Animatrix' "The Second Renaissance" pt. 2 question

[Admiral Valdemar]

While I find that explanation far more palatable than the story shown in the sequels which delves into a fairly shaky expansion of the original plot, I have some issues. Mainly, the killing of AIs at that level seems analogous to murder. We have to remember that the falling out between machines and humans, if it happened, was down to us treating them as somewhat lesser than humans, even though they had our intelligence and could feel too. So while sociopaths not killing human entities within the Matrix seems acceptable, if they're destroying artificial humans, it seems to reach that grey area that Blade Runner raised questions about.

I did always get the impression that the Matrix world was somehow smaller and more fictional than our real world. Bar small pieces of evidence of anywhere outside the unknown city in the films (mentions of Morpheus being spotted at Heathrow etc.), it does look, especially from some of Reloaded's scenes, that there's just the one major metropolis with a badlands or empty country surrounding it. That would be a further extension of the isolated world theory, only instead of it being a country we're stuck in with foreign nations being totally unknown bar what the media tells us, it's everything outside the city limits instead.

[Darth Ruinus]

Well, if much of the "humans" are actually dumb AIs, I dont see anything bad about it. They could just be simulations programmed to act like humans on the outside, not having any real thoughts or emotions on the inside.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That could be it, but if they are able to convincingly act like humans it starts getting harder to pull the argument that they are not sentient/sapient and simply following basic commands. I'd expect people to notice things like that, as anyone can tell a NPC in a game from one controlled by a human.

[Beowulf]

If they AIs that actually control the fake humans aren't destroyed, but are rather reembodied into another fake human, it's not killing them. The whole point of them is to emulate a human, so giving them more experience wouldn't be a bad thing.

When an agent preempts the use of a body, it wouldn't kill the AI using it, but rather would just suspend it. If the agent leaves it, then the AI gets to start using it again. Otherwise, the AI gets a new virtual body.

[Darth Ruinus]

That could be it, but if they are able to convincingly act like humans it starts getting harder to pull the argument that they are not sentient/sapient and simply following basic commands. I'd expect people to notice things like that, as anyone can tell a NPC in a game from one controlled by a human.

They could be programmed to only act human when real life humans are around.

As you say, if the Matrix is only the one city, why not have the AIs just be dumb AIs when they are alone, and when actual humans are around, put up a "smart" act.

Hell, the news reports of people doign stupid shit is just that, dumb AIs that were not thinking, and did stupid shit.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That's quite a delicious explanation for human stupidity. Up there with the glitches causing things like vampires and ghosts to seem real and seed supernatural rumours.

[Batman]

Why have the AIs in the Matrix AT ALL when they're not around real humans?
As for the AIs having to act like real humans around real humans, how many of them are regularly going to be in close enough contact with the real humans for us to be able to tell the difference?
Let's face it, 99% of the people around you in a big city scenario you just pass on the street. A real human walking down the street ignoring you is pretty much indistinguishable from a dumb bot impersonating one.
Even WHILE around humans, there's pretty little need to fire up a true AI to begin with most of the time.
Valen if that one metropolis is all there is to the Matrix (which the Animatrix contradicts but what with that not necessarily being canon and the whole complication of most of the franchise being virtual in-universe to begin with) it's possible that all of the people the real humans get to closely interact with are OTHER real humans.

[Ford Prefect]

You know, I'm reminded about how before I actually saw The Matrix, I thought the main characters were actually trying to get into the titular virtual reality world, not out. Fromt he glimpses I saw on trailers and news programs, it seemed as though theo utside was extremely shitty, and thus they wanted to have access to the awesome inside. Which, rather interestingly, jives with the idea that the Matrix is in fact an escape from a horrible reality.

Except it isn't like that. Oh well.

[Cykeisme]

Dammit, Mike should've written the sequels.


You could still have the whole storyola about how the rebels, even after they discover the truth, are fighting to allow the freedom of choice for people to live within the simulation or to leave it.

