At the end of The Matrix Revolutions, Smith demands of Neo, "Why, Mr. Anderson?! WHY DO YOU PERSIST?" to which Neo calmly responds, "Because I choose to." Now, the entire 'conversation' up to that point had been about purpose, and it just seemed like the logical flow, from a dialogue and plot standpoint, would be for him to say "It's my purpose." And it is, that's what the One is there to do (his Karma, as a program explains earlier), it's his purpose in this vast system, to eliminate his negative (Smith) and balance the equation. However, upon closer inspection, the question of how choice affects purpose is brought up many times, especially in reference to this vast scheme of the Oracle's. So, while it is indeed his purpose to continue fighting Smith to the very end, he continues to do so not because he must but because he chooses to. (Indeed, 'to the end' only means to a finish. A purposeful end would have also included Neo being defeated. The choice is also partially that he choose to pursue victory.) It also helps to highlight the differences between Neo and Smith: Neo chooses to continue fighting until his inevitable corruption, Smith has no choice, he cannot deny his purpose at all. See Smith's earlier comments in Reloaded about why he went rogue: "I knew what I was supposed to do but I didn't. I couldn't. I was compelled to stay...", he never says he chose to stay. -Jarl
"A man chooses. A slave obeys." Neo, by choosing to continue to fight instead of giving up, proved that he was better than Smith, because he still had the ability to choose, despite Smith saying that he wasn't free to in the second movie. In essence, this is throwing the middle finger to Smith yet again.
It's also worth pointing out the reasons each combatant had for entering that final fight in the first place. Smith was simply obeying the vision he saw via the Eyes of the Oracle; Neo, however, CHOSE to go to the machines and fight Smith. Smith is utterly incapable of doing anything outside of 'the programming'; he sees the visions as the 'way it should happen'. Neo just wanted to beat up on Smith.
An additional shred of Fridge Brilliance that is somewhat controversial is that Smith can be guessed to possess the Eyes of the Oracle by the final fight, and thus can perceive the future as long as he understands the choices that are made (even the Oracle cannot see past her own choices if she doesn't understand them, however). By choosing to continue fighting after the outcome is inevitable, Neo is making a choice Smith does not understand and because he does not understand it, he cannot perceive that continuing will be the doom of them both.
In a bit of Fridge Brilliance of my own, I always thought that it was kind of stupid for the Oracle to just allow the Smith Virus' assimilation, and then try and pass it off as self-sacrifice when she knew Neo would win. When you said Gambit Roulette, I realized: The Oracle might not know everything. In the second movie, we see the Architect's lair with the hundreds upon hundreds of recordings of all the different Neos, each presumably watching a wall of recordings of other Neos. Either there's only one Neo and many, many things going on at once, or the Oracle's going to die anyway and has died hundreds of times before when the Matrix rebooted. Either way, the Oracle didn't have any idea what was going to happen, and really, all it could do was make a few educated guesses. The bit where the Oracle was taken over was symbolic (either intentionally or causally) of the sudden change between preordination and "because I choose to." The sequels don't suck quite so much any more. -JET 73 L
If I remember correctly, the Oracle said that "no one can see past a choice they don't understand, and I mean no one." Which probably included the Oracle herself. Which choice she couldn't see past is up for debate, but it's possible that that choice was Neo's last choice. She couldn't see past it, just how to get there. So it really was a Batman Gambit by the Oracle. She may not have known what Neo was going to do in the end, but she probably had a pretty good idea.
That's explicit in the film. The Architect calls her out on it at the end of the Revelations: "You've played a dangerous game." "Change always is."
