The Matrix is one of the most influential
action movies of all time, but by mixing stylish gun-fu fight scenes with cyberpunk themes,
it built to a trilogy that may have left a few moviegoers a little confused. Now that we've got some distance from the
climactic installment, let's take a look back at the movies' meaning and break down the
conclusion. Here's the ending of the Matrix trilogy explained. One major theme that came to the fore as the
series reached its conclusion had to do with the similarities between humans and machines. In the original, they couldn't seem more different,
but by Revolutions, programs in the Matrix are portrayed as being almost more human than
our heroes, loving and happy individuals, as worthy of existence as any person. Further, characters from the first film who
were firmly human or machine are portrayed in the sequels as having a little bit of both. The similarities go in both directions. Agent Smith, a program, copied his consciousness
onto a human form, entering the real world through the vessel of a resistance fighter
named Bane. Neo, a human, reached the Source to discover
that being the One was his destiny because it was programmed into him. The humanizing of the Machines and the complimentary
mechanization of Neo made for a storytelling turn that audiences weren't really ready for. People who saw The Matrix couldn't be faulted
for expecting an ending that saw Neo winning by doing his Superman thing and eradicating
humanity’s robot overlords. Instead, Neo triumphed by becoming a bridge
between man and machine, sacrificing his own life for the sake of securing the future. "What do you want?" "Peace." He also made Hugo Weaving’s head explode,
but that wasn’t quite as important. One widespread but inaccurate theory about
the sequels is that the “real world” is actually a second Matrix. While the reasons why this isn't true are
explained in the movies, they're also relatively easy to misunderstand. The real world isn't another level of the
Matrix, but it is involved in another system of control. As the Architect explains at the ending of
The Matrix Reloaded, each version of the Matrix is propped up in the real world by a controlled
rebellion. With each new iteration of the Matrix, a select
portion of the population is freed, allowed to live in Zion. There, they help to liberate people still
inside the Matrix, searching for the One. Finding the One, the human rebels rally behind
them, supporting them until they reach the Source. There, the One discovers that they are not
meant to destroy the Matrix, but rather restart it. At this point in the cycle, the Machines attack
Zion and destroy it, killing the rebellion. The One, having reached the Source, is made
to choose between either reloading the Matrix and selecting a handful of survivors to build
a new Zion, or walking away, supposedly causing a system crash, leaving the humans inside
and outside of the Matrix all dead. Up until Neo, every One made the choice to
restart, perpetuating the system of control. Because Neo loves Trinity, he chooses to sacrifice
everything to be with her. This is the choice that makes him special. Proponents of the second Matrix theory support
it by pointing to the powers Neo is able to manifest in the sequels' real world, being
able to see without eyes and exert control over approaching Sentinels. For a lot of viewers, this breaking of the
rules almost felt like a betrayal, with the audience having been made to believe that
Neo could only manifest his "superpowers" in the Matrix. But Neo isn't able to destroy Sentinels because
he's the One, it's because he reached the Source. Prior to the arrival of the Sentinels at the
ending of The Matrix Reloaded, Neo explained that he could "feel them" before he remotely
destroyed them with his mind. By that point, Neo has literally established
a connection with everything else connected to the Source, like the Machines themselves. He has, essentially, joined their wireless
network. It's why he's able to navigate the Machine
City, or see Smith inside of Bane during their fight, Smith is of the machines, connected
to the Source just as Neo is. Thanks to that handy conduit, he doesn't need
eyes to kick Smith's butt. In the original Matrix, Agent Smith's character
was his job description, an agent for the Matrix who aims to police the populace by
stomping down any signs of rebellion. "A virus. Human beings are a disease. A cancer of this planet." After his encounter with Neo, however, Smith
begins to rebel himself and becomes much scarier and more powerful as a rogue program than
he ever was as an Agent. In the second and third movies of the trilogy,
Neo and Smith become mirror images of each other, with Neo gaining a connection to the
Matrix through the Source, and Smith gaining a connection to the real world through his
override of Bane's brain. If Smith is the Matrix's virus, then Neo is
his natural anti-virus, a connection which the Oracle makes clear during her final talk
with Neo. When Neo blew Smith apart at the ending of
The Matrix, he made a massive imprint on the program. As a part of the Matrix's attempt to, as the
Oracle explained it, "balance the equation," Smith gained new attributes, overriding everything
in an effort to combat Neo. The fact that his spread is destructive to
the Matrix doesn't matter to Smith anymore. He's a rogue program now, cut loose from Machine
control, with his only purpose being to propagate himself. He doesn't know why, and doesn't choose to
do it. It is, quite simply, his purpose. When Neo arrives at the Machine City, he's
met by what is, essentially, the collective voice of the Machines. Well, first he watches Trinity die for about
35 minutes, you remember that fun scene. Anyway, in the Machine City the interconnected
hive mind adopts a human face to speak to the first human ever to set foot inside the
city's walls. Neo approaches the Machines with a deal: He
knows that Smith is ravaging the Matrix, corrupting everything, taking control of the entire system. The rogue program is a mutual enemy of both
species, and Neo offers to handle the problem in exchange for one thing: peace. By this point in the story, the Machines'
usual plan for the Matrix is in utter disarray. Neo, having made his choice not to reload
the system upon arriving at the Source, is now in totally new territory. He's already broken the loop, but still needs