And yet I can see that the crowds of raging emo goth types be disappointed, because it would spoil the whole anti-establishment rage against the machines sort of feel.
You know, if the "system" of "control" put in place by "The Man" was deliberately put in place by (past generations of) humans.

[Cykeisme]

Ghetto edit:
I'm referring to the idea that we fucked up the world ourselves through pollution and/or war.
Subsequently, the machines we built, in order to continue to follow their programming to serve and preserve the continued comfort of the human race, began to clone humans and keep them in a comfortable simulation.

[Mayabird]

When they had that scene in the second movie where Neo zapped the flying thingies in the "real world" I was convinced it meant that they were still in the Matrix. It made me think of that speech Agent Smith gave in the first movie about how humans in the Matrix couldn't accept Utopia. Well, not everybody will be able to believe Heaven, but we'll definitely believe that we're in Hell, and so the outside world was just another level of the Matrix for people who would otherwise destabilize the inside Matrix. People there certainly gave no thought at all that their sucktastic existence might all be a trick.

[Darth Ruinus]

When they had that scene in the second movie where Neo zapped the flying thingies in the "real world" I was convinced it meant that they were still in the Matrix. It made me think of that speech Agent Smith gave in the first movie about how humans in the Matrix couldn't accept Utopia. Well, not everybody will be able to believe Heaven, but we'll definitely believe that we're in Hell, and so the outside world was just another level of the Matrix for people who would otherwise destabilize the inside Matrix. People there certainly gave no thought at all that their sucktastic existence might all be a trick.

I believe that was the third movie, and I never got why that happened.

Would be a cool twist if the real world is just another Matrix.

Oh those sneaky sneaky robos.

[Darth Wong]

When they had that scene in the second movie where Neo zapped the flying thingies in the "real world" I was convinced it meant that they were still in the Matrix. It made me think of that speech Agent Smith gave in the first movie about how humans in the Matrix couldn't accept Utopia. Well, not everybody will be able to believe Heaven, but we'll definitely believe that we're in Hell, and so the outside world was just another level of the Matrix for people who would otherwise destabilize the inside Matrix. People there certainly gave no thought at all that their sucktastic existence might all be a trick.

I believe that was the third movie, and I never got why that happened.

Would be a cool twist if the real world is just another Matrix.

Oh those sneaky sneaky robos.

That was the biggest letdown of the third movie. After the shitty second movie and the shitty opening to the third movie, a viewer might still have some glimmer of hope that there was some deeper revelation behind this bullshit. But as it turned out, the Neo vs Agent Smith Ultimate Wire-Fighting Championship was as deep as it got.

[Darth Ruinus]

When they had that scene in the second movie where Neo zapped the flying thingies in the "real world" I was convinced it meant that they were still in the Matrix. It made me think of that speech Agent Smith gave in the first movie about how humans in the Matrix couldn't accept Utopia. Well, not everybody will be able to believe Heaven, but we'll definitely believe that we're in Hell, and so the outside world was just another level of the Matrix for people who would otherwise destabilize the inside Matrix. People there certainly gave no thought at all that their sucktastic existence might all be a trick.

I believe that was the third movie, and I never got why that happened.

Would be a cool twist if the real world is just another Matrix.

Oh those sneaky sneaky robos.

That was the biggest letdown of the third movie. After the shitty second movie and the shitty opening to the third movie, a viewer might still have some glimmer of hope that there was some deeper revelation behind this bullshit. But as it turned out, the Neo vs Agent Smith Ultimate Wire-Fighting Championship was as deep as it got.

Oh but your wrong here.

One man dressed in a trench coat fighting another man in a style similar to the G-man, fighting in the rain as thousands of nearly identical people look on?

It cant get any more deep than that.

BTW, didnt the second one have fucking vampires?

[Oskuro]

I don't mind the comic book script, or even the supposed deeper meaning... as long as you just take it for what it is, a movie meant to be fun to watch. People trying to see too much into it really should get out of their own personal Matrixes and into the real world (and that DOES include the Wachowski brothers, and their lame-assed sequels... why fix something that ain't broken?)


