The Matrix
"Fate, as it seems, is not without a sense of irony." This holds true to the contrast between scenes in The Matrix as well. The Matrix is the location of a space where a computer program generates the world as we perceive it. Here, we see a setting that we are all familiar with. It is a safer place that has clean and white lighting. The space is not confined, rather it feels open, like a normal, modern society in the late 1990s. This is not what you'd expect if you had heard about The Matrix before. You might imagine a much more technology driven living environment on the surface. In a way, this is true, but the technology lies beneath the surface. It truly exists in the "real world" with which we are unfamiliar with.
Set about two hundred years ahead of time, the real world is a messy and disorganized conglomerate of monitors, computers, tunnels, and mysterious rusty pipes. The Nebakanezer, drifting through the real world, is the location of the operators of the The Matrix. The surfaces are grimy and the lighting is low; an almost sickly green color. Outside of this non-traditional office space is a run down society. The skies are dark, the buildings are bleak, and the streets are trashy. This demonstrates a future that is doomed, which is what many people had believed would happen at the turn of the century.
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| Inside the Nebakanezer, where the Matrix operators dwell |
You would expect to be familiar with the real world, but it's not what holds true. This setting is very different from what is portrayed in The Matrix software. As it turns out in the movie, The Matrix is a place in which you are comfortable, it is a place of familiarity and resonance of your own life as it appears to be. Though, it is also a place of blindness and ignorance; a lack of truth. On the other hand, there is the real world. A place that The Matrix spawns from. It is a place of reality and simplicity, some may even say deviance. At the beginning of the movie, Neo was proposed with a choice between revealing the truth or to continue living life as he always had. He chose to take the red pill that Morpheus had offered him and to discover the truth of life as it really is. Once Neo becomes aware of the use of The Matrix, he wants to go back to living life how he used to; unaware of the operations that went on behind the scenes. I believe that Neo's denial of The Matrix is a theme that suggests that knowing what reality truly is, while entertaining to address, is something that can be too overwhelming and too unbelievable to accept and live with.
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Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You've never used them before.
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This demonstrates the irony between what reality is and what we perceive reality to be. You want to be comfortable in your life, learn about it and thrive. Though the more that Neo learned about what was truly going on, the more uncomfortable he became, and the irony between the truth and the determination to obtain that truth grows and grows.
Works Cited
"Matrix." Matrix. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014. <http://movieimage.tripod.com/matrix/>.
The Matrix. Prod. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. By Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999. DVD.
"Rooster Teeth · Inside the Nebuchadnezzar (This Is the Right Spelling)." Rooster Teeth. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014. <http://roosterteeth.com/members/images/image.php?id=1865545>.
