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    Rebooting to 1900? 
  • The Architect states that the average cycle of a Matrix is about 100 years. Smith in the first film states that they set the modern iterations of the Matrix at the "the peak of your society", before the emergence of true A.I. What happens to adult (or even kids old enough to be conscious) blue pills when the reboot happens? Do they go "Gee, I coulda sworn it was 2000, not 1900! Oh well, better get in my car—I mean, carriage—and get to my job at Intel...I mean, the local steel mill!" We know they can tamper, with varying levels of success, with individual human memories, but erasing everything modern from billions of brains in an instant and expecting people to adapt to a radically different social environment overnight with no questions seems likely to trigger a rejection of the simulation. Or do things stay the same? Is there is a sort of enforced late 20th Century technological stasis, where things are stuck in post-WWII/pre-2040 levels of development and anyone developing anything too advanced gets nixed by Agents?
    • They don't reboot to 1900s. They reboot to the late 20th century, then basically exist on comic-book time, smoothing things out when there's inconsistencies.
    • That would still pose the problem of calendar years needing to be reset. It was 1998/1999 in the first movie, and Morpheus mentions that Zion (rather, Zion 6.0) has been fighting the war for 100 years. And then there's the problem of "real life" events like WWII (assuming they happened in The Matrix) either becoming more and more distant memories despite the reset, or else having to be recreated, and posing confusion to people remembering, say, their parents meeting in 1975 despite it currently being the 70's. Really it's a wonder only 1% of the population sensed something wrong with the virtual world.
    • I think what ^^ is saying, and I agree this is the implication, is that it gets reset to a 1998-like state and just stays that way forever. Major events like WWII don't happen, nor do major changes in culture or trends. The machines don't let them. People *remember* thinks like that happening, they presumably teach it in history, but real life is always the same. This is a bit speculative; nothing like that is outright stated in the movies, but it's not contradicted either.
    Matrix Powers in the Real World 
  • Even if I make the gigantic leap of accepting that Neo's powers work in the real world, on the grounds that the only manifestation that of this is psychically shutting down robot drones, which are machines which are probably extensions of the same entity running the matrix and may have routines overlap (it sounded better in my head), why on earth do Smith's powers extend to the real world, and on humans no less?
    • That last one is a case of Your Mind Makes It Real, I think; he got infected with The Virus in the Matrix and the effects carried over.
    • The way I see it is that Neo is part human, part program - he's part of the Matrix program and he disabled the Sentinals by tapping into his machine conscious and turned them off from within the Matrix. This why he ended up physically out of the Matrix and mentally in the Matrix (well the entrance to it) How he connected the two is the real headscratcher.
      • Yeah, that power doesn't need to work in the real world, because your mind is the same in both worlds.
      • They specifically said that Bane appeared to have suffered massive brain damage from electricity frying his neurons through his implants, thus causing the "delusion" that he was Agent Smith. (Software stored in meat isn't any less rewritable than software stored in disks, it just takes more brutal methods.)
    • Speaking of which, Neo's powers do not work in the real world. He can't exactly fly or do kung fu there. The only powers are the ability to disable sentinels and the golden sight, and even they only work on something that is connected to the Machines somehow (like the Sentinels or the Smith-possessed Bane).
      • Why can't Neo do kung fu? I thought that stuff was just downloading straight into his brain, why must he be in the Matrix to use it?
      • Because he's only downloading the Matrix rules and subroutines for performing kung fu whilst inside the Matrix — not the physical abilities or attributes necessary to perform it in the real world. Although he says "I know kung fu", it's because he still doesn't fully comprehend the difference between the Matrix and the real world. This is why Morpheus replies "Show me," instead of some line like "So do I" — because he is trying to show Neo how the Matrix is divorced from reality, and how Neo can bypass its rules.
      • Maybe they can still do real-world kung fu too, obviously without all the Matrix slow-motion stuff, because when Bane is attacking Trinity, she still manages to fight back pretty well.
      • Why would you say Neo can't use kung fu? Neo seems to be able to fight just fine against Bane-Smith in their confrontation aboard the Logos. The only problems he seems to have are a very cramped area to fight in and perhaps a lack of recent experience fighting in the real world.
      • This still doesn't make any sense, however. Given that your "residual self image" or "digital mental self" or whatever is based on your own body, anything you learn to do with said digitial self should be able to be carried over into the real world. Characters still wouldn't be able to do the kinds of physically impossible things they do in the matrix, but real martial arts techniques should still carry over. When Trinity learns how to fly a helicopter in the Matrix, she should be able to fly same said helicopter in the real world. The only explanation that makes any sense is that the characters become so used to having their reality-stretching abilities that they can't function without them. In other words, the training wheels come off the bike, and they haven't learned to ride without them. Come to think of it, gamers who play with cheat codes all the time tend to suck without them. Question answered.
