One of the greatest science fiction movies in history has finally released a sequel. Did you make up for the previous class?

Recently, the news that The Matrix 4 will start shooting with the original crew next year has made many fans rave and sigh.

Twenty years have passed in an instant.

In these 20 years, keanu reeves and Kerry-Ann Moss are both in their fifties, and even Wozhuoski, the director group of Ghost Agents, has changed from brothers to brothers and sisters in these 20 years, successfully completing the synchronous transformation of body and mind-however, the long process of this transformation is closely related to the process of The Matrix series from one to four.

However, as one of the most famous sci-fi movie series, The Matrix seems to be unable to escape the curse of all the movies in this series. Most people will think that the second and third films are far less revolutionary than the first one, so they put a question mark on the upcoming fourth film.

Perhaps 1999 "The Matrix" is just unparalleled in the comprehensive indicators of movie viewing or film success. However, The Matrix 2: Reloading and the Matrix Revolution, which came out later, seem to be regarded as the production practice of Hollywood and have been criticized a lot.

Recently, I reread the trilogy and come to a conclusion that the last two "The Matrix" are undoubtedly underestimated.

If The Matrix is regarded as a literature, philosophy and even spiritual text that is being written continuously, the first three episodes have developed a profound evolutionary chain as a whole, just like the motif of Alien series has gradually evolved, and the breakthrough of The Matrix series is more exploratory. Zizek once said: "Matrix is the Rorschach ink test for philosophers. 」

The complexity of this film lies in that it simultaneously projects the aesthetics of various media and completely different philosophical concepts into a self-awakening super-cognitive body.

William Irwin, an American philosopher, even convened a group of popular philosophers of various schools in contemporary times, and even wrote a collection of philosophical comments for the film "The Matrix and Philosophy-Welcome to the Real Desert".

In this collection, we can see that these philosophers tried their best to extract metaphysics, epistemology, moralism, sociology, politics, cybernetics and very obvious religions from movies, from Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Sartre, or from Christianity, Gnosticism, Hinduism to Buddha, and even from martial arts/action and science fiction.

This paper briefly puts forward several plot points running through the trilogy to convey the subtle, in-depth and continuous evolution of the Matrix trilogy as a continuous whole.

Binary Trap: Is Zion Real? Is the matrix evil?

The most important episode in the first episode is that Neo "chased the rabbit" and found the "entrance to the rabbit hole", that is, he met Morpheus, and Morpheus opened his palm, a blue pill and a red pill-an alternative choice appeared-and this structure is the meta-structure that led to how the next three or four episodes unfolded or turned to meaning.

Morpheus said, "If you swallow the blue pill, it will stop here, and you will wake up in bed and live as before." The description of the blue pill here is quite memorable to me, and we will talk about it later.

Then, "swallow the red pill and you will be in wonderland." I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole is. " Neo thought about it and picked up the red pill. When the movie turned to this moment, all the audience became Neo. Even the actual situation is that when the flashing green opening image of Warner Bros. in the first frame of the movie touches our retina, the choice has actually been made. Who wouldn't choose the red pill in front of this screen/mirror?

After that, the plot entered the stage of "initial awakening". Neo has gone through the reality of unplugging the mother body, entering the underground city of Zion, training, falling in love, and fighting against the systematic people, followed by the war of resistance triggered by consciousness. The first episode presents a binary opposition with tension-that is, the mother system is evil, hallucinating/the people connected with it are at a loss and controlled.

At the end of the first episode, Neo was shot and killed while fighting Smith in The Matrix, but he was awakened by a trinity kiss from another dimension. Neo was "resurrected", or he became a part of the old concept through reincarnation, which confirmed what the prophet had said to him before: "Being a savior is like being in love, and no one can tell you whether you are in love or not.

After Neo was born again, he really began to put down the realistic concept of the matrix world, so we saw on the screen that the system man in his eyes appeared in the form of green code information energy, and he changed his physical speed, feeling and control.

Finally, the picture is a falling number. Neo's voice-over said, "I'm calling not to tell you that this is the end, but to tell you that this is just the beginning. I want people to see what worries you, a world without you ... "

This passage is not only the foreshadowing of a sequel, but also an invitation to the audience and those of us sitting under the screen. This invitation is extremely challenging, because the next choice will still be "choice", not the choice of blue pills or red pills, which is more complicated than this. One of the choices-two doors in the main control room-shows at the beginning and end of the second episode that this choice is made between entering the source to rebuild Zion and save all mankind and entering the trinity of maternal salvation.

