at this point is a phyrric victory. Our only real option is to somehow convince the machines to be our partners instead of our enemies. Or to realize that the whole thing's a simulation.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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I don't know about phyrric, they have what seems to be a solid base in Zion. Just expand as the population grows, wait a couple of generations for the earth to start healing itself and just improvise from there.
The whole earth can't be burnt to a cinder, just the capital cities and such.
About Neo's choice, I was led to believe that this Neo did something different, managed to both have the cake and eat it, to coin a phrase involving food. The other Ones sacrificed their personal wishes for the good of the many and did what they thought was expected of them. Because that's what Neo's been doing since he was told he was "The One". Trying to live up to the expectations. I think this time he went with his gut-feeling.
I thought the henchman Persephone shot was a vampire too. Shirley there was no visual evidence to suggest werevoles?
I feel for Keanu, I really do. Losing your baby like that and then your mate, however "estranged" they were. I'm amazed he can keep the pace that he does.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
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She shot him with a silver bullet. Silver bullets kill Werewolves. Vampires are mainly killed by wooden stakes.
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I've never seen Blade. I'm going on actual folklore here.
I find it hard to believe that the writers intended the "silver bullets" reference to mean they were anything other than werewolves.
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Well there's no full moon now, so what's your excuse?
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Cartman
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A GSW or two from a shotgun at close range, and a vampire will croak like any mortal (unless the wrong side of the d20 comes up... curses!).
Registered: Nov 1999
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As long as we're into geeky game refrences: there's the possibility that the central characters are the Matrix's representations of real world game players....that sure would make for a shitty ending though: fade in to five online players living in their mom's basements and downloading Buffy pics all day...((shudder!))
I really think the idea of the co-dependency between humans and the machines was no mistake. In the end they'll have to resolve things that way: humans have no real inkling how to run things as a rule and due to the eternal 1999(ish) world that the Matrix fosters, no one has ever been trained to the level of technology seen in the Animatrix. No machines = no survival.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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