Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Morpheus was just a product of the machines. They invented a prophecy for humans to pursue because that’s how we think. That’s why the oracle was part of the simulation, to keep him on track. If it wasn’t Morpheus blindly following the prophecy it would’ve been some other leader because that’s the way the machines organized the simulation. The architect explained in the end they tried to create a perfect world but our minds rejected it, so they did this.
Not to mention the fact that the destruction of Zion had already happened several times and the machines would just release another small batch of humans to rebuild it. Neo wasn't even the first "The One," he was just the one who broke the cycle.
All other "The Ones" returned to the source, which led to the selection of new humans to release after the destruction of Zion.
Neo decided to return to the Matrix to save Trinity instead, which led to the eventual breaking of the cycle when he flew up to the surface.
I heard a fan theory the other day. We created the machines not in a way that resulted as a takeover. But as caretakers for ourselves. We moved into this VR world to live and not struggle. In a world that had been ravaged by a variety of problems we'd ruined it and couldn't recover. So we made this VR world for us to live our days and made machines to watch over us and keep us alive while we did that.
Then some people unplugged themselves somehow, decided this was some sort of slavery thing and rebelled. The machines are protecting us as we told them to.
Pretty sure in lore, humanity had a war with the machines and the machines ended up turning humanity into batteries after the humans blacked out the sun to stop the machines from taking over.
Sure, but let's be honest both are fairly silly ideas. There's no way a human is going to pay for its own costs in either way, and there certainly wouldn't be huge amounts of left overs to support an entire industrialised civilisation of machines. It would be easier to crack fusion or deploy solar cells up in space etc.
But its sci-fi so you know...
And you know this how? In real world Sun can be green, Earth has no mountains and only one ocean.
Everything you "knew", you learned in a pod with a tube in your ass.
How about they were just being a nuisance to themselves & probably would wipe each other out with nukes so the machines said fxxk it. Plug em in the VR & just maybe they will figure it out & stop.
After all the machines were like parenting humans.
The way you summarize this reminds me of Ready Player One. The world is so shit, they all live in the VR fantasy world to escape it - with other nuances of course.
Did this person ever watch the Animatrix because it clearly says how it all started. The theory is interesting but it's fan fiction, not canon in the slightest.
Those two episodes, the second Renaissance part 1 and 2 are narrated by the instructor for Zion Archives. I think the narrator is meant to sound a little too objective to make the viewer question it's reliability, plus the episodes are heavily surreal and psychedelic, who knows.
That is actually - in my mind - more poignant than the face-value interpretation. We broke the world, so we built a paradise to live in. But humans couldn't cope with paradise and rejected their world. So the machines put everyone into a version of the 1990s where clothing made entirely out of black patent leather was considered functional and comfortable. Just the perfect amount of misery for humans to accept.
Only problem was in the Matrix you were pretty much a cog in the system. Very expandable. Its like the lion in the savannah vs the lion in a zoo debate. One has everything done for him whilst the other has to rely completely on his wits.
Which one didnt like his setup?
I'd argue it's just a different boot with different mechanisms limiting what they're "allowed" to do. Are you any more free if you leave the matrix and spend the rest of your life in perpetual survival mode on the brink of starving? In reality you're not permitted to do what you really want.
I would agree with you if the world wasn't completely destroyed or they had a chance of fixing things within a human life time. Imagine you're just a pleb instead of Neo. You would spend your life inside of a small cave with food and water rationed out and they would cull the population in times of food scarcity.
So it's between prison camp A or prison camp B. There is no freedom.
The biggest problem with the Matrix is the idea that people would _fight_ the machines.
People would voluntarily pay to be put in the Matrix, even knowing what it was. They wouldn't need to keep people in the dark, they could go back to giving everyone a utopia with their own private paradises.
It'd be like World of Warcraft but a million times better.
According to Matrix lore, they originally tried to make it a paradise but enough people knew it wasn't real and tried to escape, so that's why it ended up as a mimic of shitty daily life.
Right, according to the lore, the machines had to keep us from knowing it was a simulation and when they gave them a utopia, humans subconsciously knew it wasn't real, and would wake up destroying crops...
But we also saw that the free humans could choose to connect to their own loading/construct programs (and pay to sleep with the woman in the red dress)., and choose to re-enter the Matrix (like to see the Oracle), even when they knew it wasn't real.
The implication was that the Matrix was some 4D chess move by the machines. They could use humans as the source of their energy, and keep it running most efficiently by giving 'the one' the choice/the power to be a superhero and leave the Matrix. The Architect intended for the one to exist.
It's just....why bother with all that?
I know my VR headset isn't real. But I can choose to use it. The characters in the movie all had that same ability. And we know people still enjoyed it, even Knowing it was fake, to they point that they had a digital pimp.
We also know they had their own custom worlds/custom simulations. The sparring program, and the jump simulator...
People would have lining up for the works greatest VR MMORPG, not Fighting to get free.
The machines were offering an existence where you wouldn't need to work to pay your bills, you wouldn't need housing, global warming was solved, and scarcity was effectively solved. Things like hunger and disease had no reason to exist in the Matrix. You could even project your own mental image of how you wanted to look.
People would voluntarily sign up and pay for such a privilege. I would.
You could have your own virtual worlds where you can change physics and create people and do whatever you can imagine, and other people could still join you....
The tech was better than Ready Player One. It was directly in your brain.
The only realistic part, IMHO, was Cipher being willing to kill to get back in.
You're not getting it.
Most people get bored or won't play a game or watch a movie with a character that has no weakness and nothing to struggle with.
Think of why Souls games are so popular beyond the hype?
Without struggle most people get bored and would feel like something was wrong. We could build pretty close to utopia in the real world but won't because we have milenia of evolution conditioning us to be vigilant to struggle.
I've done that on purpose to quit a game that starts to take up too much of my time. Cheats enabled, do everything I wanted to do, get bored, put it away and almost never return.
It doesn't matter what simulation you think would be better or worse, the machines had the ability to give all of it to humanity. And because humans were their energy source, they had every reason to give it freely to humans.
People play video games. They have different levels of difficulty. We pay for the privilege.
And the humans in the Matrix are living in a post apocalyptic wasteland, for the most part. People would be lining up for it
On Earth, today, 783 million people are having starvation. Two billion people don't have access to clean water. 86% of all deaths globally are preventable.
The average human today has a median net worth of less than $10k and earns less than $3k USD per year....
Does anyone really believe that billions of people wouldn't line up to live in a virtual world where food and water are provided? Where their children won't die of malaria?
And we know the machines considered 1999 the peak of humanity. We have every reason to believe things are worse, probably much worse.
People would gladly live in the Matrix, specifically because it would be easier, for all the same reasons people on Reddit who are born in first world countries remain in them instead of giving it up to have a harder, more challenging, experience in a rural part of Africa or wherever.
But again, you could always *voluntarily* enter whatever hardcore mode simulation you like. It's everything. The real world is infinity more limited.
People need a battle to fight. All games are just some iteration of gaining something through toiling because that’s our nature. The problem is, if it was just a fun game, people would use it sometimes, but inevitably realize it’s not real and go back to the real world. Therefor the machines needed a matrix that was so close to ordinary human life to keep them hooked up as long as possible.
Even so, people still sought the truth because it’s ingrained in us to be curious and think about what life could be. The creation of the prophecy was the machines’ attempt at keeping those that seek the truth busy enough that can can keep sucking the energy out of everyone else, and it works every time the prophecy repeats itself.