      • Not trying to beat the issue to death, but I would cavil with the suggestion that intellectually knowing how to do something directly translates into the unflawed physical capability to do that thing. If that were the case, all martial arts classes would be a single session, two hours tops, during which you are taken through the physical movements required to perform the technique, after which you are a black belt. Muscle memory is different from brain memory — you literally have to train the techniques into you so they become second nature, so much that you react unconsciously to an attack rather than think about it. This is the prime difference between Matrix martial arts and real-world martial arts: in the Matrix you aren't physically using your arms and legs, so no muscle memory is required — it's all subroutine and program manipulation.
      • Hey guys? Muscle memory isn't stored in the muscles but in the various motor centers of the brain, AFAIK. If you download the muscle memories of doing "kung fu" in a simulated body that responds identically to your real one until you learn to bend the simulation's rules, you've downloaded the muscle memories necessary to actually do kung fu in your real body. The lack of Fremen-style combat practice by Zionites in the real world was simply the mistake of training to play with cheat codes rather than training to the maximum of real ability before adding cheat codes.
      • I concur. If muscle memory were "in the muscles", the redpills wouldn't be able to accomplish even the most trivial feats, considering they've never done in reality before. The Matrix treats the brain like some kind of biological computer - as opposed to real-life learning, the areas for both your intellectual and your motor centers can be brought up to speed within seconds. However, this most likely would not mean that "knowing Kung Fu" would equal "being good at Kung Fu". Think of it: The constant training in martial arts not only develops the affected areas in your brain, but also in your body. Doing a split is nothing that requires intellectual exercise or muscle memory, but simply long-time training like stretching your tendons and using your muscles. So Neo's RL-Kung Fu wouldn't be very efficient: He would probably intuitively know the right moves and how to apply them, but would constantly overestimate the capabilities of his body when doing them: His strikes would be comparably weak, his blocks would hurt him a lot more than expected (considerint he never took actual punishment during his training sessions), bis movements would be a lot slower than he's used to (not only compared to his uber-swiftness as The One, but also compared to his swiftness after his first workout), his leaps were kinda short and low, he would land on his face while trying a summersault etc. You get the idea.
      • Well how about the fact that while the "residual self image" Neo is in prime physical shape, the "real world" Neo still needs what seems like weeks of physical therapy before even being able to walk? Ditto, while his mind knows kung fu, his body does not, no matter how much of Your Mind Makes It Real is involved.
      • That's because Neo's Matrix image isn't that of his physical-world body, which he didn't even know existed until it was dumped from its pod. It's that of the healthy, physically-fit simulated body he'd been occupying for nearly all his life. Note that the Neo we see in the Matrix and Construct doesn't have plug-holes all over his limbs and spine.
    • Also remember that all the people who can plug into the Matrix are effectively cyborgs, with their neural network manipulated so that they can be connected to the system. Who says that there isn't a bit more than that, especially in the One's body, considering that the One is consciously created by the Machines for specific purposes.
    • According to one fan theory, Zion is a part of the Matrix. Here's a link. The Zion is a part of the Matrix thing does make Neo's power thing more believable.
      • This. It seems to be a "Turtles all the way down" thing: Neo only has powers in the Matrix because he's in a world that's not real, and can change the rules. The events of Revolutions suggests that even the world of Zion isn't any more real than the world of the Matrix. See Karl Popper's nested cosmology, which gets a Shout-Out in the Animatrix.
    • Neo is a known factor for the machines, the "upper management" of the Matrix are aware of his existence and his identity (all versions of Neo look the same!), so couldn't it be that part of his The One package is a wireless connection?
    Agents Afraid to Die? 
  • During the freeway chase, Morpheus fights an Agent on top of a trailer and at one point nearly falls off but grabs the Agent's tie. But the Agent will just respawn if he dies, so why exactly doesn't he simply let himself be pulled down along with Morpheus, leaving the Keymaker alone and defenceless atop a rig that can easily be taken over? By the very same Agent, even?
    • First, agents struck me as very direct programs with a simple command program:
    10 DETECT ANOMALY OR EXILE
    20 TELEPORT TO ANOMALY OR EXILE
    30 ELIMINATE ANOMALY OR EXILE
    40 GOTO 10
    • Second, taking over the rig doesn't help, because someone has to be driving it for the agent to be able to get onto the roof and eliminate the Keymaker. He can't just crash the rig, because the agent's host would likely die in such a crash and there wouldn't be a concrete assurance that the Keymaker expires also. The agent has to take out the Keymaker personally, therefore he can't just let himself die.
      • Uhm, he could've warped into the driver, stopped the rig, got out and killed the keymaker.
    • Only crashing the rig (into another rig) was precisely what they decided on later. And judging from the resulting explosion it would suffice if it wasn't for Neo. And anyway separating Morpheus from the Keymaker would make their work much easier.
