How Neo’s Character Arc Reveals The Matrix Superpower System
How Neo’s Character Arc Reveals The Matrix Superpower System
Plus a Deep Dive into Potentials, Redpills, and The One
The Matrix could arguably be classified as a superhero movie. It is, after all, filled with characters that clearly exhibit superhuman abilities and its plot focuses around the transformation of its main character Neo (aka Thomas Anderson) from a normal human to a God-like being destined to save mankind.
Unlike the majority of superhero narratives, however, The Matrix establishes a logical system for how and why its characters are able to develop superpowers. This power system is key to the picture’s central ideas and themes, and is directly intertwined with Neo’s character arc. Understanding how Neo changes emotionally as a person over the course of the film is thus intrinsic to understanding how superpowers and in turn the concept of the One actually work in the Matrix universe.
To illustrate all this, I will show how the film establishes its superpower system, how it builds up the concept of The One, and links all this together through Neo’s character arc. In the process, I hope to shed new light on what The One was originally intended to be and clear up misconceptions perpetuated by the Matrix sequels.*
*Please note that this article will focus on the human characters that exhibit superpowers and will not discuss the Agents, to whom the system does not actually apply.
ContentsThe Trinity Chase: Superpowers and Enigmas
The Matrix revolves almost entirely around the character of Thomas Anderson/Neo (Keanu Reeves). In terms of plot, we could summarize it this way: Neo - an office drone by day, hacker by night - comes in contact with the mysterious terrorist Morpheus, who reveals to him that he lives inside a computer simulation called “The Matrix” and claims that Neo is really ‘The One,’ a God-like reality warper prophesied to free mankind and destroy The Matrix. After undergoing various trials and tribulations, Neo becomes The One and embraces his destiny.
Even before introducing Neo, however, the film establishes for viewers the fact that superpowers exist in its world. In the opening prologue sequence, which I like to call “the Trinity Chase,” we see Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) seemingly break the laws of physics, such as by jumping impossibly long distances between buildings, running up walls in defiance of gravity, performing superhuman feats of strength, and surviving what should arguably be fatal falls.
Clearly, her feats – and those of the Agents pursuing her – are not normal, a fact underlined by one of the police officers exclaiming “That is not possible!”
Naturally, what we see here raises many questions for the audience, such as: “What sort of reality is this? How is what Trinity did possible? Is this a superhero movie?”The use of superpowers here is meant to communicate to us that something here is off, something is abnormal about the setting. It piques our interest with these power-related narrative enigmas, promising that things will be explained later on.
A less eyecatching/foregrounded detail is the fact that the opening scene also includes the very first mention of the term “The One,” even as its true significance is not yet apparent to viewers. During phone conversation between Trinity and Cypher, where latter cryptically states when discussing Neo, whom Trinity is surveilling:
“Morpheus believes he is the one.”
All we know by the time the sequence ends is that some individual named Neo is important to both Trinity and the Agents, but we don’t yet know how or why.
Defining The One
The second time there is mention of “The One” is when Morpheus tells Neo over the phone following his arrest by the Agents right before their meeting:
“You're the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me, but I've spent most of my life looking for you.”
Taken together with the first instance, this cryptic reference means to similarly intrigue viewers and raise questions, such as: “who or what is The One? What does being ‘The One’ actually mean? Why is ‘The One’ important?”It’s not until after Neo is unplugged from the Matrix and learns the full truth about the system that Morpheus explains to him who ‘The One’ is via an extended expository monologue:
“When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth : 'As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.' After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return, and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people.
That is why there are those of us who have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix looking for him. I did what I did because… I believe that search is over.”
The monologue establishes that Morpheus and his crew are essentially modern-day zealots on a crusade to find God. Now, Morpheus never uses the term “God” in reference to The One. He also claims that the First One died, which suggests that the First One wasn’t immortal.* And yet, there can be little doubt that the description of “The One” is basically that of God with a capital G: a being with the power to do whatever he wants to the system, capable of bending the fabric of reality to his will.
*This, of course, raises a lot of questions about the First One that could be explored in another story. Indeed, back in a 1999 Online Chat, the Wachowskis have stated that they hoped to tell the story of the First One someday in an anime series. As of 2023, this has not come to pass, and indeed the story of the First One would be heavily retconned by the sequels.