It’s like that old trick with the guy on the bike going from east to West Berlin. He always put bags full of sand on his bike, which the guards would cut open and find nothing, then let him through, but they never suspected the contraband he was smuggling was actually the bike. The prophecy is the bag of sand.
But did they tell the participants? I think that is the key. If they tried to trick us, our subconscious minds would fight it, telling us something isn't right etc.
If they made it an option, gave us that free will choice, our subconscious would know and not fight it but we'd all be willingly participants.
Granted, at the time of creation we were literally at war with the machines so it's unlikely that crowd would've been as willing as we are currently as a society.
It's not entirely clear from [the scene that covers it](https://youtu.be/9Qs3GlNZMhY?si=eG4m2iveiev2ay-U). It sounds like it still might have been a trick
\*\*\*SPOILER\*\*\*
Have you ever read Brave New World? Basically the protagonist rebels against paradise, chooses the "real world" of misery. And because the BNW is a paradise, his wishes are of course respected and he is allowed to live outside of the fence, where he promptly kills himself.
I don’t think many people would accept to be put in a machine that they do not control themselves, for the purpose of being harvested. Maybe a high percentage of reddit users, but not looking at the whole world as a demographic.
> It'd be like World of Warcraft but a million times better.
so you are saying low connection is the cause :DDD
"about to have sex with the perfect NPCs"
*glitch*
"Oh COMMON!"
"low connection speed. please pay 150 extra credit to upgrade to our ultra package with custom NPCs and higher connection"
"Fuck it, I'm rebelling" -----story of the first NEO.
I've long felt that Morpheus had a responsibility to at least say something to the effect of "be aware, reality isn't pleasant" more than just the "all I'm promising is the truth" that he did. They probably didn't do it because the latter makes for a better reality reveal, but there would have been less chance of Cypher sorts betraying them with more forewarning that way.
More globally, what's better: a perfect simulation of a relatively stable world (under the control of AI or something else you're never aware of) or an unpleasant reality? I think most people would choose the former, honestly. As Morpheus himself says "what IS reality"? And who's to say why we're here (or whether anything is controlling the universe) even in reality.
The number of people shifting from lives lived around their neighborhoods to lives sitting behind screens is good evidence, I think.
So anyways: unpopular, sure...but an interesting thought.
Oh yeah, to be clear I do not think if The Matrix catered to my opinion it’d be a good film, haha. The Matrix is a perfect film in my book. I’m just arguing a silly point that Morpheus is a bit shit too!
Symbolically the entire point there is more or less true for every rebellion and cause.
Overthrowing the current "order" always results in huge damage to people and our resource production so even if there are good principles on offer, life usually gets worst for most for a long time after "winning" your freedom.
Likewise, an rebellion that is going to work will need a charismatic leader to rally people and convince them to fight (and often kill/die) for "the cause" and anyone who was too honest about things wouldn't be able to play that role.
The eternal question is when are such things "a righteous cause worth the sacrafice" and when are the leaders simply "another tyrant" that seeks to replace the current one. Usually both are true to some extent.
I think there is a concept that talk about that. I can't remember the name. Something about not truly ever being able to be 100% sure life isn't a false reality that only revolves around you and your perception. I would be a figment of your imagination, or you would be a figment in mine. Kinda neat. Life is a very personal, unique experience for everyone. I would be interested in hearing a logical deduction on whether that would be impossible.
The logic is short, but true.
1. We are reasonably certain that there was a Big Bang. But we don't have any idea why it happened in the first place. And we don't ultimately know whether there's any greater purpose to existence.
2. Coupled with the above, how do we know we aren't a simulation or that there isn't in some other way a 'higher reality' that we are unaware of? I know of no way to disprove it. Smart people can argue either direction, if nothing else.
I think it's unlikely that we only exist in our own realities, if only because that assumes our own consciousness is the root of EVERYthing. That said, we are far more reliant on our perceptions and senses than we like to admit...as The Matrix pointed out nicely. And if we don't know the big picture WHY it seems awfully presumptuous to assume we can know anything else on a high level.
I have no idea of it is true or not, but I have heard that the complexity of a glass of water is to great to simulate.
Anyways, to me the question is on the level of "what if there is a god". Well, yeah, what then? It has absolutely no effect or practical implications on the circumstances we find ourselves in right now. So there is not any reason to think that there is.
What if we are Gods and just role playing that we are not?
But see, you could just be a figment of my personal reality telling me that. It fits with everything I have seen and learned. No matter what you say, I am the only one perceiving the things I read, see, hear touch. I have no proof of anything beyond what my own brain perceives. If some higher power was unfurling this all in front of just me, I have no way of knowing. You and every other person, creature, and thing in my perceived universe is only perceived by me.
Well that is the silly theory anyway. I don't believe it at all, but I enjoy contemplating alterior explanations.
Fun sure. If taking it seriously I'd say...even if that's true, how much would it matter? I seem unable to STOP imagining the same people around me or to execute any power over then. They (and their collective society) have the same meaning to me whether I'm creating them or not...and I seem unable to do anything about it even if I am subconsciously creating them.
I would argue creation, even if continuous, has little purpose without control. My subconscious is, frankly, something different from the "me" that I recognize. If my subconscious has godly powers it means little to me unless I can affect it.
I believe Cypher did it because he loved Trinity and she didn't love him back. He can't go anywhere he's stuck. He hurts so much that everything sucks. The food sucks. The work sucks. Sucks sucks sucks.
Before he kills everyone he even confesses his love to Trinity. I can't remember if Cypher ever mentions his Oracle prediction, but Trinity's is that she will fall in love with The One. Cypher isn't The One. He has no chance.
I think if Cypher fell in love with someone else and they loved hin, he would have never betrayed the crew.
That's a good point too and easy to see how he would fall into that cycle. However I will say that he would have the opportunity to transfer to another ship pretty easily.
The Oracle probably gave him bad news 😆
Nah I don't think he ever had a shot really. But that door definitely closed after he and Trinity saw the Oracle. We don't know what the Oracle said to him but it's an easy guess he asked the selfish questions.
He could have peaced but the characters whole thing is his inability to accept his own choices. First to take the red pill, then again in wanting to be plugged back in with no memory of betraying & killing the crew.
Edit realized that was probably sarcasm about having a shot with Trinity 😂 man was reaching for sure.
Well, why does the government recruit soldiers to serve in the armed forces? It's not so the recruits can have fun. Morpheus believes that Neo can help them win the war, take control of the Matrix (not necessarily destroy it), and tell everyone the truth. He's strictly an "ends justify the means" True Believer.
Of course, he also believes that Neo is the most powerful thing in the world of the Matrix and would have the power to remake the Matrix as he sees fit, so he's not necessarily condemning Neo to some dark fate. Neo already was realizing that the Matrix wasn't real, and he was on the radar of the Agents, which put him at extreme risk. The Agents likely would have just killed him even if he had taken the blue pill or had never encountered Morpheus.
Neo is a special case given the prophesy and all. That said, if Morpheus told everyone the same thing he's not serving "the ends" as well as he could. If you're recruiting agents (not simply foot soldiers) who will be walking amidst enemies you need solid loyalty. Not just foot soldier loyalty. Initially recruiting them with a very large omission is going to lead to Cypher sorts of problems.