The brilliance of the ending really dawned on me when I realised that at its heart, it's still all about choice and free will. The whole setup by the Architect is built on predictability, purpose and hardcore logic. But Neo chooses a path that defies this logic by making an irrational choice that the Architect can't understand (he admits this himself - this is why the Oracle was needed to make the Matrix function). This choice led to the Matrix trying to balance the equation by creating the opposite to Neo: Smith. Where Neo represents choice, Smith represents lack of choice (cue ramblings about purpose). Where Neo wants peace for everyone and everything, Smith wants everyone and everything to die. Now, the really interesting thing is that in the creation of an opposite to Neo - the literal personification of humanity's free will and emotions - we see that the machines, despite their seeming differences to humanity, are not actually the opposite to what Neo and the humans stand for - Smith is. And Smith wants both the humans and the machines destroyed. This is the moral message of the whole trilogy: that the humans and the machines are not so different after all. They both want to live, to exist (in Smith's logic a choice that defies the purpose of all things, which is to end). The Oracle, being a program who understands the human psyche, understood this profound similarity and thus orchestrated events to create peace between man and machine by showing them their common enemy: Smith. Smith represents lack of freedom, lack of free will, and ultimately lack of existence. The similarities between man and machine are further illustrated by the very "human" program Rama Kandra as well as the conversation with Councillor Hamann about the codependency between humans and machines. Returning to the core idea of free will versus fate, it is heavily implied that the Oracle's ability to predict events is based entirely on understanding the causality behind choices (she blankly states that no one can see beyond a choice they don't understand, not even her). When you put it all together, we see the ultimate philosophical message of the trilogy: choice/free will/freedom is what defines our existence, and this is ultimately what makes us - and the machines - human. It's simply beautiful.
Which makes the dialogue between the Oracle and Smith seem more sensible. The Oracle calls Smith a bastard, because it created him (the mother) without a father program, and Smith even calls her "Mother"
Why didn't Smith try to kill Neo at the end instead of assimilating him? Because the last time Smith killed Neo, it went very poorly for him.
When Neo comes into his power, he is referred to as "The One" - he is unique and alone in his power. When his opposite, Agent Smith comes into his power, he becomes everyone - the opposite of alone and unique.
The subtle call back to Neo's first exit from the Matrix to his final one, both of which involve being overtaken by a mirror form.
Some have complained about the fact that, for all of Neo's alleged ability to warp reality within the Matrix, the final fight between him and Smith just comes down to the two of them beating the crap out of each other even when Smith should have reached a point where he at least theoretically would possess the same level of control of the Matrix as Neo. However, when considering Smith's blunt-force nature where he continually just takes the most direct option available, preferring to overwhelm his foes with raw strength (as an Agent) or numbers (as a rogue program) rather than any kind of tactics, the fact that the fight is just the two of them hitting each other makes more sense; Smith, for all his belief in his own power, doesn't actually have the creativity to do anything more than hit out at everything he doesn't like, while Neo, who has spent months training himself in his power while helping the humans, obviously wouldn't want to do anything that might give Smith ideas about what else he might be capable of when he's having enough trouble stopping Smith in a straight-up fight.
When Neo and Bane/Smith fight in the real world, there's no fancy kung fu, just two guys slamming each other around like a couple of drunks in a barfight. This is because in the real world, they don't have any combat programs or code they can hack, just their meat bodies and zero real world combat training.
Technically they would still have access to the combat skills that have been uploaded into them, but during the actual fight Neo just lashed out at the first opportunity and it was all that Smith could do to fight back, so they probably just didn't have the opportunity to do anything more sophisticated than hit each other.
Bane has escaped from the Hammer and has stowed away onboard the Logos. The crew can't go after them, but they make no effort whatsoever to communicate with the ship. Don't these ships have radios? And Morpheus of all people fears Bane killing Neo and Trinity. Has he forgotten that Neo's The One?
Considering that they need to be in particular positions to hack into the Matrix, it's likely that communications in those tunnels are difficult, so the crew reasoned that any attempt to communicate with the Logos would be difficult at best, particularly when they also have the threat of the invasion of Zion to deal with. As for Morpheus expressing fear for Neo and Trinity, keep in mind that the entire prophecy he based his faith on has recently been completely up-ended and proven wrong; naturally he'd have some doubts at this point.
Why doesn't Lock have a member of the other half of his infantry fire a rocket into the engine of the second Digger?
