There used to be a link on this site to a hilarious newsgroup thread that spun off of a posting about Neil being the One. Does anyone happen to still have the link?
The Matrix (1999) - 29 questions
Directed by Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski, starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Gloria Foster, Joe Pantoliano
The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!
There used to be a link on this site to a hilarious newsgroup thread that spun off of a posting about Neil being the One. Does anyone happen to still have the link? How did Neo know about the existence of the Matrix if he was stuck in the Matrix for most of his life? [He doesn't know that he's plugged into a giant computer and that most of humanity is a power source for robots. He's merely aware that there is something wrong with life in general, something odd that he can't quite explain.] Answered by Gary O'Reilly When Neo goes into the Oracles apartment, the woman who opened the door said that the kids were the other potentials. What did she mean by that? [She means that they are other people who may be "the One". They're not, of course, but this is in a way a test of Neo to see if he is ready to become "the One" or if he doubts himself too much.] Answered by Twotall On the rooftop in chapter 31, Neo asks Trinity if she can fly "that thing". Trinity says "not yet" and calls Tank for a B212 helicopter pilot training program. How does she know what kind of helicopter it is if she's never piloted one? [Its not out of the question. My 8 Year old nephew knows the make and model of most cars but he's never driven one.] After the opening credits, during the short dialogue between Trinity and Tank, they talk about Neo and he says, "We're gonna kill him, understand that". Why are they going to kill him? [They're not going to kill him themselves, the statement is meant to refer to the fact that the course of action that they're going to take is likely to lead to his death - possibly because he's really too old to be freed, or because he'll do something stupid because he believes that he's the One, something that the rest of the crew seem less than convinced about.] Answered by Tailkinker What kind of gun is the weapon that Cypher uses to wound Tank and kill Dozer? [It is an electrical lightning gun, gives an electrical charge that can scramble the workings of the machines, it's the only real thing that can hurt the machines.] Answered by Ben W Bell How do the hovercraft work? I know the glowing pads contribute to the hovering ability, but is that based on any real technology? And why don't the sentinels have the hover-pads? [The hover pads work by electro-magnetic repulsion much like the mag-lev trains we have today only much more so. They would not leave a trace of propellant to be followed/tracked/traced nor would they be especially hotter than ambient temperature like jet engines etc. The sentinals do not care if they are tracked, but it is not clear if they use a more advanced form of this technology or something else. Remember that the Zion people have to start over from scratch every so often while the machine culture is constantly advancing so the humans' technology would not necessarily be as advanced.] Answered by Myridon Is it ever explained how Morpheus knows that Neo is the one initially? In the beginning all we know is that they are looking for each other, what happened before then? [It's never explained. From what we do know, it's clear that Morpheus and his group have been observing Neo for some time, as they presumably do with potential new recruits. While Neo was too old to be a recruit, it seems likely that Morpheus saw something during that time that convinced him that Neo was the One, leading him to break the rules regarding age and extract Neo from the Matrix anyway. It's also possible that the Oracle gave him some relevant information when she told him that he would find the One - not a name and address, obviously, but something that Morpheus ultimately recognised in Neo.] Answered by Tailkinker Can someone please explain what Spoon Boy says to Neo about there being no spoon, I do not fully understand it. ["There is no spoon" because the spoon doesn't really exist; it's just a bunch of images inside the Matrix. For Neo to use his powers, he can't think of bending the spoon (or surviving a fall, or jumping a gap, or dodging bullets) because in even accepting the existence of the spoon (or the fall, or the gap, or the bullets) he'll be acknowledging it's impossible to do so. He has to see all these things as just reflections of the Matrix (as he indeed does at the end) and manipulate them in those terms, to use his powers.] Answered by Moose How do the agents get the police and swat team to work for them? Do they pose as FBI or something like that? [Sure. Agents are perfectly equipped to hand the local police force any kind of identification whatsoever to prove that the Agents are federal officers and the locals would be compelled to assist.] I have wondered this for a while about the movie. If the agents know that Neo matters and needs to be killed, why don't they take over his body and let themselves die? [At first, the agents know that Neo is being sought out by Morpheus and his crew, but don't know why. The Machines decide to use Neo