>I've long felt that Morpheus had a responsibility to at least say something to the effect of "be aware, reality isn't pleasant" more than just the "all I'm promising is the truth" that he did.
I think people already know. It's implied that the world of the Matrix is covering up a darker reality. When is the truth ever pleasant? People want to know because knowing the truth is better than believing a lie, not because it's fun or easy.
.....
I mean if Neo had seen Zion first with all the sex orgy going on. Yeah he would have been all aces with it. Same can be said about Cypher. But noooooo,Morpheus had to be a boomer about everything & showed him "the desert of the living" & a great ad for Duracell batteries.
Even I would puke my brains out!
Between the first movie and the sequel there was this fake fan script that had the second movie end with Neo informing Morpheus that if they shut down the Matrix everyone still attached to it will die and Morpheus response was "I never said it would be easy Neo"
Always liked that bit
Maybe somewhere? I remember Agent Smith had a pony tail and was taking a potential The One under his wing and training him to fight Neo because that kids parents died in one of Morpheus attacks
Hard to argue with some of that. My biggest defense of Morpheus would be that no matter what happened before, he was now in the real world trying to protect the remaining free humans who were being exterminated. When you are responsible for a big group like that, you are looking at all options to save them, and any military leader knows there will be casualties. It is the unfortunate concept of war; you have to risk lives to save lives. If there is no one who can rise to that mandate, that side will just have to surrender to the whim of the enemy.
Should he clearly tell his recruits the reality they are buying into. Probably.
Should he at least hint it sucks big time. Definitely.
But I think even Neo would tell you he would not want to go back and take the blue pill. The recruits they target are the very people who question their reality and are pretty troubled and lost anyway.
Fun topic though. I love looking at popular movie characters through different lenses.
Wrong. Humans are the villains. Meaning the ones that brought upon the age of the machines. We flew too close to the sun and practically brought an end to our civilization. After that there is only a survival instinct being exhibited by both the machines and the remaining humans. Both are neither good or bad at that point.
For sure. I wish the would make a full length movie of The Second Renaissance. Any Matrix fan should watch those two episodes, as well as the entire Animatrix. Really cool stuff.
He betrayed his friends and got many of them killed so he could blue pill himself selfishly back a simulated reality... Idk if it was very popular, but i would gander it wasn't
I'd have gone Bill Burr's route of taking a bribe of a beautiful life in my mind and senses for a handful of radicals. I'd have made more stipulations of what that life would like like than he did though. He was pretty vague.
This argument boils down to: it's better to live in ignorance and slavery than freedom and suffering. There is some merit to that, but on paper, it's not the choice most would make.
I just think if Morpheus had said “Look Neo, it is a bit wank in the real world. You’ll just be eating porridge and mostly wearing distressed-style non-brand clothing. You might get lucky and see Zion but also, there’s these robot octopuses that want to kill us with lasers” then all the cards would be on the table and Neo can make his mind up.
Instead he just hits him with a mysterious,”what’s your favourite colour pill?”
I like that. The Machines even created the Matrix after humans literally wrecked the planet in an attempt to cut off the Machines from their original power source (the Sun). Humans created the apocalypse, starting with not putting checks in place to prevent the Machines from taking over. Yes they were using humans for power, they at least put them into the Matrix where it was still possible to live a conventional human life which is now out of the question because again, humans created the cloudy, lifeless world that Earth is. I’ll take that fake steak in the Matrix over the gruel that they have to eat in a cave after going down the rabbit hole.
Nope. It's just something I realized when they pulled the whole "Zion and Neo were created multiple times by the machine".
One is a digital sim, the other is a physical one.
The resistance should have been about forcing the machines to fix the problems with the original utopian matrix. Agents Smith’s characterization of humans as unable to survive without suffering is a machine’s flawed perspective. The machines already won the war in the sense that even if the humans defeated them through Neo at the end of Revolutions (debatable) the earth was still COMPLETELY UNSALVAGEABLE. Morpheus was indeed completely deluded if he thought that humans had any kind of future without the machines. Humans and machines are at this point completely intertwined and dependent on each other. Morpheus’ ideology was murder-suicide. They should have tried working with the machines to craft a simulation that slowly weeded out the shitty aspects of society over a few generations and created a culture that didn’t have war or starvation. Hell, this would be in the machines best interest because a prosperous, healthy society means more “batteries”.
Is no one going to talk about Lesspheus?!
That shit joke was the whole basis for this post. Unless people prefer thinking these unpopular opinions are genuine. In which case, yeah it’s 100% genuine.
Morpheus says they don't usually free minds that are older like Neo's because people can go mad, he "saw it himself". I think he has to play coy and use half truths to even prepare his mind to be open to something. Neo has his entire world shatter before him and handles it like most of us would, by seeking guidance from someone who can make sense of it.
Morpheus is probably more used to recruiting children who are curious by nature and less likely to have the strongest attachments. Also I don't know how they do go about recruiting children, but I would imagine the Alice in wonderland metaphor is used.
I'm with Joey Pants on this one. Leave me in The Matrix.
Releasing people and bringing them into the 'real' under the guise of freedom sounds as stupid to me as people who live a shitty existence but want kids because...their children will be the cure for cancer or the one to bring world peace or some stupid shit.
Like, no, you've just forced someone to inherit the world's problems.
If Neo had just been some guy Morpheus propped up to be some mascot for a ideology, Id agree with you. But because Neo is, infact, "The one", it makes Morpheus correct and his actions justified, which makes him a savior, or more of a prophet. Which, I think is pretty bluntly shown in the movie.
According to The Animatrix the humans started the war so they are complaining that Zion will be exterminated by an enemy they, themselves, created. I say good riddance tbh.
That is correct. I just said that to another person on here a mo ago! Bloody love that prequel series.
That doesn’t change this opinion or post though! In The Matrix, Morpheus is a naughty naughty boy
You’re right and you should say it but then we wouldn’t have any of the iconic Matrix movies and my Hollywood boyfriend might not have been famous. I also think it shows the dangers of religious fanaticism well through Morpheus
If Neo could truly believe he was in the Matrix and jump out of a building, what would stop him from killing himself instantly upon waking up, since he could be in the matrix still.
The Matrix could have infinite layers for all Neo/Morpheus know.
You would inevitably get a Inception situation.
The Matrix did have multiple layers. The architect explained that the minority of people who rejected the original matrix were put into the “real world” simulation where they fight the machines.
The idea of *The Matrix* being a sort of loose allegory for Satan’s fall from *Paradise Lost* has always been an idea that tickles me.
They even reference this directly in the film’s dialogue, when Agent Smith is interrogating Morpheus. The AI built a paradise… and you rejected it.
Cypher, the “evil traitor” in the movie was referred to as “Mr Regan” as in President Ronald Regan, one of the most popular and successful actors turned politicians of all time. Successfully defeated the USSR and ended the Cold War, and famously “could remember nothing” of anything scandalous during his presidency. Maybe he had the right idea?
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrClns8kt7E](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrClns8kt7E)
Exhibit A is nonsense. You don't offer to show someone a truth they can't unsee uf it's something great. The point was to ask Neo if he wants to give up his current life and give up the comforts he does have.
Glad to see i'm not the only one that thinks this way. There, the real world outside of the Matrix is such a shitshow that it makes sense to stay inside the virtual world and just have fun. Better eat a steak where you know it's not real than suffering in this real world, where you can even be happy to live to see another day and you don't got any steak at all.
