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> I found the “human battery” idea pretty silly/lazy The characters who believe that in-universe could just be unreliable narrators, as in it's not how it real

> I found the “human battery” idea pretty silly/lazy The characters who believe that in-universe could just be unreliable narrators, as in it's not how it really is, it's just what they assume. There may be fundamental differences between “biological/analog” and “mechanical/digital” computation, and the Machines keep human brain-farms for distributed biocomputing to complement their own. After all, they even provide us a shared VM to "train" in. If it was just for batteries, wouldn't cheetahs on treadmills be more efficient?

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> There may be a fundamental difference between “biological/analog” and “mechanical/digital” computation, and the Machines keep humans for distributed bio-computing. IIRC, that's pretty close to the rationale in the original versions of the script, but it was changed because the movie executives thought it was too confusing.
- jwdunne 7y ago
  Funnily enough, I watched it the other day. Morpheus mentions that the machines use a combination of “human batteries” and fusion. First time it stuck out - humans purely for energy purposes seems daft with access to efficient fusion. Growing and harvesting humans seems like a lot of overhead in comparison. Maybe that was what was left of the original “matrix as creativity farm” concept. As I said, first time it stuck out so most people, including me at one time, must have just took it at face value. Still love the film to this day though. Sounds sad but had goosebumps at the end when Neo actually turns out to be the one.
  - misterman0 7y ago
    >> had goosebumps at the end when Neo actually turns out to be the one. Ha! How banal you are! JK. I've seen this movie over thirty times start to finish. Cry almost every time. After having seen it so thoughrouly to me it's no longer about religion or Jesus. Instead its about one thing. Kung Fu. It's why I return to it again and again.
ISL 7y ago
If it was for batteries, plants would be radically more efficient.
- kennywinker 7y ago
  Skies are blackened, plants can’t grow without light.
yawz 7y ago
> If it was for just batteries, wouldn't cheetahs on treadmills be more efficient? There were billions of people around, and not that many large mammals, I bet.
basch 7y ago
thats actually a pretty good way to fix it. It could be misinterpretation of the word power. The survivors and escapees heard power and assumed electricity not realizing power referred to processor throughput. the only other easy way to retcon it without changing the movie would be to consider the human minds part of the battery tech. similar to how car batteries have programming around them to maximize their safety and charge rates and efficiency, maybe the human minds are part of the overall battery tech, used to keep them charging correctly. it wouldnt be direct energy harvesting tho.

CharlesColeman 7y ago

> There may be a fundamental difference between “biological/analog” and “mechanical/digital” computation, and the Machines keep humans for distributed bio-computing. IIRC, that's pretty close to the rationale in the original versions of the script, but it was changed because the movie executives thought it was too confusing.

jwdunne 7y ago
Funnily enough, I watched it the other day. Morpheus mentions that the machines use a combination of “human batteries” and fusion. First time it stuck out - humans purely for energy purposes seems daft with access to efficient fusion. Growing and harvesting humans seems like a lot of overhead in comparison. Maybe that was what was left of the original “matrix as creativity farm” concept. As I said, first time it stuck out so most people, including me at one time, must have just took it at face value. Still love the film to this day though. Sounds sad but had goosebumps at the end when Neo actually turns out to be the one.
- misterman0 7y ago
  >> had goosebumps at the end when Neo actually turns out to be the one. Ha! How banal you are! JK. I've seen this movie over thirty times start to finish. Cry almost every time. After having seen it so thoughrouly to me it's no longer about religion or Jesus. Instead its about one thing. Kung Fu. It's why I return to it again and again.

ISL 7y ago

If it was for batteries, plants would be radically more efficient.

kennywinker 7y ago
Skies are blackened, plants can’t grow without light.

yawz 7y ago

> If it was for just batteries, wouldn't cheetahs on treadmills be more efficient? There were billions of people around, and not that many large mammals, I bet.

basch 7y ago

thats actually a pretty good way to fix it. It could be misinterpretation of the word power. The survivors and escapees heard power and assumed electricity not realizing power referred to processor throughput. the only other easy way to retcon it without changing the movie would be to consider the human minds part of the battery tech. similar to how car batteries have programming around them to maximize their safety and charge rates and efficiency, maybe the human minds are part of the overall battery tech, used to keep them charging correctly. it wouldnt be direct energy harvesting tho.