In this episode, there are scattered lines that seem to be antagonistic or restrictive. First, Morpheus's speech in Zion strengthened the duality of good and evil in the first episode, and he was determined and confident to declare war on Matrix System/Machine City. At this time, neo wants to invest more in his love relationship with Sany. The second is the independence and evolution of the system man Smith, who even hacked into Zion, but as he himself said, Smith's amazing development is actually a synchronous mirror image of Neo's amazing transformation.

This is also expressed by the prophet to neo in the third episode; The third is the emergence of architects, which is the main plot of the second episode-it dominates the rendering of the first two points to deconstruct the binary problem of the first episode-in fact, everything here, whether it is Zion or the matrix world, is a virtual deduction one after another, and they are interdependent and nested dreams.

According to architects with higher dreams, in the first five versions, Neo abandoned the Trinity to rebuild Zion/maintain the stability of the system, but this time Neo chose to save the Trinity, which will lead to unprecedented chaos in the system. At the end of the second episode, Neo stopped the mechanical octopus sentry with his mind without entering the mother.

In the third episode, Neo is now in the middle, with nowhere to go, and it is a station between the Matrix and Zion. At this time, the gap and joint of duality need to be experienced more obviously. After Morpheus and Trinity saved him, Neo visited the Prophet again. At this time, the prophet's face changed. It was played by another actress, and she was older. From this point, we can see that the system has undergone unprecedented changes.

Neo asked why he could stop the sentry and his relationship with his mother. The prophet replied that his power can influence different dimensions, even that source, and made it clear that he has always chosen to guide Neo, that is, to relax the balance created by architects-a balance based on strong binary opposition, either or the other, life and death, destruction and reconstruction. The prophet wants to create new possibilities and changes, and what she and Neo say in the plot is a way of "ending"

But in fact, as the prophet said, no matter how you choose, the war will end in some way, so next, Neo chose how to end the war.

Blinded neo, no longer looks at this chaotic world with the eyes of appearances. He went to Machine City and negotiated a cooperation. He chose to plug it back, enter the matrix, and cooperate with the system to find himself, that is, Smith and Neo's own "product of opposition, opposition and maintaining the balance of equations."

In the third episode, Neo's attitude is submission and acceptance. He even finally accepted being invaded by Smith after endless fighting and became Smith. The matrix system also solved the crisis of total collapse from the inside and stopped the war against Zion. This is a truce, not a victory.

At this point, the third episode has completely wrapped the core of the first episode, showing a new geological outlook, the birth of a super-binary scheme containing duality-making itself the law of opposition and internalizing opposition.

According to Morpheus in the first episode, there is no turning back if you choose Red Pill. The irreversibility in this sentence is actually on the level of insight, not on the level of choice. In the third episode, when it comes to Neo, the blue pill and the red pill are just the hands of the moon, and the important thing is to "wake up", not the red pill or the blue pill.

At this point, Neo can still choose to enjoy a steak, but it doesn't need to distort the edge selection problem like Sefer. There is a Buddhist-like point of view involved here, and I don't want to expand it too much, but I will mention it below.

Spoons and robes, images and metaphors of religious philosophy

After keanu reeves boarded the Indian ship in bertolucci, Neo more or less established some images of Siddhartha, Buddha and "Awakening Man". The issue of awakening really bears the brunt in the Matrix series. Lana wachowski, director and screenwriter, said in an interview, "One of the themes deliberately used in The Matrix is' Looking for the incarnation of Buddha'. 」

However, judging from the comprehensive performance of costume art, characters or plot setting, The Matrix is definitely a multi-religious work. For example, the most obvious thing is that in the second and third episodes, Neo's black robe and coat have a strong Christian priest style, which conforms to the projection and expectation of Morpheus and others as a messiah. The plot/complex of resurrection also has a strong Christian cultural tradition. When Smith was destroyed for the first time, his shining body filled with white light appeared as a special effect. Ken Wilbur thinks those lights are typical stars.

Moreover, the Trinity is the name of the Trinity. Neo was truly reborn through his loyal connection with the Trinity, and the traitor Saif was often regarded as the homonym of Lucifer.

