Question: I get that people in the matrix, who have not been freed, are not ready to be freed, and I know at one point when Morpheus is explaining the matrix to Neo (I believe during the woman in the red dress test) he says something along the lines of: The matrix is a system, that system is our enemy. The matrix is filled with minds we are trying to save, but until we do they are still part of that system and that makes them our enemies. Many of them are so dependent on that system they will fight to defend it.- I am paraphrasing, but it is something like that. As I'm sure everyone knows he also says "The body cannot live without the mind." And therefore if you die in the matrix you die in the 'real' world. My question is, do they ever address the ethical questions that could arise from the fact that they kill mind after mind of police officers, SWAT teams, security guards, innocent humans just doing their jobs? I understand that sometimes it may be necessary, and that Neo doesn't have much choice but to fight agents and kill their hosts at times. But things like Mouse, knowing he is going to die so he grabs machine guns and takes out as many people as he can. Or when Neo and Trinity, on their way to save Morpheus, cover them selves in guns and take out that whole building of guards and pretty much end up with one gun each. The guards were completely prepared to let them enter the building freely if they passed the metal detector, could they not have went empty handed and just taken out two guards later, and used their weapons? It just seems like a pretty bad way to go about a mission to save people. Unless perhaps I missed a speech about sacrificing some minds for the cause or the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few type deal. Just wondering if that is ever addressed.
Chosen answer: No, they don't address it, other than Morpheus' speech during the test. It's not something that they have any realistic choice about, so they just have to accept it and do what they need to do. Mouse, yes, he chooses to defend himself when cornered, but who wouldn't? These may be innocent victims of the Matrix he's shooting at, but they're still there to kill him - he's hardly going to stand there and accept his fate meekly. There's also no indication that the guards were "completely prepared" to let Neo and Trinity into what's clearly a high security building, undoubtedly they would have been asked for identification, what their purpose was there and so forth and turned away if, as seems likely, their answers weren't satisfactory. Shooting their way in from the start is likely their only option. Yes, it's absolutely ethically unfortunate, but if they're going to resist the machines successfully, it's not something they have any choice about. A necessary evil.
Question: How exactly does the blue and red pill work? How does Neo taking the pill trigger him to wake up?
Chosen answer: The pills are the Matrix representations of computer programs. The red pill contains code designed to disrupt Neo's input/output signals, so that Morpheus' team can pinpoint his physical location in the real world. Once located, a signal of unspecified type is sent from their ship, which presumably serves to wake Neo up.
Question: How is it that the heroes are able to "broadcast their pirate signal and hack into the matrix", but the machines are unable to hack the "codes to Zion's mainframe computer"?
Answer: It's a range issue. It's specifically mentioned that, in order to tap into the Matrix, the ships have to rise to "broadcast depth". Zion's too far down for signals to reach it, so the machines can't hack their systems.
Question: Okay, so help me out here. When someone still plugged into the Matrix dies from say, cancer or is hit by a car, does that mean the real world counterpart of that person has been completely drained of energy by the machines? When a human has served its purpose to the machines, do they alter the Matrix to make that person die? I'm very curious to know how how death works in the Matrix.
Chosen answer: Insofar as can be told from what little we know, the human body will continue to produce energy indefinitely, at least until it dies of old age or from some other cause - there appears to be no precedent for an individual to be fully drained by the machines. If an individual dies in some abnormal manner within the Matrix, such as a car crash, their body will die on the outside and will have to be disposed of. Otherwise, their body will presumably age normally until they expire of natural causes. As for how cancer might operate, we have no information. To theorise, as the digital body represents the actual body with reasonable accuracy, should an individual plugged into the Matrix develop cancer in their real body, then it's a plausible hypothesis that their digital self will demonstrate the same symptoms - the real and virtual afflictions will proceed at the same rate and the digital self will expire when the real body passes away.
Question: 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.
Answer: 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.
Question: Everybody seems to believe that the machines are not able or at least not willing to make use of the energy from the sunlight above the darkened sky. But I have some problems with that. Morpheus tells us about this when he is with Neo in the construct for the first time. But is Morpheus really 100% believable in that question? Isn't this just his version of the story? We can believe him that the humans darkened the sky (this is confirmed in Animatrix and visible on screen) and the machines created fields of humans as their source of power (he saw those fields himself). But maybe he's wrong? Could he really know for sure how much energy the machines need? Or that the machines don't use the energy from sunlight? Is there any point in the trilogy where the machines definitely do confirm this? For me it would make more sense for them to do so: using the humans would inevitably decimate the population with every generation. If we believe that the humans' "foods" are the liquidated dead this would hardly be enough for the whole lifespan of another human (and there's also energy drained from the machines). I don't say this wouldn't make sense for the machines, but sooner or later they will have to use another source of power if they want to live forever, so why not start with it now? They would have infinite energy and could control humanity at the same time. And as we see they are able to build any types of complex weaponry/flying guardians etc., it should be easy for them technically to get past the dust and use the energy somehow. Am I right with this or is there a better explanation?
