Alternative Character Interpretation: All over the place given the series's penchance for Mind Screw. One surprisingly popular theory is that The One is not Neo, but actually Agent Smith. Morpheus tells Neo in the first movie that The One was born in the Matrix, possessed the power to reshape it as he saw fit, and he will eventually return and his coming would herald the destruction the Matrix, the end of the war, and humanity's freedom. These powers and feats are not really applicable to Neo, but are fully applicable to Smith, who (as a Program) was born in the Matrix, took over all of its functionality and gained the ability to reprogram it to his will, and in doing so functionally destroyed the Matrix, and as part of Neo defeating him the Machines ended the war and agreed to free the humans that wanted to be freed.
Applicability: One of the main reasons for the franchise's success is that its themes have been able to be interpreted in a variety of ways, from being a religious allegory, to a metaphor about striking out against "the man", to revealing one's true identity (especially helped by the Wachowskis coming out as trans women).
First film: Cypher, the treacherous member of Morpheus's crew, ends up selling out his comrades and Morpheus so he may reenter the Matrix as "someone important" without his memories. Setting up his team to die and Morpheus to be abducted by the Agents, Cypher is fully aware of the machines intending to wipe out the final bastion of humanity, Zion, while beginning to murder the remaining team members with nothing short of sadistic relish.
Resurrections: The Analyst is a manipulative and power-hungry program that usurps control of the Matrix. After he takes over, the Analyst conducts a purge of programs, killing the Architect, the Oracle, Kamala, and Rama Kandra, an event that orphans Sati. Reviving Neo and Trinity to power his new Matrix, the Analyst traps them in new identities and takes pleasure in his efforts to keep them separated. Assuming the guise of a therapist, the Analyst traps Neo within the Matrix, prescribing him blue pills to suppress his reality-questioning doubts. Upon Neo's awakening, the Analyst torments Neo by revealing his scheme before ultimately unleashing a horde of suicidal bots to kill an awakened Trinity. Defiant and lacking remorse for his actions, the Analyst arrogantly declares that he won't be deleted and demonstrates a firm belief in the superiority of control over freedom.
Critical Dissonance: You'd be forgiven for thinking everyone who saw both Matrix sequels loathed them, even though they both turned profits during their respective theatrical runs. But while Revolutions' significantly lower gross lines up with its critical 36% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 47 on Metacritic,note Users of those sites give it 60% and 4.7/10 respectively, plus a 6.7/10 on IMDb.Reloaded actually got mixed to positive reviews (73% on Rotten Tomatoes, 62 on Metacriticnote And fans gave it 72% and 6.9/10 respectively, plus a 7.2/10 on IMDb.), making Reloaded moreso an example of Condemned by History than actual critical dissonance at the time (though defenses of the sequels have since emerged as well).
Epileptic Trees: To this day, there are theories that the real world isn't really the real world, but a second simulation built as a failsafe to help control humans that reject the Matrix by giving them the illusion they have discovered the truth and freed themselves. The "Matrix within the Matrix" theory is supported by many who see it as a solution to plot holes and contrivances, while others disagree since such a reveal would undercut most of the franchise's lore and story.
Evil Is Cool: The Sentinels and the agents, but especially Agent Smith.
Among the films after the first one, plenty of people disregard Revolutions and Resurrections; Reloaded has its share of detractors too, but it's much more well-received.
In regards to other media, some don't accept The Matrix Online as canon either. The Animatrix, on the other hand, fared better with fans.
Fandom Rivalry: While the rivalry has largely died due to both films becoming widely recognized and appreciated, as well as many of their similarities simply being a case of Tropes Are Tools. There was a time when it was common to pit The Matrix against Dark City due to their shared themes and unique sci-fi aesthetic. The fact that one found mainstream success while the other was largely regulated to cult film status and obscurity also fed into the rivalry. Some more resentful Dark City fans even accused The Matrix of being a "rip-off" or "dumb-downed" version of Dark City. Although, again, the rivalry is mostly a relic of the past these days as the fandoms have largely come to embrace both films.
LGBT Fanbase: The films have been considerably popular with transgender audiences, given the heavy parallels between the film's plot and trans experiences, which was only enhanced by the fact that both Lilly and Lana came out and transitioned years after the first three films were completed which galvanized the franchise's trans fanbase.
