WATCH ALONG: Matrix Reloaded

Jayden Smith is obviously in her own little cult of some kind.👹I know many will disagree, but Will Smith out of all masculine men seems completely brainwashed 🤯And I feel bad for his nepo created son.

First of all, yes, I do think rewatching the original Matrix, probably in its entirety, would've been a good idea. In the first movie, agents are described as one of the biggest threats to humans when plugging into The Matrix: until Neo, not a single human had ever engaged in one-on-one hand-to-hand combat with an agent and survived. The reason agents are so dangerous is because their programming allows them to take over any human plugged into The Matrix, which basically brings them back to life. At one point you said "Smith" and you just may have meant to say "agent" but Smith is merely one of many different agents. Aside from the opening scene where Smith gives Neo his agent earpiece and you see there are two of him, the fight sequence with hundreds of him, his reappearance at the end of the movie, and one other scene, all of the other agents in the movie are *not* Agent Smith. The Oracle tells Neo in their conversation that once a program is rendered obsolete, it can either return to the computer city mainframe to be deleted or hide out in The Matrix. The bodyguards that must be killed using silver bullets are an example of these programs that are obsolete but continue to live on inside the program as muscle for The Merovingian. (The fact that they never age and must be killed using silver bullets is also a reinforcement of her statement that any story about demons, UFOs, or witchcraft is probably to do with programs doing something they aren't supposed to be doing). Smith *was* defeated by Neo in the original Matrix. Neo takes over his body like an agent would take over a human, and Smith is destroyed. For him to return here is a surprise, and the gift of his earpiece signals he is no longer an agent, but working toward his own goals. Last but not least about Smith: the one other scene he appears in is one where two members of a crew are returning to the real world through the telephone. One goes back no problem, but the second man, Bane, is transformed into a Smith and then that Smith returns to the real world. The crazy man, in case it's not clear, cutting his hand and being blamed for the sabotage of the 5 ships at the end, that is one of the many Smith programs inhabiting a human body. The reverse seems to also happen at the end when Neo, in the real world, shorts out the squid sentinels with only his mind, which should not be possible. Most importantly, what Neo learns from the Architect at the end, you seemed to half understand it, but the part that I wasn't sure was clear is this: essentially, yes, Neo is like Jesus to the humans in the real world. As such, one could compare the prophecy that Morpheus is talking about throughout the film to the Bible. The big reveal from The Architect is that the prophecy is an intentional system of control designed by the Oracle. To summarize the Architect's explanation of the past: the first iteration of The Matrix was a utopia, something mentioned in the original movie as well. Humans rejected it, causing it to fail. The Architect redesigned it to be more like human history but they still rejected it. The solution, developed by the Oracle, was this: every single human ever plugged into The Matrix is given a subconscious choice to decide whether or not The Matrix is real. Most of them, having been given a choice to accept the world as it is or reject it, choose to accept it. It is only when that choice is made for them that they cannot escape the suspicion that the world is a simulation. The Architect explains that while this technically solves the problem (humans largely accept The Matrix as reality and the system doesn't crash), it also creates another one: what do you do with all the people who reject the simulation? Well, you give them a savior type that promises to end the war against machines. It gives them a cause to fight for, a war to distract them. The downside is that the movement of freed humans will always grow, like a cycle, and then the machines will need to prune Zion. To make this process easier, they created the prophecy, which will eventually lead the current One to the Architect, where the Architect informs them that it's either restart Zion with only 23 people and start the whole cycle again, or refuse and crash the Matrix. Since Neo's predecessors were not in love with a specific person, they chose the human race. Neo is in love with Trinity, so he chose her instead. Ultimately, these are philosophical movies about faith and choice. We may not live in a simulation, but we are surrounded by systems that are designed to control us in all sorts of ways. The action is cool, but what you've got to get into is the thoughts it's asking about the world we live in. As mentioned, for all I know you've already finished the fourth movie, Resurrections -- made almost 20 years after the "conclusion" of Revolutions -- but I do think you've got parts of what's going on and maybe thinking about Neo as a Jesus-like figure might help you understand a bit more of what's going on.

There is a video game called Enter The Matrix that takes place during the events of this movie and the Matrix Revolutions which is very good. There was also an Matrix Online, that did not last long, but never got to play that myself.