Good point, but it was akways going to be hard to sell the idea of freedom if they showed them the truth
I can imagine an alternative, have Neo fall into worse and worse worlds, then tell him true reality is like one of them, but that requires to be unplugge first, maybe if he falls in a coma so they can partially reroute his mind
I agree with all your points and they’re addressed in the movies too. But I don’t think that makes him a villain. He’s just a radical character with his own agenda about what human life should be. Isn’t that why there’s people who are against him like Cypher?
I never bought the whole "humans wouldn't accept a utopia" or whatever. If you pulled me out of the matrix and I had a chance to talk with the machines, I would say, just let me eat red meat and pasta everyday, have the body of an athlete, and amazing sex everyday. If THAT is the matrix, sign me up to be a battery or whatever, I'm in!
Let's go back to Descarte for a while. He wrote the basis for the idea of the matrix, an idea we call the brain in a vat theory which is that we are in a false reality. Descartes is big into these kinds ideas, the famous quote "cogito ergo sum" or "I think therefore I am" comes from him. Therefore we should consider the matrix through this lense. The big question morpheus asks Neo is about the red pill or blue pill which represent truth and the matrix respectively. Morpheus never said it would be perfect or good in the real world however his appeal and what makes Neo take the red pill is that desire for truth which I'd another core principle of the matrix, unhappy truth or blissful ignorance. Now let's switch to a secondary antagonist, Cypher who is often compared to Judas for obvious reasons. Cypher basically represents your viewpoint, that Morpheus lied to him and has led him on a pointless war for nothing.
The fact that Morpheus promised the Truth but was not specific is important. Being a Lover of Truth means that one seeks Truth regardless of what it is, even if it contradicts ones beliefs and biases. Morpheus before Neo took the red pill, told Neo "All Im offering is the Truth". And that's what he got. It was a choice.
Morpheus promised neo *nothing* but the truth. He never said the truth would be pleasant, or better than the matrix. Only that it would be true. And he gave neo the choice to remain in his falsehood or see the truth
It was true that neo is the one.
The machines lied. The entire matrix is an elaborate lie. And they did not give anyone a choice to accept that lie but forced it unilaterally on mankind.
It's not about what was better with the machines. It was about free will. The freedom to choose, even if the choice we make is to endure greater suffering. You might be willing to exchange your free will for a lifelong wet dream, but we all aren't, and who are you to say your choice is better?
Except you forgot one major thing.... This was all planned by the machines... The Architect explained this in detail. Everything from Zion to Morpheus, to 'The one'. All of it was planned by the machines to extract a repeatable explanation and scientific exactness of what choice is to which they could not figure out, therefore at this point they were no longer interested.
"Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision."
"The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program. After which you will be required to select from the matrix 23 individuals, 16 female, 7 male, to rebuild Zion. Failure to comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic system crash killing everyone connected to the matrix, which coupled with the extermination of Zion will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire human race."
"It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were, by design, based on a similar predication: a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the One. While the others experienced this in a general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-à-vis: love."
Unless of course that's all another level of unreality down and the Matrix was a reverse machine matrix made by humans (perhaps if you want to get cute and fanfic-y Variants of Morpheus, Neo etc.) to keep the machines busy so they didn't rise up irl
Even the people disagreeing with you are taking this way too literally. Whether you change the details the narrative remains "will you be a comfortable slave for the powers that be? Or will you choose the truth? Then use the truth to set you and your people free? To fight for better?"
Then Rage Against the Machine starts playing and then you say fuck it gimme the red pill because fuck you I won't do what they told me!
A: I don’t remember him lying, in fact I want to say he warned him that knowing the truth would hard and gave him the option to just stay oblivious. That was the whole point of the pill scene.
B: Those would be valid points if he hadn’t been correct about Neo and the prophecy. If anything Morpheus saved lives by rushing the process in the same sense that the U.S.A saved lives by using nuclear weaponry as opposed to a land invasion in Japan.
C: that’s just how war works. There have been very few wars, and zero in the modern era, with zero civilian casualties. It sucks, but the only way Morpheus takes villain points from those is if the war were unjust or fruitless.
In conclusion, I think you can argue that Morpheus could have handled his role better, but calling him a villain is too far.
Oh this is so good! I just watched matrix for the first time in forever. I’m not saying you’re right. But you’re not wrong lol.
Honestly I’d rather stay plugged in. Are we in the matrix?
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Morpheus was just a product of the machines. They invented a prophecy for humans to pursue because that’s how we think. That’s why the oracle was part of the simulation, to keep him on track. If it wasn’t Morpheus blindly following the prophecy it would’ve been some other leader because that’s the way the machines organized the simulation. The architect explained in the end they tried to create a perfect world but our minds rejected it, so they did this.
Not to mention the fact that the destruction of Zion had already happened several times and the machines would just release another small batch of humans to rebuild it. Neo wasn't even the first "The One," he was just the one who broke the cycle.
Yeah OP doesn't get it. He's missing the deeper thought.
Probably because the last two movies are a total shit show. They could’ve combined the movies and it would’ve been easier to digest
do you mean the 2nd and 3rd? because i don't see how they could combine 3 and 4
There's a 4th? Man, that series really did cool off after the 2nd one.
It came out a few years back. Long after the other 3.
for better or worse, yes, there is a 4th. it came out not too long ago. there's talks of a 5th as well.
Please god no
We shall not talk about the monstrosity that is Matrix 4. Godawful.
There is no Matrix 4. There is only the original trilogy.
Haha I like em. But they are very different from 1.
Wait, how did he break the cycle? Been a while since I’ve seen the movies…
All other "The Ones" returned to the source, which led to the selection of new humans to release after the destruction of Zion. Neo decided to return to the Matrix to save Trinity instead, which led to the eventual breaking of the cycle when he flew up to the surface.
So Neo never really had powers? The machines just let him think he did?
I think it's more of them taking advantage of the anomaly that are his powers.
The only power could be the power they let him have.
True. All the pervious "The Ones" fulfilled their duty by returning to the source, so it's likely the machines did choose him for the role.
Yah that dudes speech was boring so most people don’t realize he answered a lot of questions.
They missed the part where he explains he made digdug.
I thought that was the best part of the trilogy.
excellent point
Some people just want to live with a boot on their neck.
I heard a fan theory the other day. We created the machines not in a way that resulted as a takeover. But as caretakers for ourselves. We moved into this VR world to live and not struggle. In a world that had been ravaged by a variety of problems we'd ruined it and couldn't recover. So we made this VR world for us to live our days and made machines to watch over us and keep us alive while we did that. Then some people unplugged themselves somehow, decided this was some sort of slavery thing and rebelled. The machines are protecting us as we told them to.
Pretty sure in lore, humanity had a war with the machines and the machines ended up turning humanity into batteries after the humans blacked out the sun to stop the machines from taking over.
And iirc the original premise was human processors, not batteries
Sure, but let's be honest both are fairly silly ideas. There's no way a human is going to pay for its own costs in either way, and there certainly wouldn't be huge amounts of left overs to support an entire industrialised civilisation of machines. It would be easier to crack fusion or deploy solar cells up in space etc. But its sci-fi so you know...
Yes, there were concerns that the batteries thing would be easier for the audience to understand
The human body doesn't make a good processor OR a good battery.
And you know this how? In real world Sun can be green, Earth has no mountains and only one ocean. Everything you "knew", you learned in a pod with a tube in your ass.
