Sorry, the sequels exist and they couldn't be any other way. Both the in-universe story and the production values line up exactly with the meta topic - It's a

Sorry, the sequels exist and they couldn't be any other way. Both the in-universe story and the production values line up exactly with the meta topic - It's a childish fantasy that we can escape the Matrix, and especially that once escaped we can remain somehow separate from it. Really, the act of "escaping" just means creating a bit of new raw material for the deduction-following simulation to start grinding forwards on again. Don't think of some series of discrete mental cages, rather think of the depressing reveal at the end of Fifteen Million Merits.