Based on Morpheus’ description then, The One should be a reality-warping, nigh-omnipotent being, and Neo may very well be his return/reincarnation. In effect, Neo is positioned as the second coming of the digital Christ, whose destiny is to save the real world by bringing about the destruction of the virtual one.*
* Though it is not explicitly stated, it can be inferred that destroying the Matrix would in turn end the reign of the Machines, who are dependent on the system and their artificially grown human batteries for survival. In other words, take out the energy source, and the Machines will die, ending the war with the humans victorious.
From this moment forward, the plot of The Matrix begins to explicitly revolve around the central question of whether or not Neo is The One.
The Oblivious Mr. Anderson: Neo’s Emotional Arc
To reiterate then, the plot or external story of The Matrix is about how Neo becomes a nigh-omnipotent being with the power to control the system itself. But the film’s internal story is about how a skeptic learns to believe in himself and overcome his doubts, becoming a man of faith that wishes to spread his newfound beliefs with other people. It is this character arc that serves as the main emotional throughline of the picture (aka the “lower layer of storytelling”) and the connective tissue that binds together all of its disparate elements, while covering over its gaps and inconsistencies.
These two aspects of the storytelling are closely intertwined and feed into each other, with Neo’s becoming the One in the course of the plot being directly tied to his learning to believe in himself and his higher calling on a character level.
When we first meet Neo, he is a passive and reactive character that doesn’t have much of a clear plot-driving motive or goal. Instead, Neo initially ends up mostly doing what others tell him to do (The Agents, Morpheus, etc.) after getting pulled into situations beyond his control. His lack of agency within the narrative is reflective of his lack of awareness about the fact that he lives in a simulation where anything is possible.
Sure, he seems to recognize that something is off about the world but he is still obli-vious to its true nature. Fittingly, during the first half of the picture, Neo is often confused and expresses utter disbelief whenever seemingly impossible and ‘insane’ things happen to him.* He doesn’t understand why government agents are after him, a ‘nobody,’ or how Morpheus is able to instruct him over the phone about where exactly he needs to go. He isn’t able to make it to a scaffold that would allow him to elude the Agents because he doesn’t believe that he can make it - he’s simply too scared to fall.
*This in turn translates to the viewers, who are also perplexed by the increasingly bizarre and unexplained turns of the story.
He initially shrugs off the mysterious insectoid device that crawls inside him during his interrogation as a dream - because how could anything such as that be real?
Tellingly, even after being unplugged and shown the full truth about his reality by Morpheus, Neo yells defiantly that he does not believe it. And though he does subsequently accept the fact that his world is a lie and that he was born inside a simulation, he still initially remains in doubt about the prophecy of the One, unconvinced that he is what Morpheus believes him to be.
The Questions of The One
Now, before going any further, I want to highlight the fact that the film never really addresses the question of how or why Morpheus is absolutely certain that Neo is The One at the beginning of the film. In other words, when the film opens, Neo has been already identified by Morpheus as a potential candidate for being The One, but an explanation for why he specifically was being sought out never comes up. Neo, in fact, never really raises the question, never asks Morpheus: “Why Me?”
The early scenes, especially the one between Trinity and Neo in the night club, indicate that Neo came up on the radar of the Nebuchadnezzar crew due to his being a hacker that frequents internet chat rooms and possibly questions the nature of his reality. This is presumably why Neo already knows the term ‘The Matrix’ and wants to know what it is at the outset. By inference, other potential ‘redpills’ are located in a similar manner by those who are already unplugged.*
*‘Redpill’ is the in-universe term used from the second film onwards to refer to people freed from the system. I shall refer to them as such from this point forward.
Nonetheless, there are a lot of questions left unanswered in regard to how and why Neo was identified as a potential One, such as: “What is the criteria used by Morpheus to determine a potential One? How is a potential One distinguished from other ‘redpills’ or people questioning their reality and so having the potential to be unplugged?* Can anyone become ‘The One’ or is it supposed to be a specific individual? If it’s the latter, then what makes Neo so special?”
Some of these questions were addressed in a cut subplot, wherein Neo discovers that he had 5 predecessors aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, other potential Ones who died fighting Agents. Morpheus, it was revealed, didn’t really have any criteria. He was under the erroneous impression that he could just pick someone – and that person would turn out to be The One. When it comes to Neo, Morpheus has only faith and conviction that he is The One, not actual tangible evidence. This played into the idea that Neo really wasn’t fundamentally different from any other redpill.
