| I have to confess that that was one of my favorite
parts of the trilogy. I like how the writers cleverly employ
prophecy and revelation. Earlier in the movie, Morpheus tells
Neo about the unstoppable Agents and how he expects that Neo
will one day be the One to defeat them. |
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Neo: |
What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge
bullets? |
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Morpheus: |
No, Neo. What I'm trying to tell you is that when you're ready,
you won't have to. |
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| Neo's moment of ascendancy is his moment of revelation:
When he finally realizes that he is not bound by the
rules set for him -- that he can choose a different
fate. And the act of choosing makes it real. Suddenly he doesn't
need to dodge the bullets. He can change the game, through his
choice. He can give the game meaning, through his choice. |
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| In the second movie, the Wachowskis make that explicit.
Confronting the Architect, Neo (eventually) understands: "Choice.
The problem is choice." Indeed, the Architect has created Neo
and brought him to "the Source" precisely because Neo possesses
the ability to choose. Out of all of slumbering humanity, Neo
is uniquely poised to save or crash the system because he has
learned to choose. Through one door, the preservation of what
he has known, the endless repitition of the simulated world,
the continuance of order. Through the other, love and a last
desperate act, profound personal meaning. |
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| There are hints that the Wachowskis get it, too,
that they really understand the issues they've raised. During
the climax of The
Matrix: Revolutions, Agent Smith and Neo give, together,
what is perhaps the greatest explication of nihilism and existentialism
ever to appear in a popular medium. |
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Agent Smith: |
Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting?
Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more that your
survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it
freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love?
Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary
constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to
justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And
all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only
a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must
be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You
can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson?
Why? Why do you persist? |
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Neo: |
Because I choose to. |
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