as bait in an attempt to capture Morpheus and gain access to Zion's codes. Later, when destroying Neo becomes the priority, he has already been removed from the Matrix and the agents can no longer jump into his mind's Matrix location to take over his body.] Might be a classical one, but I'm still clueless :) The story includes the imprisonment of humans because of the energy they produce. It's clear though that the human body cannot give back more energy that it requires to stay alive. Employing humans for that matter is simply a waste of energy. Maybe the humans there have this as an "urban legend" and the machines keep humans in this form for some other reason? [Remember Morpheus mentions a type of fusion as well, which nicely blurs any power analysis we can do based just on body energy. The theory I've heard and quite like is that while power considerations are part of the reason, connecting billions of human brains together would also make for a hugely powerful parallel processing system, capable of all the computing power the machines need for both running the matrix and their own needs.] Answered by Jon Sandys Trinity tells Neo to trust her because he knows what's in the end of the street. What's in the end of the street? [Neo has "been down that road before" for all of his life. It is the road of the mundane, of accepting reality at face value and refusing to take any action to change either oneself or one's environment. Neo's relatively recent search for Morpheus was part of breaking out of this mould. At the end of that road is an empty existence and eventual death after a life of normalcy and conformity.] What if they were to destroy the Matrix, then all the humans would be free but the problem is where would billions of human beings go? Zion, the last city, can't hold them all and they can't live in the tunnels or above the earth's crust because there is no food or water there. The whole war doesn't seem to be well thought out and seems like a big plot hole on the Wachowskis part. [The inhabitants of Zion seem to have little problem with killing off dozens of 'real people' during their constant gunfights inside the Matrix. This suggests that they would be willing to sacrifice the bulk of humanity. Remember, it's supposed to be difficult for adults who spent their entire lives in the Matrix to survive being suddenly removed from it anyway.] During the visit to the Oracle, she says "It looks like you're waiting for something" ... "Your next life, maybe". It is pointed out that if you die in the Matrix, your real body dies also, and that the machines "liquify the dead to feed the living". How does reincarnation become possible with these facts? [The Oracle knows that Neo has the potential to become the One, but has not yet fulfilled that potential. Whatever makes the rebirth of the One possible is not linked to the One's physical form, because there is no physical remnant of the original or other Ones, yet Neo is still born. Disconnect yourself from this idea that the physical body of an individual is key to its mind's reincarnation.]
Right before Trinity leaves Neo on the subway station, she tells Neo: "Everything the Oracle told me has come true, except this." She then picks up the phone and vanishes before noticing in horror the agent. What did the Oracle tell her that wasn't true? Was Trinity not (yet) in love with Neo? Had the Oracle told her that Neo should leave the platform first? Or was she referring to Morpheus's rescue, which wasn't supposed to happen? [You're misinterpreting her statement - when she said "except this", she wasn't saying that something the Oracle had told her was a lie, just that it hadn't come true at that point. The Oracle presumably told her that she and the One would fall in love - by this point, it's clear that she loves him, but, what she doesn't know yet, is whether he loves her. She wants to tell him but, in typically human fashion, is afraid to, for fear of rejection.] Answered by Tailkinker During the "woman in the red dress" scene what is the music playing in the background? [The track is 'Clubbed to Death', the Kurayamino mix, by Rob D.] Answered by STP When is the song "Du Hast" by Ramstein played? [The song is not played in this movie. The only hard rock songs in this movie are Dragula by Rob Zombie and Rock Is Dead by Marilyn Manson.] Can anyone tell me why switch wears white clothes when inside the matrix when all the other rebels wear black? Is there a back story to this? [Not all the rebels wear black, they each have a distinctive style, Trinity in black PVC, Morpheus in alligator skin over a purple business suit, Switch in white.] When Neo and Morpheus cross the road at the very start of the "women in the red dress" training programme scene, the short man with the glasses at the centre of the crowd crossing toward them looks up at Morpheus and nods at him. Has this anything to do with the plot or is it a genuine mistake? [Hasn't got anything to do with the plot, but neither is it a mistake. The simulation is meant to be realistic and plenty of the people in the crowd interact with Morpheus and Neo (bumping into them or moving out of their way). A nod to someone you're passing on the street isn't in any way unusual.]You may also like: Star Wars | The Matrix Reloaded | Titanic | Gladiator | I Am Legend