The Matrix movies are so packed with meaning that every line seems to carry some deeper
significance.
In that spirit, we're looking at some of the most memorable lines from the Matrix films
that have more way meaning than anyone realized.
Neo's first encounter with his primary adversary, Agent Smith, arrives early in the first Matrix,
before Neo's been clued into everything that's really going on.
It's part of an interrogation, in which Smith freaks Neo out with a variety of threats,
including this seemingly simple statement:
"You're going to help us, Mr. Anderson, whether you want to or not."
What the franchise hasn't yet established is that, even though it sounds like Smith
is just playing bad cop, he's actually quite correct, at least in theory.
We learn later in The Matrix Reloaded that Neo's status as the One is actually a piece
of programming.
It was implanted in him by the Architect as part of a plan that will allow the Matrix
to reboot and preserve the appearance of choice among the human race.
At this point in the story, Neo is unknowingly a tool of the Machines and the Matrix, and
he won't figure that out until part two.
After Neo meets Morpheus and agrees to take the red pill, he awakens in his pod among
the human farm and is taken aboard Morpheus' ship.
As he learns the truth while on board the Nebuchadnezzar, he asks why his eyes hurt.
The answer Morpheus provides is simple and straightforward:
"You've never used them before."
That explanation is technically true, because Neo's biological form has been locked up inside
that gel-filled pod for decades.
But his question also offers some interesting foreshadowing for the future of his eyes.
The topic comes up again in The Matrix Reloaded when the Merovingian, aware that Neo can now
see the Matrix's code, asks:
"You can see it, Neo, yes?"
Then, in The Matrix Revolutions, Agent Smith, while in Bane's body, blinds Neo with an electrical
cable, causing intense pain but also giving him a new level of sight.
His eyes are useless, but he can still see the energies around him as pure light, which
he uses to make his final journey to the Machine City.
"Oh no.
Your eyes."
"I'll be okay."
After Neo is woken up and pulled from his pod, he begins his training under Morpheus
and his crew.
This includes sessions with Tank, who plugs Neo into his system and uploads a variety
of training programs into his brain, including skills in various martial arts.
Neo is immediately thrilled by this process, and he endures hours of uploading at Tank's
hands.
When Morpheus comes to check on him, Tank says of Neo:
"Ten hours straight.
He's a machine."
Tank is, of course, simply referring to Neo's endurance as he undergoes the strain of the
uploading process hour after hour.
But he's also actually weirdly close to the truth of Neo's actual identity.
Though we don't learn this until The Matrix Reloaded, Neo is actually a tool of the Machines,
while not being a Machine himself.
He was designed to be an asset to them, to help in the rebooting of the Matrix and the
further use of humanity as a docile power source.
In a sense, the Machines built Neo and coded him for their own purposes, so in that sense,
Tank is fully correct.
Shortly after Neo learns that the Matrix is nothing but a simulation, he spends some time
contemplating his old life, which he thought was real but was actually all in his head.
As he struggles with coming to terms with that truth, he asks Trinity what it means
that all of his memories never happened.
And that's when she replies:
"That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are."
Trinity's response is based on her belief in the cause of freedom for humanity.
She wants to condition Neo to the new reality that he's living in, which will allow him
to exercise his own free will in ways he never could before.
What's interesting, though, is that while she turns out to be correct, the Matrix does
spend a good deal of time in the course of the sequels trying to tell Neo who he is.
A large portion of Reloaded is devoted to characters like the Architect attempting to
explain to Neo that he was programmed to reboot the Matrix and that he is not unique.
There have been other Ones before, and there will be other Ones after, if all goes according
to plan.
The Matrix can tell you who you are, but Neo must overcome that fact to achieve peace.
Early in The Matrix, Neo first meets the Oracle, who tells him matter-of-factly that he isn't
the One.
He eventually proves this statement wrong by saving Morpheus and defeating the Agents
at the end of the film.
When he tries to protest that he can't be the One because the Oracle said so, Morpheus
explains that she told him exactly what he needed to hear.
"Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize, just as I did, that there’s a difference
between knowing the path and walking the path."
Neo spends much of the trilogy struggling with this fact, especially since he's living
in a world with prophecies and an old woman who seems to know his future.
He asks a lot of questions in an effort to determine exactly what he must do.
Some people, including the Architect, attempt to lay his path out for him very clearly in
an effort to manipulate him.
He tells him that if he goes through the door that allows him to save Trinity, he will effectively
end the human race, but Neo goes anyway.
He walks the path instead of attempting to know it, and finds a third way that allows
him to save both Trinity and the future of Zion.
"If I were you, I would hope that we don't meet again."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite stuff are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.