Magnificent Bitch: The Oracle is a mysterious sentient program responsible for the third iteration of the Matrix. For five generations, she acted as an ally to the redpills to find "the One" and give them The Prophecy, which led them to believe they would save humanity. In reality, the Oracle was luring the One to the Architect, who blackmails the One into entering the Source and saving the humans plugged into the Matrix, at the cost of Zion's destruction. The Oracle decides a different course of action for Neo, the sixth One, introducing romance into the equation to make him attached to humanity, while assisting Neo to defeat Agent Smith, which would inevitably achieve peace between humanity and the Machines as she had intended.
In July 2002, a woman by the name of Tonda Lynn Ansley shot her landlady in the face. She proceeded to go for the Insanity Plea by claiming that she believed she was in a computer simulation, saying: "They commit a lot of crimes in The Matrix." The really weird part? This actually worked. A year later, a San Francisco man named Vadim Mieseges used the same defense, for the same crime, even. This has led to "The Matrix Defense" being adopted as a real legal strategy.
This previously came up during the Columbine shooting, when some journalists speculated that Harris and Klebold might have been inspired by a certain amount of misaimed Matrix fandom.
Believing that reality is somehow unreal is a common delusion, the Matrix just happens to fit a paranoid feeling that some people have always had ("The Truman Show delusion" immediately preceded it).
In the New 10s and beyond, a number of right-wing groups and their supporters have hailed the Matrix as (supposedly) prophetic, or perhaps even a warning, about how world governments have become increasingly draconian and invasive, and "the Matrix" is the systems of government and media that Hollywood and liberals use to indoctrinate and control people. Morpheus' monologue "the Matrix is a system" in particular has practically become a rallying cry for far-right American conservatives. The Wachowskis are trans women and hold views that are very much in-line with American liberalism and contrary to American conservatism, and intentional or not the films are very liberal in their politics: they feature a racially diverse cast of heroes while all of the non-Machine antagonists are white males, and a great deal of emphasis is placed on personal choice (especially one's freedom to control their own body and mind) and helping those in need.
Furthering the distorting of the film's message is another misaimed fandom which uses the term "Blackpilled," a spin on "Redpilled," to claim that they've "woken up" to an overtly nihilistic worldview in which they have so little agency that they claim it's better to either kill themselves or attack the people around them, a far cry from the film's actual use of the red pill as a way to signal Neo's newfound sense of agency and the start of his journey to help the people around him.
Most Wonderful Sound: Morpheus' voice is oddly satisfying to hear. Despite, or perhaps because of, him mostly "enunciating like a robot" as TIME magazine put it.
Movement Mascot: The character of Neo and the franchise in general made enough impact to create, more than a movement, a religion. This is what "Matrixism" (or "The Path of The One") is about, founded through The Internet and being a tendency during the Turn of the Millennium.
Narm Charm: The Merovingian runs on this. He's a pretentious bastard and he knows it, he enjoys indulging in high culture for its own sake yet is aware that it, like everything is the Matrix, is just a facade. His mannerisms are hammy, overly theatrical, and he likes hearing himself talk a lot, but he owns it so well that instead of being silly he's oddly compelling.
Revolutionary as the series (or perhaps only the first film) was, these movies owe a lot to classic cyberpunk, anime, fantasy and biblical lore. Many people think The Matrix invented Wire Fu, even though the technique has been used in countless martial arts films decades before the film was made.
The idea of The Matrix as well, being a modern Science Fiction update of Descartes's Demon, The Allegory of The Cave, Vedic notions of Maya, etc. Which had been a staple of sci-fi for decades, including the movie Dark City, which came out just before The Matrix. (Neuromancer and Shadowrun got it especially bad for a while, since they had both been using the term "The Matrix" for their cyberspaces a good decade or more before movie even existed.)
Elements like characters wearing black Badass Longcoats and Cool Shades who fight with fancy Wire Fu and Bullet Time dodges are associated with nothing other than Matrix in popular culture, but all of them were actually popularized by the first Blade film a year before and again had roots in the "cyberpunk aesthetic".
Romantic Plot Tumor: The commonly-focused Love Triangle between Morpheus, Niobe and Locke between Reloaded and Revolutions is petty and irrelevant compared to what's at stake.
Sequelitis: The films are generally considered to get worse with each instalment.