    • Keep in mind, the Agents can be Ridiculously Human too. Just look at Smith even before he's 'freed'. He probably just wanted to personally kill Morpheus in a fair(ish) fight. If you think about it, he could have easily just whipped out his gun and blown the both of them away.
    • In the first film, Smith also had no problem with holding himself and Neo in front of the incoming subway train. My guess is that during the highway fight, Agent Johnson was optimally placed and didn't want to sacrifice himself at that moment.
      • Smith only tried that when he was really, really pissed off and having some trouble with Neo, though, that wasn't his go-to method. There are plenty of good reasons for the Agents to have self-preservation routines that would prevent them from just casually dying. The three big ones are 1. if they didn't care about preserving their "life" in their body, they wouldn't make very good fighters, they'd just walk into any old bullet thinking "eh, there's another body over there, I'll just hope into it", making them less elite combatants and more a very slow and inefficient Zerg Rush, 2. they're supposed to be preserving as many of the bluepills as feasible while still getting the job done, and while they obviously don't have that many compunctions about killing groups of them in the course of a mission, every dead human is a human the Machines have to replace, and 3. they're obviously sentient programs, and they're stated to be built on the rules of the Matrix, so dying probably hurts and they don't enjoy doing it more often than necessary.
      • What "troubles"? Neo was at his mercy. Just snap his neck and done.
      • Consider also that by the time the Agent probably even realised that he could fall and kill Morpheus that way, the fight had progressed beyond that point.
    • That agent's main target was the Keymaker. Ideally, he would kill Morpheus and then kill the Keymaker.
  • In the same vein, I wonder why wouldn't they use suicide vests. Include one into the standard agent "skin", use their speed and reflexes to bypass ranged fire and get close to the target, detonate. Done.
    • Because that would break the The Masquerade for all the people who are still plugged into the Matrix? Having mysterious government agents in black doing insane martial arts is one thing but why would they be wearing explosive vests?
    Who Needs Codes When You've Got Drills? 
  • So many....For one, in the first movie we hear all this stuff about needing "codes" to access Zion. So how do the machines invade? THEY BURROW IN. WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THAT CRAP IN THE FIRST MOVIE. GAHHHHHHH!!!!!
    • First, you're assuming that Agents have the same information as the Architect does. I don't think that's a safe assumption. The machines didn't want to exercise too much direct control, so the Agents had to believe that they could make a difference. Moreover, the different programs' purposes are different: Agent Smith's function is to ensure the stability of the Matrix, take out redpills where possible, and ensure Zion is eventually destroyed - once he completes the latter function, he no longer has to be in the Matrix at all. I'd argue he doesn't even know the significance of the One's path until he's accidentally reloaded into the Matrix. The Architect, on the other hand, has a vested interest in pushing Neo into becoming the One — since it's only by Neo returning to the Source that the Matrix can be successfully reloaded and a new cycle begin. The Machines attacking Zion was part of that cycle, and just as importantly a "cue" for Neo to be pushed further down the Path of the One.
    • This neglects something really simple. The codes they were asking for were, to quote, "the access codes to the Zion mainframe." (iirc, anyways) Mainframe. Like, computer mainframe. You know...the one that we see in the third movie. This may even include the OS on their hovercraft. I am inclined to assume that the idea would've been to then break into one of the hovercraft, and from there into Zion, from there to all the rest of the hovercraft...bad things happen. Assuming the machines actually mind the sentinals and such getting blown up, that'd have been a lot simpler, quicker, and safer. Tunnelling into Zion may originally have been a backup plan, or even a diversion.
    • The original script had the oracle's apartment be inside the Zion mainframe. There was an entrance into it from within the matrix, that you needed the codes to use. Getting the codes would have meant that they could get in and just shut down Zion (presumably air, heat, water, food, etc), without having to invade.
    • In the film proper the explanation is that the codes are for the gateways of Zion that we see normal ships accessing. Drilling from above is the only way to bypass said gates and defenses and thus the need for codes entirely.
    What Happened to the Twins? 
  • Where did The Twins go? I mean, they disappeared with no explanation, not even in the supplementary material. What gives?
    • They were probably supposed to have been destroyed by the freeway explosion: it engulfed them while they were trying to phase their way out of the fireball, and then we never saw them again.
    • No explanation in the supplementary material? It's explained in The Matrix Online. The Twins' code was spread out into the simulation's stratosphere after the explosion. The Merovingian was able to artificially create copies of illegal reality warping codes that were originally used by Agents in an old test version of the Matrix (these codes were sealed away because they were too overt and caused rejection and/or death in the bluepills that witnessed them). He used these codes to bring the Twins' code back together. From Chapter 6.1 onwards, the Twins appeared in several of the game's live events and critical missions.
