Brandon Young

Some days I have a lot of free time at work during long renders and exports. I spend my time doing various things to occupy my mind, either it be writing and editing scripts, edit my own personal projects, so on and so forth. One of the things I do is I read a lot of scripts that come my way in some form or another, and even watch the works of the talented individuals from our local community.

I find myself impressed by a small handful of filmmakers and writers who understand story structure, stretching beyond the page and into the final products. Sadly, there are countless others who fail to understand the importance of story. I hate to say it, let alone see it, but far too many times story takes a backseat when it should be the driving force of your film. Script’s should not be placed in the back seat at all, properly situated upon it’s child car seats or boosters. They should be the car, the engine. 

I can generally narrow things down to two scenarios; one being that the writer, who may or may not have a good idea, can’t properly script out his idea properly. The other being that if a script is actually quite good, the director selected to helm the project has no understanding of how to properly convey the story visually resulting in a project that falls flat.

Yet, no matter how many times I can tell certain writers to write another draft, I always find out that they move ahead with production anyway without a single re-write and I know that without a doubt the film will be a terrible mess.

Writing is like acting in many respects, most notably that good actors generally practice their talents with classes and workshops. Very few writers around here apply that same technique to themselves. A lot of times, writers are so desperate to get their material made that they jump at any chance to force it into production. Personally, I have over two dozen scripts in my cache right now that I know without a doubt they’re not ready to be seen. I’m always writing.

Why aren’t producers and/or director’s demanding re-writes of such scripts? Do they not grasp that they are storytellers? Can they not see the plot holes, the gaps of important information, the irrelevance of certain characters that play no part to the story?

As I’ve stated above, script and story should be the driving force of a film project. Yet I see time and time again a film that honestly should have never made it through pre-production and I, along with everyone else in the world, are bored to death.

A handful of recent films lately are difficult to sit through. A film where a couple argues in a doorway, a long, drawn out conversation about nothing in a bar, characters that appear on camera for any amount of length who slow down the progression of story. It goes on and on. Yet, there are others that do it remarkably well. At An October Evening, we were all treated with a remarkable comedy that hit all the right beats. Characters were perfectly written, timing was impeccable, the tidbits of information came at just the right moments to keep the audience guessing, and at times, catching them off guard.

For the most part, the films at An October Evening 2011 were perfectly done. Some went on for too long, others were lagging in appropriate story beats, but overall the films at this years event surpassed my expectations in more ways than one.

Of course, director’s are at fault with piss poor stories. Aside from a director asking (or not asking) for rewrites, many directors here are amazing at putting together amazing looking pictures. They use every tool available to them to establish worlds, create settings that are unbelievable in all the good ways, and they even have engrossing stories that compel, inspire, and motivate. The problem is the director’s themselves have no basic understanding on how to move a story along.

While impressive visually, their films fail structurally.

At the Demon Chaser event not to long ago, I saw far too many films in which the director and DP thought it would be a great idea to employ as much depth of field as possible because they think that’s how stories are told. Instead, it was completely and utterly distracting because they have no basic grasp on how to use such tools to aide them in their overall story. The same goes for DP’s who simply think that putting a camera on a tripod will be enough to propel the story forward; it doesn’t. The actor is in a very deep conversation, and engrossing one at that which was incredibly well written and flawlessly performed. But the camera doesn’t move. No dramatic tracking shots. Nothing special on the lighting. The scene results in a bore. Does the film need this? Not necessarily, but if the entire film is simple static shots during poignant revelations or captivating performances, the director needs to find ways to make the audience care.

I congratulate those filmmakers who impress me film after film. Those who I get excited to see what they’re working on next because their last directorial or writing efforts hit all the right notes. Or even the writers/directors who learn from their past mistakes. It encourages me to follow their growth. All of this, an effort to hopefully be transported to new places, experience new worlds, new customs, and new psychology.

There is a movement going around as of late, most recently being spearheaded by Rod Diamond, which is for Paid Actors. It’s a good cause, and it’s something I am in support of.

