WMG / The Matrix Reloaded

The First Matrix crashed because the computers were idiots.

They let the dream-world be interactive, which was a huge, huge mistake: after all, one man's fantasy is another's horror. The moment somebody thought, "this isn't fun any more, get me off this crazy train!" the Matrix was doomed to failure.

Future versions were more successful:

1. They kept all of the dreams self-contained, which not only prevented the fantasy clashes but also prevented the humans from comparing notes or conspiring against the machines.
2. They tailored the dream experience for each individual person instead of attempting to create a massively multiplayer world in broad strokes.

They still lost a small segment of the population every time because the human brain is more complicated than they give it credit for and because some people are just plain stubborn.

• So basically, the first Matrix was Second Life?

The first Matrix wasn't perfect.

The Machines don't necessarily know what they are talking about. They may claim that humanity destroyed the first Matrix because they couldn't handle perfection. What if the first matrix was destroyed because it was the Uncanny Valley of existence? The machines thought they made perfection, but humanity realized something was wrong and collapsed the reality.

• "Why does everything look like a Final Fantasy movie?!" *Riots*
  • I hereby award you one "win". Use it wisely.
    • Agent Smith adheres to this theory: "Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world..."
• Before The Animatrix was released, and there were only screenshots of the feudal Japan setting from "Program", a friend made a joke about that being the first Matrix. "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. Of course, we only asked two people what they'd like, one of them said he'd always wanted to be a samurai, and the other said he didn't really care one way or the other. It was a disaster."
  • But more seriously, some of the machines, according to Smith, think that they simply can't comprehend or adequately describe humanity's idea of perfection, so the machines do admit that the fault could be with themselves rather than with humans. It's just the more arrogant programs like Smith and the Architect who go around saying humans can't handle perfection.
• Maybe it was like Chapek 9, the "Bot Planet" in Futurama:
  Robot: Sir, are you aware that you're leaking coolant at an alarming rate? Let me to patch you up with some hot resin.
  Fry: Er, I think the leak's stopping itself. Wait… wait… yeah, there we go. Wait… yeah!
  Robot: What kind of robot turns down a free blast of searing hot resin?
  Leela: Er, my colleague and I have to go and perform some mindless repetitive tasks.
  Robot: Oh, sounds like a romantic evening! I won't keep you.

The previous Ones all looked and sounded identical to Neo in every way, and he was different from them because of love.

Some of the monitors in the Architect's room were showing the previous Ones. The One was another system of control, so it's not a far stretch to think that the machines used the same cloned body / RSI multiple times.

The only reason the current One (Neo) chose differently from his predecessors was love of Trinity. This was a Gambit Roulette started by The Oracle when she told Trinity that she would fall in love with The One, because unlike The Architect she understood that Love Makes You Crazy and bet everything that Neo would go against the grain. She was right.

The previous ones did not have anyone that loved them as much as Trinity did to Neo, which was why letting Zion be destroyed and starting anew seemed to be the only choice. Yes, the end of the cycle and the war came down to love.

The reason the first Matrix failed.

The Machines created the first Matrix as a paradise and everyone inhabiting the first Matrix were pulled off the battlefields in the war against the Machines. The people plugged into the Matrix realized that something was wrong when they went from a battlefield to paradise and rejected what they were experiencing.

The first Matrix failed because the machines simulation of paradise was Pee-wee's Playhouse

Morpheus remembers this because before he was freed he was Cowboy Curtis. The previous one was Jambi the Geenie and the agent was Pee-Wee Herman.