Answer: Human bodies would not be 100% efficient and so energy generated would always be less than energy fed into the farm, so overall making energy losses for machines. The energy fed (dead bodies etc) is not usable by machines directly. Humans seems to be good for energy conversion as well as energy storage. So any excess energy from fusion can simply be stored away in the matrix. Hence the battery analogy (which needs to be charged to be useful).
Question: If none of the cops knew about Trinity's abilities, why did they send so many cops to smash her door and hold her at gunpoint like she was a terrorist? To them she was just a hacker, which doesn't put anyone in physical danger, so wouldn't just one officer have been enough?
Chosen answer: Trinity was a known associate of Morpheus, considered "the most dangerous man alive", so the police would have taken some precautions - even a hacker could be armed in any case. At least four units would be sensible for any kind of raid, regardless of how harmless they assumed the suspect was. However, the lieutenant only sent two units into the hotel to detain her so he didn't think it was that big a deal, and there were two more outside.
Question: I understand most of The Matrix and I get the whole "there is no spoon concept," too. However I don't get why Morpheus could not apply the same principles when he was captured by Smith and the agents. Why could he not break free from the handcuffs then because "there simply are no handcuffs"? Is it because he had serum and had his sunglasses taken off of him? Please explain. It's driving us nuts.
Chosen answer: He has been beaten and drugged. He can't focus enough to break the cuffs while the agents were there. If he tried, he would be beaten again and/or probably killed.
Question: What makes Neo the Chosen One? Chosen by who or what? And what makes Morpheus and the Oracle so knowledgeable about the Chosen One?
Answer: 1) Neo is the One because of a systematic flaw in the Matrix's programming that accounts for the rare humans who don't accept the Matrix, as explained by the Architect in the second film. 2) The Oracle knows about the One because she was the one who discovered the flaw. 3) Morpheus knows about the One because the Oracle told him.
Question: When Cypher is about to betray the team he calls Tank and talks about the car crash: 'All of a sudden BOOM.' Did the agents set it up? How did they know where they'd be escaping from, given the humans weren't expecting to leave so quickly?
Answer: The agents are aware of everything, via their earpieces. When informed that their "inside man" was captured by the police, one could easily possess the police van's driver and deliberately wreck it so Cypher could escape.
Question: It's been stated in the movie (and in The Animatrix) that humans used nanomachines to intentionally blacken the sky in order to cut the machines off from their main energy source, the sun. Firstly, why did the humans resort to such a drastic and desperate plan? They must have known it would be risky? Secondly, once the plan was implemented, why couldn't they halt or shut down the nanomachines when it grew out of control? Thirdly, why were the machines dependent on the sun in the first place? Couldn't they use or invent an alternate energy source? And fourthly, why couldn't the machines use their combined artificial intelligence to somehow find a way of eradicating the nanomachines in the atmosphere?
Chosen answer: Blocking out the sun was an act of desperation, the humans weren't thinking about long-term consequences like unblocking it again. As for the machines, once they had adapted and created the Matrix, there was no need to unblock the sun because their problem had been solved.
Question: 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?
Question: Can someone please explain what Spoon Boy says to Neo about there being no spoon, I do not fully understand it.
Chosen answer: "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.
Question: When Cypher is in the restaurant with Smith, is this before he was set free from the Matrix? I'm not too sure if it was the same for him, but I know they try and get them when they are young rather than older, so if it was during him being free, would he have been caught?
Answer: Cypher was out of the matrix when he met Smith at the restaurant. Like those on the ship, he had to plug into the system anytime he wanted to go into the Matrix. Cypher was being used as a mole by Smith to get to Morpheus. There would be no reason to take him out as he was working with them.
Question: 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?
Answer: 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.
Question: 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?
Answer: 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.
Answer: Maybe she was foreshadowing that Neo is actually going to be killed by Smith, then brought back to - his next - life by Trinity. When Smith unloads his gun into Neo, his heart stops for a while, which can be taken as he is dead. Then he immediately wakes up in his "next life" from Trinity's love. Note that as Neo gets up from the floor, his "chosen one" powers also fire up. Perhaps this resurrection (next life) was the thing he was supposedly "waiting for."
Question: What kind of car do Trinity and the other two pick up Neo in under the bridge when it is raining at the beginning of the movie? It's the black car where they remove the probe from Neo.
Chosen answer: It's a Lincoln Continental from the 60's. The topless version was the one JFK was assassinated in.
It's a '65 Lincoln Continental.
Answer: 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.
Gary O'Reilly