The bottom line for such a group, and the only reason why I am in support of it is the fact that many film crews labor under the impression that the acting talent for the film is “disposable” and end up working for free when various crew members end up getting pay, no matter how large or small. There is this belief that a person hired to handle “sound design” for a film does this for a living therefore he should be compensated for his time out on set. Same goes for a gaffer, or a DP, an AD, or a PA. This can go on and on. The problem is is that acting is something certain actors do for a living as well. So what sets them apart? What makes them different than the crew? Without sound, a film is less than perfect. Improper lighting can make or break a film. But the same goes for actors as well. This industry is entirely collaborative based, and everyone’s participation is crucial to making a film of quality standards. No one is less as important to another.

In my support and in dealing with this belief, some other issues are presenting themselves.

Most of those who are in the “producer” role making comments on the Facebook page talk about low budget movies. A problem that resides here is that some films being made around here are not low budget, but rather no budget. It’s hard to pay cast and crew if the film has absolutely no money to disperse to begin with. While I don’t think it is the intention of this group to say that there is a big difference between low budget and no budget, but it can come across that way. I’ve have watched many films done locally that vary in size of budgets, from 25k to 0 and it surprises me that many of the films with no budgets are actually better. I find more enjoyment with films made on shoestring budgets, filmed entirely on weekends to accommodate day jobs and weekday schedules of the films talent, and more importantly, watching the creative talent making a world that was built from scratch… something that cannot be often said around here. Yet, even with no budgets there is a way to pay cast and crew and that answer is simple; Good Material. A writer should write a screenplay that is worthy of production. A director should understand this material and know how to handle a film set and get the best out of your talent. If the project is universally applauded for originality and masterful screenwriting, the talent will follow the material with or without money (this of course going into the assumptions that such cast/crew will be paid on the backend which is only right).

Produce good material and see what happens. Have the right director who again, knows the material and how to handle a film set. Horror stories of film productions are coming to me in great numbers in which the cast and crew are being taken advantage of and thus unhappy due to a director’s inability to listen and to do their job.

In order to gain good material is another issue in and of itself. One of the big reasons why our community is filled with garbage is the fact that the talent on or behind camera are willing to do just about anything as a resume builder and to gain exposure. This is a double-edge sword as while it works to build their reels and presence, it also continues to breed poor material coming from the writers/directors. They are unwilling to change their tune or better their works because they continue to gain people willing to work with them.

Everyone should be paid equally IF the film has a budget. Therein lies a problem that was brought up on the Facebook page that caught my attention. In such a comment, it was stated that producers need to learn how to raise money for their films in order for actors and crew to get a paycheck for their hard work. I couldn’t agree more. But this goes further and it’s a problem with the producers themselves.

While it is good that producers can “raise” such money for a film production, they are failing miserably on “recouping” such costs. Less than 5% of budgeted films made locally actually make their money back. If we are trying to make Utah become “Little Hollywood”, these producers would never work again if they cannot find ways to pay back the money invested into their films. This creates a snowball effect of people who have invested into films before are no longer willing to do so as they aren’t seeing a return, making it increasingly difficult for other producers to secure the funds they need. Even bigger is the fact that films gaining budgets are not necessarily worth a dime. Add in the fact that budgets of films around here are inflating which by Hollywood standards it should be the opposite.

Can producers justify their budgets? Especially when acquisition prices are at an all-time low. Most filmmakers overshoot and come up with unrealistic budget levels that they can’t possibly recoup via traditional or self-distribution. Producers here seem to have pie in the sky notions which fail and end up walking away from bad investments and start working on their next projects to do the same things over again. There’s no faster way to lose investors than to lose their money- and sadly this is something Utah filmmakers are excelling at. If the film you are working on generates profit (after ROI’s), you’ll keep working. If not, you won’t. Simple as that.

This is hurting all of us, and it’s one reason why actors aren’t getting paid.

Then inexperience kicks in. Producers get behind projects that really aren’t marketable. They hire directors who can’t manage a film set. They are unwilling to fire anyone out of friendship and loyalty but end up causing the project go over budget and behind schedule- big no no’s in the industry. Bottom line, films should have the smallest possible budget and you should only move forward with good, quality driven material. Everyone is happy, everyone gets paid, and hopefully it will generate enough interest in which you can give your cast/crew some residual, back-end pay and gain enough support from investors and the film community to begin working on your next film.

