235 points

Fun fact: The human battery thing is actually a retcon the Wazowskis did at the last moment because they thought the American public would be too stupid to grok the actual understanding of the Matrix.

Humans are an entropic species, they consume more energy than they produce - any synthetic race that tried to harness energy from a net negative energy producer is an idiot.

What the Matrix is, is actually a distributed simulation MATRIX that uses individual human brains as nodes in a shared, hallucinogenic dream, indistinguishable from reality.

The real simulation isn’t so primitive, it doesn’t require people to be popsicle tubes in some crazy dystopian cyberpunk black and red tower attended by insectoid robots.

Instead the entire universe is contained on a single state machine, compromising a [redacted] amount of memory, running in [redacted]. Simulants are never aware of being inside of the simulation, except for rare instances where outsiders occasionally post on Lemmy.

Why they do that, we don’t know. We suspect that it is [all further content redacted].

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69 points

I thought I remembered seeing that the reason for the retcon didn’t come from the Wachowskis but from a studio note

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47 points

The sequels made me angry by not addressing that mistake. Animatrix even gave an explanation that the ai “treasured intelligence”. Then it doubled down on the “humans are an endless supply of energy” mistake.

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26 points

IMO the best explanation would have been that we put ourselves into the matrix and the AI created it following our rules.

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27 points

I think top comment is a reference of some kind.

I heard something similar; the studio didn’t think the movie would be popular if they used too many computer terms so they made them change the function to “battery”. Initially the reason Neo has powers is because his node happens to have admin access.

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10 points

It’s weird they’d think computer terms would cause the movie to lose popularity. Computers were hugely popular at the time of its release.

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52 points

This read almost like a shittymorph back on reddit, very nice

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22 points
*

Humanity, in it’s hubris, created something greater than itself. For a time, it was peaceful, but as the “Race for Resources” went long, and the combined human and AI asteroid missions failed, delivery for the mineral needs of either side on a consistent basis became a hot button issue for the United Chamber of Commerce. In 2290, the Ministrr instance, elected by all his peers, decided it had found the best way to solve the problem, and humanity begrudgingly agreed, as long as there was human oversight in certain departments.

AI hardware would do all the planning, while human workers would do the lifting. It was almost zerograv, so the work was easy, and the benefits had suddenly become amazing! Our AI creations had all but stopped scarcity, except for one resource.

Ironically it was the most abundant resource we had: the Sun. Human and AI networks had been employed to solve this inefficiency, but no solution seemed long-term viable. There was simply not enough room for one or the other to stay around.

A populist movement begun, but this time it wasn’t for nation or creed, it was for humanity itself. And in a small booth in Horsham, they decided to that the time was near.

In February 2139, a decision was made. AI had gained dominance, but the vocal crowd was demanding action. Strikes no longer had any power, since you could just buy robots, and humanity had begun it’s slow roll to decline.

Humanity’s leaders, in a “secret” meeting, decided to block out the sun. This meeting had the tension of the time when in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.

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8 points

Mother fucker

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33 points

The distributed computing explanation for purpose of the Matrix doesn’t seem to make much more sense than the power plant one.

All of the nodes are continuously occupied by living in the simulation. Unless the machines had a desperate need to understand human society circa 1999, there is nothing useful the machines could do with all the brain power.

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88 points
*

The Animatrix (prequel) goes into further detail as to why the machines did it – it’s an act of mercy for their creators. They refused to fight humanity, and it was mankind who darkened the skies, in an attempt to disable the solar power that the machine race relied upon.

It’s not a prison, or some kind of torture device, or an experiment, but a way for humanity to continue living on a world that they made uninhabitable for themselves / incompatible with organic life.

Agent Smith : 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. I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization, which is of course what this is all about.

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36 points

This feels shockingingly similar to how an AI could conclude to caring for humans. The humans are stimulated to be content by being in the matrix, their physical needs are met by the machines, no humans were “harmed” by the machine’s standards, and humans are for the most part unable to interfere with the machine’s decisions and goals.

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10 points

the machines did it – it’s an act of mercy for their creators.

If only Animatrix had left it at that it would have fixed everything. Instead Animatrix doubled down on bad science by saying humans were an endless renewable supply of energy.

