dIn the matrix, futuristic documentary of the year 3000, machines are said to have taken over the world, resulting in a dystopian society where man has everything he could ever want, and the machines eek out an existence in a world where sunlight doesn’t seem to ever touch the ground. one could say that the fall of man was brought about by machines evolving too far, that by giving them an intelligence, then trying to hinder them, we brought about our own demise.
Pretty much this
I don’t think that’s it. The Matrix has clear ties to ‘The Wizard of Oz’, but in a universe where the wizard successfully kills off dorothy and her friends by sending them against a witch of his own design. In truth, there’s another layer beyond the matrix; one where a single desk worker manages a human farm by pretending to be a machine. ‘Zion’ is simply a safety net meant to catch any stray human consciences that escape their prison.
Woooo!
There lies certain flaws in the makeup of the prison that the matrix represents; despite being built by machines, the system seems remarkably geared towards humans, with enemy’s that can be fought, and enemies that quite simply can’t. Agent smith isn’t deleted by the architect in the end of the movie, he’s simply stored for later use; The architect specifically says, ‘We’ve done this seven times before’ in Matrix reloaded, and the third movie is named ‘The Matrix Revolutions’, or, reworded, The Matrix Cycles.
Somehow it feels like the coat should be black…
Now back to the Architect. Throughout the series, he acts as the final boss/entity; when the matrix, and the security layer around it fail, he enters and sets everything straight. Rather than being a sort of Deus ex Machina, however, the Architect works as sort of an IT guy, appearing where there’s a problem, then systematically working backwards towards the root of a problem. Unlike the other ‘AI’ or ‘Programs’, he acts remarkably human, taking time to weigh options, and creating representations of himself that are wholly unnecessary for an AI, yet to a human might feel important.
Just like some other things…
The moral of the matrix isn’t that the mind of Man will always triumph over machine; it’s a story of the uses of technology as an oppressing proxy, turning man against machine instead of against (perhaps rightly) each other. Man without machine can never hope to defeat the man who has.