The provocation of the Matrix

There are lots of people who don't like the Matrix series because they don't understand it. "What's there to understand? It's just a bunch of special effects.", you might say, except that it makes that beautiful series of science fiction into something as obnoxious as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

There are themes that run through each of the three episodes of the Matrix. As far as I can see, these are:

1. Freedom
2. Choice
3. Purpose

The first episode is about how Neo finds out that he is The One. And, in the process of doing so, he realizes several things. At each stage, each degree of his freedom, he has to conquer a new peak. You see him take on physics, self, emotions and finally death. You really have to listen to the Oracle's predictions in order to really understand the movie. The Oracle didn't predict anything. She just set the mood so that when misfortune befalls Morpheus (which happens rather in a hurry) Neo finds himself compelled to oblige. But the real expression of freedom comes when Smith has him in a lock on the railway tracks and calls him Mr. Anderson. He goes on to reply that his name is Neo, and thereby establishes his identity and his freedom.

The second episode is about choice. The conversation that Neo has with the Architect of the Matrix has a lot to do with this. He tells Neo that either Trinity dies, or everyone dies. And to him, the choice doesn't exist. "Hope, the quintessential quality that's simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness". And Neo makes a choice. He goes to save Trinity, thereby going contrary to the the plan that was laid out for him as the owner of the title bestowed upon him (The One).

The third episode is about Purpose. Smith takes over the matrix, and since he's a rogue program, it can be argued that he has exercised (nay, made) a choice. But in my mind it is quite apparent that what he's actually done is to just change his purpose. Ever since he was "changed" because of his being anhiliated by Neo in the first episode, he has taken on a new mission. That of destroying Neo. And there comes the real problem for him. Because when he assimilated the Oracle, he got her eyes, and he could "predict" the future. Unfortunately for him, he didn't count on choice, and that became his undoing. Neo exercised the choice of, at first, not giving up, and then of submitting. In doing the latter, he destroyed Smith because he finished off the Purpose of Smith's existence.

There are other really philosophical angles in the movie that are worth mentioning, but this post is getting quite long. I'll reserve them for a later post. However, I hope that I've given some reason to appreciate the second and the third movie for things other than their special effects.