Freeing Neo’s Mind
In any case, Morpheus in the final film fervently believes Neo is the One and begins training him so as to unlock his powers, thereby proving what he believes to be true.* In the course of showing us how Neo learns martial arts via data uploads, tests his skills in a sparring program with Morpheus, and tries to jump between buildings, the film establishes an explicit causal link between belief and superpowers while steadily advancing Neo’s emotional journey.
*We might also say that Morpheus does this so as to turn Neo into a more effective crew member. Notably, after revealing the truth, he never really gives him a choice of whether or not to work for him. In effect, he’s shanghaied Neo into service.
Consider what happens during the dojo fight. Morpheus means to get Neo to ‘free his mind,’ something only he can really do himself. But what exactly does this mean? Wasn’t Neo’s mind freed when he was unplugged?
The answer, though never explicitly stated, is simple: Neo’s mind is still shackled, still limited by his own internalized beliefs and perceptions, which had been formed by his time inside the Matrix. He lived his entire life under the impression that he existed in the real world and so was programmed to believe his reality ascribed to the laws of physics, as well as to logic and rationality. As he never recognized that anything irrational was possible, he couldn’t do anything that defied those laws.
Everything Morpheus says during the various training sequences indicates that he’s trying to get Neo to change his way of thinking, to let go of his preconceived notions of how the world should operate, to believe that he can perform unreal actions.
He begins by introducing Neo to the fact that inside the Matrix-like training world they are in the rules don’t necessarily apply. As he puts it:
“It has the same basic rules, rules like gravity. What you must learn that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system.
Some of them can be bent, others can be broken.”
When the fight begins, we witness both Neo and Morpheus display superhuman strength and perform gravity-defying jumps. Morpheus dominates Neo physically during their first bout. Their subsequent dialogue again underlines the fact that the rules of reality don’t really apply.
“M: How did I beat you?
N: You’re too fast.
M: Do you believe my being stronger or faster has anything to with my muscles in this place? Do you think that’s air you’re breathing now?”
What Morpheus is saying here is that within the Matrix his actual real-life levels of strength and speed are irrelevant. Because the Matrix is not real. He then highlights the fact that Neo isn’t even breathing air. Because it is also not real.
Morpheus appears to be stronger and faster than Neo in the Matrix because he is more aware of the fact that he is inside a simulation. Because he recognizes, or rather believes to a greater extent than Neo that he can overcome its rules. Because he is less tied down psychologically by the idea that impossible things are impossible. Or, to put it another way, because his mind has fewer self-imposed limits.
This, of course, plays into Neo’s character arc.
Having been only recently unplugged, he is still skeptical, still adjusting to the idea that the world he knew to be real was really fake. He is still largely programmed to believe he is only as strong and fast as he is in real life. He thus doesn’t believe strongly enough that he can break the laws of reality to best Morpheus.
As they begin round two, the film has Mouse highlight the fact that Neo seems to be moving a lot faster than normal. Yet Neo still isn’t able to overcome Morpheus. After pulling back a punch, Morpheus again pushes Neo to believe in himself. He tells him:
“What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are. Know you are... stop trying to hit me and HIT me! ”
Now, look at what happens as the fight progresses: having been told to know that he’s faster, Neo literally becomes faster, to the extent that he is basically moving at blurry super-speed, akin to what we would later see from Agent Brown. How?
By beginning to believe that he is faster. By changing how he thinks. By letting go of his pre-existing doubt and rationality.
Doing this breaks his self-imposed real life-based limits within the Matrix. The more Neo believes, the more he can bend reality and so perform impossible feats. Or to put it another way, the more he believes, the more powerful he becomes.
All this is supported by what we see in the ‘jump program’ sequence that follows. Morpheus’ dialogue here, right before he leaps what looks like 50 feet between the rooftops of two skyscrapers (in manner evoking classic Superman before he could fly) encapsulates the idea that one must believe that it is possible to break the laws of reality in order to actually break them. He states:
“You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.”
One might say that his huge leap is literally a leap of faith.
Neo psyches himself up but is unable to make the jump. Because he ultimately doesn’t believe strongly enough that he can. He isn’t able to free his mind from the logical notion that if he jumps such a distance (in real life), he’s supposed to fall.
And so he does fall.
If you think that my reading here is inaccurate, consider the fact that the reason why Neo falls was explicitly stated in the final shooting script. This little conversation was almost certainly shot but cut from the final film.