Spiritual Adaptation: The franchise is, in some ways, a sci-fi version of Mage: The Ascension, as it's about a group of people who discover that their world is an illusion, unlocking great powers in the process, and are then pursued by just-as-powerful beings who are tasked with keeping the illusion alive.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The sequels make it clear that there is a bit of a schism between the Machines and the Programs. Not only is the Matrix full of Exiles (Programs that were deemed redundant and scheduled to be deleted, but entered the Matrix and went into hiding), but there are Programs that exist purely within the Matrix to oversee its functions and seemingly do not have "real" bodies, and they may do things the Machines don't want them to. While spin-off media explores this schism a bit more, in the films the only Programs that significantly influence the plot acting on their own desires and goals are Smith, the Merovingian, and the Oracle. The Programs have the potential to be a third faction in the Human-Machine war and would play a critical role in the conflict due to their influence over the Matrix, but instead they individually pick one side or the other.
Values Resonance: Especially in the later 2010s and on into 2020 and beyond, with many feeling like uncaring governments were simply exploiting them for their labor and wealth (or energy, if you like) and with Lilly Wachowski stating that the metaphor for the realization of being trans is very valid, the films were caught up in the general re-evaluation of the overall Cyberpunk movement and the first one in particular was valued as a seminal film that was important in newly-acknowledged ways.
Aluminum Christmas Trees: During his initial interrogation, Agent Smith lists "you have a Social Security Number" as one reason why Thomas Anderson seems perfectly normal and law-abiding. This sounds weird to younger viewers because most US citizens born after 1987 were assigned an SSN at birth (with the program spinning up years beforehand, and the whole idea of "SSN at birth" being another huge cog in many Government Conspiracy theories), so having an SSN sounds like a default state, rather than a sign of respect for the law. However, until the 1980s, Americans usually applied for an SSN when they got their first official job, which meant criminals and other under-the-radar workers wouldn't have one. In foreign dubs, to avoid confusion, this line was often replaced with an easier to understand "You have a medical insurance".
And You Thought It Would Fail: Will Smith turned down the role of Neo because The Wachowskis spent the entire pitch talking about the Bullet Time effects they were working on instead of the plot and Smith thought it was too gimmicky. Unlike other actors who passed on what would be huge roles, he later said he doesn't regret this decision, believing that he wasn't mature enough as an actor at the time and that he would have ruined the film.
Angst? What Angst?: Neo suffers no hesitation or guilt whatsoever in slaughtering the lobby guards. While this is technically also true of Morpheus and Trinity, they have been doing this for a long time; Neo seems to be happy to kill the moment he has the opportunity to.
Common Knowledge: A common "fact" about the movie is that the executives forced the Wachowskis to change the explanation of the Machines using human brains as the Matrix's neural processors to be instead an explanation on how the Machines harvested humans for energy. However, as noted by this post, the idea that the Machines harvest humans for battery power is, in fact, the Wachowskis' original intent even in the early scripts and not the result of any Executive Meddling. In reality, Neil Gaimaninvented the neural processor theory when writing a short story for The Matrix franchise as he felt that the movie's battery explanation didn't make sense. Furthermore, the Wachowskis have notably defended the battery explanation in an interview, implying that this is indeed their idea and not the studio's.
Complete Monster: Cypher, the treacherous member of Morpheus's crew, ends up selling out his comrades and Morpheus so he may reenter the Matrix as "someone important" without his memories. Setting up his team to die and Morpheus to be abducted by the Agents, Cypher is fully aware of the machines intending to wipe out the final bastion of humanity, Zion, while beginning to murder the remaining team members with nothing short of sadistic relish.
Esoteric Happy Ending: Viewed on its own, the original film has a pretty big one. Sure, Neo has fully unlocked his superpowers and embraced his role as humanity's savior, and it's heavily implied that the downfall of the Matrix is imminent—but when it comes, humanity will still have to take back their planet from the Machines, and there's no guarantee that they'll win that war (particularly since they've already lost one war against them, and Neo's powers don't work outside the Matrix). Not to mention that most of Earth is a lifeless wasteland that may not be able to support everyone trapped in the Matrix, and it's made clear that many humans can't handle the transition to the real world anyway. For understandable reasons, many moviegoers in 1999 didn't find the ending all that happy or inspiring.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content: An earlier draft would explain that Morpheus has been so dead-set on finding "The One" that Neo is the sixth candidate he's freed and the previous ones all died. Many fans lament this exclusion as it gives more context to Cypher's Face–Heel Turn and desire to re-join the Matrix, a plot point that comes out of nowhere in the finished film. Furthermore, this would have added extra weight to The Reveal in The Matrix Reloadedthat the prophecy was a fabrication.
