Yahoo News The Matrix explained: Who is The One?
The Matrix spoilers follow.
Twenty-four years after it was released, sci-fi movie The Matrix is recognised for its groundbreaking special effects, Keanu Reeves’ ultra-cool central performance and, of course, its brain-melting, reality-altering plot and ending.
Directed by the Wachowskis – who made their feature debut with worth-seeking-out, low- budget crime thriller Bound three years before – The Matrix was originally meant to star Will Smith, but he turned down the lead and made comedy flop Wild Wild West instead (he has a sense of humour about it, however, and you can watch his take on that decision on YouTube).
Other stars who were also considered include Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage and Sandra Bullock before Keanu Reeves was (thankfully) finally cast as Thomas ‘Neo’ Anderson in the 1999 film.
As The Matrix begins, computer programmer/hacker Neo is intrigued by online references to something called the ‘Matrix’ and is then contacted by Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), who explains that a man named Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) has the answers to all of Neo’s questions (and some of ours, too).
Following an arrest by the sinister Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), Neo is rescued and brought to Morpheus, who asks him to choose between two coloured pills. If Neo takes the blue pill, he will forget everything and go back to his regular life. But if he swallows the red pill, he will learn the truth about the Matrix.
Of course, Neo opts for the red one, and finds his reality turned upside down as he wakes naked in a goo-filled pod that is hooked up to thousands more across a barren wasteland, and is then pulled aboard Morpheus’s creaky ship, the Nebuchadnezzar.
So what is going on? It’s mind-blowing stuff that changes everything for both Neo and the movie itself. Read on to find out what The Matrix is all about, and Neo’s part in it – but stop reading (or take that forget-everything blue pill) right now if you don’t want to know the movie’s twists as there are major spoilers ahead.
The Matrix ending explained: What is the Matrix, and who is The One?
Aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, Morpheus explains everything to Neo – in the early 21stcentury, a war broke out between humanity and machines that had gained intelligence. Humans blocked the machines’ access to solar energy, but the machines retaliated by enslaving mankind and harvesting humans’ bio-electrical power (which they take from humans held unconscious in those creepy pods), effectively using them as living batteries.
Humans don’t try to escape their captivity because they are hooked into the Matrix – a shared simulated reality that is modelled on how the world was in 1999 – so they have no idea they are in a state of suspended animation. However, over the years a few have gained consciousness and been freed by other rebel humans who hide out in the underground city of Zion.
Morpheus goes on to explain that if you die in the Matrix, your physical body dies too, and that the Agents – including that nasty and super-determined Agent Smith – are sentient programs designed to eliminate threats to the system.
Then, just when poor Neo’s brain looks ready to explode, Morpheus reveals that he believes Neo to be ‘The One’ – the person who has been prophesied to save mankind. When Morpheus takes Neo to meet the Oracle, a program disguised as a wise old woman, she disagrees, saying she doesn’t think Neo is the one, and tells him he will at some point have to choose between his own life and that of Morpheus.
Unfortunately, while they are there, agents show up and ambush them. The group realises they have been betrayed by one of their own, Cypher, who has cut a deal to reveal their location in return for being plugged back into the Matrix, as he yearns to return to a life of ignorant bliss.
Morpheus is captured, and Cypher exits the Matrix program and starts killing the other Nebuchadnezzar crew, who are still unconscious and plugged in.
Fellow crew member Tank wakes and manages to stop Cypher before he kills Neo or Trinity, and detaches them from the Matrix. Neo decides to plug back in so he can rescue Morpheus, who is being tortured for his access codes to Zion’s computer. Trinity goes with him.
By now, Neo’s abilities within the Matrix are jaw-droppingly impressive, but – while Morpheus and Trinity escape from the agents and the Matrix – Neo is shot by Smith and is near death.
As the Nebuchadnezzar comes under attack from Sentinel machines, Trinity reveals she loves Neo and that the Oracle told her she would fall in love with The One. She kisses the dying Neo.
While Morpheus had told him that no one survives in the real world if they die in the Matrix, Neo shows he rejects the rules of the simulation and comes back to life inside the Matrix with even more abilities. He defeats Smith by destroying his program’s code and the other agents flee. He disconnects from the Matrix just as the ship’s electromagnetic pulse defeats the Sentinel attack.
In surviving his ‘death’ in the Matrix, Neo has proven that the simulation is powerless, and the only thing keeping humans under control is their belief that they are powerless.
The final scene has Neo inside the Matrix, making a telephone call. He tells the machines that he’s eventually going to free every human whose mind is connected to the system, then he flies away.
So does this mean Neo is The One? Fans are still debating that. You can decide that he absolutely is, or instead subscribe to the theory that it is Neo’s belief that he is The One that guides his decisions – whether or not he actually is The One (or whether The One even exists) is irrelevant to his story.
The Matrix is available to buy or rent on Prime Video and Apple TV+, plus DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K Ultra HD.
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