There are some less noticeable details, such as the philosopher Gregory? Basham pointed out that the hovercraft of Zion residents was named Nebuchadnezzar, and lana wachowski also talked with him about the origin of Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel. He was a king of Babylon. He had a dream. He didn't remember it, but he spent his whole life looking for the answer, just as Neo had been looking for the truth about his mother.

In addition, there are many Christian hymns used in the film soundtrack, including the name of Neo, which not only means "new", but also is a set for the architect-the image of a white old man's God-Father version, which predicted her (black, female, shaman, rebellious) at the end of the third episode. In the second episode, she said that she was a program. With a certain color of Jin Jie, the prophet does not mean fatalism. He chose an awakening opportunity beyond knowing and not knowing. Asked if he kept his word, he replied, "Who do you think I am? Humans? 」

In this way, the rich rendering of Christianity has realized the sense of savior and creativity, but in some important plots, the film completely uses Buddhist ideas. For example, when neo visited the prophet for the first time. The bald boy sat on the ground like a monk, showing Neo the phenomenon of spoon bending. This is the most important scene in the matrix series concept positioning diagram-what caused the bending?

In the lens, when the spoon in the boy's hand bends, the spoon reflects Neo's face as a mirror image, but the spoon immediately returns to normal. Neo picked up the spoon and studied it. The boy said, "Don't pull with brute force, it won't move." I'm afraid you have to try your best to know the truth. 」

Neo asked, "What truth? 」

The boy replied, "and there is no spoon." 」

Neo wondered, "Is there a spoon? 」

The boy went on to say, "Then you will find that it is not the spoon that bends, but yourself." 」

Then there was a wonderful close-up, and Neo picked up the spoon and stared at it. The back of the spoon reflects the face of the monk boy. The spoon began to bend and the camera began to fight back. Neo's upside-down face was reflected in front of the spoon. Behind the spoon is a smiling boy, jumping and cutting. "The prophet wants to see you." Others interrupted and the camera was given to Neo. The spoon is still straight.

This passage of the boy is a typical Buddhist or Hindu perspective, and the reflection emphasized in the lens is also seen in other media of the film. The concepts of sunglasses, glass, metal surface, mirror and illusion are related, and they also represent emptiness. The mirror-like mind only reflects what appears in front of it and will not be attached to its own imagination. Therefore, thinking about the mirror can mean not to be sent too much expectation by the reflected mirror. However, we are often seen as a mirror.

If the spoon doesn't exist as the little boy said, then the "I" reflected by the spoon-Neo doesn't exist either. Without the hint of the little boy, we may still mistakenly use the mirror to strengthen the illusion of self-truth, so that the lack of the mirror will make us lose courage and even be extremely painful.

However, before we throw away the mirror, we can understand that the nature of the mirror itself can help us reverse the attitude of the mirror. Mirrors appear in many pictures of the film, and the most shocking thing is the source control room of the second episode. The shadow wall, which originally reflected the mirror image of Nio in different parallel universes, was later used to play the images of all mankind and people closely related to Nio. To know how to use a mirror, people should not only be aware of the dreamland and emptiness, but also realize that their actions will have an impact on everything else, that is, to understand the origin theory in Buddhism.

Speaking of this, many people will fall into some nihilism or stay away from it because of fear when they hear dreamland or nothingness. For example, does it make any difference whether Neo makes a choice or not in this case? Since you say that The Matrix and Zion are dreams, how can you "wake up"?

Remember the description of Red and Blue Pills? Neo's performance in the second half of the third episode provides a possibility: you can actually "wake up" in your bed, but you don't have to "live as before". This bed can be any bed. The bed in The Matrix can also be a bed in the underground city of Zion, a bed in Shanghai or a bed in Buenos Aires. The formation of this insight is closely related to the concept of "different" or "the same color"

There are many ways to prove this insight, but as the Latin proverb hanging in the prophet's home shows, "know yourself" is a wonderful way. Here, "knowing yourself" is not a self-illusion created by a fixed concept, and "knowing" is not the intellectual knowledge of the mind, but the awakening experience of really holding a spoon in the mirror. None of the steps in the matrix trilogy are wrong. We are choosing Neo's choice, experiencing Neo's experience and understanding.

As for how the fourth film will be staged, I don't think it's entirely Wozhuoski's business, but also our business in The Matrix. Remember the spoon and look forward to the new matrix revolution.