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Parden my poor English. This is only some of my own understanding about the Matrix.

Understanding the Matrix movie

The Matrix is kinetic, atmospheric, visually stunning, and mind-bending. We all agree that even if we don't look at the religious and philosophy elements in the trilogy, it is still one of the most entertaining movies in the world. However, if we manage to understand what this film is trying say, it might be less confusing for us to enjoy the story.

1. The world of Matrix.
Matrix, according to the movie, is the artificial world created by the super-computer, also called the matrix. Millions of human beings are controlled by the computer, both mentally and physically, without knowing that they are enslaved. Their fate is designed since they are born, and they all live in the cyber world which has similar physical rules to the real world. The physical part of the matrix consists of two important places: one is the matrix city, or better to say, a heavily guarded fortress. This must be the place where the main computer located. In the revolution of the trilogy Neo had visited this city successfully, but Trinity was killed during the task. The other part should be the matrix farm, where human slaves are cradled, cabled and controlled for their whole lifetime. This should be a different place with an easier access because Morpheus could easily rescue Neo from there. It is unknown to us whether there are any other parts of the matrix in the real world. Since the matrix is controlling most of the real world, it is reasonable to think that there are some other home bases for this super-computer as military supplies and so on, but the two places mentioned above are the most important parts in the movie.

Outside the matrix is the real world. Comparing to the prosperous, relatively sunny, busy world created by the matrix, the real world is cold, dark, gloomy and almost lifeless, except the only human city buried underground -- Zion. This is the world the minds of human don't have to be controlled by the computers, this is also the world the human being have to fight the computer for their own survive. According to the movie, this is the same world where we are living on today, but many years later there will be a war between human and computer, when the human being block the sunshine from the sky and finally lose the war. Only a few survivors will move underground and build up Zion as the end-of-day city for the human being.

The question is, dose the real world really exist? Argument arose when the second Matrix movie Reloaded was released, when Neo performed his supernatural show in the last minute of the movie. More hint comes in the last movie the Revolution. In this movie Neo could see agent Smith in the real world, even if he had already been blind. Soon later he disabled thousands of robot monsters outside the matrix city. This is not under the scientific physical rules in the real world, unless the real world is not as real as what we expect. Actually the earliest proof popped up in the first movie the Matrix. Agent Smith killed Neo in the matrix world, this should be the end, because we have already known that when the mind tells the body it is dead, the game is over. However, for the first time the directors broke the rules in the physical world and returned Neo back to us. We can only say that there are too many evidence that the so called real world is another matrix, a bigger software platform which enslaves both the Zion and Matrix. It is, unfortunately, also the world we are living on today.

Please remember that the two matrixes are not parallel, it is actually one matrix embedded in another. The creature who created one matrix world is indeed the god of that world, he (or she, or it) controls everything in the world, without knowing that he is also controlled by another god. In the theory of Buddhism there is so called the "three thousand world", which means there are many other worlds similar to the one we are live on beyond our imagination and acknowledgement. It is not only superstitious, because one of the recent National Geographic Magazine just published the theory about many universes existing other than our universe. People's vision has extended beyond the big bang, out to the other space cannot be measured by our concept of distance and time. This is the basic idea of the matrix and Zion worlds: you may argue that it is only the world existing in our mind and imagination, but what on earth do you know it is not real? This is a "god-behind-god" theory and can be best described by Jorge Luis Borge's poem:

CHESS (II)

Faint-hearted king, sly bishop, ruthless queen,
Straightforward castle, and deceitful pawn -
Over the checkered black and white terrain
They seek out and begin their armed campaign.

They do not know it is the player's hand
That dominates and guides their destiny.
They do not know an adamantine fate
Controls their will and lays the battle plan.

The player too is captive of caprice
(The words are Omar's) on another ground
Where black nights alternate with whiter days.

God moves the players, he in turn the piece.
But what god beyond God begins the round
Of dust and time and sleep and agonies?


2. The Symbolism of the Matrix:

It is obvious that the Matrix used lots symbolism in the movies. If the author wants to say something silently, it is easy just to put some meaning in the names of the characters. Here we list the meaning of some of the major roles in the matrix movies:

Neo: neo means new. It is sometimes used as a prefix in English. He is the hope for a new order of the world, both in Zion and the matrix. He is also the key for the Matrix to finish its upgrade. We will discuss later.

Trinity: The Trinity is a Christian doctrine, stating that God is one Being Who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three persons. Here the meaning of Trinity is obvious. Interestingly, in many fiction stories the three-person combination has been a very common idea to build up the best team. There are famous examples such as the Star War (Luke, Han, Leia) and the Harry Potter series.

