Matrix Revolutions--Holy CRAP

[doubleohfive]

You would betray your friends and kill them? I mean I know you're big in to ducking your head into the sand, but jeez... that's cold.

No, I would not have done any of those things. Remember, I did admit that Cypher was a killer and a traitor. (If you think I'm that evil, then you fucking well got a lot to learn about me. ) I'm guessing Cypher got the same choice - red or blue pill - and chose the red one. I would have just taken the blue pill so I would never have been part of that crew in the first place.

It'd be one thing if you were saying that from the perspective of not knowing what life outside the Matrix was like, as Keanu did in the first film... but you and I and everyone else who have seen the films are unable to make the same kind of choice you are postulating because you know what the "real" world was like and what the Matrix world was like. Essentially, you're saying you'd take the easy way out now that you know the "real world" sucks donkey balls. Convenient.

Either one of those situations would have been equally likely, come to think of it. I'm definitely not a risk taker by nature, so that's one reason I'd take the blue pill (if I didn't know what the real world was like). But if I *did* know, I'd *definitely* choose the Matrix. Perhaps it is lazy, perhaps it is taking the easy way out. I accept that. But not everyone is a fighter or a revolutionary. I don't have the guts to be those things. All I want is to be left alone with a reasonably normal life. I don't care if that makes me a coward.

I mean, Morpheus kept yammering about how the Matrix was "slavery". Exactly how was this? Who exactly are the people slaves to? The machines? It's not like the Agents were the absolute fascist dictators of the entire world or anything like that. They probably interfered very little, unless forced to. Most people in the Matrix probably never even met them. And in a sense it would be in the machines' best interest to keep as many people alive as possible (with everyone who dies, the machines lose the energy that could have been gained from them). So it's not like people's lives were constantly in danger or anything like that. All the machines cared about was getting the energy from the living bodies of the people. Once that's assured, the people themselves were free to live their lives as they wished. So it's in the Matrix and not in reality. BFD.

While I can't question your theory about the machines wanting to keep humans alive -- it actually makes sense -- my larger point was simply that you can't really say you'd choose the blue pill. None of us can. Would curiosity get the better of you? Wouldn't you want to know what the fuck these guys were going on about? Or are you content to just be a mindless drone?

Look at Neo's life before he goes to the Matrix. He eats noodles and stays up all night posting on message boards and barely keeps his job. Can you honestly expect anyone to believe you would choose that kind of life, even though you know what the alternative is? When in theory -- you're saying that you would make this choice even if you didn't know?

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, but Neo selected that life. He seemed to have a decent enough job and such and it seemed the Matrix's world wasn't much different than our own so it can be assumed that better life styles were possible.

As Cypher (?) says to Neo, "I bet you're asking yourself why didn't I take the blue pill?!"

Because look at what the "real world" is?! It's a hell hole dystopia!

In the Matrix he could at least, presumably, go to a beach, go to a ball game, hook-up with a nice-looking woman, and enjoy something of a life. The "real-world" may have been real but it was a shit-hole.

As Cypher says Morpheous did some shuckin' and jvin to get what he wanted out of people to pull them out of the Matrix. He could've simply told Neo what the matrix was. "You're not in the real world, you're in a pod hooked up to a computer with your brain being manipulated into thinking everything around you is real. Take this pill and you'll wake up in the real world which, well, it sucks. You'll be eating mushy oatmeal, wearing clothes that Lady Gaga would reject, drinking engine degreaser, and the surface level is pretty much uninhabitable, the sun blocked out and we live in a cave. But you can help me try and free humanity and gain super powers here to fight the machines and free people. You in?"

But, no, Morpheous manipulates Neo into having that "Well what is it?!" thought and he takes the red-pill. Then he finds out the real-world sucks. Morpheous pretty much did what every used car salesman knows how to do, convince the customer he wants to buy crap.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Would curiosity get the better of you? Wouldn't you want to know what the fuck these guys were going on about?

Not really, no.

Or are you content to just be a mindless drone?

That's a rather loaded term, IMHO. Just because I have no stomach for constant risk and revolution doesn't mean I'm mindless OR a "drone".

Look at Neo's life before he goes to the Matrix. He eats noodles and stays up all night posting on message boards and barely keeps his job. Can you honestly expect anyone to believe you would choose that kind of life, even though you know what the alternative is?

I'm not Neo. My life isn't like his was.

Morpheous pretty much did what every used car salesman knows how to do, convince the customer he wants to buy crap.

Ain't that the truth...