The film community around us is not only large in size but has quite a few strong talents in it in all aspects of production. We have a handful of great directors, lighting techs, editing wizards, and many wonderful actors to help take our projects to new heights.

I have seen many amazing films from friends. I’ve read some pretty powerful screenplays from colleagues. I’ve seen actors deliver performances that rival veteran actors in Hollywood. Yet with all the great I’ve encountered over the years, there is always the bad that outnumbers everything else.

I respect the filmmakers who want to go out and create something. They take themselves seriously but afterwards look at their own work and try to better their work. Of course, there are the ones in which think their projects are perfect and expect some Hollywood big-shot to offer them a million dollar development deal.

The problem that I see is the works of the great filmmakers around us are being held hostage by the not-so-great works that is released in great numbers. Held hostage of course, refers to causing limitations to get solid material out of our heads and onto the screens.

WRITERS

The local film community cannot excel without the creative minds behind those works to look at their films objectively and constructively. Writers are so desperate to make a film that they rush a script into development without properly setting up what they want to do. After completion they move on to their next project which suffers the same pitfalls as before. There is no learning. There is no growth. A reason for this is that our community is used to everyone sugar-coating their reviews of material in order to spare hurt feelings. If you cannot tell someone how you feel honestly or receive negative feedback on your own material then you are in the wrong industry. And it only gets worse when you hit the filmmaking capital of the world.

In our community, the flaws of writing are great, but the largest issues are the basic fundamentals of screenwriting.

I have read many bad scripts that are based upon a single great idea. A writer may have a good basic concept, but the actual execution and their structural set-up is flawed and ridiculous. More times than not, their script is filled with holes, and unnecessary/excessive or lack of exposition.

Writers fail to realize that every character must have a purpose to their story. The most crucial thing a screenwriter can do is to write characters that we care about. They should serve the story and not the other way around, big or small.

No first draft of a script should ever be considered final. This causes many problems as your story is not developed enough and fails on many levels.

Not only do the above pitfalls afflict many writers, but when one of these scripts is produced and released at a local event, every other writer is rushing their projects into production to compete with the others- and thus hitting every pitfall possible. Or sometimes not. Sometimes a bad script can slip through the cracks. It is not impossible to watch a film and realize where the flaws are. Was the film’s failure because of a bad script? Or was it because of a flawed director choice?

DIRECTORS

While a writer is the creator of the project, the life-force behind the project is developed entirely by the director. Sometimes both. A good director needs to understand their style. The best of Utah’s director’s all have drastic differences in their styles that separates them from one another. Out of the best director’s in Utah, I don’t think any one of them has a style like the other. These director’s are also not as foolish to accept projects that doesn’t fit within that style. While a director can take most projects and make them fit within their own creativity, sometimes not, and it’s important for them to make that call before time and money is spent on a project that just isn’t working. Beyond that, there are problems a director can face that can make or break our community.

I have heard from actors around our community of the director’s lack of vision. This only creates confusion on set and results in productions falling off schedule and at times, over budget. Consider this, in Hollywood, what makes a successful director/producer is the fact that they can deliver a film ahead of schedule, and under budget, regardless if the film is a financial success upon release. A producer/director who has a financial hit but failed to deliver their film on time and was over budget is deemed a failure. When dealing with productions that have no budget, it is the director’s responsibility to treat time as money. Not paying your actors or crew? Get them in and out of the set as soon as possible.

A director with no understanding ranges from director’s having no conceptual grasp on the material they are making, or even choosing poor scripts. I’ve had experiences in talking with a director and was stunned to learn how little they knew about the art of filmmaking itself. This is terribly problematic and a sign that most people should stay clear until they’re willing to listen.

Any first time director is going to have film’s under their belt that aren’t the greatest works. It happens. The important thing is to learn from those mistakes and make every film you do after better than the one previously. You’re only as good as your last movie. Yet I’m amazed to see a handful of director’s whose work never truly improves and yet still manages to find a cast and crew to work with him.