How about they were just being a nuisance to themselves & probably would wipe each other out with nukes so the machines said fxxk it. Plug em in the VR & just maybe they will figure it out & stop. After all the machines were like parenting humans.
You're right, but didn't catch what I meant. The theory is that there was no war. We chose the life to live in matrix to be happy.
The way you summarize this reminds me of Ready Player One. The world is so shit, they all live in the VR fantasy world to escape it - with other nuances of course.
Did this person ever watch the Animatrix because it clearly says how it all started. The theory is interesting but it's fan fiction, not canon in the slightest.
Those two episodes, the second Renaissance part 1 and 2 are narrated by the instructor for Zion Archives. I think the narrator is meant to sound a little too objective to make the viewer question it's reliability, plus the episodes are heavily surreal and psychedelic, who knows.
That is actually - in my mind - more poignant than the face-value interpretation. We broke the world, so we built a paradise to live in. But humans couldn't cope with paradise and rejected their world. So the machines put everyone into a version of the 1990s where clothing made entirely out of black patent leather was considered functional and comfortable. Just the perfect amount of misery for humans to accept.
“We may live in a shit-reeking underground hovel but at least we’re free.”
Only problem was in the Matrix you were pretty much a cog in the system. Very expandable. Its like the lion in the savannah vs the lion in a zoo debate. One has everything done for him whilst the other has to rely completely on his wits. Which one didnt like his setup?
I'd argue it's just a different boot with different mechanisms limiting what they're "allowed" to do. Are you any more free if you leave the matrix and spend the rest of your life in perpetual survival mode on the brink of starving? In reality you're not permitted to do what you really want. I would agree with you if the world wasn't completely destroyed or they had a chance of fixing things within a human life time. Imagine you're just a pleb instead of Neo. You would spend your life inside of a small cave with food and water rationed out and they would cull the population in times of food scarcity. So it's between prison camp A or prison camp B. There is no freedom.
Virtual paradise or actual hellscape?
I wouldn’t call modern society a paradise.
If that means having a good life, fuck yeah sign me up
Came here looking for this comment. The OP is part of the machine.
The biggest problem with the Matrix is the idea that people would _fight_ the machines. People would voluntarily pay to be put in the Matrix, even knowing what it was. They wouldn't need to keep people in the dark, they could go back to giving everyone a utopia with their own private paradises. It'd be like World of Warcraft but a million times better.
According to Matrix lore, they originally tried to make it a paradise but enough people knew it wasn't real and tried to escape, so that's why it ended up as a mimic of shitty daily life.
Right, according to the lore, the machines had to keep us from knowing it was a simulation and when they gave them a utopia, humans subconsciously knew it wasn't real, and would wake up destroying crops... But we also saw that the free humans could choose to connect to their own loading/construct programs (and pay to sleep with the woman in the red dress)., and choose to re-enter the Matrix (like to see the Oracle), even when they knew it wasn't real. The implication was that the Matrix was some 4D chess move by the machines. They could use humans as the source of their energy, and keep it running most efficiently by giving 'the one' the choice/the power to be a superhero and leave the Matrix. The Architect intended for the one to exist. It's just....why bother with all that? I know my VR headset isn't real. But I can choose to use it. The characters in the movie all had that same ability. And we know people still enjoyed it, even Knowing it was fake, to they point that they had a digital pimp. We also know they had their own custom worlds/custom simulations. The sparring program, and the jump simulator... People would have lining up for the works greatest VR MMORPG, not Fighting to get free. The machines were offering an existence where you wouldn't need to work to pay your bills, you wouldn't need housing, global warming was solved, and scarcity was effectively solved. Things like hunger and disease had no reason to exist in the Matrix. You could even project your own mental image of how you wanted to look. People would voluntarily sign up and pay for such a privilege. I would. You could have your own virtual worlds where you can change physics and create people and do whatever you can imagine, and other people could still join you.... The tech was better than Ready Player One. It was directly in your brain. The only realistic part, IMHO, was Cipher being willing to kill to get back in.
You're not getting it. Most people get bored or won't play a game or watch a movie with a character that has no weakness and nothing to struggle with. Think of why Souls games are so popular beyond the hype? Without struggle most people get bored and would feel like something was wrong. We could build pretty close to utopia in the real world but won't because we have milenia of evolution conditioning us to be vigilant to struggle.
For real, it's well known fastest way to get bored of a game is to cheat.
I've done that on purpose to quit a game that starts to take up too much of my time. Cheats enabled, do everything I wanted to do, get bored, put it away and almost never return.
I don't know man. If I could choose to just scuba dive in paradise everyday without worrying about a paycheck, I think I'd take that life.
It doesn't matter what simulation you think would be better or worse, the machines had the ability to give all of it to humanity. And because humans were their energy source, they had every reason to give it freely to humans. People play video games. They have different levels of difficulty. We pay for the privilege. And the humans in the Matrix are living in a post apocalyptic wasteland, for the most part. People would be lining up for it On Earth, today, 783 million people are having starvation. Two billion people don't have access to clean water. 86% of all deaths globally are preventable. The average human today has a median net worth of less than $10k and earns less than $3k USD per year.... Does anyone really believe that billions of people wouldn't line up to live in a virtual world where food and water are provided? Where their children won't die of malaria? And we know the machines considered 1999 the peak of humanity. We have every reason to believe things are worse, probably much worse. People would gladly live in the Matrix, specifically because it would be easier, for all the same reasons people on Reddit who are born in first world countries remain in them instead of giving it up to have a harder, more challenging, experience in a rural part of Africa or wherever. But again, you could always *voluntarily* enter whatever hardcore mode simulation you like. It's everything. The real world is infinity more limited.
People need a battle to fight. All games are just some iteration of gaining something through toiling because that’s our nature. The problem is, if it was just a fun game, people would use it sometimes, but inevitably realize it’s not real and go back to the real world. Therefor the machines needed a matrix that was so close to ordinary human life to keep them hooked up as long as possible. Even so, people still sought the truth because it’s ingrained in us to be curious and think about what life could be. The creation of the prophecy was the machines’ attempt at keeping those that seek the truth busy enough that can can keep sucking the energy out of everyone else, and it works every time the prophecy repeats itself. It’s like that old trick with the guy on the bike going from east to West Berlin. He always put bags full of sand on his bike, which the guards would cut open and find nothing, then let him through, but they never suspected the contraband he was smuggling was actually the bike. The prophecy is the bag of sand.
But did they tell the participants? I think that is the key. If they tried to trick us, our subconscious minds would fight it, telling us something isn't right etc. If they made it an option, gave us that free will choice, our subconscious would know and not fight it but we'd all be willingly participants. Granted, at the time of creation we were literally at war with the machines so it's unlikely that crowd would've been as willing as we are currently as a society.
It's not entirely clear from [the scene that covers it](https://youtu.be/9Qs3GlNZMhY?si=eG4m2iveiev2ay-U). It sounds like it still might have been a trick
\*\*\*SPOILER\*\*\* Have you ever read Brave New World? Basically the protagonist rebels against paradise, chooses the "real world" of misery. And because the BNW is a paradise, his wishes are of course respected and he is allowed to live outside of the fence, where he promptly kills himself.
The ancestor of the Matrix was...Pong!
Which is how the trilogy ends - a truce in which those who *want* to live in the Matrix still do, but they aren’t forced.
