<font color="#f683ad"> Great Idea Rokenn [img]smile.gif[/img] Come on TL go get some insight for us [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

Did you realize that Saruman = Count Duku = Dracula ---> IRL --> Christopher Lee?

<font color = lightgreen>One thing that raised a few more questions for me about Smith is that he unplugs himself from his earpiece in the first movie and expresses his loathing for the Matrix to Morpheus. I'm not sure whether these actions are possible for other Agents, who are just extensions of the Matrix. Smith seems to be more than that. Is Smith a holdover from an older version who got converted into an Agent? Is Smith a previous One who somehow failed?

Back to the natures of Neo and Smith.... Neo is the One; there is no one else like him in the World or in the Matrix. Smith is Everyone, especially since he can assimilate them. Morpheus did say of Agents, "They are everyone and they are no one." Given the fact that Smith can assimilate someone in the Matrix then leave and still influence that person, Smith might be trying to control both the Matrix and the World. Smith would definitely have a great deal of disdain for humans because he is "better" than they are, even though he needs them for his survival. If he had enough Free Will to have his own desires yet remained a tool of the Matrix while he was an Agent he would hate his former controllers. I still think he wants to control it all.

I suppose I'll simply have to wait until November to find out. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] </font>

I don't think it was necessarily unforseen. If it was, it didn't seem to bother the Oracle or Architect much. ;) Maybe the previous incarnations of "the one" did the same. ;) </font>[/QUOTE]<font color = lightgreen>I think the Architect didn't consider that a human could or would mingle code with an Agent. Unless his AI is truly intelligent, the Architect cannot "think outside the box". The Oracle could foresee this possibility, but as "her" goal is to be a control over the Matrix and the outcome is beneficial then she will most likely keep the information to herself.

***************
What was in the cookie Neo ate in the first movie?
What was in the candy he ate in the second movie?

In both instances, she is giving him something sweet to eat. Eating, in the Matrix, is "ingesting" code, so exactly how is she reprogramming Neo? Is that why he could enter Smith? Is that why he can sense machines now?</font>

I was always wondering what would happen if Neo would step against Morpheous in the first Movie(you know when Neo is Dreaming about how Smith asked hit to help him find Morpheos)...
And if he would still be The One but a bad guy..
I wonder?

<font color=deepskyblue>Regarding some earlier comments about the fight scenes.....

I was very impressed with Mopheus this time around. He had MUCH more confidence when facing Agents than he did in the first movie. In the original, Morpheus considered any fight with an Agent to be certain suicide - he would go down fighting, but there was no doubt that he would be defeated. This time, he seemed much more confident in his abilities - I guess because Neo had proven that an Agent CAN be beaten.

I also REALLY liked his fight with the ghosts. I won't be seeing the movie again until it comes out on DVD, but I'm pretty certain he DID kill the ghosts. They were able to "phase out" as needed...and they definitely "phased" as they flew into the air and the SUV exploded. But it seemed like they could only maintain this "phase out" stage temporarily and I'm pretty certain they "phased IN" as the flames surrounded them. You can hear them screaming, then it cuts back to Trinity and the Key Maker.

OH...and why could Neo affect the Sentinels???.....Perhaps because the "real world" is not "real" at all. Instead, it is just another level of the Matrix and all the humans are still actually asleep and still "plugged in".


One question about the DVD version of Matrix:Reloaded. Will it be released before Revolutions hits the theaters?? It seems unlikely. If not, will the release be postponed until time for Revolutions to be released - and then a Boxed Set will be made available?? Anybody know for certain?</font>

Just a brief comment, I really like most of the stuff you've written so far Azred. I hate to say it but I had a nagging suspicion that the "real" world was a Matrix, or at least not what it seemed, after the first film. The major clue? The Oracle.

If you think about it, the rest of The Matrix (as in the film in general) makes sense on its own terms. If you are prepared to accept its assertions then you reach the same conclusions. Its not like most Superhero films where you just basically have to accept everything they tell you. So how can they explain the Oracle? They can't under the rules they've given - you just have to accept that she can do what she does. Remember that she sees things not only inside the Matrix, but also outside it. The only way that would be possible is if outside the Matrix were not really outside it at all, and that she were part of the program. The big clue in this film, as far as I'm concerned, is the Architect telling Neo that his love was "designed" to override all logic. Hmmm... Neo was designed to love, thats my conclusion from that. Also, what is with the Oracle and giving Neo a cookie! Thats her only line from that film where she says a lie - that he will feel right as rain when he's finished it. Maybe she gave him the abilty to meld with Smith through the cookie and thus enhanced his powers... or maybe she was just trying to be nice. I personally think the Oracle is even more central than Reloaded makes her appear.