This confounds me. If a director fails to meet your expectations and the film you were apart of had major problems and flaws – don’t work with him again. The director is avoiding his need to grow if he’s still getting a cast and crew whose willing to work with him time and time again. A director’s bad work on a film that you were apart of is also a reflection on you as a performer. 

PRODUCERS

A producer, like a director, must understand if they are capable of handling the duties of producing films that may be out of their element. A producer must understand if their involvement will help or hinder the project. Can someone else do the job better than you? Is a producer just working on the film because it’s a job, or do they actually think the film can go somewhere?

A producer should ask themselves two questions throughout all aspects of production; scripting, production, and final; Is this film sellable? And is this film good? Honestly….is it? Can you objectively look at the script or finished film and see it premiering alongside other heavy Oscar contenders, or is it merely a film to be used as a buy out option in the hopes the studio is more interested in the filmmakers involved? That is a big difference.

A producer should demand quality work from the people involved on the picture, starting with the script. A producer should know what makes a good script and what doesn’t. The above problems with writers should never happen in our community if our producers are actually doing their jobs.

While there are many things a producer does, the biggest and main priority of their job is to find the money in order to finance the picture. Yet, in our local community, this is something that is more times than not, misunderstood.

There should be no film around us that costs more than $15,000 to make. We are all big dreamers, but we can’t have unrealistic dreams. Furthermore, the chances of an indie film becoming profitable is less than 1%, so why spend a bundle of someone else’s dough to finance a film that will undoubtedly go nowhere and make no return on their investment?

Make a good product. Keep costs low. Sell it and make a profit so you can do it again.

There is a lot of talk about people switching over to Google+. Good for them, I say. But along with people chanting ‘I’m on Google+!’, they also tend to use the line ‘It’s the NEW Facebook’, or ‘Facebook is going down’, or ‘it’s Facebook’s replacement.’

Sadly, it isn’t.

Facebook has over 750 million active users. Granted, this large number didn’t just appear over night so there is a possibility that Google+ can reach that amount, oh in about five to ten years. The truth of the matter is, a lot of the Facebook folk don’t think Facebook is broken and therefore won’t switch. MySpace on the other hand, was and is broken, which was the reason why so many people left in the first place.

To which was Facebook’s success. Facebook was around (although geared primarily for students), but it didn’t reach mainstream success until after MySpace was labelled officially “BROKEN.”

On top of that, Facebook was different. It was the most logical step for new social networking. It even attracted grandparents in order to keep up with the current trends and to follow their grand children and great grand children.

I think of my own mother with this topic, as I would have never seen her on MySpace. Yet she’s on Facebook. And I guarantee she won’t be on Google+. Why? Because she’s comfortable. Just like everyone else. And Facebook isn’t broken.

What types of things does Facebook have going for itself besides it’s 750+ million users? The biggest selling point is of course it’s Business integration, Pages, Groups, etc which are not part of Google+. Yet. I do believe it will come, primarily because Google+ is a clone of Facebook whether they want to accept that fact or not. They built their infrastructure on what Facebook has already done, and in the process corrected a few things they felt needed improvement. But again, it’s not new. It’s been done before and a slight improvement on a feature of Facebook is not enough to attract 750 million people. And never will.

Upon the release of Twitter, most everyone (aside from early adopters) cursed at the idea of ANOTHER SOCIAL NETWORK SITE. Twitter has become just as mainstream as Facebook. Why? Because it was different. Twitter was a social network, and aside from their category, there were no similarities to Facebook or MySpace in the slightest. Twitter wasn’t designed to be a replacement either. It was designed to be ‘in addition to.’ They’ve been incredibly successful at it as well.

Another bonus for Facebook aside from it’s already profound amount of users is that Facebook is ahead of the curve. They have the foundation (their functionality, their users, and their site itself). They can spend the rest of their lives improving on their already impressive system instead of trying to build their user base. This leads to increases in functionality with other devices, games and apps, messaging and chat features. This list can go on and on, and I can bet dollars to donuts that Facebook already has people working on all areas of improving their site.