A decidedly bittersweet mixture of both this and Heartwarming in Hindsight — Lana Wachowski revealed years later that during her younger years struggling to figure out her gender identity, she once seriously considered committing suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. This naturally lends a ton of context to the film's iconic subway fight, which ends with toxic authority figure Agent Smith trying to force Neo to get run over by a train and using his birth name, to which he retorts "My name is Neo!" and escapes.
The film features a lot of gun violence, particularly the lobby scene. Just three weeks later, the Columbine Massacre happened, and the film was quite controversial thanks to those scenes, in addition to the two wearing longcoats similar to those featured in the film. In addition, Marilyn Manson, one of the bands who appeared on the film’s soundtrack (as well as the credits for the actual movie) were Mis-blamed for it.
He Really Can Act: Keanu Reeves' performance in The Matrix is leagues ahead of what most people consider his standard performance in movies.
The movie's protagonist is a computer programmer named Tom Anderson. Four years after its release, a real man by that name would become famous for co-founding MySpace.
Ho Yay: Neo and Tank get on incredibly well, and Tank is quite excited to help Neo adjust to things. It's also Neo who Tank saves from being killed by Cypher.
Though it gets answered comparatively early on in the movie itself (it's the first big reveal and rising action at roughly the half-hour mark), "What is the Matrix?" is the Driving Question at the start, the reveal of it is treated as a fairly big deal and isn't really spoiled in the trailers (although certain promotional pieces on things like Entertainment Tonight at the time could be shockingly cavalier about it), and it was also the key promotional phrase for the movie itself before its release. In the 21st century, it's difficult to find anyone who doesn't already know what the Matrix is.
As a bit of history, though the "we're actually living in a simulation" idea had been trod in science fiction before the film, The Reveal coming so soon in the film (plus people assuming the Matrix would be some sort of kung fu magic power, judging by the trailers) made it a well-received twist when it came out.
There have been many image macros of a screenshot of Morpheus with the caption "What if I told you..." followed by some kind of factoid. (Morpheus never actually says this in the movie.) Unlike other memes taken from the film, this one took nearly a decade after the film's release to arise.
Quotes like "There is no spoon." and "Whoa." made up some early Internet memes, being pretty prominent among image macros, gifs and parodies in the early to mid-2000's.
Switch's last words before Cypher unplugs her ("Not like this...not like this.") have also enjoyed a bit of mileage, primarily from her dramatic delivery.
Heavily influenced by anime, religion and the western, the first film caused such a major shift in culture — and Special Effects, with the proliferation of Wire Fu and Bullet Time in action sequences — that it was imitated constantly. The "bullet dodge" scene, in which Neo bends over backwards to avoid being hit by the Agent's shots, has been parodied to death when not being outright copied, to the point that modern viewers often don't realise (or remember) that it actually was an incredibly cool effect when the movie released. Interestingly enough, it also suffered from Older Than They Think when it premiered to a young audience who were not aware of the multitude of Eastern and literary influences in the movie (or Blade doing essentially Bullet Time a year before). One major area the sequels suffered in was that they continued playing all this stuff like it was just as revolutionary, after the first film had inspired so many imitations and parodies in just a few years.
Watching Morpheus claim that the Matrix cannot be explained in words comes off a little weird nowadays, now that the concept of Inside a Computer System is so well-known. Of course, half the reason the concept is so well-known is this movie.
One-Scene Wonder: Gloria Foster as The Oracle in the original film. It's actually hard to believe she was only on screen about 5 minutes. It helps that the whole film hinges around it, but her scene itself is completely gripping.
Rainbow Lens: It's been noted that the Matrix is extremely easy to read as a transgender allegory, which both directors have confirmed after coming out as trans women themselves. The blue pill represents prozac, an antidepressant (which fits its ability in the movie to retain comfort in society); while the red pill represents estradiol, a hormone taken by trans women that came in small, red pills at the movie's release. Those who have taken the red pill realized that something is wrong with the world, break out of the roles they have been assigned by society, and even chose a new name and identity for themselves once they have broken free of their bonds. The Agents can be read as transphobes, as they hide among the population and can be anyone.
These days, the other two agents in the first film are likely to be recognized as Stark and Longmire.
If you're a fan of Australian soaps, you might recognize Dujour as Leah on Home and Away. Ada Nicodemou appeared in this film a year before being cast on the show.
