‘The Matrix Resurrections’: Trailer Sparks Fan Theory Suggesting the Original ‘The Matrix’ Exists as Fiction Within the Film

Of all the mind-boggling, bullet-stopping, outrageously over-the-top fiction movies that have graced our screens, The Matrix undeniably comes top of the list. Since its first debut back in 1996, it has inspired countless remakes and spins, not to mention all the parodies and blue pill-red pill references in music videos.

And now, following the release of the much-anticipated trailer for its reboot, The Matrix Resurrections, you can tell that it won’t be any different this time around.

The short trailer is packed with fast-paced multiple action scenes, coupled with the usual hard-to-grasp storyline and striking visuals. As you may expect, it has sparked a ton of speculations from fans everywhere, each one coming up with their own convoluted interpretation of what is going on.

Let’s break it down.

About the new trailer

Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice as the trailer begins is that the film takes on a whole new aesthetic. Rather than the pale green film used to depict the matrix in the previous film, you are welcomed to a noticeably warmer version of the simulated world. This can be attributed to the ending of the last film, The Matrix Revolutions, whereby a newer improved version of the matrix overwrote the previous version that Agent Smith destroyed.

We then see a notably older Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, in a therapy session with a sinister-looking therapist, played by Neil Harris. Neo seems distraught, as if unaware of his real identity. 

At 1:04 and 1:56 part of the trailer, we see scenes shot from The Matrix 1999 film, portrayed as projections in dreams, implying that Neo is having flashbacks of his previous experiences. Later on, we see that someone is feeding him a steady supply of blue pills as if to repress those memories.

Some fans think this is a sign the original Matrix could be treated as fiction and used as a tool to trick Neo into thinking his memories aren’t real, but memories of him seeing the movie.

Next up, we see that Trinity, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, is alive as well, despite also dying in the previous film. Neo also runs into another woman with a bunny tattoo, and then a young Morpheus-looking fellow, who hands him a red pill.

What follows is a series of action sequences, accompanied by the usual slow-motion scenes and fights with agents of the matrix. You’ll notice that most of these sequences are inspired by previous films.

Fans theory from the trailer

From that alone, there are a few things that you can pick up from the trailer. For starters, within the therapy session in the opening scene, there is a black cat, which was previously used to signify a glitch in the matrix. The color blue is also quite prevalent in the scene.

Not only does Neil Patrick Harris’s character wear blue framed glasses, but there are also various blue objects distributed around the office. You can associate this with the blue pills he’s likely prescribing Neo to keep him locked in the matrix. In contrast, we later spot Priyanka Chopra’s character wearing red-colored framed glasses, reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

It’s associated with the red pill that would symbolically wake Neo from the matrix. Fans speculate that she’s an adult version of Sati, the young girl the oracle was training in The Matrix Revolutions. Chances are, Chopra picked up the role and is now playing the new Oracle.

Also, as Neo walks in the rain, we see code, depicting how Neo sees the matrix world both as a façade and simulation, as well as in its raw underlying code form. In another scene we see, Neo’s body being seemingly reconstructed by machines. His eyes are burnt out, meaning it is a continuation from the previous film, where he was blinded before making a truce with the machine.

From the clip, it looks like his body is being restored by the machines. While it seemed like he died in the previous film, it now looks like he was plugged back into The Matrix‘s seventh reiteration. Fans have theorized that the machines are doing this to keep Neo from getting out of the Matrix’s simulation and freeing other humans.

Where is Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus?

The trailer confirms the return of most of its main cast including Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss. However, you can’t go without noticing the absence of Laurence Fishburne As Morpheus. Instead, we see one Yahya Abdul-Mateen, who confirmed taking up the role as a younger version of Morpheus.

In the trailer, Yahya’s character hands Neo two pills, to which he chooses the red one. Much like the original film, this triggers a series of events including a sparring scene in a dojo, very much reminiscent of the one they had with Morpheus in the previous films.

As we saw, a lot of the film’s shots appear to be recreated from previous films. Fans theorize that the new matrix might be Neo’s prison. Later in the trailer, we see a scene from the 1999 film projected on a screen.

It could be that such past events are showcased to the public publicly as movies or video games or to Neo to justify why he’s having his dreams. It might be to confuse him, making him believe his dreams are merely fantasies based on the media he consumes.

In the scene where they touch hands with Trinity, there is a spark between them followed by a tinge of recognition. Then we see Neo awakening from his pod, much like his rebirth scene in The Matrix 1. Only this time, his pod is next to another similarly isolated pod, which shows that they might have been reinserted together in this version of The Matrix.

In a nutshell, The Matrix Resurrections highly suggests that the new matrix is made specifically to keep Neo imprisoned, or unaware of his previous interactions with the machines. The title, The Matrix Resurrections, leads us to believe that Neo will once again come back after dying in The Matrix Revolutions.

Sure enough, we see him once again picking up the red pill and escaping from the matrix, through the proverbial rabbit hole (much like Alice in Wonderland widely referenced in the trailer).

Overall, it is apparent that Lana Wachowski did not come to play this time around. And fans are all the more curious to see what plot twists there’ll be, come its release on December 22, 2021.

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