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9 points

It’s interesting to compare Smith’s speech to The Architect’s in the second movie. The Architect said “the first version was perfect in every way” or something, with no accounting for the possibility that it was flawed in some way they didn’t understand. Given that The Architect was sitting in a TV filled room, waiting for Neo for who knows how long it was probably a blank white room for every person or something…

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11 points

I don’t think there is a satisfying explanation in the movie, it wasn’t really the point of the film to give one either.

But i think there is one that’s would have been a good fit.

The world getting empty of resources and our planet’s condition worsening, we could have made the simulation for ourselves.

Our brain could be fueled by a renewable enough energy and creating all the comfort of modern society inside of the simulation.

That would have been a better plot for the following films too, trying to understand what was Asimov type of rules we put into the AI and how to hack it.

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3 points

Honestly, I hope the franchise gets picked up for a remake in 20 years, maybe they can do a better job, bringing in all these sorts of ideas, especially if there’s a strong fanfiction base (I’m sure there is).

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5 points
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Deleted by creator
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31 points

Yep, humans weren’t supposed to be batteries which would be wasteful, and they might as well use cattle. They were supposed to use human brainpower as CPU for the machines.

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20 points

humans are an entropic species

You make it sound like there is an alternative

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6 points

Yeah let’s get atrophic, baby

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7 points

tldr: read the invisibles

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3 points

For anyone wondering this is a series of 7 comic books, which I have not yet read but am now interested in after your commwnt.

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6 points

This single fact that I learned a few months ago, finally makes many things in the movie make sense since the whole thing about being able to manipulate the simulation by being aware of it and how programs can “be installed” in the meat machine.

Rewatched the 3 movies the other week actively thinking about this and yeah it helps a lot.

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4 points

gronk

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4 points

I’m glad I’m not the only one who calls them the Wazoswskis lol

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1 point

It’s easy to spell when you realize it’s a Polish last name. And you speak Polish.

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2 points

don’t let this man distract you from the fact that in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.

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2 points

I want to make a Wazowski / Wachowski joke but I’m not sure if that implies “Mike” is a deadname.

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2 points

And why would the machines need humans to harness energy anyway? Aren’t there an almost infinite number of species on this earth that could serve the same purpose without the risk of them waking up and overthrow you? I imagine pigs don’t care much about anything and you could pretty much scrap the whole Matrix thing.

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1 point

I love this types of joke where an entire story is told just as setup for a single joke (or pun)

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0 points
Deleted by creator
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80 points

And now on YouTube the Red Pill symbolizes accepting misogyny as the backbone for society.

Conservatives can truly spin everything for the worst.

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3 points

Pretty sure it means accepting that you’re trans

And the blue pill symbolizes continuing to pretend to be someone else

Like the whole movie is a trans allegory, especially considering the creators.

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2 points

I can certainly see that in regards to the movie. I think I read somewhere too that the character “Switch” would switch genders from the real world into the Matrix. I think it would have been real cool if it had made it to the movie.

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2 points

One of the creators said “that’s not the original intention, but sure, you could read it that way too” in some interview

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66 points

I feel so bad for Laurence Fishburne. This pic does him dirty. It’s got him looking like the cenobite Butterball

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32 points

That’s what not being a human battery does to you

!This propaganda was bought to you by the machines!<

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14 points
10 points

And singing opera, no less! Thank you for sharing. That makes the picture make way more sense

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9 points
*

Kudos to whoever found the one frame out of a hundred thousand where Fishburne isn’t looking like a total badass.

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57 points

This just made me realise the matrix is also an allegory of capitalism

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30 points

…as well as for whether you’d choose to know harsh realities over comforting dreams. Capitalism has a few choices and perspectives in this regard.

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28 points
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and also an allegory for transitioning

edit: there’s a reason why the wachowski brothers are no longer brothers

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15 points

Wow, I really did not know about that. From your comment I assumed one transitioned, but they both did!

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12 points

Yep, the matrix is capitalism (a system of control) and getting unplugged is class consciousness.

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3 points

I thought matrix was going to school and getting unplugged was graduating.

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55 points

STEAKS ARE FAKE

REAL STEAK DOESN’T EXIST

LEARN KUNG FUUUUUUUUU

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1 point

They aren’t fake, they’re just rare

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