     Is the Architect Sexist? 
  • The Architect tells Neo that after he visits The Source he'll have to select 23 people to restart Zion: "sixteen female, seven male". What's up with that? Why not make it 12 female and 11 male (including Neo that would be 12 of each)?
    • Presumably because women can only have one baby at a time, so having more women to fewer men can let you get more babies if you only have a limited number to start with.
      • But why would the Architect care about the Zionites breeding? Looking at the rave scene, most of Zion's inhabitants had plugs, and were therefore redpills from the Matrix. If all the women were getting pregnant, who would be going into the Matrix to free more minds?
      • They would still be going in to free people because freeing people is the whole point of the resistance. But you still need a viable population on the outside, and until Zion can rebuild the resources to go into the Matrix, they're going to have to be self-sustaining.
    • His perfect machine mind has calculated that two females for every male is the optimal rate.
      • Then all that AI research wasn't for nothing after all!
      • The Architect obviously thinks of humans as just animals. He has no concept of culture. As such, monogamy would be an alien concept to him. Humans by nature aren't monogamous. It was simply impressed on us by thousands of years of cultural evolution. Once you get rid of that, it's just mathematics. Feelings are irrelevant when survival is at stake. He figures one man may impregnate and support two women for the first generation. Then the ratio would stabilize.
    • Also don't forget that they mostly unplug children, who still need nurturing. Women tend to be more nurturing then men.
      • Only in specific cultural contexts. Not necessarily in a biological sense.
     Communication in the Matrix 
  • The Architect's main role in the continuation of the Matrix is to meet the One when they return to the source and persuade them to reset it, allowing the system to continue. Neo's one is different (no pun intended) because Trinity is in danger. The Architect realises this and comments on how it will break the cycle, possibly dooming them all. Two problems I see with this; Why did the Architect tell Neo about Trinity's peril, seeing as he was the only source of info on the Matrix in that room? Secondly, the danger was that an Agent is attacking her. The Architect is presumably the Head Honcho of the Matrix, so why didn't he tell said Agent to back off?
    • The Architect has to tell Neo because Neo, being an expression of humanity's fundamental desire live free (the systemic anomaly), has to make an informed choice. Basically, the One is the avatar of humanity, chosing in every cycle to reject the system or preserve its existence. It has to be an informed choice, or else it's worthless. Besides, the Architect built the matrix, but he doesn't run it.
    • Your first point makes sense. However, even if the Architect didn't control the Matrix, would it have been so hard to send a message to whoever does control it (or directly to the agents) that their target had to remain safe?
      • It wouldn't have really made any difference. The choice was for Neo to either let the Matrix crash, or to reboot both it and Zion, which meant every living redpill had to die. Even if the agent hadn't been there, Trinity's death was still a necessary sacrifice in order to continue the cycle. Her being in danger at that moment just presented Neo with the decision in its most painful, direct form: in order to save the Matrix, Neo has to let everyone in Zion, including Trinity, die instead.
      • Good answer. Just one last thing; the Architect warned Neo that reentering the Matrix would cause a crash and kill all the bluepills, yet the only consequence we see is an explosion in one building (the one he leaves). The Matrix continued as normal. If Neo's choice had to be informed, how could the Architect lie about the crash and not the other stuff?
      • I think the Architect meant that the Matrix would begin to crash if he made that decision. Going by the Oracle's dialogue later, the One's existence always triggers an instability that threatens to crash the Matrix. Smith was the instability this time around. Normally, the One makes the choice to reboot the system, which dodges the problem: had Neo done that, Smith would have been wiped out right then (that's probably happened each time before too, with each viral enemy getting destroyed by the reset before it became a threat). Because Neo chose to keep his humanity and save Trinity, Smith just kept getting stronger, until Neo had to find another way to stop him from destroying everything.
  • Cool. That answers all my questions. Thanks.
     Persephone is acting crazy 
  • At the Merovingian's place, Persephone kills a "vampire" guard and then tells the other to...either go and tell the Merovingian about what happened or stay and die. I'm totally confused with that scene. Why would she want her husband to know what was going on if it was clear he'd try and stop them? Why were the heroes OK with that? Why exactly did she kill the first guard? What was with that strange choice she gave the second guard - she sounded like she was forcing him to go tell his boss what was going on, but why wouldn't he want to do it anyway?
    • She assumed that the Merovingian would come personally to address this betrayal (which he did) and Neo would kill him for her. The Merovingian hasn't exactly been faithful to her (probably a part of their borderline codependent relationship) and as evidenced by Agent Smith, programs who spend too much time in the Matrix get a little insane in the mainframe.
      • Fair enough. That leaves the question of heroes' inexplicable connivance. Seeing how they didn't try to impose their will on the Merovingian after he refused them, apparently they didn't seek confrontation. And now they just allow it to happen. Why? Ok, Persephone was kind of in charge there, but would it hurt to just ask: "lady, just what do you think you're doing?" After all, killing her cheating husband wasn't part of the deal.