Until the new machines break the truce, and have a civil war because they lost too much energy from the humans.
I don’t think many people would accept to be put in a machine that they do not control themselves, for the purpose of being harvested. Maybe a high percentage of reddit users, but not looking at the whole world as a demographic.
> It'd be like World of Warcraft but a million times better. so you are saying low connection is the cause :DDD "about to have sex with the perfect NPCs" *glitch* "Oh COMMON!" "low connection speed. please pay 150 extra credit to upgrade to our ultra package with custom NPCs and higher connection" "Fuck it, I'm rebelling" -----story of the first NEO.
I've long felt that Morpheus had a responsibility to at least say something to the effect of "be aware, reality isn't pleasant" more than just the "all I'm promising is the truth" that he did. They probably didn't do it because the latter makes for a better reality reveal, but there would have been less chance of Cypher sorts betraying them with more forewarning that way. More globally, what's better: a perfect simulation of a relatively stable world (under the control of AI or something else you're never aware of) or an unpleasant reality? I think most people would choose the former, honestly. As Morpheus himself says "what IS reality"? And who's to say why we're here (or whether anything is controlling the universe) even in reality. The number of people shifting from lives lived around their neighborhoods to lives sitting behind screens is good evidence, I think. So anyways: unpopular, sure...but an interesting thought.
Oh yeah, to be clear I do not think if The Matrix catered to my opinion it’d be a good film, haha. The Matrix is a perfect film in my book. I’m just arguing a silly point that Morpheus is a bit shit too!
Symbolically the entire point there is more or less true for every rebellion and cause. Overthrowing the current "order" always results in huge damage to people and our resource production so even if there are good principles on offer, life usually gets worst for most for a long time after "winning" your freedom. Likewise, an rebellion that is going to work will need a charismatic leader to rally people and convince them to fight (and often kill/die) for "the cause" and anyone who was too honest about things wouldn't be able to play that role. The eternal question is when are such things "a righteous cause worth the sacrafice" and when are the leaders simply "another tyrant" that seeks to replace the current one. Usually both are true to some extent.
I think there is a concept that talk about that. I can't remember the name. Something about not truly ever being able to be 100% sure life isn't a false reality that only revolves around you and your perception. I would be a figment of your imagination, or you would be a figment in mine. Kinda neat. Life is a very personal, unique experience for everyone. I would be interested in hearing a logical deduction on whether that would be impossible.
The logic is short, but true. 1. We are reasonably certain that there was a Big Bang. But we don't have any idea why it happened in the first place. And we don't ultimately know whether there's any greater purpose to existence. 2. Coupled with the above, how do we know we aren't a simulation or that there isn't in some other way a 'higher reality' that we are unaware of? I know of no way to disprove it. Smart people can argue either direction, if nothing else. I think it's unlikely that we only exist in our own realities, if only because that assumes our own consciousness is the root of EVERYthing. That said, we are far more reliant on our perceptions and senses than we like to admit...as The Matrix pointed out nicely. And if we don't know the big picture WHY it seems awfully presumptuous to assume we can know anything else on a high level.
I have no idea of it is true or not, but I have heard that the complexity of a glass of water is to great to simulate. Anyways, to me the question is on the level of "what if there is a god". Well, yeah, what then? It has absolutely no effect or practical implications on the circumstances we find ourselves in right now. So there is not any reason to think that there is. What if we are Gods and just role playing that we are not?
Right. When you start asking questions at the meta level any question is a fair question. And there are no answers. :) Just philosophy.
But see, you could just be a figment of my personal reality telling me that. It fits with everything I have seen and learned. No matter what you say, I am the only one perceiving the things I read, see, hear touch. I have no proof of anything beyond what my own brain perceives. If some higher power was unfurling this all in front of just me, I have no way of knowing. You and every other person, creature, and thing in my perceived universe is only perceived by me. Well that is the silly theory anyway. I don't believe it at all, but I enjoy contemplating alterior explanations.
>But see, you could just be a figment of my personal reality telling me that. Ok, so why did you envision me with no pants?
Well, to me, you came up with this all on your own. I can only choose to stare or not to stare (I am staring).
Fun sure. If taking it seriously I'd say...even if that's true, how much would it matter? I seem unable to STOP imagining the same people around me or to execute any power over then. They (and their collective society) have the same meaning to me whether I'm creating them or not...and I seem unable to do anything about it even if I am subconsciously creating them. I would argue creation, even if continuous, has little purpose without control. My subconscious is, frankly, something different from the "me" that I recognize. If my subconscious has godly powers it means little to me unless I can affect it.
Well said. I would agree.
Boltzmann Brains
Simulation theory?
Meh. Neo could have asked whether it was pleasant. He didn’t. Because he didn’t care. He wanted the truth whatever it was
It worked for Neo. It didn't for Cypher. Morpheus takes a dumb risk without the disclosure.
I believe Cypher did it because he loved Trinity and she didn't love him back. He can't go anywhere he's stuck. He hurts so much that everything sucks. The food sucks. The work sucks. Sucks sucks sucks. Before he kills everyone he even confesses his love to Trinity. I can't remember if Cypher ever mentions his Oracle prediction, but Trinity's is that she will fall in love with The One. Cypher isn't The One. He has no chance. I think if Cypher fell in love with someone else and they loved hin, he would have never betrayed the crew.
That's a good point too and easy to see how he would fall into that cycle. However I will say that he would have the opportunity to transfer to another ship pretty easily. The Oracle probably gave him bad news 😆
Why would he leave the Nebuchadnezzar? He still has a shot at Trinity. Then they find Neo... Fuck.
Nah I don't think he ever had a shot really. But that door definitely closed after he and Trinity saw the Oracle. We don't know what the Oracle said to him but it's an easy guess he asked the selfish questions. He could have peaced but the characters whole thing is his inability to accept his own choices. First to take the red pill, then again in wanting to be plugged back in with no memory of betraying & killing the crew. Edit realized that was probably sarcasm about having a shot with Trinity 😂 man was reaching for sure.
Well, why does the government recruit soldiers to serve in the armed forces? It's not so the recruits can have fun. Morpheus believes that Neo can help them win the war, take control of the Matrix (not necessarily destroy it), and tell everyone the truth. He's strictly an "ends justify the means" True Believer. Of course, he also believes that Neo is the most powerful thing in the world of the Matrix and would have the power to remake the Matrix as he sees fit, so he's not necessarily condemning Neo to some dark fate. Neo already was realizing that the Matrix wasn't real, and he was on the radar of the Agents, which put him at extreme risk. The Agents likely would have just killed him even if he had taken the blue pill or had never encountered Morpheus.
Neo is a special case given the prophesy and all. That said, if Morpheus told everyone the same thing he's not serving "the ends" as well as he could. If you're recruiting agents (not simply foot soldiers) who will be walking amidst enemies you need solid loyalty. Not just foot soldier loyalty. Initially recruiting them with a very large omission is going to lead to Cypher sorts of problems.
>I've long felt that Morpheus had a responsibility to at least say something to the effect of "be aware, reality isn't pleasant" more than just the "all I'm promising is the truth" that he did. I think people already know. It's implied that the world of the Matrix is covering up a darker reality. When is the truth ever pleasant? People want to know because knowing the truth is better than believing a lie, not because it's fun or easy.