Facebook prides itself on innovation and improvement. For this reason alone, they are always ahead of the curve. This is not to say Google is not. Quite the opposite in fact. But then we all have to remember failures of Google and think of Google Wave, Google X, Google Catalog, Google Video Player, Google Answers, Google Coupons, Google Voice, Google Viewer, Google Checkout, and of course Orkut. Remember Orkut? Of course you don’t. Big overseas, Google bought and tried improving Orkut to battle Facebook and MySpace, but even broken MySpace dominated over them.

Still, Google’s ability and willingness to take risks sets them apart from most companies.

Kind of like Apple.

The Google+ fanatics always find ways to say why it’s better than Facebook and the others. Their biggest reason? It’s not cluttered by ads or ridiculous games like Farmville, or Mafia, or Who-the-hell-cares. Yet.

It will come. Those were the words many used to describe Facebook and look what has happened. They also spoke of great length that unlike MySpace, Facebook didn’t have Spam-bots or Porn-bots or things of that nature. Wrong again. They came.

I am hoping that Google+ becomes a hit, but not this Google+. It’s not new. It’s not innovating in the slightest. It’s boring and don’t want to waste anymore time looking at it. If they had figured out a way to completely re-invent Social Networking, then I wouldn’t be writing this blog from Tumblr. I would write sweet praises and suck on the Google teet of Google+ and hope that my circle-jerks would read it.

They have some good things going for it, and others they are lagging behind the Facebook domination. And for good reason. Right now, Google+ is cleaner than Facebook, but in no ways explores new territory.

And you’d think Google would have learned with their failure of Google Wave, which failed ONLY because of an “invite only beta.”

This Story is completely fictional, interlaced with a very sad truth.

Lauren is a young woman, filled with ambition and resolve. Wearing a blue dress, her blonde hair glows with the light of the sun. She isn’t unsophisticated, inexperienced , or callow but rather hushed and conscientious.

Standing in a lush green garden with a cocktail in hand and pitbull at her side, she catches a glimpse of a White Rabbit wearing a waist coat made entirely of one hundred dollar bills. Enticed by her curiosity, she follows the strange White Rabbit into the far reaches of her garden, discovering a hole into a deep dark abyss below.

Clumsily tumbling inward, Lauren vanishes into the darkness below the surface, following the brake lights and road construction of Interstate 15 before crashing into an odd, unusual, and peculiar room.

Here, she finds that she is too tall to pass through the only exit, a small odd-shaped door leading into more of the unknown. Perfectly placed upon a center table is a glass vile with a tag that reads: Conform.

She drinks. She shrinks. Now the right size to venture forward, she embarks for the door and enters the upside down world of Wonderland, where she discovers that she isn’t alone. The world is inhabited by the peculiar, the bizarre, the unordinary. Among them is an out-dated Dodo, a squeaky mouse, two idiots, and the White Rabbit.

The Rabbit, carrying a stack of spreadsheets and operation manuals leads the young and ambitious Lauren to meet the blue Caterpillar, the obvious leader of many, though not all of the squatters in Wonderland. The Caterpillar offers advice and guidance, casual mentorship, carrying with him a melancholy dread that he warns, “will soon be felt by all.”

“Slay the Jabberwocky,” one of them says.

“That is your purpose here in Wonderland,” says another. All of which Lauren hears, listens, and understands.

“Okay,” Lauren replies, “the Jabberwocky can’t be that hard.”

The group snickers and loudly applauds, cheering for Lauren and her abilities to slay the beast.

“In all of the years it’s never been done!” declares the squeaky mouse.

“So….. Lauren can do it, right? Slay the Jabberwocky and such?”asks one of the two idiots.

Rolling out the scrolls of spreadsheets and operational instructions, the White Rabbit is oblivious to Lauren’s impatience. She doesn’t have time to wait- the Jabberwocky won’t come to her, she feels, but she needs to go to it. 

“Has anyone come close?” she asks. The group nods quietly, pointing off into the distance to a dark lit room, closed off by thick wooden doors.