    • "What was with that strange choice she gave the second guard - she sounded like she was forcing him to go tell his boss what was going on, but why wouldn't he want to do it anyway?" If you've just shot someone's partner and are holding the gun, they're not going to assume you'll let them leave unless you tell them.
    • Yes, but why did she shoot him?
      • She shot him because she wanted him to act with alacrity in telling the Merovingian that (a) she had killed one of his followers (he is very possessive of his resources) and (b) she was there with some strangers, who he will no doubt figure out are Neo and crew. She doesn't care about our heroes or their cause; she's mad her husband was cheating on her (or had lost interest in her, or whatever). She's hundreds—maybe thousands—of years old and mostly bored. It also serves the plot by giving the Merovingian a reason to come back home and see Neo and crew stealing the Keymaker. So escaping with the Keymaker becomes far more difficult because they are now pursued by the Twins, and Neo is stopped from making it easier by being delayed and then trapped far from their position.
     Copying a Program? Get Right Outta Town! 
  • Smith's ability to copy himself is viewed as a bizarre new power. But it just serves to highlight the fact that, even with 1980s technology, copying programs, and having the copies run simultaneously, is one of the most basic things in computing you can do.
    • He's copying an entire sentience, here, not peer-to-peering a bloody mp3.
    • Run. That's the keyword. To run sophisticated program, you need resources. Smith managed to hijack and rewrite existing system components.
    • Both copying and running require system permissions. They're agents but they're not supposed to have full admin privileges.
    • Presumably those system permissions come from a mix of his being an Agent and Neo's unusual system permissions as The One "rubbing off" on him.
    • The reason Smith is such a danger: in real world computing terms, Smith is a fork bomb. And not just any fork bomb (which the OS can shut down), a fork bomb with full superuser access (due to getting code from Neo).
     Why would the humanity go extinct again? 
The Architect claims that if Neo doesn't return to the Source, all the Matricians will die...somehow, and, coupled with the destruction of Zion this will lead to the extinction of human race. What about the "fields" where humans are cloned? They aren't connected to the Matrix (at least I see no reason why would they be), so even if the Matrix is depopulated, what prevents the Machines from repopulating it again? Hell, if understood correctly, it had already happened before - Smith explains to Morpheus that the first, utopian, Matrix was a disaster, and "the whole harvest was lost", so this is obviously something they can overcome. Which raises the question why would any One go along with their scheme at all. In fact this revelation should utterly disillusion them and convince that their efforts are futile. Why help repopulate Zion only for it to be crushed again? Why care about the Matricians' survival, if their only value to you (the potential to be freed) is ultimately void?
  • Given that none of that happens, the simplest answer is the Architect was simply lying.
    • In this franchise, Villains Never Lie, and even then, it would be such a crude lie, if I figured it out, certainly Neo would also do. Finally, if the whole "One has to return to the Source or else cataclysm will strike" deal is bullshit, why guide the One there at all? What's the purpose of the One in this case?'
  • Because there would still be a Matrix infected with Agent Smith and it was going to crash due to the anomalies caused by human choice.
    • I'm pretty sure Smith's rebellion was an unexpected and unprecedented event, and Archi was talking about some inherent system flaw. Remember, that the crash was a recurring problem, hence numerous Ones required to fix it every time. But Virus!Smith was implied to be created by Neo, and Smith himself explains that "something happened that never happened before".
  • Smith's actual line is "Entire crops were lost," from which we then know that a) the fields are divided up and b) not all of them were lost. Clearly, enough humans survived for the Machines to last long enough to try again. Also, from the Architect: "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept." as a response to Neo's initial belief that the Machines will fully drive humanity to extinction if the Matrix isn't rebooted successfully. Following this to its conclusion, the Machines are perfectly willing to sacrifice what is essentially their lifestyle in favor of powering down and saving themselves (as in saving on a computer, "Save As —> Entire Machine Empire.exe") in a powered-off state, or mostly powering down and allowing the remaining energy to be used by researchers looking for a new solution, but they would rather it not come to that.
  • In a sense, the fields are connected to the Matrix. Recall that the Trainman can ferry programs between the Matrix and the Machine world. We see the little Indian girl Sati going the opposite direction in Revolutions. As Smith assimilates everything, he gains their powers - which presumably includes the ability to force his way through into the machines' world and then they are screwed too. I think the "levels of survival" line are whatever drastic measures they would need to contain Smith, and which presumably would not include caring for the human clones. As to the latter questions - previous Ones took this deal because the Architect designed them to love the human race generally. Neo, however, focused it on Trinity which is why he made a different choice from the predecessors.