Redpills
Now, I want to consider what Neo’s training scenes tell us about the other redpill members of Morpheus’ crew. It is evident from the context that all of them – Apoc, Switch, Mouse, Cypher, and Trinity – similarly underwent such training, learning to fight in all styles of martial arts and freeing their minds to the point where they can perform various superhuman feats within the Matrix.
All of them, in other words, are able to defy the laws of the system and manipulate its simulated reality to some extent. Admittedly, the only other crewmember we ever explicitly witness displaying abilities is Trinity, as seen in the film’s opening chase and later the assault on the government building, but it is reasonable to assume that her superhuman strength, speed, durability, and agility are fairly standard.*
Notably, however, none them ever demonstrate what can be classified as non–physical powers. But why? Why do all the redpills we meet seem limited to Captain America-level abilities? Why aren’t any of them capable of something more outlandish or fantastic, such as manipulating fire, transmuting matter or teleporting?
*It is sad that, despite getting some action stuff, neither Apoc, Switch, nor Cypher ever show us their kung-fu or super-jumping skills.
Is this the extent to which the rules of reality can be bent or broken? The level at which the reality-altering potential typically plateaus? The released film never really offers any explicit answers to these questions.
Nonetheless, there is just information for audiences to infer an explanation. To understand, we have to look at the scene, where Neo meets the ‘Potentials’ – little children seemingly capable of magic – when he first comes to visit the Oracle.
There is No Spoon: Potentials
There are A LOT of things to talk about when it comes to the deliberately ambiguous scene with the ‘Potentials,’ which is one of my favorite scenes in the movie, but in this article, I want to focus on what the sequence means for the film’s superpower system, and especially how it frames the God-like abilities of The One.
First, take note of the fact that when Neo enters the room, the Priestess refers to the many children he meets inside as the “Other Potentials.” It is never explained what the term ‘potential’ actually means but in this instance, Neo is referred to as such.*
*One might assume that perhaps the kids are other Potential Ones but that doesn’t quite make sense given the context of the scene. The Oracle can immediately discern whether or not you are The One, so why would she have potential Ones living with her?
Now, what do the children have in common with Neo? Superpowers.
Theirs are more advanced, of course. Neo first sees two girls who are capable of levitating blocks in the air, presumably through a form of telekinesis. Later on, the Oracle will have referred to having one of the kids ‘fix’ the broken vase, suggesting that one of the children can manipulate matter or possibly reverse the flow of time.
And, of course, there is the monk-like Boy (Roan Witt), who seems capable of bending spoons with his mind and reading Neo’s thoughts. What he tells Neo after handing him the spoon is perhaps the closest the film gets to spelling out why human minds are able to manipulate the simulated reality of The Matrix.
“Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth…. There is no spoon…
Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”
Spoon Boy’s words here echo those of Morpheus. He beckons Neo to recognize that the spoon isn’t real, that it does not exist. Rather, it is an extension of one’s own mind. That is why it’s pliable. You can control it because it is an extension of you. In effect, he wants Neo to recognize that he too can bend the simulated ‘reality’ of the Matrix because it is on some level a part of himself, a product of his mind.
Neo seems to indeed take his advice, concentrates, and for a brief moment the Spoon bends as Neo does, as though the two are one. This establishes that Neo can achieve what seem like magic feats when he puts his mind to it.
By accepting there is no spoon, that there is really no limit to what is possible in the system, he is able to warp reality to a degree that we have not seen from any of Morpheus’ crew members, demonstrating the same ‘potential’ as the other children.
Side NoteIt is worth mentioning that the scene originally had a lot more context and was far less ambiguous in the 1996 draft of the screenplay. By the time the story gets there, it was made very clear that the Potentials were all human children with the ‘potential’ to manipulate reality inside the Matrix and so were meant to soon be unplugged from the system. It is established earlier in the script that most redpills are unplugged as children, for as people grow older, their capacity to manipulate reality diminishes due to them becoming more bound by rationality and so more closely tied down by the Matrix. It is repeatedly underlined that Neo was actually too old to be unplugged.
In the final film, a reference to these ideas remains in dialogue uttered by Morpheus when he first talks to Neo after revealing the truth about the Matrix:
“I feel I owe you an apology. We have a rule. We never free a mind once it’s reached a certain age. It’s dangerous. The mind has trouble letting go. I’ve seen it before and I’m sorry. I did what I did because I had to.”
Belief and Superpowers
Everything that is established within the Neo training sequences and later the Oracle and Potential scenes points to a consistent superpower system in The Matrix universe.
