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The Matrix 20 years on: how a sci-fi film tackled big philosophical questions
- momentmaker 7y agoMatrix is my favorite film. And now I'm on the spiritual path I can see there deeper layers in the the movie I didn't grasp before beyond the red pill of social programming/control.
- rafaelvasco 7y agoI'm the same. The more I delve into the more esoteric knowledge and philosophy the more I realize the brilliance of The Matrix.
- chrisweekly 7y agoTangent, but FYI / PSA: The Animatrix (collection of animated shorts related to the world of the Matrix) is, IMHO, one of the all-time great (and under-appreciated) animated films.
- mettamage 7y agoSeconded, I loved the animatrix
- black6 7y agoIn medias res is great, and The Matrix pulled it off as well as A New Hope, but the Animatrix provides the much-needed backstory to make sense of everything.
- kgwxd 7y agoI got the box set with those included (and an awesome bust of Neo). I've watched them more than the movies.
- kippinitreal 7y agoHa - the anniversary must be why this was available on my flight the other day. While rewatching for the first time in a decade I found the “human battery” idea pretty silly/lazy and thought that through the modern lens there would be two more interesting reasons to farm humans: 1) the computers get addicted to big data and need humans to generate massive data sets for them to analyze 2) the AI is not capable of original thought (just advanced pattern matching) and they farm humans for their ingenuity
- sremani 7y agoI read somewhere, the initial plan was to use Humans as Neural chips of some sort of collective intelligence, the idea of battery was used in the plot to keep it simple and easy to explain.
- wnevets 7y agoPretty sure I read something similar on IMDB or a site like that. Instead of a battery it was supposed to be about using human brain for computation power a la seti@home
- jerf 7y agoThe best evidence for this is that suddenly the entire series starts making more sense. Why can't the machines just take off into space and leave humanity behind? Because they're still running on human meat. It makes sense that the humans shouldn't exactly have control over the simulation, but why do they have any, like Neo? Because the simulation still has huge chunks running in human heads and that part can be influenced strangely, even though I think it's equally clear a great deal of the simulation is running on conventional computers too. (And yes, the Architect may goose that along, but he isn't creating it.) Why can Neo still influence the Matrix even when outside it? Because he still has some kind of subconscious connection to it, with wireless presumably provided by the gear in his body (+ whatever the Architect did). Why are the non-main characters such cardboard cutouts? They're literally running on only a fraction of their own brain; the exiles are the ones that for whatever reason, grew into their own brain more than the average person. And I don't just mean "fanon" sense, though, yes, there's an element of that, but more actual sense. It's still kinda a mess, even from this point of view, but it's pretty good for a Hollywood effort.
- sverona 7y agoIt bears mentioning that the Wachowskis are both trans women, and there's reason to believe that Lana came into that realization around the time she was working on the Matrix films, although it was well before she publicly came out. If you choose to read the first film as an allegory for that experience, it really brings the philosophy that this article kind of haphazardly throws around into focus. I suppose it also helps to have had that experience yourself. Ironically, most estradiol pills are blue.
- kgwxd 7y agoIf that's true someone needs to fix the wiki[1]: "Estrogen pills used in hormone replacement therapy are commonly red in color." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill
- a_bonobo 7y agoThere are three main hormone replacement pills, depending on your therapy: Estradiol, Premarin, Estratab. If you look at pictures they come in all kinds of colors depending on dosage https://www.drugs.com/estradiol-images.html https://www.drugs.com/estradiol-images.html https://www.drugs.com/premarin-images.html https://www.drugs.com/premarin-images.html https://www.drugs.com/estratab-images.html https://www.drugs.com/estratab-images.html including blue and red
- kgwxd 7y agoSo the significance of pill colors in the movie is pure speculation supported by misinformation. I should have realized that and dismissed the whole conversation :) What is it about fandom that makes all rational thinking tools fall out of my head?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tinus_hn 7y agoOriginally the ‘Switch’ character was supposed to be a man in the real world and a woman in the Matrix (or the other way around).
- moby_click 7y agoWorld on a Wire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire) from 1973 is worth mentioning, too.
- kgwxd 7y agoThe Matrix must have over shadowed The Thirteenth Floor [1], a remake of that show released the same year. I never heard of it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor
- ggambetta 7y agoI watched both. It's ok. It is to The Matrix what Deep Impact is to Armageddon, both released the same year iirc.
- pmoriarty 7y agoI've seen World on a Wire. It's pretty awful.
- CzarnyZiutek 7y agohero's journey is the oldest myth/story; matrix is just another variation.
- Finnucane 7y agoI recall that my impression at the time was that the movie somewhat avoided big ideas. It seemed that every time it got too close to something that might cause the audience to have an idea, it would throw in a monster or something to distract away from it.
