The Matrix

In case you missed it.

The Matrix, the original, is a pretty good story.

And a really good movie.

Here is the story line:

Computer hacker Thomas Anderson AKA Neo has lived a relatively ordinary life--in what he thinks is the year 1999--until he is contacted by the enigmatic Morpheus who leads him into the real world. In reality, it is 200 years later, and the world has been laid waste and taken over by advanced artificial intelligence machines. The computers have created a false version of 20th-century life--the "Matrix"--to keep the human slaves satisfied, while the AI machines draw power from the humans. Anderson, pursued constantly by "Agents" (computers who take on human form and infiltrate the Matrix), is hailed as "The One" who will lead the humans to overthrow the machines and reclaim the Earth.

The cult that exists around this movie is pretty impressive.

The idea that we live our realities in a Matrix has Buddhist as well as Brujo basis. It also harkens back to Plato and the cave.

“What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”-- Morpheus to Neo

Mr. Smith, the best of the morphing agents that take over the matrix humans as they need to, is a truly wonderful bad guy.

He has some great lines.

“I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.”

And he continues his verbal onslaught as he tries to get the secret codes out of Morpheus

“Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.”-
Agent Smith to Morpheus

“Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” -- Morpheus to Neo

The movie is full of easy to understand symbols.

Neo is Jesus Christ, the savior of a human kind that doesn't even know it is in bondage.

Morpheus is John the Baptist, who is the one who recognizes the One.

Cypher is Judas, the one who must betray his friends,

yet like the real Judas, he moves the story forward.

And Trinity supplies the Love

and gives the kiss that brings

Neo back from death.

In the Resurrected body,

he is capable of not only dodging bullets,

he can stop them in their tracks.

He can enter the very body of the truly bad guys

and explode them into oblivion.

The movie ends with these words from Neo,

who is now the One.

“I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.”-- The One



Reality is a rather persistent illusion.

And the Matrix may be a better model than we imagine.