“So….the one in there has come close,” replies an idiot, “but at a price.”

Lauren steps forward, approaching the closed door. The others stand by and watch. Her hand reaches out, pale white skin touches softly on the cold steel door knob before she grips it tightly, pulling the door open. A cold wind of desolation escapes the room, blowing her sun colored hair back.

She takes a breath. Gathers strength. Enters.

The dark room is decorated in no such manner of odd shaped picnic tables placed oddly and randomly about with a small handful of soulless lifers. Their eyes glossed over in dull ignorance, seeping out from their sockets, penetrated only by the hazy-blue flicker of computer monitors in front of them all.

Lauren is drawn to one in the room; a top hat wearing, crazy-as-shit snob calling himself the Mad Hatter. Maybe he is the one the others are referring to, she thinks to herself. Removing the frog from her throat, she calmly addresses him, “Are you the one whose come close to slaying the Jabberwocky?”

The eyes behind the thick black rimmed glasses pierces her as he laughs maniacally before standing up from his table and lights up a cigarette. “Indeed.”

He offers her a smoke. She accepts and draws the unlit fag to her mouth as he lights it for her.

“But you’ll attempt.” he says.

“Of course I’ll attempt. But will I succeed?” she asks proudly. The Mad Hatter just gives her a stare. No smile. No frown. A look of being quietly judged emits from deep within his soul.

“Hello?” she asks in hopes of snapping him out of the bottomless gaze.

“If anyone can do it, it would be you.” the Mad Hatter states pleasantly.

Over the next several months, Lauren and the Mad Hatter would become inseparable. He shares stories with her over close victories. They exchange cigarettes and plot their next adventures to lure out the Jabberwocky. The Hatter even describes those in months past who arrived to “change” the system, only to be squashed which turned grown men into temper-tantrum throwing babies.

Soon, even the blue Caterpillar was of no help. His voice becomes as quiet as remaining hope. The White Rabbit’s spreadsheets and operation manuals grow in size in his own desperate effort to numb the intense and acute pain Wonderland emits; an obvious sign of the avoidance of confrontation.

It is Lauren who soon realizes what everyone was missing. The Jabberwocky is not the beast to slay. The Jabberwocky is not what is sucking the life from Wonderland. The Jabberwocky is not what everyone in Wonderland is afraid of. No, it is Wonderland’s ruler and leader; the self proclaimed Monarch and the big-headed Queen of Hearts herself.

Upon the Red Queen’s arrival in Wonderland (which thankfully to the residents, her arrival is few and far between), she makes ridiculous requests.

“Piggy!!” she yells. The pig rushes in without a moments hesitation and throws itself at her feet. “I love a warm pig belly for my aching feet.”

Lauren notices over the months that upon a ridiculous request the cards run around aimlessly, while chanting, “We’re painting the Roses red. We’re painting the Roses red.”

“Stop!” The Red Queen yells. The cards and everyone stop in their tracks. She stands from her throne and storms around the castle. “Who’s been painting my roses red?” she increases her volume as her face takes on the crimson red itself, “WHO’S BEEN PAINTING MY ROSES RED?!”

The cards tremble. The idiot pees. The Hatter laughs.

“Who dares to taint, with vulgar paint, the royal flower bed? For painting my roses red, someone will lose his head.”

The cards, the mouse, the idiot point at one another without a single feeling of remorse.

“Oh please, your majesty, please! It’s all his fault!” one card yells.

“Not me, your Grace! The ace, the ace!” another cries.

The Red Queen glares upon the Ace. “You?”

The card trembles, “No, Two!”

Her eyes dart to the Two. “The Two, you say?”

“Not me!” Two cries, “The Three!!”

The Red Queen stomps her foot, “That’s enough! Off with their heads!”

Lauren’s own discovery is that the Red Queen herself is the one to stop. The Jabberwocky is a biproduct of the Queen’s creation; the beast of hard work. She understands now, that everyone tries to slay the Jabberwocky. The Hatter and the Caterpillar have attempted to save Wonderland from the Red Queen before, a feat they understood way too late was impossible.

