think meta

[lapsedmodernist]

I just had another thought about The Matrix Reloaded...it contains spoilers for the ending, so don't read unless you've seen the movie

so if what Neo learns at the end (as do we, the viewers) is that Zion and that whole world is just another Matrix, to catch those who escaped fromthe first Matrix (the kind of meta twist in the narrative that was used in ExistanZ and also in that X-Files episode where Mulder and Scully get trapped underground by the poisonous mushroom, and they keep hallucinating that they escaped), then does it mean that the whole Mad-Max-Beyond-Thunderdome aesthetic is the machines' recreation of what they believe to be the people's IMAGINARY of a Zion-type place from pop culture circa 1999? Because then Zion is not just a questionably designed set, then it's a meta-comment on that aesthetic as it has been used and abused in SF movies for decades...
Or does anyone else thing that we did not learn that, and Neo can actually stop real, physical, non-Matrix machines with the power of his mind?

Comments

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

I suspect that is what we learned...

My theory is that Neo is also a program.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

hmmm, that would be interesting in terms of the final demise of the Matrix that has to take place at the end of Revolutions. it's a very homeopathic view--the cure lies inside the disease, and it's also very much against inside/outside binaries, which works with the whole pomo-meta schtick of the movie.
however, i don't think Neo is a program...i was going to say because he refuses the "we are here to do what we are here to do," which is, of course, the mission statement of any program, by choosing Trinity instead of Zion, but of course we don't know for sure...he could just be a rogue program...but that kind of forbids a satisfying conclusion where humans triumph...because Neo is the hero...then what--would he, as a program, become human and find love and happinness with Trinity? that's more AI-kubrick land...i could accept Morpheus being a program more than Neo...unless everyone is a program, which would make it a very different movie.

[mistershush.livejournal.com]

Intriguing. If true, it will be unsatisfying for me. I tend to react to and assess movies on a 'gut-level', and my guts here are hopeful that this is not the case. But like Mr. Cusack I've learned that, at various and unpredictable moments, my guts have shit for brains. But I need to see it again methinks.

[creed-of-hubris.livejournal.com]

That would explain the councilor not knowing how the engineering level works (and then, there's this thing that makes the water clean...) and the lack of plants in Zion to filter the air, and the lack of everyone being cooked due to being far below the earth's surface...

Of course, you could also view all of the above as machine-created "magic", since the machines created Zion.

An alternate understanding of how Neo stops the robots is that Neo somehow gained new powers from Agent Smith infecting him, through Bane, with blood. Now that he's got the "Mark of Bane", no machine can hurt him. Perhaps.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

i think the two are one and the same...the machine-created "magic" is due to the fact that Zion is just another Matrix...one that has the narrative of "building a city that is the citadel of resistance" rather than "Earth circa 1999" narrative
which would mean that the reason the architect was afraid of Neo choosing the Trinity door was because it would expose that level of The Matrix...which would make Neo aware that he could control machines like he does in the end...Which might make "the elimination of humankind" a bluff on some level--it is possible that that narrative, and everyone "matrixing" in it would be scrapped...i don't know what that would mean for people in the tubes, because if Zion is another Matrix, then so are the people in the tubes, and it's really unclear how deep the rabbithole goes.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

wait, how would Agent Smith's powers enable Neo to stop the machines?

Re:

[creed-of-hubris.livejournal.com]

How could they enable Agent Smith to take over other computer programs and make them himself? Who knows.

reminds me of...

[flynngrrl.livejournal.com]

Snowcrash, a really good cyberpunk novel that revolves around, essentially, the original computer virus - language, and how it affects the mind. People "infected" are like the modern equivalent of the tower of Babel; they speak a language only they know, but they all understand each other instantly. On the other hand, they're easily controlled.

It's got some neat ideas... as does a lot of cyberpunk.

Re: reminds me of...

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yes, snowcrash is great, and the Matrix definitely borrows from the world of avatars, but snowcrash is more sophisticated in a lot of ways and draws more on language theory and cybernetics, whereas the Matrix is more about the Big Existential Issues...both are good uses of the SF genre, in my opinion :)