Morpheus: Morpheus means the Greek god of dreams. Morpheus has the ability to take any human's form and appear in dreams. Morpheus sends images of humans in dreams or visions, and is responsible for shaping dreams, or giving shape to the beings which inhabit dreams. Before Neo was rescued, he was the lead of the rebellion team, and he never gave up his faith to Neo and to the new world. However, his limited thinking made him never realize the truth of the world(what truth?? See the following chapter about the plot).

Oracle: An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion; an infallible authority, usually spiritual in nature. It may also be a revealed prediction or precognition of the future, from deities, that is spoken through another object or life-form. Oracle also happen to be the name of one of the biggest database companies in the world. In the movie, the oracle was a knowledgeable, wise woman playing the prophet's role. In my opinion, Oracle was actually the database of the matrix computer. She has the resource of almost all the information in the matrix world. Appearing in the form of human being, she was in charge of upgrading the matrix system to a high level.

Persephone (Monica Bellucci): In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Underworld. She also plays an important role in upgrading the matrix.

Merovingian: Merovingian is the name of a French dynasty in the fifth century. During its reign, religion had been extremely important for the country.

Seraph: Seraph is one of a class of celestial beings mentioned in Hebrew, Jewish and Christian religions. He is the highest known rank of angels, working as the guardian of the God. Here Seraph is the body guard of Oracle. Apparently both Oracle and Seraph are very important and high rank characters. Seraph can be considered as the database firewall or antivirus software of the system.

Zion: the word Zion also came from Hebrew three thousand years ago. It refers to the city where Solomon’s temple stood. Zion symbolizes a longing by wandering peoples for a safe homeland. It is also the idea of anti slavery.

3. The plot:

In the future, when the time had already become an untraceable concept for the human beings -- someone estimate it around the year of 2199 AD -- there was a war, between the computers and their owners. The result was that the owner became the slave and the slave became the owner. Human beings were captured, enslaved, cabled and implanted into another world, a world created by the supercomputer, a world called the matrix. The Matrix was such a perfect place that everyone could get everything they wanted in their lifetime. However, the life span of people became extremely short in the fictitious world, millions of people died in a short period, suicide, murder, hatreds and desperation had become the basic color of this sunshine paradise. The computer realized something was terribly wrong, the world was not perfect, human beings were not ready for a perfect world yet. Therefore the matrix upgraded itself, made it look more like the real world. After a few times upgrade -- someone says, five times -- the matrix looked more and more like the world we are living on today, but people still felt something wrong, just like what Morpheus said, "You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there...like a splinter in you're mind, driving you mad. " The programmed reality world was cold, ruthless, and inhuman. The matrix knew that it needs another upgrade, a final upgrade which would eventually humanize the computer, give it the feeling of human, the spirit of human, the faith of human, and the love of human.

Then the matrix found Morpheus, then Trinity, then Neo. Why did the matrix choose Neo? Probably because of his potential to great love, his spirit to fight for freedom, or his close relationship to the matrix. The matrix knew that there would be a great danger with this task, if it was not careful enough, there would be a chaos, a disaster and finally destroy the whole matrix world. Oracle was the one who really push the project behind. The architect, as we see in the movie, he should be the highest rank of the matrix world, probably the hardware, cpu, or o/s of matrix, was worried. But the Oracle persuaded the architect and carried on. What Neo needed was the courage of fight, the spirit of freedom, and the understanding of love. Finally, when Neo was shot by agent Smith, when Trinity gave her power of love to Neo, the matrix implanted a superman code inside Neo and he became inconvincible in the matrix world.

This is not the end of the story, it is only the beginning. Now Neo was starting his task to help the matrix for the new upgrade, although, of course, Neo thought that he was fighting for the freedom of human being by himself. It was love that saved Neo from death, love enlightened him for the power inside, and Neo will eventually transfer the power of love to the system. There were several mile stones of this procedure of humanization: the first was the awakening of Neo: the power of love became so strong that made Neo the king of the matrix world. Then he transferred the power to the matrix: remember in the second movie Reloaded, when Persephone (Monica Bellucci) asked for a kiss from Neo, she insisted that Neo use the real feeling of love. Via this kiss Neo transferred the message of love to the computer system (Persephone was also a program). Later, Kamala and RamaKandra (both of them have the name from some Hindu god or goddess), the program couple in the movie, finally developed the human love to the emotional world of programs, performed in the form of marriage, and produced possibly the first child from program: the little girl Sati. This means the computer finally had the technology of human love and created its own emotion. However, the real danger of the upgrade emerged right now: the agent once destroyed by Neo had come back and became really powerful: it was invading every other programs and proliferating itself. According to our computer knowledge, this kind of program is called the computer virus. At first Neo was quite able to handle Smith, until the latter invaded the Oracle, Virus Smith had become so powerful that even Neo was not able to bring it down. After a breath-taking battle from the ground to the sky, Neo fell. Now pay attention to what Smith said: "I stand here, right here, I am supposed to say something... I say......everything has a beginning will have an end." Then Smith began to panic, and once again the power awakened inside Neo.