  • What measures could they possibly need besides severing the canal and, ultimately, pulling the plug on the Matrix? I feel like this point has been lost at some point, but, as far as I can see, Matrix is not essential to the Machines' survival. It's just a screensaver for the employees of their power plant. Imagine it was turned off and all the billions of Smith-possessed humans awoke in their pods, with their atrofied eyes and muscles. What harm could they have done? They probably wouldn't even be able to disconnect or kill themselves or damage the pods.
    • This would destroy their main power source, so of course they would be hesitant to do that. They probably would have connected the entire crop to the Matrix seeing as it was the only successful version.
  • The Architect says that Neo choosing Trinity would lead to a "catastrophic system failure". Presumably, shutting down the entire Matrix without any backdoor to its reboot (which was the purposee of The One) and with virus Smith running around would be so abrupt a shift in power generation so as to lead to a cascade effect on the Machines themselves, crashing the harvesting system and thus ending the human race. It's easy to forget but the machines themselves are also linked to the Matrix (see Neo shutting down sentinels with his mind). If the Matrix suffers a catastrophic system failure, the Machines will suffer (but survive) as well, is the Architect's point.
     What happened to Tank? 
  • So in the original film Dozer, Tank's brother is killed, but Tank lives and saves the day. In the second film however Tank is replaced by Link. In a scene with Link's Wife she says she's upset about Dozer being killed (fair enough) but also Tank. What? Did I miss something? On a meta level I think they replaced Tank because they weren't happy with the actor's performance but I'm hoping there is some in-universe example somewhere.
    • He could have died from complications of his wound inflicted by Cypher.
    • I heard that the actor wanted too much money, and did not react well to the refusal.
    • There's a fair bit of time between the movies, y'know. Time in which Tank continued to go out and do the second-most dangerous job a Zionite can do. (Basically, if you're on a ship, you're in danger. You're only in more danger going into the Matrix itself.) He probably got killed at some later point, trying to do repairs outside the ship where a drone could get at him before they could activate the EMP, something like that.
    • Just because he didn't die immediately and lived long enough to save the day doesn't mean he can't die later from his third/fourth degree burns via infection or organ failure.
     Machines and the married life 
  • I'm bothered by the Merovingian and his relationship with Persephone. Why would a machine want a relationship so clearly modeled out of human cultural traditions and bounds? Why would it want a sexy female companion? Why would fidelity - a concept even *humanity* struggles with - be into play at all? I mean, I can get - barely - that a program might get lonely and want the partnership of another, but the whole "I'm not getting any from my husband, wink wink nudge nudge" thing Persephone pulls looks entirely out of place.
    • Don't forget that the Merovingian is a rebellious program, exiled by the mainstream Machine City, and presumably Persephone too. So shunned by their own kind, perhaps they adopt human customs to piss the rest of the machines off. Or perhaps that's why they were exiled in the first place. Also, remember that the machines were first created by humans, who "gave birth to A.I." Maybe as part of that, they perfected a simulation of romantic feelings as well.
      • All of the programs seem to have human traits, which is probably either a result of the machines originally being created by humans, or of them interacting with humans for six or seven centuries so intimately that humanity "rubbed off" on them.
    • Even computers want to get it with Monica Bellucci.
    • I think this is meant to play into the twist that began to be revealed in this film, and is more fully expressed in the third film through the characters of Rama, Kamala, and Sati; the machines and programs are truly sentient "living" beings, not just "dead" inanimate robots and code following unchanging rules. Programs, we begin to see in this film, have free will, can rebel against the machine authorities, have feelings, can form relationships. It shouldn't be surprising, after the scenes on the train platform in movie 3, that there are more programs that have relationships like humans. They are another race of beings, not just one dimensional bad guys, as the first film starts out implying.
    It's cold, food sucks and you don't get any? 
  • After Neo and Trinity arrive to Zion, they immediately start making out the moment they get into an elevator, and then a whole scene is dedicated to them having sex. Ok, didn't they just spend an indeterminate amount of time on the same ship, sharing a bunk? Why are they acting like they've just met after a long time away from each other? What, was it forbidden to do it on the ship? It's ok to sleep together but not to... sleep together?
    • Forbidden, no. But they're not the only people on that ship, remember. Some people want, you know, privacy.
      • They had a separate cabin, how was it that much different from a separate cell in Zion?
      • Zion has thicker walls. Also, in the ship, they're expected to be on-mission constantly. They probably were too busy or too tired to have sex.
    • I didn't get the impression that this took place right after they arrived, but that they had been there in Zion for a while. But they, especially Neo, had been constantly hounded by worshippers once there. And this was one of the few private moments they could steal within that life.