‘Superpowers’ manifest when the simulated reality of the Matrix is manipulated, meaning when the rules of the system are bent or broken. Theoretically, any human mind plugged into the system should be able to manifest them, but most do not because their minds are not free, meaning they do not recognize that their reality is simulated and that breaking the rules of the simulation is actually possible. In other words, it is a case of mind over (simulated) matter: you have to believe that you can manipulate reality in order to become able to manipulate reality.
In that sense, superpowers are the products of self-belief, meaning that one can bend the rules of the system only to the extent that one believes or recognizes that it is possible to do so. So, the more strongly a given mind believes in the self, the more it can let go of the logical rules and limits that define the real world. And the more it can let go, the greater are the feats it can perform in The Matrix.
From this, we can draw at least two conclusions.
First, the reason why most redpills, even Morpheus, are not able to develop beyond enhanced physical abilities is that they ultimately do not believe strongly enough that they can. Second, the power of The One to remake the Matrix in any way he wishes should adhere to the same principles as those of the other Redpills.
That is, The One is not an exception to the rules of the world’s Superpower system. He is not fundamentally different from a typical redpill. Rather, The One takes the potential of a redpill for manipulating reality to its logical extreme. He is someone whose mind is so unshackled, whose self-belief and recognition of the Matrix’s artificiality is so strong, that he has no self-imposed limits whatsoever.
Taking Charge: Neo becomes a believer
Up until the point he meets the Oracle, Neo doesn’t think that he is The One and the Oracle confirms his doubts, in addition to telling him he’ll have to choose between saving himself or saving Morpheus. Ironically, it’s not until Neo sees the Oracle’s prophecy start coming true that he legitimately starts to believe in himself.
By making the choice to go back inside the Matrix to save Morpheus’ life, Neo finally takes charge of the narrative at the end of its second act and transitions from being a passive participant in the plot into a man of action. Despite Tank’s and Trinity’s protests, he acts like a man possessed, a man who has no doubt that he will succeed in rescuing Morpheus, despite the overwhelmingly low odds of success.
Everything he does from this point forward both pays off his training earlier in the movie, yet also progresses his transformation from skeptic to believer.
The big action sequence in the lobby of the government building illustrates how far he has come already. In contrast to the uncertain, timid man that was constantly questioning himself and couldn’t work up the nerve to climb into the scaffold, Neo now moves with grace and confidence, displaying no doubt or fear as he takes on multiple security guards and then a team of heavily armed soldiers.
His internal transformation seems to fuel his superhuman powers, so much that he manages to actually dodge Agent Jones’ bullets at point blank range, moving as fast as the Agents themselves do, a feat that Trinity claims to have never witnessed.
No wonder then as to why he instinctively, without a second thought or a moment of hesitation, jumps out of a helicopter to catch Morpheus after he’s shot in the leg, or then chooses to stand his ground and face off against Smith in the subway.*
*One could think of this as an indirect payoff to Neo failing to make his jump earlier in the movie. Now, it seems he really has freed his mind. (Enough at least to leap without thinking.) On a side note, isn’t it weird that Morpheus really doesn’t seem at all debilitated by his gunshot wound after Neo catches him? I mean, he doesn’t seem at all bothered by that in the real world and I’m not even sure he limps at all before he exits.
Because the character layer of the storytelling is executed so well, you are fully immersed in Neo’s internal story and nothing can detract from it (not even the fact that the Agents’ body-jumping powers cause all sorts of holes in the plot layer).
And that carries all the way to the film’s amazing ending, which sees the culmination of both the central narrative and character arcs.
Being the One is Like Being in Love
Not taking into account any of the sequels, why exactly does Neo become The One at the end of The Matrix? Why is it that after Smith shoots him in the chest at point blank range does he have a Christ-like resurrection?
I’m pretty sure that, upon first seeing this scene, many people thought that this was always Neo’s destiny – he had to die to become The One, because in a way he always was the One. That is, he was always special and chosen. His returning to life, in that regard, is a miracle, the kind that tends to happen in fairy-tales and mythopoeic narratives valorized by Joseph Campbell.*
*I always thought it fascinating how much Neo’s revival seemed to mirror that of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
But the film’s superpower system points to another, more appropriate interpretation of events. Recall what the Oracle says earlier in the film:
“Being The One is just like being in love. No one can tell you’re in love, you just know it. Through and through, balls to bones.”