Also, I'd like to add a couple links about the issue:

A premise you could milk

And, the following essay I found interesting because it explored the trilogy from a different perspective. I'm not "pushing" it as an absolute truth, but as a somewhat interesting read:

Cyberpunkreview: Matrix Trilogy from a Man-Machine Interface Perspective


Sorry if any of thsoe have already been brought up.

[Shadowtraveler]

BTW, didnt the second one have fucking vampires?

Vampires? Heck no. That would just be fucking ridiculous.

It had ghosts.

[Ford Prefect]

Vampires? Heck no. That would just be fucking ridiculous.

No, some of the French guy's mooks were supposed to be vampires. While others were supposed to be werewolves, and others still were some weirdass thing that could walk on ceilings.

[Joviwan]

"Enter The Matrix" has a few levels where basically, you just ran around and held down your 'attack button' to watch your character lifelessly stab and smash these werewolves and vampires with splitered table legs and shit. Considering the nature of the movies and the Wachowski's writing the games, it's probably pretty darn closed to canon.

So yeah, there's a bunch of vampires and werewolves.

Also, i think I would have preferred the ending from "Path of Neo" than the one we got in the movies. Oh well.

[Molyneux]

BTW, didnt the second one have fucking vampires?

Vampires? Heck no. That would just be fucking ridiculous.

It had ghosts.

Hey, the ghosts were fucking awesome. The closest thing to a saving grace in that movie.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Still, it needed the "Matrix within a Matrix" continuation. That was the topic of discussion for months before the second sequel came out, which soon shut everyone up. The whole thing would've been far more enjoyable if it had gone that route and there was more than meets the eye, rather than "ZOMG!1 We made ZIon now tiem to kill it! kthnx".

[Darth Wong]

Still, it needed the "Matrix within a Matrix" continuation. That was the topic of discussion for months before the second sequel came out, which soon shut everyone up. The whole thing would've been far more enjoyable if it had gone that route and there was more than meets the eye, rather than "ZOMG!1 We made ZIon now tiem to kill it! kthnx".

Well, I had my suspicions as soon as I heard that the place was called Zion, and the sequels only confirmed it.

"Hey guys, you're Jews!"

"What?"

"Yup, that's right. You're Jews, which means we're the Catholic Church!"

"Come again?"

"And that means we're going to suppress the shit out of you, but we'll keep you alive because there's a prophecy!"

"Hmmm, I was wondering why we called ourselves Zion."

"The Chosen One will come!"

"He will?"

"And he will lead you, and save us!"

"You're kidding, right? Who would write such hackneyed bullshit?"

[Darth Wong]

And, the following essay I found interesting because it explored the trilogy from a different perspective. I'm not "pushing" it as an absolute truth, but as a somewhat interesting read:

Cyberpunkreview: Matrix Trilogy from a Man-Machine Interface Perspective

The guy actually thinks the "man as electrical generator" idea makes sense "from a sci-fi perspective?" Is he a raving imbecile, or just a hopeless fanboy? His big stunning revelation is that the people in the Matrix are cyborgs because of their implants. Wow, what a genius.

[Terralthra]

I don't mind the comic book script, or even the supposed deeper meaning... as long as you just take it for what it is, a movie meant to be fun to watch. People trying to see too much into it really should get out of their own personal Matrixes and into the real world (and that DOES include the Wachowski brothers, and their lame-assed sequels... why fix something that ain't broken?)

The problem is, it's perfectly possible to make a movie that's fun to watch without insulting the viewers' intelligences.

[Cykeisme]

The idea that the machines are simply carrying out a directive to serve and protect the human race makes everything make sense, and would be a bigger mindfuck than the current sequel garbage.

There was all that pseudo-philosophical Oracle bullshit about the nature of free will and the illusion of choice, right from the first movie. I think that would have be even more relevant if the sequels revealed humanity originally chose to stick itself into the Matrix after a cataclysm on Earth.

[lance]

I have recently decided that "Bio-electrical energy" really means "soul power". It makes some sense that way.