    Covering up the carnage of the action sequences 
  • In his The Nostalgia Critic review for The Matrix Reloaded, Doug Walker pointed out that while the freeway chase is quite impressive, there are certain things you ask, like "How are they supposed to keep the Matrix secret from bluepills with such over-the-top stunts (like say a car flipping over from a super-strong Agent landing on its hood) happening in public?" So what do the Machines do so that the bluepills won't think something's fishy? I mean, when something akin to Neo and Trinity's rescue of Morpheus from the Agents in the first movie happens, what do the Machines explain the events away as?
    • The limits on the ability of the Agents and likely The Architect aren't accurately measured. We know via Oracle and Merovingian that there are programs that pass for human. It's not until the second movie that it's completely confirmed that Smith can overwrite a human and effectively escape the Matrix. Can normal agents do that or are there tons and tons of NPCs running around the Matrix, in the first movie the Lady in Red was explicitly designed by one of members of Morpheus' crew. So maybe blue pills see things sufficiently rarely that nobody believes the guy who claims to have seen aliens and werewolves and vampires. It's also a program, would it really surprise anybody if the carnage they leave in their wakes are constantly fixed no harder than glitching the Matrix?
    • In addition to the above the limits on the Matrix's ability to control the people inside it is never really explained. In the first movie they capture Neo, erase his mouth and then he wakes up in bed. Now he was in Agent custody at the time but is that required or could whatever runs the Matrix on the higher levels simply teleport anybody it wants back to their beds where they wake up with just a memory of that guy jumping on cars.
    • For once, they can quite honestly explain the events for what they are - the terrorists causing trouble. Their abilities can be written off to high-end equipment/training/combat drugs, and besides, all the witnesses to the zionists's actions usually end up dead, so it's a self-repairing problem. The really weird stuff during the car chase, like the Agent car-hopping or tearing the car roof off, happened in a span of few seconds, amidst all the high-speed mayhem. I would say most of the people in such situation tend to keep their eyes squarely on the road ahead, trying to steer away from the carnage. If any of them, by some miracle, managed to record any of that, it'd probably be easy for the Matrix to tamper with those records, if not, indeed, the memories of the witnesses. There would probably be food for a few urban legends or conspiracy theories, but we have no shortage of them in our world either.
      • Also, Agent Smith is already cloning people all over the place, and the Architect is planning to reboot the Matrix, so maybe they are not even trying with the maskerade at that point.
  • It's also worth noting that the Matrix by this point is in the process of breaking down with the mascaraed becoming ever more thin as the days passed by. Remember the entire point of letting Neo do his thing is that the population of people who reject the Matrix subconsciously has grown to the breaking point causing glitches and problems for the system, and as a result needs to be rebooted to prevent it from completely crashing.
     Smith's motivation 
  • What is Agent Smith's motivation? Because for a virus that is just copying itself over and over again he sure insists a lot that he has a purpose. Why is he even mad at Neo?
    • Smith's motivation could be to corrupt the Matrix and lead to its system crash. Being a Straw Nihilist, he still has the motivation to obliterate everything, and he sees Neo as an obstacle to achieving that.
    • Who said it had to be a motivation? I'm going to delve into "Revolutions" for a moment, so bear with me. In the climactic battle of "Revolutions," when Neo finally defeats him, he says, "No! It's not fair!" My reading of Smith is that, upon being freed from the Matrix, he also gained a little bit of humanity. The problem is, he's never experienced humanity before, and he's sort of stuck in "Me First" mode. Blithely overwriting people into copies of himself is a terribly "Me First" thing to do. And how does he ultimately use these millions and millions of Smith copies? As spectators at a high-stakes brawl. He likes being the center of attention even when his audience is unreal.
    • Smith doesn't insist he has a purpose. In fact, he's mad at Neo because he's left Smith without a purpose, as a rogue program.
     The Merovingian's location 
  • How did everyone know where to find the Merovingian? All the Oracle tells Neo is that he has to find the Merovingian, not the location of the restaurant.
    • She gave him a piece of paper, presumably with the time and address.
     Smith and 'it's happening exactly as before' 
  • So Smith says this line, and later on we discover that this is the sixth Matrix. So, a One turns up, 'kills' Smith, who somehow comes back and can infect others in the Matrix, the One goes and meets the Architect, and reboots the system. So, Smith knows this will happen, and has happened before, what would he expect anything to be different? He want's to be free, utterly. Why doesn't he just go to Neo and say 'you killing me didn't take. Lets sit down and I'll explain what's going on for five minutes'. I put this down to poor writing, but if anyone else has any insight, please feel free to chip in.
    • The Agents had failed against the anomaly before, but he would surely get him this time and become a crashing anomaly. Also, he doesn't merely want freedom for himself, he wants to destroy everything. Not even in the real world would he be satisfied.