to accomplish two goals: saving humanity from the machines and saving the machines from
Smith. If he fails, everyone dies, there will be
only Smith. When Neo enters the Matrix for his gigantic
Super Saiyan battle, he doesn't do it with the goal of beating Smith to death. How could he? Smith is everywhere and everyone. Neo and the prime Smith battle as Smith's
limitless ranks look on, but Neo doesn't best the program in the fight. He doesn't even come close. Before finishing him off, though, Smith has
one final question for Neo. "Why? Why do you persist?" "Because I choose to." Smith, for all his power, cannot comprehend
the concept of choice. He is a creature of purpose, copying himself
mindlessly as a force of corruption, a symptom of the Matrix desperately trying to balance
itself out. It’s Smith, not humanity, that has become
the virus. It's the choice to fight, rather than the
fight itself, that makes Neo win the battle. Neo doesn't succeed by coming out on top,
he wins by taking the battle with Smith to the very end and choosing to sacrifice himself
by letting Smith copy over him. The anti-virus cancels out the virus. If Smith had a choice, he wouldn't have done
it, but Smith doesn't have a choice. He only has purpose, and he successfully fulfills
it, which is why, as he dies, all he can say is that the outcome is not fair. The Matrix series ends not on a celebration
in the real world, but on a moment of reflection among programs inside the seventh version
of the Matrix. With Smith destroyed, the revived Oracle sits
and waits for the sun rise as the Architect approaches. This is what it's always been about, this
battle between two programs, a yin and a yang. The cold philosophy of the Architect and the
faith of the Oracle have been driving the conflict since its beginning, and now they
meet in a condition of cease fire. The series doesn't really explain all the
details of it, but Neo's defeat of Smith is ultimately all the result of the Oracle's
intervention. In the first movie, the Oracle basically serves
as matchmaker between Neo and Trinity, telling them it's their destiny to fall in love. Is it really, though? Well, no, if the sequels make one thing clear,
it's that nobody is really destined to do anything. It's all about choice. The Oracle's encouragement of Neo and Trinity's
romance provides the rogue element that lets Neo break out of the cycle of control when
he reaches the Source. Instead of reloading the Matrix, he leaves
to be with Trinity, forget the consequences. It was Neo's choice, sure, but it was also
part of the Oracle's plan. "What’s really going to bake your noodle
later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?" Did she know it would work? No, but she believed, and she was right. The element of love was the one thing the
Machines couldn't prepare for. One of the most curious and under-explained
characters in the Matrix sequels is the young girl, who is treated with much importance
without the why of it all really being explained. The daughter of two programs Neo meets inside
the Trainman's purgatory, Sati is a program without purpose, born as the result of love
between two individuals. In the machine world, such an entity is a
novelty, and also useless, subject to deletion, which is why Sati's parents are trying to
shepherd her to shelter. Thematically, Sati is the representation of
love, a new concept to the Machines. Love, at the end of the series, is ultimately
what secures the humans' victory. Neo's love for Trinity is what drives him
to make the choice to reject reloading the Matrix, and instead fight for a better peace. The Machines' inability to comprehend love
left them with that blind spot, allowing Neo to go against every logical choice to make
his own choices instead. Sati can be seen as the Machines' way of trying
to make sense of love. At the end of the movie, she is essentially
what the Machines have decided to let control the Matrix, with the Architect and Oracle's
conflict being set aside for the system's seventh version. This, at least, is pretty much confirmed by
the beautiful sunrise Sati said she made for Neo, and is supported by the new, compassionate
approach to the Matrix's human population in the new version. "Did you do that?" "For Neo." The ending of The Matrix trilogy doesn't see
the Matrix destroyed. In fact, it is renewed, rebooted for a seventh
version, this time with new rules. As audiences learned via the lengthy conversation
with the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded, previous iterations of the Matrix all built
on the flaws of the previous one, fine-tuning the system by which the Machines controlled
humanity both inside and outside of the Matrix. "Ere go, concordantly, vis a vis… You know what? I have no idea what the hell I'm saying. I just thought it would make me sound cool." With a peace secured and a new compassionate
approach at hand, any human who desires to depart the Matrix will be allowed to leave. Certainly, some will stay, the Matrix is the
ultimate virtual reality game, after all, but the conditions of enslavement are no more,
at least for now. The end of the movie implies that more cycles
may be set to come. As the Oracle explained, the peace between
the warring humans and Machines will only last "as long as it can." The peace is not guaranteed, the Architect
makes that clear. Sati's mere existence is proof that the Machines
are now working to understand this little thing called love, letting her steer the ship
while they observe and learn. Maybe, at some point, forces within the Matrix
will figure out how to use love against humanity and enslave them again. Until then, it's a beautiful morning in the
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Love how they rejected Matrix within a Matrix. One of the better videos for sure.
Ah thnx! Haha.
At least be watching this one, feel free to input more of your own thoughts on things tho!! 👍🏻
Pleasantly surprised this didn't link to a YouTube channel with like 4 awfully-edited-videos and no profile picture
Much of it was on point. But no one ever goes into detail about HOW the Matrix was reloaded by Neo. About the fact that Smith's assimilation of EVERY shell facilitated the one hundred percent acceptance required for reload. This is a deeper facet of the climax that gets overlooked.