The Caterpillar bids farewell, encasing himself into a cocoon to emerge as something else. Who knows what will come of the Hatter, but Lauren knows that he is able to take care of himself and despite his lunacy, he may very well be the most sane of them all in Wonderland. Like the Caterpillar before her, it is time for Lauren to say her good-byes and leave Wonderland behind.

We all chase the White Rabbit wearing the waist coat made of money, tumble down the rabbit hole and find ourselves being forced to Conform to enter Wonderland. The Jabberwocky is the beast we all must face, and very rarely does anyone truly slay it. The Red Queen, however, is the obstacle to overcome. The pain-in-the-ass whose own big head gets in the way of everything and makes the day linger.

Venturing through the door she came, Lauren finds a piece of stale cake and takes several bites, growing uncontrollably and leaving the world behind.

Climbing out from the hole in her garden, Lauren is reunited with her pitbull and cocktail. She lays down on the soft grass under the blanket of the warm sun, staring up into the sky above. Thrilled to be away from such a nightmare, she smiles and thinks about her own future, knowing that one day she will face the Jabberwocky- but on her own terms and it will be one she’ll actually want to battle. The thoughts of a happy future is enough to put her into a short blissful slumber, drifting off as a blue butterfly flies overhead, resting upon a fresh green apple.

I said in the previous post that The Matrix Revolutions was the quintessential trilogy ender. Some come close, but others fail when trying to piece together a trilogy. I believe that the ones who succeed or that come close are the projects where it was designed to be a trilogy in the first place. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi is one that comes extremely close, if it wasn’t for the fact that Lucas’ plan included the Death Star battle that found its way into A New Hope because he didn’t know if doing sequels would be possible, but I’ll forgive him.

The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were written with the first film, and it was clearly the intention of the filmmakers to make the trilogy as is. Thus, while the films were completely misunderstood by the mass public, this third entry is powerfully conceived and executed and is one amazing piece of work.

As stated previously, The Matrix is about birth- as we see the birth of the One code implanted upon Neo. The Matrix Reloaded is about life- either it be finding ways to remain alive in a period of the Matrix where some of the programs are aware of a reboot, to the human’s quest for the salvation of Zion. The Matrix Revolutions is about death- Neo’s return to the Source and the cycle leading to the installation of Matrix 7.0. The theme of death is shown immediately after the film begins. The lines of code panning down across the screen are telling us something; the first design we see is a chalice – a Holy Grail. Therefore, the remainder of the film is the story for the Quest of the Holy Grail and the Ascension of Christ.

Continuing on the creation stories of Genesis that is of high importance in Reloaded, the third film focuses on the transition from the sixth day of creation (Matrix 6.0) to the seventh.

Choice

A major theme in The Matrix Trilogy has been choice, and it once again becomes a heavy and layered subject with this conclusion. The Merovingian went to great lengths to tell Neo and company about cause and effect, choice, and causality. The Oracle says pretty much the same thing, although her focus is on understanding the choices we make.

What constitutes a choice? Our free agency allows us to make choices, but are the choices we make really choices, or are they merely causalities of our upbringing, our environment, or our directives?

To understand the concepts and the meanings behind choice, then we have to understand them. Part of that isn’t just making a simple justification on why we do what we do. It’s a matter of complete understanding. You have to release everything, and pass between the pillars of fear and desire, above the blackened sky of the world, out of the world and into the timelessness of being, so that nothing can make you do what you do. There becomes only will; the will to go back down below the clouds into the painful realm of time and act.

We see Neo go to that place. No purpose. No fear, nor desire. Only will. The gift, the sacrifice, maybe by will alone, and it overcomes everything. There is no higher why. In the final battle of Revolutions, Smith asks of Neo, “Why, Mr. Anderson, why do you persist?” And Neo’s reply is, “Because I choose to.”

That response is powerful. It’s hard to think of another franchise that has that much meaning into a response. Jedi, I feel is equal, with Luke’s statement to the Emperor, “I am a Jedi.” Boom. Smack. It hits you like a ton of bricks. Powerful in every sense of the word- and it saddens me that moments like these are missed frequently by the common film audience.