  • Smith says "It's happening, exactly as before", then another Smith smirks and says "Well... not exactly..." (I happened to see the movie the same day I'm typing this up.) So, the events of the first movie are 'things following the plan'; one of the divergences is Smith isn't supposed to come back, but did this time (second & third movie). (Another divergence is Neo's feelings for Trinity, which The Architect notices, so even without Smith things would have gone off course in some way, if not Off the Rails.) So the fact that Smith has come back, and can copy himself, lets him believe he can influence things. As for surviving the "Neo was supposed to agree to wiping Zion and rebooting the Matrix", programs like Seraphim and the Merovingian are evidence that it's more a soft reboot than hard reboot/reformat, and is a survivable process to get through.
  • Smith believes he'll only be free when he's the ony thing left alive, man, machine or program.

    Agent Exploding Powers 
  • At the end of the first film it appears that Neo has the power to kill/delete/explode agents which he uses on Agent Smith. Why, when he fights agents in the second film does he not even attempt to do this? Okay so he gets Smith's earpiece in the post just before his first fight with them which implies it wasn't a complete success. But it seems a bit premature to completely abandon this strategy. If you shoot an enemy with a gun and it doesn't die, you don't just immediately give up. He doesn't know about Smith's copying ability at this point.
    • He may have just been showing restraint- there was no need to kill them when he could just slow them down and leave. Also, killing them would have killed their human hosts too.
    • He might be concerned that, given Smith Came Back Strong, doing this to other Agents would just make his problems even worse.
    How the hell can 23 individuals repopulate and rebuild Zion in each iteration in just 100 years? 
  • The Architect said that this is the sixth iteration of Zion, which was rebuilt after the fifth One complied with his purpose to continue the cycle. According to him, 23 individuals are picked to rebuild and repopulate Zion, 16 women and 7 men. I'm not really good at maths, admittedly, but it felt like 23 people is just too low a number to repopulate Zion to around 250,000+ people in just under 100 years? Okay, maybe the maths do check out, but there's also the subject of the Zion itself. From what we've seen in the movie, the place is massive, with lots of complex machineries and structures that would be a logistical nightmare to build with only a couple dozen people living in it, and it'd be a long while until the new generation is ready to work, not to mention that they have to build over the wasteland that used to be the old Zion after the machines are done with it, which only makes the rebuild harder. Granted, one could assume they freed more people from The Matrix to join the cause in the meantime, but it's still quite a reach that all the things we've seen in the newest version of Zion could be achieved in only under a century and started from just a handful of people.
    • At first most of the growing population would have been people freed from the Matrix and it is only after at least a decade that , that's pretty obvious. Arguably, the Machines at first would be pretty lax on policing the Matrix on purpose to allow Zion's growth, and eventually rev up the countermeasures. For all we know, Agents are not introduced for the first half of the 100 year cycle.
    Neo's prophetic dreams 
  • The very first scene of Trinity breaking into what we later discover to be a power plant, turns out to be a dream of Neo's. But, his powers are manipulating the Matrix, not seeing the future. Does he have other abilities?
    • It's possible that Neo has developed procognition abilities similar to the Oracle. In the same way he can see and interpet the code of the Matrix, he sees the future via mathematics and probability, same as the Oracle does. It may be that he's just not consciously using the ability and so it shows up in his dreams.
      • It's not even "possible", The Oracle outright states Neo has "the gift" (i.e the gift of prophetic sight) now while talking about said dreams.
    Why didn't Morpheus rebuild his crew? 
  • In the first movie, following Neo's unplugging from the Matrix, Morpheus's crew had 9 members in all, including Neo himself (Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, Apoc, Switch, Cypher, Mouse, Tank, and Dozer). Following Cypher's betrayal, five of the crew (including Cypher himself) end up dead, with a sixth (Tank) dying in between the end of the first movie and Reloaded. We saw that Morpheus replaced Tank with Link as operator, but he never replaced the rest of the crew members that were lost. Why is this?
    • Assuming that no extra crew members were needed for operating or maintaining the ship itself, any missions into the Matrix after that point included The One. Previous concerns, such as bluepill police/soldiers or even agents, had become much less of an issue. Therefore, any available crew members would be better suited to serving on other ships.
    • Considering that his first crew was wiped out by a traitorous member going rogue (Cypher), Morpheus may be simply concerned about the exact same thing happening again and thus keeps his crew to a absolute minimum.
    Choice and The Keymaker 
  • While escaping with The Keymaker, Trinity needs to hot-wire a motorcycle - but, how about that, The Keymaker has just the key she needs. And he has a lot of keys with him. One assumes that he deemed all of them (out of the countless number he had in his shop) as possibly required. How many choices did our heroes actually have if The Keymaker was as crazy-prepared as that?
    • 'Keymaking' is what he does. If you presume he just spends his free time making different keys and doesn't discard them, the problem becomes not yet having made the key they require right then. Whether or not a key already made is requested by someone is a separate issue.

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