Matrix For Dummies

There are two kinds of people when it comes to the movie The Matrix: those who can barely keep it together because they’re so excited, and the people who don’t get it and think the first group is nuts. Oftentimes, these two kinds of people find themselves married to each other. Why, I don’t know. But it happens more often than you’d think. 

If you read the description of the second group and said to yourself, “that’s me!” this is for you. I am here on behalf of the first group to offer you an official invitation into our club (yes, we had an official meeting. This vote was unanimous.) Today, I want to help you to “get it,” to understand what the matrix is all about and why we can’t seem to shut up about it. If you still don’t like the movie by the end, that’s fine. My goal is to get you to a point where you can at least understand and appreciate it, to be able to argue the case for what it’s all about whether you’re excited about it or not. And if you finish reading this and still don’t get it, don’t freak out. It’s not your fault if you don’t get it, it’s mine. My assignment is you getting it, so if you aren’t getting it, I get an F. And if I get an F, you have a duty to come yell at me. Agreed? 

Let me make one quick clarification before we dive in. I’m not here to just give you all the ideas that are in the movie. Think of this as me showing you around a playground. I’m going to show you how to slide down the slides and what to do with the monkey bars. By the end, I want to cut you loose, saying, “alright, now go play!” I’m still going to guide you, but with the hope that you’ll learn to play with some of these ideas for yourself. The world of the Matrix, like many sci-fi movies, is incredibly deep. Once you start figuring out how to ask questions and think through the ideas of the movie, you’ll find yourself having a lot of fun with it all. I’m sure of that much. 

The only other thing I have to say is to get comfortable not knowing stuff. Again, don’t take the title of this post to heart–you’re not a dummy. Say it again, loud and proud from the diaphragm if you have to! You’re not a dummy. That’s what this whole thing is about for us: getting rid of that feeling of intimidation when someone seems to be smarter than you. If they aren’t, I’m giving you some tools to call their bluff. If they are, they’re either a jerk that you don’t need around, or someone who can help you become smart too. While this world is like a giant playground, it’s also like a sword. If you use it wisely, it can change your life. I’m sure of that because it changed mine! 

Alright, are you excited yet? I know I am. No more dilly-dallying! It’s time to explore the world of the Matrix!

The Premise

The way that I want to do this is to introduce you to the idea of the movie. I’ll show you how it all works on paper, then we’ll dive in and I’ll show you how it all plays out. Sounds good? 

Video games! You know, those things that the kids these days are getting sucked into. That’s what the Matrix is all about. Basically, the “real world” that we live in now–the world of cars and jobs and taxes–it’s all one big video game. Except, everyone is born there, so they don’t know they’re in a video game. It’s all they know, so they just assume it’s real. You know that aching feeling you get sometimes? That feeling that something’s wrong, that deep sadness you get when you ask yourself the question of whether or not this is all there is to life. That’s just your gut figuring out that you’re stuck in a video game. You’re figuring it out! 

Ok, so if this world that we think is real is actually a video game, what’s the real world like? It’s gross. It’s dark and bleak because, in a nutshell, Y2K actually happened. Except, it doesn’t happen at the turn of the century, but somewhere closer to the year 2139. That’s the year that humans figured out how to create AI (artificial intelligence) and the machines basically came to life. But these machines aren’t exactly happy to be our little slaves, so they start a civil war. 

Things get nasty, but the people figure out the machine’s weakness: they’re powered by the sun. So the humans decide to cut them off from their source of energy and make it dark all the time. I don’t know exactly how they did it, the movie just says they “scorched the skies.” So now the machines need a new source of power. They need something new to recharge their batteries so that they don’t die out. 

Here’s where things get dark. Apparently, the human body makes enough electricity to charge batteries pretty well. So the machines started capturing people and trapping them in pods. To make things even darker, do you know how the machines feed these pod-people? They take all the nutrients out of the dead bodies and feed them to the living. Gross, right? These pod-people are kept alive so that their bodies can make electricity for the machines to use. And now, the humans stand no chance at beating all these machines and lose the war. After a while, the machines figure out how to make people. People are grown in factories and used as batteries until they die. 

The problem was that people would literally die of boredom. I mean, wouldn’t you be a little restless if all your time was spent being blind, deaf, and unable to move in a pod filled with goup? I know I would! So the machines tried to figure out what to do to keep people from getting bored. So they figured out a way to put everyone’s brains into a big video game and made the world that we call our own. 

Is that starting to make sense? The “real world,” that we all live in, is actually a video game. One where all our brains are connected into one big world that we call life. The real world is a war between men and robots that came to life. We are losing that war because most of the humans are being used as battery chargers. We know all of this because one or two people made it out of the video game. That’s the whole idea of the Matrix. If that makes sense, I want to show you how the story unfolds so that you can start exploring all the details for yourself.

The Story

So the movie starts out with these cops who are going up to arrest this lady. She winds up kicking their butts with some stunts that defy the laws of physics. How is she doing that? Who knows! But then these FBI-looking agents show up and she gets nervous and makes a run for it. Eventually, she makes it to a phone booth and disappears. One of the FBI dudes tells his partners that their next target is a guy named neo. What does all this mean? Keep watching to find out!