Now consider what Trinity does here: she confesses to Neo that she learned from The Oracle that she’d fall in love with a dead man and that the person she loved would be The One. For Trinity, these two things are causally interconnected: if she loves someone, then that person must be The One.
By this point in the movie, she knows that she loves Neo. Therefore, Neo must be The One, which in turn means that he cannot die. For Trinity, these are all indisputable facts, things that she believes in with all her heart.
And once Neo hears her, the moment he knows that she loves him, he then comes to realize/know/believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that he IS The One.
And so, he BECOMES The One.
Trinity’s confession has in effect filled him with so much self-belief that he was able to overcome any lingering internal doubts and break all his mind’s self-imposed limits. Including that of death. Remember, the mind makes death (of the physical body) real. But it ultimately too is a construct, and thus something that can be overcome. Trinity’s confession is thus the final push Neo needs to fully free his mind.
Now, he can see the Matrix for what it really is – lines upon lines of streaming code. He can stop of the flow of time to freeze the Agents’ bullets in midair. He seems to know every move Agent Smith is going to make before he makes it, as if he is omniscient. He can phase inside Smith to fully eradicate his code, effectively killing a being that seemed to be immortal due to his regenerative body-jumping ability.
Everything that we see here corroborates Morpheus’ claim that The One could change anything he wanted to and remake the Matrix as he saw fit. This means that, via his self-belief, Neo has transformed into a nigh-omnipotent GOD in control of the System itself, which now literally seems to function as an extension of his body. When he breathes, the Matrix ripples with him as though mimicking his movements, much as the spoon did earlier. (It is not The Matrix that breathes, it is himself.)
A World Where Anything Is Possible
Taking into account the film’s established superpower system, it is evident that Neo becomes The One as he learns to fully believe himself to be The One, having under-gone a complete emotional journey from a skeptic to a believer. And this journey, in conjunction with what we see of the other Redpills and the Potentials, suggests that any human plugged into the Matrix has the potential to become The One.
Neo is simply the first person in a long time to have fulfilled it. From this perspective, rather than being a ‘chosen’ One, Neo is a self-made One.
Long before the sequels would muddle it with increasingly indecipherable bullshit about anomalies, equations, and source codes then, the concept of the One was rather simple: by fully embracing the truth that the Matrix was a simulation, you could free your mind from all self-imposed limits and bend the fabric of reality to your will. By believing strongly enough in the self, you could become a God in the machine.
So, in the end, for all its confusing, mindbending plot twists and turns, The Matrix is a film with a simple yet brilliant emotional arc at its core.
It is a film about the power of faith, about how believing in the self and overcoming internal doubts can allow us to change the world. No wonder then, as to why its final scene has Neo declaring to the Agents that he will show everyone what the Agents don’t want them to see and going public with his powers by flying into the sky right in front of a crowd of un-awakened, oblivious denizens of the system.
This is a Neo fully in control, fully aware, with absolute confidence in himself. He has no doubts, no qualms about what he’s doing. He wants to spread awareness, make everyone recognize that the Matrix is a false reality. He wants to make everyone believe in themselves, thereby remaking the Matrix into a place where everyone can demonstrate superhuman abilities. In other words, he wants to free humanity by freeing people’s minds from their own limits by making them aware en masse about the true nature of reality, an act that will eventually lead to the Matrix’s destruction.
The film thus ends with the promise of a fundamental shift in the status quo, the transformation of the Matrix into a world that is truly without rules or controls, where the Agents have no power and the people are free to do anything, for they know that anything is possible. Sadly, it is a promise the sequels wouldn’t keep…
But what do you think?
Does the superpower system as outlined here make sense? Is Neo’s flight indeed meant to wake up the world? Did the Wachowskis put a lot of thought into it or did they just wing it?
What was your impression of the scene with the Potentials when you first saw it? Were you ever hoping to learn more about them?
Interested in learning more about The Matrix? Then check this out:
Great essay!
I always thought that Matrix superpowers and Star Wars superpowers are very similar. Even "stop trying to hit me and HIT me" sounds a little like "Do or do not, there is no try". And so, Neo's training in the Matrix is very similar to Luke's training on Dagoba, and children's training by the Oracle might be very similar to the Jedi kids' training in the Jedi Temple.
Also, to me romance between Trinity and Neo was always the most underdeveloped part of the movie. It seemed that she fell in love with him only because she thought that he was the One, and not because of other, more natural causes.
Best film ever. This is a massive, impressive, and poignant essay detailing all that.