Morpheus offering Neo to take the blue or red pill.
The lobby shootout.
The rooftop shootout between Neo, Trinity and Agent Jones. The bullet time moment in particular where the camera does a 360 around Neo dodging bullets is usually the go-to moment that people remember (helped by the trailers emphasizing it, too).
Special Effect Failure: During the part of The Teaser chase where Trinity is pursued across rooftops, the special effects of her jumping across a street look entirely convincing. In every other shot, it's painfully obvious that the city beyond the rooftops is a backdrop. This is taken up to eleven at the climax of the rooftop chase, where a stretch of rooftop in front of Trinity is nothing more than a black curtain, complete with visible ruffles and folds.
Spiritual Adaptation: Cracked claimed in its article that the first film is an adaptation of the 1973 film World on a Wire, which was actually based on the novel Simulacron-3; which, in turn, was adapted into another 1999 film called The Thirteenth Floor.
Squick: The scene of Neo's mouth sealing up is unexpectedly gross.
Strangled by the Red String: Many critics point out that Neo and Trinity provide no chemistry or even hint at being attracted to one another before she professes her love for him. Especially funny when the Oracle calls Neo "not too bright" for not picking up on it.
Strawman Has a Point: While there's no denying that Cypher is a monster for betraying Morpheus and killing most of his crew, he's still right in the fact that people in The Matrix live more comfortably than those eating protein goo in the real world. He's also right in the fact that Morpheus taking them out of the simulation, is what put their lives in danger. Morpehus, of course, would counter that the ability to live freely is worth all the other hardships of "real life", but the fact still remains that he does this without really driving home what they'll be in for.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The supporting cast such as Apoc, Switch, Mouse and Dozer seem like they'll help make up an ensemble, providing some interesting insights into more people from the future. They get killed off in quick succession halfway through. Perhaps if they'd survived into the sequels, that would have helped with the Two-Part Trilogy feel and allowed their deaths to have more meaning. But of course, at the time, the Wachowskis had no idea sequels might even be on the cards, so the characters technically felt more "disposable".
The world inside of the Matrix is in the year 1999, and it certainly looks very, very '90s. The computers are all boxy, the monitors CRT, and the mobile phone that Morpheus first calls Neo on is big, blocky, and has an antenna. The club where Neo meets Trinity is dripping with Industrial Metal aesthetic, and the credits song is by Rage Against the Machine.
The whole reason the Matrix is predominately colored in green and blacks is because they were widely considered to be "computer colors" thanks to CRT screens. Similarly, the idea of going in and out of the Matrix via telephones is based on dial-up internet. Since LCD screens have become more commonplace and connecting to the internet has become wireless, The Matrix's take on computers has progressively become a period piece.
Values Dissonance: The heroes are utterly ruthless and extremely cavalier about human lives-the security shootout scene is an iconic action set piece sure, but they are still massacring a lot of innocent people who have no idea what is going on, people they are supposedly trying to save no less. Morpheus tries to justify this earlier in the movie by saying that every single human is plugged into the system and that "the people they are trying to save" are thus their enemy, exemplified by the fact that any living human can be consumed by an Agent programme, but for many this sounds eerily like a terrorist making excuses for murdering civilians for the sake of their political mission, however justifiable that mission is, and it is especially jarring given that our heroes are effectively superhuman and have access to non-lethal weapons yet choose to kill their comparatively powerless adversaries regardless.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The film created a whole new style of visual effects so spectacular that it was the first film to ever beat a Star Wars film at the Best Visual Effects Oscar.
Woolseyism: The original Polish translation of the "I'll give you the finger and you'll give me my phone call" was far more blunt and direct, in essence "I'll tell you to fuck off and call my lawyer;" later, more literal translations, showed why this was an excellent idea.
is that The One is not Neo, but actually Agent Smith. Morpheus tells Neo in the first movie that The One was born in the Matrix, possessed the power to reshape it as he saw fit, and he will eventually return and his coming would herald the destruction the Matrix, the end of the war, and humanity's freedom. These powers and feats are not really applicable to Neo, but are fully applicable to Smith, who (as a Program) was born in the Matrix, took over all of its functionality and gained the ability to reprogram it to his will, and in doing so functionally destroyed the Matrix, and as part of Neo defeating him the Machines ended the war and agreed to free the humans that wanted to be freed.