Then we jump to Keanu Reeves, AKA “Mr. Anderson,” AKA “Neo.” He’s asleep at his desk in his messy studio apartment. He wakes up to find his computer talking to him (which is weird even in this world.) It tells him some weird stuff, like how “the matrix” has him and how he should follow a white rabbit. Before he has the time to figure out what’s going on with his computer, he hears a knock on his door. A client is stopping by to pick up a program from him. You see, Neo is a hacker and he does some shady business in his spare time. 

When the trade is made, Neo’s friend tells him that he looks pretty bad and suggests that he come with him to a party tonight. At first he declines, but then he sees something strange: this guy’s girlfriend has a tattoo of a white rabbit! He finds this odd and decides to see if the messages on his computer actually mean anything. So he gets dressed and heads off to the party. 

At the party, he meets the chick from the opening scene. She introduces herself as Trinity. Turns out she’s a really good hacker and has done some really impressive heists. She was also the one writing those weird messages on his computer. She tells Neo that she knows what it’s like to feel lost, like something’s wrong with life. She points out that it’s all about the question: what is the matrix? She tells him that the answers are out there and runs off. 

Then Neo wakes up the next morning. He’s late for work and he’s in trouble for it. He gets a stern talking to from his boss and returns to his desk. A mailman shows up and gives him a package. It’s a cell phone. As soon as he opens it, it rings. Turns out it’s Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne.) Morpheus is a pretty famous criminal in this world, so he knows who he is immediately. Somehow, Morpheus knows exactly what’s going on in Neo’s office, but doesn’t have the time to explain how. 

What matters right now is that those FBI agents are after Neo, so he has to move. He ducks and weaves through his office space, eventually reaching a window. His goal is to shuffle along the outside of the window to a nearby scaffold, or be caught by the agents. He tries to do it, but chickens out and the agents wind up taking him. 

The agents try to cut Neo a deal where they wipe his criminal record clean if they help him catch Morpheus. Neo isn’t really having it with these guys, so he gives them the finger. Then they do this weird thing where they seal his mouth shut and put a weird shrimp-looking thing in his belly button. Then he wakes up in his apartment, assuming it was all a dream. 

Immediately after he wakes up, he gets a phone call. It’s Morpheus. He tells Neo that he’s lucky, because if the agents knew just how big of a deal Neo was, they would have killed him on the spot. Morpheus then tells Neo that if he wants to learn more about what’s going on, that he should go to the Adams street bridge. Neo is curious, so he goes. 

Under the bridge, he meets Trinity and a few of her friends. He hops in their car and one of them immediately points a gun at him and tells him to pull up his shirt. Yeah, it’s weird. But this isn’t a sexy thing. Remember that shrimp-bug that went into Neo’s belly button? That wasn’t a nightmare, it was real. It’s a bug that tracks his location. The agents figured that Neo would wind up meeting up with Morpheus and they want to know where he is when he does. But team Trinity pulls out a big, fancy machine that pulls the bug out. Now they can’t track Neo. 

With the tracker off, Neo is taken to an old building where he finally gets to meet Morpheus. It’s here that we get our first bit of information about the world of the Matrix, when Morpheus tells Neo that he’s living in a video game, that the world he has been living in is, as he has felt his entire life, sort of off. He then tells Neo that the rest of the story has to be seen, not just told about. So he offers Neo a choice. 

This is where we get to the famous pill scene. Morpheus presents Neo with two choices. The first is to take a blue pill, which will send him back to his bed, where he can live out the rest of his life, believing whatever he wants. The other is to take a red pill, and to learn the truth about life, the universe and everything. As Neo is reaching for the red pill, Morpheus reminds him that this decision is final. There’s no going back from this one. He takes the red pill anyway, and the two walk into another room. 

The team goes through a bunch of program-shenanigans to find Neo’s body in the real world. Remember, people are prisoners to the machines, living in pods to make energy to charge their batteries. They track down the pod that Neo is in and flush his body out of the pod, where they pick it up in the sewer line. Since he has lived in a pod his whole life, he has never used his actual body before. This means that they have to build up his muscles so that he can actually use them. 

When he’s finally able to get up, Morpheus introduces him to the real world aboard his ship. It’s not a boat-ship, but a space ship-thing that floats around somehow. It’s not important, don’t think too hard about it. What matters is that humans live in the old sewers of what’s left of human cities. Since there’s no sun, it’s too cold on the surface, so people live closer to the earth’s core. 

Now that Neo’s up and moving, Morpheus decides to give him the other half of the truth. They load into a little video game program of their own, one that’s separate from the actual Matrix. Here, Morpheus tells Neo about the war against machines, how they eventually won and how humans are now nothing more than batteries. He shows Neo how the world he knew growing up was just a big video game, where all the minds of all those battery-people are connected so they don’t die of boredom. As you can imagine, this is a lot for Neo to take in. He freaks out and demands to be pulled out of the game. He freaks out in the real world and passes out. 