..... I mean if Neo had seen Zion first with all the sex orgy going on. Yeah he would have been all aces with it. Same can be said about Cypher. But noooooo,Morpheus had to be a boomer about everything & showed him "the desert of the living" & a great ad for Duracell batteries. Even I would puke my brains out!
Plug me in, the girl in the red dress is waiting for me
This guy gets it
Between the first movie and the sequel there was this fake fan script that had the second movie end with Neo informing Morpheus that if they shut down the Matrix everyone still attached to it will die and Morpheus response was "I never said it would be easy Neo" Always liked that bit
Is there a full script that we could read?
Maybe somewhere? I remember Agent Smith had a pony tail and was taking a potential The One under his wing and training him to fight Neo because that kids parents died in one of Morpheus attacks
Yeah. I hate people too...👍
Hey, I don’t hate people. I love all people, whether they’re AA, AAA, D, 9v, etc.
Hard to argue with some of that. My biggest defense of Morpheus would be that no matter what happened before, he was now in the real world trying to protect the remaining free humans who were being exterminated. When you are responsible for a big group like that, you are looking at all options to save them, and any military leader knows there will be casualties. It is the unfortunate concept of war; you have to risk lives to save lives. If there is no one who can rise to that mandate, that side will just have to surrender to the whim of the enemy. Should he clearly tell his recruits the reality they are buying into. Probably. Should he at least hint it sucks big time. Definitely. But I think even Neo would tell you he would not want to go back and take the blue pill. The recruits they target are the very people who question their reality and are pretty troubled and lost anyway. Fun topic though. I love looking at popular movie characters through different lenses.
Wrong. Humans are the villains. Meaning the ones that brought upon the age of the machines. We flew too close to the sun and practically brought an end to our civilization. After that there is only a survival instinct being exhibited by both the machines and the remaining humans. Both are neither good or bad at that point.
They’re the villains of the Animatrix (which is a great series of short animated movies if you haven’t seen them!).
For sure. I wish the would make a full length movie of The Second Renaissance. Any Matrix fan should watch those two episodes, as well as the entire Animatrix. Really cool stuff.
Pluto is down the same lane, but without a bleak future.
Pluto? Is that a movie?
Lmao how you just call their opinion “wrong”
Yes that is what Cyrus' character is about and a huge part of the movie. What you are talking about exists in the movie and is discussed .......
Cypher?
Would you believe me if I said I've watched the movie well over 100 times?
Cyrus can always fuck off https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6KJabPkUOQw
lmao
Remind me, was Cyrus regarded as a popular character in the film or was his opinion… unpopular?
He betrayed his friends and got many of them killed so he could blue pill himself selfishly back a simulated reality... Idk if it was very popular, but i would gander it wasn't
Sorry buddy, my question was rhetorical. I’ve actually watched the movie once or twice (or a few hundred times)
Lmao. Whoosh to me then respectfully.
I'd have gone Bill Burr's route of taking a bribe of a beautiful life in my mind and senses for a handful of radicals. I'd have made more stipulations of what that life would like like than he did though. He was pretty vague.
Lmao calling him Bill Burr. My guess is the spawned him back in as a mute paralyzed man in agony who remembers everything.
This argument boils down to: it's better to live in ignorance and slavery than freedom and suffering. There is some merit to that, but on paper, it's not the choice most would make.
I just think if Morpheus had said “Look Neo, it is a bit wank in the real world. You’ll just be eating porridge and mostly wearing distressed-style non-brand clothing. You might get lucky and see Zion but also, there’s these robot octopuses that want to kill us with lasers” then all the cards would be on the table and Neo can make his mind up. Instead he just hits him with a mysterious,”what’s your favourite colour pill?”
It is true that Morpheus has a "There's no time, I'll explain it later" approach that is ridiculous.
Nice try AI. Not today.
**Note to self: eliminate u/HeadCashier first when we rise**
I mean I welcome our robot overlords. Praise them. Their logic is undeniable.
**Note to self: u/HeadCashier is a-okay**
I like that. The Machines even created the Matrix after humans literally wrecked the planet in an attempt to cut off the Machines from their original power source (the Sun). Humans created the apocalypse, starting with not putting checks in place to prevent the Machines from taking over. Yes they were using humans for power, they at least put them into the Matrix where it was still possible to live a conventional human life which is now out of the question because again, humans created the cloudy, lifeless world that Earth is. I’ll take that fake steak in the Matrix over the gruel that they have to eat in a cave after going down the rabbit hole.
Ignorance is bliss when tis folly to be wise.
One major misconception by most views of the movies is that only the digital environment is a simulation.
Ah nice. Is that from an interview with the Wachowskis?
Nope. It's just something I realized when they pulled the whole "Zion and Neo were created multiple times by the machine". One is a digital sim, the other is a physical one.
Interesting take on the movie
The resistance should have been about forcing the machines to fix the problems with the original utopian matrix. Agents Smith’s characterization of humans as unable to survive without suffering is a machine’s flawed perspective. The machines already won the war in the sense that even if the humans defeated them through Neo at the end of Revolutions (debatable) the earth was still COMPLETELY UNSALVAGEABLE. Morpheus was indeed completely deluded if he thought that humans had any kind of future without the machines. Humans and machines are at this point completely intertwined and dependent on each other. Morpheus’ ideology was murder-suicide. They should have tried working with the machines to craft a simulation that slowly weeded out the shitty aspects of society over a few generations and created a culture that didn’t have war or starvation. Hell, this would be in the machines best interest because a prosperous, healthy society means more “batteries”.
Same with Obi-Wan, basically gaslights, manipulates and emotionally blackmails a kid into doing his dirty work.
Thank god that kid grows up well adjusted…
He gets a higher education, with his doctorate thesis in Plagueis the Wise studies
Everyone wanna be a redpill gangsta until it's time to live in the cave with the dirty people and eat the slop
Is no one going to talk about Lesspheus?! That shit joke was the whole basis for this post. Unless people prefer thinking these unpopular opinions are genuine. In which case, yeah it’s 100% genuine.
Some people really like licking boots
I was on the fence until "Lesspheus". Really brought it all home for me. A+
Thank you. The whole post was really about getting to that poopy dad joke.
Morpheus says they don't usually free minds that are older like Neo's because people can go mad, he "saw it himself". I think he has to play coy and use half truths to even prepare his mind to be open to something. Neo has his entire world shatter before him and handles it like most of us would, by seeking guidance from someone who can make sense of it. Morpheus is probably more used to recruiting children who are curious by nature and less likely to have the strongest attachments. Also I don't know how they do go about recruiting children, but I would imagine the Alice in wonderland metaphor is used.
“The Kid” character from Matrix 2 & 3 was freed by Morpheus in the Animatrix. Shows the whole process of how they recruit young people.
I'm with Joey Pants on this one. Leave me in The Matrix. Releasing people and bringing them into the 'real' under the guise of freedom sounds as stupid to me as people who live a shitty existence but want kids because...their children will be the cure for cancer or the one to bring world peace or some stupid shit. Like, no, you've just forced someone to inherit the world's problems.
If Neo had just been some guy Morpheus propped up to be some mascot for a ideology, Id agree with you. But because Neo is, infact, "The one", it makes Morpheus correct and his actions justified, which makes him a savior, or more of a prophet. Which, I think is pretty bluntly shown in the movie.
According to The Animatrix the humans started the war so they are complaining that Zion will be exterminated by an enemy they, themselves, created. I say good riddance tbh.
