Blog 6: The Matrix

The film “The Matrix” directed by Andy Wachowki is a movie filled with symbolism. The movie explores the idea of reality and illusion. Everything in the film has a meaning behind it. It can be interpreted many ways which I did. From religion to reference to other movies and even names.
Reality in “The Matrix” is a huge illusion. If I were in “The Matrix” I would want to know the truth. Ignorance may be bliss but I rather feel and experiance things in their true form. Neo and the other chracters fighting the agents were seeking justice and the truth. They wanted a real meaningful life. Above all freedom is what is important. It is what I ultimately want. Reality and knowledge is what the the red pill gave Neo.
While watching the film I noticed that we today have a close bond with our technology. This can be extremely dangerous. They may have the ability one day to control us or even become us. I already consider myself a cyborg. As the years pass I add more technology to my life to do things for me. The practicality of one day living in the matrix is not so bizarre. People and machines are not that different to me. The computer has a brain, which is a lot like ours and other components that are similar. And it’s only in the beginning stages when you really look at it. We may become the matrix on our own by adding technology to our daily lives and one day want to rebel because we went too far.
The names of the characters all have a meaning behind them and for the most part are religious. The name neo means “new”. He was the main character in the film that would be the “new” force in the Matrix. Morpheus who was the captain of the leader of the Nebuchadnezzar, which is the ship of the human defense, is named after a Greek god which is the god of dreams. He awakens Neo. Trinity, which is the most obvious, is Neo’s love interest. Trinity in Christianity stands for The Father ,The Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the way Christians believes you reach eternal life. Trinity revives Neo in the film, which supports the meaning of her name. One last example is Cypher, which means zero and is closely associated with the devil and Judas. I could immediately tell he resembled Judas when he betrayed Morpheus his leader.
The Matrix from what I’ve observed does closely resemble Alice in Wonderland. Alice and Neo are both thrown into an unfamiliar reality. There are both being led by another character to ultimately accomplish a goal. They discover new things in a strange reality. Reality becomes hard to tell from fiction, which is a huge part of both movies. Another movie that shares a lot of similarities with the Matrix is Shutter Island. Leonardo Decaprio plays a patient named Teddy in a mental institution who believes he is a detective uncovering an unethical conspiracy involving testing on the human brain. It takes a while for both Neo and Teddy to grasp their reality after living in an illusion.
“The Matrix” is a well thought out screenplay. It was filled with many things from different sources. It made me think hard about humans and machines. It also made me think how previous movies I had watched. It even made me think of today’s world and where we are going. Is this what we have to look forward to? Time will tell.