For those of you who haven't seen this movie, it's sort of like The Truman Show in that there's a world within a world. Machines haven taken over, and everyone is in "the matrix," a simulated world that one wouldn't even know they were in unless "unplugged" by someone who is a "free" human. Neo has to chose whether to stay in the matrix, or discover what his life really means and how he can change it.
One main motif we've learned about this year is the idea of man vs. machine, and whether technologies like facebook are taking over our lives. This movie puts it in the literal sense where machines are actually in control of the humans. The movie also shows how dependent we as humans are to our machines; in our world, we couldn't live the same without cars, computers, cell phones, and technologies like these. In their world in the movie, they are literally unable to live without the machines supporting them. It almost brings our lives to that of machines, switching the roles we should be playing.
The third movie specifically has a scene where it is literally Neo, a human, fighting on the side of the machines against Agent Smith, representing the evil side. I thought this might show how we in the future need to learn to keep our technologies in our lives in ways that aren't so detrimental as we may think. Man and machine might really be able to live side by side and machines and new technologies might be for the better.
I found a video called, "the matrix on windows xp." It's interesting, because it shows how technology is really dependent on us as well. If we never invented it, gone past windows xp, then the matrix could never truly be run. It's a co-dependence, and I think that's what the matrix itself is also touching upon: humanity depends on the matrix to live, and the matrix/machines rely on humanity to exist. So really it's not technology that's holding us captive, but rather our own minds--we created technology, so only we can free ourselves from it as well. If everyone in the matrix didn't let the machines hold them captive anymore, if their minds let go of the fact that they need the machines to survive, then the matrix wouldn't exist.
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I think its postmodernist elements are the most interesting. The postmodernist says that what we see is what we get, that beneath it all is nothing, and anything we perceive beneath it is simulacra. However, the Matrix is a movie about world where everything on the surface is a simulation and in order to understand reality one must look beneath the surface. Essentially, the Matrix is a world where what you see is not even close to what you get. So, which is right? Are we deluding ourselves by looking for underlying meaning? Or are we blinding ourselves by only looking at the upper crust and refusing to view the interior?
ReplyDeleteThis post makes me think of another movie that ties perfectly together with postmodernism. In the Spielberg movie "Minority Report", crimes are determined on a computer before they even happen, the criminals of course arrested before the crime committed. Both movies depict a future where our lives are completely ruled by computers, and the future doesn't seem to be so far away. Through Facebook and Twitter many of our intentions are written before they are acted on. What if these interfaces could manipulate how we use them and change exactly what we want from the world? What if they already do?
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