Here's an ending for you: Morpheus gets what he wants. The complete destruction of the Matrix and every last one of the machines. Then this happens: Every human being wakes up in a pod, just like Neo did. The film ends on that note.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Let's remember too that is just one aspect of Neo's life that the Brothers CHOSE to show us as viewers, that his life was mundane and un-fulfilling and that he had an underground life to attempt to search for more meaning. We don't know how Thomas lived like before we were introduced to him in the film. This was shown on purpose to set up his liberation from the Matrix. If stripped down the trilogy is ultimately about choice and the consequences one's actions comes from making those decisions.

 

[doubleohfive]

Or are you content to just be a mindless drone?

That's a rather loaded term, IMHO. Just because I have no stomach for constant risk and revolution doesn't mean I'm mindless OR a "drone".

Again you miss my point. How would you know there would be "constant risk and revolution?"

Look at Neo's life before he goes to the Matrix. He eats noodles and stays up all night posting on message boards and barely keeps his job. Can you honestly expect anyone to believe you would choose that kind of life, even though you know what the alternative is?

I'm not Neo. My life isn't like his was.

How do you know what your life would be like in the Matrix? Have you been already?

You see what I'm saying? You can't possibly say what you would do because a) you already have foreknowledge of what the Matrix is and b) because of a), you can't possibly know what your answer would be if you were presented with the choice of a blue pill or a red pill.

What you're doing now is essentially saying "I've seen both options, give me the damn blue pill."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

How would you know there would be "constant risk and revolution?"

That's what it looked like on the Nebuchadnezzar...

How do you know what your life would be like in the Matrix?

I'm just assuming a Matrix life that is the same as what my real life is, right now.

 

[Admiral_Young]

It would be interesting if every individual human had their own personal constructed Matrix's that weren't apart of the larger "global" Matrix. I wonder if the machines attempted doing that, isolating humans to themselves but making them think they were part of the "real world" would our brains reject that concept?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Agent Smith said that the Matrix 1.0 failed because humans wouldn't accept it, they kept trying to wake up from it because that world was too perfect. If that's true, then humans might reject something like this as well.

 

[doubleohfive]

How would you know there would be "constant risk and revolution?"

That's what it looked like on the Nebuchadnezzar...

Again, how would you know what it looked like on the Nebuchadnezzar?

How do you know what your life would be like in the Matrix?

I'm just assuming a Matrix life that is the same as what my real life is, right now.

Convenient.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Yes but my concept isn't a "perfect world" concept. It's what we think of the real world "i.e. the present" but confined to an individual and conducive to the programming of the machines. After all I have thought that the machines are the ones responsible for projecting what a person sees the in the Matrix in the first place.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Again, how would you know what it looked like on the Nebuchadnezzar?

I can't forget what I saw in the film.

If, on the other hand, I had no idea about any of that, I still could have taken the blue pill. As I said, I'm not a risk taker by nature.

How do you know what your life would be like in the Matrix?

I'm just assuming a Matrix life that is the same as what my real life is, right now.

Convenient.

And realistic. If I can't make that assumption, then the question is meaningless.

If I had a bad life, or one that was unfulfilling, I would want to escape from it and I might listen to Morpheus. But if I had a GOOD life, like my own, then I would not.

 

[doubleohfive]

 

[Admiral_Young]

So what you're saying Mr Laser Beam is that you would reject reality if you were "living a good life"?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Probably.

Morpheus said that the Matrix was slavery; I suggest that the "real world" of those films is also slavery, but of a different kind. In any case, by the time the last film ends, people are ultimately given a choice as to which they would prefer. I guess that's as good an ending as it's possible to get.

 

[Teelie]

Ignorance is bliss. Not knowing the harshness of reality and how life is difficult would be ideal for most people. And in a world like the Matrix where the world got nuked? That's exactly where people would want to retreat from into something like the Matrix.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Except that you'd be living a lie and something that wasn't real, real only to your own sense of self if that makes sense. That was one of the other points of the film. What is reality? What is freedom?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Except that you'd be living a lie and something that wasn't real, real only to your own sense of self if that makes sense.

If it's real to my "own sense of self", then that's all the reality that I need. Why is that not freedom? As I said, the Agents do not control people's lives. The machines do not rule the people. They create the reality that the people live in, but that is not even close to the same thing.

 

[Teelie]

That's all philosophical and weighty but when it comes to living a life in pain and suffering or living in ignorant bliss and not knowing the ugly truth, most people would rather choose the ignorance. It's only when we're forced to confront reality that we deal with it.

 

[Admiral_Young]

The agents may not control people's lives but they certainly reinforce and police the Matrix and I think it's arguable that the machines don't rule the humans. Did they give them a choice when they enslaved them and made them batteries? I don't think so.

 

[I am not Spock]

Wow. I must be the only person on the Internet who liked The Matrix movies. All of them. And the Animatrix shorts. I really liked the Matrix universe as a whole. Never got the hate at all.