After this, Neo gets a whole bunch of training on the Matrix, how it works, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff. He learns that they can upload programs into his brain to quickly teach him stuff like kung-fu, and how to fly helicopters. He also learns that the way to get out of the Matrix is through phones. They somehow work as a way to communicate with the outside world. Lastly, he is taught that no one can beat the agents. They’re the rulers of the system and if he sees one, he should just run. This will all be important later. To practice everything he has learned, he gets into a sparring match with Morpheus. Here, Morpheus reminds him that the whole world of the Matrix runs on rules, which can be bent or even broken at times. 

One thing happens during all this training segment that will be important for later. Cypher, one of Morpheus’ crew, goes to see the agents. He cuts a deal with them. You see, living in the real world is boring, bleak and crappy. It has everything they need to survive, but just surviving isn’t fun. He wants to be put back into the Matrix as someone rich and famous. Most importantly, he wants to forget all about the real world. In exchange, he will help the agents capture Morpheus. Everyone likes this deal, and they cut to the next scene. 

After a bunch of learning and training, Morpheus declares that it’s time to take Neo to see “her,” an oracle that supposedly knows everything. What’s interesting about this character is that she doesn’t necessarily tell people everything. She tells people what they need to hear. Most of the time it’s true, but sometimes it’s stuff that needs to be said to make something true. 

Here’s what I mean by that. Everyone believes that Neo is “the one,” a magical superman-like guy who is going to free all the people and blow up the machines. He’s struggling to believe it, though. So when he goes to the oracle (which is her official name,) she tells him that he isn’t the one. He apparently “has the gift, but is waiting to use it.” She also tells him that he will have to make a choice: his life, or Morpheus’. She tells him that Morpheus believes in Neo so much that he’s going to give his life for him. But after this ominous warning, she tells him that it’ll all be ok–after all, he doesn’t believe in any of this “fate” crap anyway. 

Sure enough, he walks out the door and shakes off most of the advice. But as the team packs up to head back to the real world, they wind up slipping into a trap. Sure enough, Cyper helps them find Morpheus and he winds up getting captured. A few of the crew die, but Trinity and Neo get out just fine. Neo finds this to be weird because of what the oracle told him about having to make a choice. He starts to believe her, to believe that he actually has a choice. 

Neo starts to get up to go back in so he can rescue Morpheus, when everyone tells him that it’s suicide. He admits that it looks like it, but for some reason, he believes that he can do it. Eventually he whips up a plan and he, along with Trinity, go back in to save Morpheus. They eventually succeed and get Morpheus out. But just before Neo can leave the Matrix, one of the agents breaks the phone booth that he needed to get out. Neo starts running towards the exit when he stops. He’s not running this time, he’s going to fight back. When everyone asks what the heck he’s doing, Morpheus proclaims “he’s starting to believe!” Maybe he’s the one after all? So Neo and one of the agents get into a big fight, and Neo actually wins! Trouble is, more agents start popping up, so he decides to book it. 

Meanwhile, in the real world, the machines have found Morpheus’ ship and are charging in to kill the rest of the crew. The ship has one weapon that could kill the machines, but it basically turns off every electronic thing in a certain radius, including their own machines. This means that Neo, with his brain still plugged into the video game of the Matrix, would be separated from his body. Basically, he would die. 

So the crew tries to hurry him to an exit, but as he turns the last corner towards his phone, he finds an agent waiting for him. He shoots Neo a bunch of times and Neo dies. But as Neo is dying, the movie cuts back to Trinity in the real world. She tells him that he can’t die, because the oracle told her that she would fall in love with the chosen one. She tells him that she loves him, which is why he can’t be dead.

She gives him a kiss, which seems to bring him back to life. But Neo isn’t just back, he’s back with a vengeance. He reawakens as the chosen one that everyone believed he was. A few remaining agents freak out and start shooting at him, but he stops the bullets in mid-air with a quick “nope!” Then he dives into one of the agents and breaks him apart. Yep, he can now beat agents, a feat that was seen as impossible. 

With the machines now inside Morpheus’ ship in the real world, Neo quickly takes his phone call, leaving the Matrix. Morpheus uses the ship’s one weapon and kills the machines. The movie then cuts to a scene with Neo back in the Matrix, telling the machines that he’s going to save the world and stuff. Then the movie cuts to the credits. 

Folks, there are a lot of good ideas to talk about around this movie. From the oracle, that paints a new picture of how an all-knowing being might step into our world, to Neo and the question of what it really looks like to become the one in our own lives, to Cypher and the question of whether or not we’d rather live with an uncomfortable truth or a convenient lie. I may dig into these ideas at later times. For now, I want you to get the basic plot so that you can watch it, get it, and then play with it for yourself. Ask questions about it, get curious about specific details, and then try to answer them for yourself. It’s all a big, fun game and the more questions you answer, the more you’ll get what this movie’s all about. Ultimately, I hope that you can understand the hype, because it’s a lot of fun when you do. 

Alright, now go play!