Here Neo had become a super anti-virus software created by the matrix to save the computer world, including millions of people inside. Here Neo became a prey of the super virus Smith but finally destroyed it by sacrificing itself, and the Oracle came back, bringing the whole world back. In my opinion, it was the Oracle who set up the trick for Smith, for at least two reasons: 1. Smith had become so powerful that only when the Oracle and Neo worked together he would be possibly destroyed; 2. When the Oracle and Neo were both transferred into Virus Smith they are virtually combined together, therefore the Oracle can get Neo's information, especially the feeling of love more than ever, then finish the final step of upgrading the system. Of course, that was the most dangerous move, the whole database had been sucked by the virus and if the anti-virus procedure was unsuccessful, the whole matrix world would be destroyed.

Finally everything had worked as what the Oracle expected, the virus was eliminated, the system upgraded to a new level, the computer had started its own thinking about love. By the end of the movie the little girl Sati created a clear sunset in the cloudy sky. This revealed the future of the matrix: program children like Sati would be the next generation of this world. The matrix world would be much closer to the real world, by realizing, recognizing and understanding the power of love. The human being would be more stable living in this world, or maybe the matrix would not need human slaves any more, because the matrix could develope its own descendant now, and the program could have the real emotion of human being. This is a new era for both the matrix and human world...

Morpheus's dream came to truth. He saw the final peace between human and computer, and probably the final freedom of human being from the matrix, but he would never know that he himself was only a piece of chess of the matrix, used for the upgrade of system. The matrix would never know either, that both the matrix and zion were only another fictitious world created by another higher lever computer. What was real? What was fake? How many gods are there behind our god? The Matrix movie has left us too many questions.

4. What is this movie talking about???

If you think that the Matrix is a piece of shit or only an entertaining sci-fi movie like the ordinary ones, then this movie is only the combination of some fancy computer effects, talking about some warriors fighting for their right to live. Isn't that simple enough? Then think a little more, it is about a computer, trying to upgrade and kill a virus at the same time, and finally succeeded. This computer happens to be the biggest computer in the world called the matrix, and the upgrade happened to be the development of human love called humanization. Or, if you think a little bit deeper, about the truth of the world, the meaning of life, or the reason we live, then what does the movie talk about??

Maybe it is not talking about anything, but just asking the old questions repeated many times by humans: who are we? where do we come from? where are we going? The movie tried to give us some hint for the answer but it remains unknown to most of us.

Maybe it talks about the form of life. Make a simple example: if one patient has one nerve cell with some problem inside his brain, the doctor can replace this specific cell with a computer chip, carrying all the information this cell carries. The patient himself will not suffer any change mentally, nor will he loose any memory or thinking ability. Then another cell is damaged and replaced, this is still a minor change, until all the ten billion cells in the brain have been replaced. Suddenly the patient finds himself becomes a robot, with a computer functioning as his brain. However, this computer carries all his mental information and makes no change of his emotion, thinking and activities. Can we say this patient still alive? If one object carries all the information a living creature is supposed to carry, call we call this a form of life? If one world has all the information the real world should have, can we consider it as a real world? I like what the traitor (I forget his name) in the Matrix said: "the Matrix is more real than this world". Open your mind, human is not the only creature with intelligence in this universe, our universe is not the only universe, out of our conception about space and time, there might be some other universe existing. Looking around, there might be some other forms of life around us, thinking, feeling, loving, and trying to understand each other.

The Matrix is a deep movie; it leaves us too much thinking about the world (only if you want). This essay partially comes from what I read from the books and Internet, but mostly from my own opinion and understanding. Therefore you don’t have to believe what I said. I like to quote a poem from Rig Veda as the end of this essay:

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of the universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen - perhaps it has formed itself, or perhaps it did not - the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows - or perhaps he does not know.