On Finally Understanding The Matrix Sequels

I began dating my wife, Melissa Anderson, in 2005. Ive dressed as Agent Smith for Halloween every year since, just so I could say "Hello, Mr. Anderson" to my father in law.

I guess this is why I love Matrix: I am " someone who loves philosophical conversations and also enjoys ridiculously over the top action sequences " I am the target audience

The Merovingian's line "Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without," foreshadows the Architect's scene in that the Machines are trying to offer the humans a choice but to constrain it to make the choice come out in their favor.

"The only way to live in an unfree world is to make yourself so absolutely free that your very existence becomes an act of rebellion" Albert Camus

"Listening to some guy explain philosophy for 15 minutes at a time"... The video lasts 15 minutes... I see what you did there o.ó

Good thing neo took the blue pill and became john wick

The Matrix Trilogy is really just live action anime.

"hugo, stop having so much fun"

I've always been partial to the idea that, when he's heard that there were other Ones before him, Neo suddenly realizes "Wait, this has happened before. Time and again, they've chosen that door. Just to mess with your head, I'm going to choose this door, save the woman I love, and save Zion for real. How do you like them drumsticks, Col. Sanders?"

I love the scenes with The Architect. It's silent, but tense, and if you pay attention to what he's saying it is actually easy to follow. It's brilliantly done, because it actually feels like a computer outputting data rather than a person communicating an idea. Cold, precise, and unrelenting. Can you imagine if they did the typical "super-villain" thing, having the architect all emotional and evil?! That would have been a major flaw.

When Neo says "It was inevitable" it was his way of goading Smith into assimilating him, thus ensuring his own demise. He was tricking him.

A point that people often miss when talking about Neo choosing the Love door in the Architects Room, is how that love came to be. In the first movie, Trinity tells us that The Orcale told her that The One would be soulmate. :) I've always read this as The Oracle setting up this version of Neo to chose the Love door.

The Matrix trilogy is so empowering to me because essentially when you watch it, every single scene builds up to the one moment: “Why do you persist?” “Because I choose to” That one line without context is quite poor but because nearly everything we’ve seen is telling us that free will doesn’t actually exist, it’s immensely powerful. Because whether or not he even has free will in that moment, whether or not his choice to keep fighting is just a matter of everything that’s happened to him up to that moment, HE STILL CHOOSES TO FIGHT. Even if it’s not really a choice, he doesn’t care. He’s going to fight anyway. And because of that fact he’s going to win. And that’s amazing.

"So why did he actually go through this door?" To rage against the machine my dude... to rage against the machine.

Matrix 4 guys... Was it really inevitable?

There is no paradox tbh. Neo saying "Because I choose to." isn't a response to Smith, but rather him making the realization that his "choice" to resit is keeping him from winning. It's like what the Oracle said in the second movie, "You didn't come here to make a choice, the choice has already been made. Now you have to understand it." Neo letting Smith absorb him is Neo understanding the choice that has already been made and letting Smith take control of his body for the Machines to deal with him is the understanding of said choice.

Joke's on you, 15 year old me thought the architect's speech was amazing.

One does not simply tell Hugo Weaving to stop having fun.

I had no idea that these movies were unpopular. I was 11 when these came out and I loved them. What I got out of it was that faith in ourselves and our friends was more powerful than any system of control the more that you understood and believed in yourself the more powerful you became. That we make our own fate through our belief in fate. Also the action was super well choreographed and the cast had great chemistry. I could watch Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving play off of each other all day.