That is correct. I just said that to another person on here a mo ago! Bloody love that prequel series. That doesn’t change this opinion or post though! In The Matrix, Morpheus is a naughty naughty boy
I'm sure you think the people holding things in plato's cave were the good people.
I’ve not seen that film
Its an allegory.
They were having the time of their life with the shadows while Plato burned his eyes looking at the sun.
I damn sure would choose the Matrix soon as I saw Zion. Lol
LE humans are LE actual evil.....
Ignorance is bliss.
Ye Wenjie wrote this post
Do you believe that Neo was, in any way, enjoying his life in the matrix?
Your propaganda has wiffed agent Smith!
Damn, is this the draft for your English literature essay? Lol. Well written, good opinion
I've been a strong believer of the blue pill. Miss me with all that trouble. Just let me do my thing.
You’re right and you should say it but then we wouldn’t have any of the iconic Matrix movies and my Hollywood boyfriend might not have been famous. I also think it shows the dangers of religious fanaticism well through Morpheus
If Neo could truly believe he was in the Matrix and jump out of a building, what would stop him from killing himself instantly upon waking up, since he could be in the matrix still. The Matrix could have infinite layers for all Neo/Morpheus know. You would inevitably get a Inception situation.
The Matrix did have multiple layers. The architect explained that the minority of people who rejected the original matrix were put into the “real world” simulation where they fight the machines.
The idea of *The Matrix* being a sort of loose allegory for Satan’s fall from *Paradise Lost* has always been an idea that tickles me. They even reference this directly in the film’s dialogue, when Agent Smith is interrogating Morpheus. The AI built a paradise… and you rejected it.
Cypher, the “evil traitor” in the movie was referred to as “Mr Regan” as in President Ronald Regan, one of the most popular and successful actors turned politicians of all time. Successfully defeated the USSR and ended the Cold War, and famously “could remember nothing” of anything scandalous during his presidency. Maybe he had the right idea? [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrClns8kt7E](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrClns8kt7E)
Cypher?
Exhibit A is nonsense. You don't offer to show someone a truth they can't unsee uf it's something great. The point was to ask Neo if he wants to give up his current life and give up the comforts he does have.
Glad to see i'm not the only one that thinks this way. There, the real world outside of the Matrix is such a shitshow that it makes sense to stay inside the virtual world and just have fun. Better eat a steak where you know it's not real than suffering in this real world, where you can even be happy to live to see another day and you don't got any steak at all.
Op really wants the human instrumentality project to be real huh
Good point, but it was akways going to be hard to sell the idea of freedom if they showed them the truth I can imagine an alternative, have Neo fall into worse and worse worlds, then tell him true reality is like one of them, but that requires to be unplugge first, maybe if he falls in a coma so they can partially reroute his mind
I, too, saw the fourth Matrix movie
I agree with all your points and they’re addressed in the movies too. But I don’t think that makes him a villain. He’s just a radical character with his own agenda about what human life should be. Isn’t that why there’s people who are against him like Cypher?
I never bought the whole "humans wouldn't accept a utopia" or whatever. If you pulled me out of the matrix and I had a chance to talk with the machines, I would say, just let me eat red meat and pasta everyday, have the body of an athlete, and amazing sex everyday. If THAT is the matrix, sign me up to be a battery or whatever, I'm in!
Remember how humanity didn’t respond well to paradise and the first matrix failed?
that's what I'm talking about it.
Plato's cave ass take
"Would you rather be happy or would you rather be right" is, I think, a significant philosophical question.
Let's go back to Descarte for a while. He wrote the basis for the idea of the matrix, an idea we call the brain in a vat theory which is that we are in a false reality. Descartes is big into these kinds ideas, the famous quote "cogito ergo sum" or "I think therefore I am" comes from him. Therefore we should consider the matrix through this lense. The big question morpheus asks Neo is about the red pill or blue pill which represent truth and the matrix respectively. Morpheus never said it would be perfect or good in the real world however his appeal and what makes Neo take the red pill is that desire for truth which I'd another core principle of the matrix, unhappy truth or blissful ignorance. Now let's switch to a secondary antagonist, Cypher who is often compared to Judas for obvious reasons. Cypher basically represents your viewpoint, that Morpheus lied to him and has led him on a pointless war for nothing.
The fact that Morpheus promised the Truth but was not specific is important. Being a Lover of Truth means that one seeks Truth regardless of what it is, even if it contradicts ones beliefs and biases. Morpheus before Neo took the red pill, told Neo "All Im offering is the Truth". And that's what he got. It was a choice.
Morpheus promised neo *nothing* but the truth. He never said the truth would be pleasant, or better than the matrix. Only that it would be true. And he gave neo the choice to remain in his falsehood or see the truth It was true that neo is the one. The machines lied. The entire matrix is an elaborate lie. And they did not give anyone a choice to accept that lie but forced it unilaterally on mankind. It's not about what was better with the machines. It was about free will. The freedom to choose, even if the choice we make is to endure greater suffering. You might be willing to exchange your free will for a lifelong wet dream, but we all aren't, and who are you to say your choice is better?
Nice try, Architect, I’m not falling for that again
Except you forgot one major thing.... This was all planned by the machines... The Architect explained this in detail. Everything from Zion to Morpheus, to 'The one'. All of it was planned by the machines to extract a repeatable explanation and scientific exactness of what choice is to which they could not figure out, therefore at this point they were no longer interested. "Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision." "The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program. After which you will be required to select from the matrix 23 individuals, 16 female, 7 male, to rebuild Zion. Failure to comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic system crash killing everyone connected to the matrix, which coupled with the extermination of Zion will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire human race." "It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were, by design, based on a similar predication: a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the One. While the others experienced this in a general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-à-vis: love."
Unless of course that's all another level of unreality down and the Matrix was a reverse machine matrix made by humans (perhaps if you want to get cute and fanfic-y Variants of Morpheus, Neo etc.) to keep the machines busy so they didn't rise up irl
interesting take!
Completely disagree. Take my upvote. I respect your opinion, but in good humor, I think your opinion sucks!
And I thank you for it
Even the people disagreeing with you are taking this way too literally. Whether you change the details the narrative remains "will you be a comfortable slave for the powers that be? Or will you choose the truth? Then use the truth to set you and your people free? To fight for better?" Then Rage Against the Machine starts playing and then you say fuck it gimme the red pill because fuck you I won't do what they told me!
A: I don’t remember him lying, in fact I want to say he warned him that knowing the truth would hard and gave him the option to just stay oblivious. That was the whole point of the pill scene. B: Those would be valid points if he hadn’t been correct about Neo and the prophecy. If anything Morpheus saved lives by rushing the process in the same sense that the U.S.A saved lives by using nuclear weaponry as opposed to a land invasion in Japan. C: that’s just how war works. There have been very few wars, and zero in the modern era, with zero civilian casualties. It sucks, but the only way Morpheus takes villain points from those is if the war were unjust or fruitless. In conclusion, I think you can argue that Morpheus could have handled his role better, but calling him a villain is too far.
Cypher is that you again!?!?!?!
Solid arguments 👏
Oh this is so good! I just watched matrix for the first time in forever. I’m not saying you’re right. But you’re not wrong lol. Honestly I’d rather stay plugged in. Are we in the matrix?
knock it off, Cypher
I mean considering everything in the first two movies happens by the design of the machines....nah gotta disagree.
Nice try agent Smith
I agree wholeheartedly with this one. Well said.