This is where I attempt to understand the Matrix. You see, I just got back from seeing it a third time . . . in IMAX. Naturally, I sat in the back row. I mean, who really needs the visual overload of not only watching the Matrix, but of having it out of proportions because you’re leaning back just to get a comprehensive view? Anyways. I would like to think that I understand just about everything else about the Matrix except for this: why Neo was able to “feel” and stop the Sentinels after the destruction of the Nebuchadnezzar. Then a friend planted a seed of an idea in my mind. He probably knew what he was talking about, so here’s my warped translating. I call it warped because it didn’t make sense to my dad, who is normally a smart guy.
In the first movie, you didn’t really understand what all was happening, like how long it’s been since the machines took over. Then in the 2nd movie, you start to get a glimpse of what the hell is going on. The Architect confirms our knowledge of the first Matrix being a utopia, a fact that was delivered to us by the wonderful Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith) in the original movie. He also confirms that it was a failure because people rejected the program. Entire crops were lost. The Architect then goes on to describe how he created a second, less perfect Matrix, based on human history and full of our imperfections. Again it failed and he didn’t know why.
THE ARCHITECT: Thus the answer was stumbled upon by a lesser program, one designed to explore various aspects of the human psyche. If I am considered the father of the Matrix. She would undoubtedly be it’s Mother.
NEO: The Oracle?
THE ARCHITECT: Please.
The answer was, simply, choice. As long as humans had a choice, even if they were only aware of it at an unconscious level (I swear that’s what it sounded like he said) humans require a choice, they require free will. So the Matrix was redesigned a third time (I’m getting to the part about their being 5 other Ones). The third Matrix gave every human that was “plugged-in” a choice, to be a part of the Matrix and be “plugged-in” or to be a rebel and live underground in Zion. However, nobody ever left the Matrix.
Now I talk about food. The Merovingian “programs” a piece of cake as an aphrodisiac and sends it to the woman in his restaurant. While watching her react to the “drug program” he gives a speech about causality, then goes to get a blow-job. This idea of food being a way of altering or manipulating a person’s code reaches back now to when the Oracle gave Neo a cookie during their first encounter. What if this cookie was programmed to alter Neo’s code and make him the systemic anomaly (the One)? Now fast forward to him kissing Persephone (the Merovingian’s wife). She puts on lipstick . . . a special sort of lipstick coded to alter Neo once more and give him control of the Matrix. But he gets un-plugged and is in the real world at the end, right?
WRONG! Remember what I said about nobody leaving the Matrix? You see, the Architect designed the 3rd Matrix to contain the 2nd Matrix as well as the real world where Zion could exist. Make sense? Is your head hurting too? Don’t worry, relief is in sight. So now that Neo kissed Persephone, his code allows him to be the One in the 3rd Matrix as well as the 2nd Matrix, which explains how he “felt” and stopped the Sentinels at the end of Reloaded. Now to explain the systemic anomaly.
The One, or the systemic anomaly, came about as a result of the 3rd Matrix’s programming. Because human’s now had a choice, an increasing number of them would reject the programming (but never really leave the system) and form a rebel core at Zion. When the One comes around, he goes through this whole path and ends up at the Architect. He is given the choice.
THE LEFT DOOR: If the One chooses the door to his left, he will return to the Matrix and when he inevitably dies, his code will disseminate and destroy every living being connected to the Matrix. It doesn’t necessarily wipe out the human species, the Architect just says that because he knows that Zion will fall.
THE RIGHT DOOR: If the One chooses the door to his right, he goes to the Source (or the machine mainframe), picks 23 people from the Matrix (7 Men and 16 Women) who will restart Zion, and his code is disseminated without wiping out those “plugged-in”.
At this point, the Matrix restarts (this is purely theoretical) with a world ending event like a nuclear holocaust or something that ends all life on Earth. Then the Matrix reloads a fresh crop and starts the 21st century over again. This is the only thing that makes sense to me. If the Matrix didn’t restart, then time would continue to flow and humans would obviously begin to suspect something and rebel completely and the machines would be screwed. So the fact that there have been 5 different ones before Neo means that, if you calculate 100 years per cycle of systemic anomalies and Zion’s, it has been 600 years (the current cycle has already reached it’s peak) since the machines took over and started using us as batteries.
I’m all out of ideas right now, so you’re on your own.