Anyone ever read Feersum Endjinn by Iain M Banks? Well, in some ways I think the storyline of Neo could be quite similar to that. He might be an "asura". How Smith fits into this all is uncertain, but your posts certainly give food for thought Azred!

And Cerek, I'm fairly sure those twins aren't dead. They can phase indefinately it seems - remember when they chased the Keymaster and Trinity remarks "Neat trick."? Well, they don't "un-phase" for quite a while then, and as they appear to be able to regenerate when they are phased they are probably ok. I expect they are screaming because, as they mentioned earlier, they were getting "frustrated". [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

<font color = lightgreen>The Oracle could receive information from anyone outside the Matrix via a telephone or computer screen. This could explain her knowledge of events outside the Matrix...or she could just be the most accurate intuitive guesser in the history of the world. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] As part of the Matrix, she could also be privy to any secrets the machines keep hidden in the Matrix; as part of self-governing portion of the Matrix, she may know secrets that other machines don't (machines can keep secrets from each other--they don't necessarily have to like one another, you know).

I personally don't like the idea that the "real world" in the movie is another Matrix. As far as the context and the world-design of the movie is concerned, it doesn't make any sense. If the "real world" is just another level of the Matrix, then why bother creating fake sentinel robots to hunt down humans? If someone thinks they have become unplugged and are causing a problem, then simply unplug them for real, dump the corpse, and grow two new humans to replace them.
The fact that merging with Smith has given Neo the ability to sense and effect machines in the real world is more intriguing, because now Neo can alter both the inner world of the Matrix and the real world. My only question is whether he got this ability from Smith or from the Oracle.... [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

I still think the Ghost Twins were killed, because if they survived the explosion they would have continued attacking Morpheus until they killed him. I highly doubt they are the type to simply get frustrated and run away.</font>

[ 05-22-2003, 12:23 AM: Message edited by: Azred ]

Remember Azred, that if its a Matrix inside another Matrix it doesn't have to exist for the same reasons. It might not be to control them to turn them into batteries, it might be that at one stage humanity decided to live via a Matrix consciously, and that it designed the outer Matrix as a fail-safe program. Also its possible that in reality the machines don't want to destroy sections of the crop. Its something thats always concerned me slightly - the machines will happily kill anyone who even remotely gets in their way. They'll kill people without thinking about it. I'm not sure how realistic that would be, considering the stated purpose of the Matrix. Maybe the twist in the tail is that actually the machines can't bear the loss of any lives from the Matrix, a loss of one human miht constitute a loss of power to one machine. As such they have to make sure that every last person stays in. Remember at the beggining of Reloaded Morpheus spoke about the thinking of a machine? The idea that 250000 sentinels was exactly the number a machine would chose, as it was exactly the number of people in Zion? Well, that kind of meticulousness doesn't seem to be portrayed by the actions of the agents in the first Matrix - they'll blunder around killing anyone and anything. I'm still not convinced either way, but its possible that none of it is real, that in reality the machines are too concenred about their own power source to want to lose too many people from the crop.

I've been thinking about this whole thing a bit more since I last posted, and something else strikes me as odd. Trinity loving Neo, and the Oracle predicting it. The Oracle has no way, unless she actually *could* see the future, of predicting that Trinity would love Neo, to my mind. Neo's love for Trinity, and her love for him, has now become a massively huge plot device in both films. And in a film where everything, down to the last minute detail, is scientifically explained that doesn't seem to quite fit. Along with the Architects comment about love it seems most likely to me that Neo and Trinity are programs designed to "love". They have been programmed to carry an emotion that overrides all logic. Why - I have no idea... But hey, I think its the most logical explanation nonetheless. :D

The article is now about Law and Orderr. I didn't see the link before it changed. Yes, the Wachowskis are from Chicago (Which is where all the street names, like Wacker and Lake, come from). Other than that, I don't know what the article was about. Another link to it??