Nearly twenty years after The Matrix Revolutions left audiences scratching their heads, Lana Wachowski is reviving the franchise with the fourth installment in The Matrix Resurrections. For a time, The Matrix was a cultural phenomenon, imitated and parodied to exhaustion. Will the new film deliver a high concept mind-expanding sci-fi action flick as fans expect, or will it simply repeat the same beats as the first movie in a pale cash-in?
Matrixmania overran the world in March of 1999 when The Matrix was released in theatres. It was a monumental success for the Wachowskis and its stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie-Anne Moss. The trilogy went on to make a combined $1.6 billion and expanded into animation, comics, and video games. It also spawned one of the most popular computer screensaver styles ever made, the “Matrix digital rain.” For about four years one could not be more than a few seconds away from hearing a Matrix quote or seeing a reference whether fashion or on TV. It was one of the biggest cultural influences of the early twenty-first century. All that wind emptied after the poor reaction to the final film of a pair, The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Sinking to a 35% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Revolutions was not the breathtaking coup de grace anyone was hoping for. Instead, it suffered under a dense plot and heavy indecipherable mythology. Now, in a surprise turn of events, audiences get to revisit the world of The Matrix this December.
With only the first trailer released, fans are already scrutinizing, speculating, and overanalyzing every frame and soundbite available. The trailer intended to give fans a glimpse of the new movie and offer an impression of what it is to be about. So far, it all seems way too familiar. It makes one wonder whether the Matrix Resurrections will be a soft reboot of the franchise or a rehash of the first movie? Will it deliver entirely new concepts in the world of The Matrix, expand the material? Or will it cherry-pick the best parts of the trilogy and recreate them – reminiscent of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Should the fourth movie be titled The Matrix Repeated instead? Magnifying on the trailer, here are some of the beats lifted directly from the first Matrix.
Red Vs. Blue
One of the first Matrix’ most popular concepts is that of the red versus the blue pill. In the first movie, it was the defining moment of Neo’s exit from the computer simulation and entrance behind the curtain. If one accepted the red pill, it meant they were disconnecting from the Matrix and awakening in the apocalyptic real world. If one chose the blue, it meant they would remain asleep, docile, and submissive to the machines. This was the moment was when Neo chose to trust Morpheus and to open his real eyes for the first time.
Cleverly, to the tune of “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, the trailer shows Neo (or Thomas Anderson as he was originally known as) taking blue pills as if they were prescription. This implies that somehow The Chosen One ended up confined by the machines again and that they are sedating him with blue pills. That is an interesting and new concept, but it could lead right back into the road once traveled. For if Neo is asleep just as he was in the first Matrix, he will have to reawaken once again. Could there not be a better way to introduce new audience members to the concept of the Real World and the Simulation?
Neo’s (Re)Awakening
The first movie laid the groundwork for all the hallmarks of the world of The Matrix such as the déjà vu cats, bullet time, the superpowers and abilities of The One, the Agents, the final human city of Zion, and all the rest of that hoopla. Thomas Anderson (and the audience) is ushered through these hallmarks via guides such as Morpheus, Trinity, and the other human misfits of the Nebuchadnezzar ship.
Once he becomes the One, assuming his hacker alias Neo, he and the audience fully grasp the world and its rules. It seems as if all of this must happen again in The Matrix Resurrections. All the memory cache stored from the original trilogy has long since dissolved in the minds of casual fans and must be learned from scratch by the next generation of viewers. Whereas a movie like Avengers: Endgame earned the right to revisit scenes from its earlier installments in a climactic showdown, it would be uninspiring for the new Matrix to reuse previously done scenes for the sake of catching the audience up, or for re-hypnotizing them to the deeper world of The Matrix.
Morpheus’ Dojo
Morpheus’ training sequence is an example of this. In the first film it was used to show Neo there is so much more to abusing the machines’ simulation. Neo could learn new kung-fu moves, he could call up any type of weaponry he desired, he could even learn to fly. It was a turning point for him where he crosses the threshold from what he knew to what he has to face. In the trailer, it is used to surprise Morpheus with the power of The One. However, the fact that the two are in Morpheus’ dojo and must get reacquainted again means their relationship is basically starting from scratch. The characters as well as the new audience must relearn who they are and why they are so important to each other – again.
The fact that Morpheus is young could hint that it is this version of Morpheus’ first time through a human revolt against the Machines and Neo, as the singular survivor of the previous reset, becomes the mentor to Morpheus and this batch of humans? That would be an interesting new twist on the series.
Perhaps The Matrix Resurrections' second trailer will peel off another layer to this new entry to the digital world and show some original innovative material. So far, they have only proven that one circuit around the block is all one needs.
The Matrix Resurrections premieres in theatres and on HBO Max on December 22nd, 2021.