- ken 7y agoAudiences have trouble with 'big ideas'. They're hard to put on screen, and besides, if people really wanted that, they'd be reading a book, not watching an action movie. Art these days has to have something fun to hook people and get them to try to accept something new. Sometimes, the fun part is so good that it overwhelms the interesting part. That's why I'm frustrated by The Matrix. Stripped of the action, the first movie is basically mid-age wish fulfillment. You have a respected, well-paid, safe yet boring job you hate, and then somebody comes and offers you a way out. For the low cost of nothing, you can abandon your zero-attachment life, become a martial arts master in a day, and then superman, simply by deciding to be. You no longer need money. You can solve all your problems by punching, shooting, and running away. The sequels start to delve into the idea that maybe being superman isn't all it's cracked up to be. As with the later "Dune" novels, the hero discovers his powers make him the object of worship, even though this is bad for everyone. He can pull strings, but ultimately has to sacrifice himself for humanity to be saved. (In Neo's case, of course, there's lots more punching first.) We see an inner circle who understand where their superman's power comes from, know that he's not a god, and get that this doesn't excuse you from needing to fight.
- Finnucane 7y agoIt seemed like they wanted it both ways, to seem like it was a movie with ideas, but couldn’t commit to it. They pulled their punches to keep it commercially viable.
- pmoriarty 7y agoThe most disappointing thing about the original Matrix movie was that it's taken for granted that the reality Neo is shown when he takes the red pill is the "true" or "real" reality, while he might actually still be in the Matrix or in some other false reality. In fact, there could be an infinite number of such realities, and there's really no way to tell when you've reached the real one. This possibility is more satisfactorily explored in Inception and the Philip K Dick books which likely inspired them both. I'm happy that The Matrix has introduced many people to philosophy and Eastern religious ideas, however. That's its biggest contribution.
- logfromblammo 7y agoMy favorite interpretation is that Zion is actually a server rack, Matrix is another server rack, and that the goal of the multi-sim project was to develop AI that considers itself to be human in essence. Some of the humans in the story are natural humans in VR gear, while some are AI native to the simulation. The AI can't tell the difference. When someone they know is sleeping, are they dreaming, or is their operator just taking a coffee break? There's no better explanation for Neo stopping the sentinels in the "real world", or for Agent Smith taking over a human body in it, than it being just another layer of simulation. And if the "real" is a simulation, what is its purpose? The Agents in the Matrix and AI machines in the "real" can react so quickly because they both run at variable FPS, and they are being controlled by natural human input. Like in EVE Online, the FPS drops when combat gets hairy, and for the natural humans, the simulation seems to slow down.
- SiempreViernes 7y agoYes, you can imagine infinite recursion just as you can imagine an infinite 2d plane: infinity is good for a "woah dude", but adding infinity doesn't give you any structure and so it amounts to saying "imagine anything could happen".
- BZH314 7y agoThe theme of recurring virtual reality is also explored in Avalon [1] ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_(2001_film)
- m-i-l 7y ago"Given an 'experience machine' capable of providing whatever experiences we desire, in a way indistinguishable from 'real' ones, should we stubbornly prefer the truth of reality?" If real and virtual are "indistinguishable", how can we be sure what is real and what is not? That's one of the themes I feel that was missed in The Matrix - there was never any doubt as to what was the real world and what was the virtual world. That I felt was much better explored in the contemporaneous eXistenZ, with its constant underlying doubts about "are we still in the game?"
- rebuilder 7y agoI don't really feel The Matrix went into any kind of philosophical issues beyond referencing them, to be honest.
- SiempreViernes 7y agoYeah, I think there is an unspoken "for an action movie" tacked on to all the talk of philosophy in The Matrix.
- caseyf7 7y agoDon't give The Matrix too much credit. I remember thinking it was the most original movie I had seen in a long time. Then I saw Ghost In The Shell and realized it wasn't that original after all.
- fetus8 7y agoJust because The Matrix and GITS share similar themes regarding consciousness and technology, doesn't invalidate The Matrix and it's originality, even having come out years later. The Matrix deals with a lot more than just those themes, including queer identity and BDSM subcultures. Considering The Matrix was a major Hollywood production, I think it's quite impressive this got a release in 1999.
- justicezyx 7y agoThere is always historical influence. The ghost in the shell never explored the philosophical aspect of existence, at least have not put it as the central theme. Plus, live action movie, as an art form, is itself appreciable, if someone can pull it off. The visual and story telling is genius, if not unprecedented.
- skelet 7y agoNirvana with Christophe Lambert came a year before. it's less showy than The Matrix but really worth a watch.
- ivolimmen 7y agoWhen viewing the movie in the theater I was stunned and had goosebumps when I realised that someone had the same weird feeling I had and made a movie about it. The scene where Neo wakes up was frightening for me. I was in a philosophical phase in that time. Right after that there was a discussion on a new book on Slashdot. The book was called "Taking the red pill" I bought it and read it. Part one of the matrix is a really well rounded movie. The book compares it with multiple religions. It even has a nice essay on if we are already in the matrix.
- Razengan 7y agoSeems like a good time to recommend Dark City (1998), for those who also like the "reality isn't what it seems" theme. But skip the first 10-20 or so minutes of the film, because the narrator literally spells out the big twist at the very start.