Ascension

“And you will see the Son of Man at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” -Mark 14:62

In order to understand the ascension of Neo, it’s important to start at the end and make your way back to the beginning; the fight between Neo and Smith comes to an apparent standstill. Neo is close to enlightenment, whereas Smith, who cannot understand why makes a speech. He lists every possible motivation he can think of, and of course the answer is none of the above.

How else would this film end? Neo landing a blow to Smith’s face that nearly takes it clean off, proclaiming that Neo was acting by will alone and the ascends into the heavens as a glorified hero. That doesn’t happen. Would it have occurred in that manner, it would have been like Ghandi mowing down his opponents with an AK-47.

The mighty cross to Smith’s jaw didn’t mean Neo was going to beat Smith with kung fu. In his hands Neo held Godlike power. He could fight as he chose to, but his choice was to lay down that power voluntarily. Smith, the dark side, cannot lay down the sword. Neo can, and by doing so chooses the path between light and dark; between desire and fear. He is like Jesus going willingly with the Roman guards. Surely the Son of God could have roasted his persecutors alive with but a nod. The followers of Jesus believed he was The One who would “end the war”, and they were extremely confused, like Morpheus, when the prophecy didn’t come true. They didn’t understand the way he seemed to give up the fight and waste all the momentum he had built up.

This sequence is almost always misinterpreted. The tendency seems to be toward a “Smith won” kind of explanation. Obi-Wan Kenobi did not lose the lightsaber duel. It was choice.

After Neo’s statement of “Because I choose to,” Agent Smith himself becomes a mess. The way Smith delivers his next line indicates he has very little idea what is happening now- or why. You can’t see past the choices you don’t understand, and Smith clearly doesn’t understand that concept because he can’t. That’s what separates him from Neo. Not only does Smith fail to understand Neo, his own understanding of his own choices unravels quickly.

What’s important to point out in Smith’s and Neo’s final conversation is that Smith finally refers to the One as Neo. Throughout the entire trilogy, Smith has only called Neo by his human name; Mr. Anderson. After uttering the words Neo to his enemy, he begins to fall apart. He is completely baffled by his own behavior. Smith finally realizes what’s to come; the merge. What began with a merge will end with a merge. And Smith is afraid of this. Neo, on the other hand, is clear headed and certain.

The beginning and the end coming together. The dark and the light coming together. Smith begins to absorb Neo. While this happens, Neo is as calm as hindu cows. Immediately after, Smith speaks with a shaky, unsure voice, “Is it over?” Smith doesn’t know. How could he know? He is completely lost at Neo’s sacrifice- a choice made that Smith just doesn’t understand. The light and the dark are one. The One.

In the real world, there is a cross of light upon Neo’s body, the sign of his sacrifice, the choosing of the Holy Grail, the way between the pairs of opposites. Streams of energy course out from neo along mechanical veins, gifting his divinity. And he ascends, he returns home, to the Source, where the path of The One ends.

The End

There is a personal discussion going on between Neo and God in the final scenes in addition to the superficial deal-cutting. This is not the Creator God, ala The Architect. The Infinite God, the Source from which finite Gods like the Architect have sprung. God asks of Neo, “What do you want?” On the surface it looks like God is negotiating with Neo, and that they are making a deal to call of the sentinals if Neo can defeat Smith. This was not demands from the human side in Zion. This was, what does Neo want?

To which his response is, “Peace.”

Neo is asking for rest, for balance. He wants to end. The purpose of life is to end. At-one-ness. The One’s personal ascension brings gifts to the entire world- Peace. Peace for Neo is the first gift of ascension. Peace for Zion is the second of the gifts. The third gift is the rewriting of the Matrix. The fourth gift, for the machines, is the birth of new programs with more human emotion; in this particular case it is Sati, The One codes first real gift to the machine world: Love for programs.

But what happens to Smith? How was the merger able to destroy the Smith virus that has run rampant throughout the Matrix? First, we have to give up the notion that Neo and Smith can be represented as +1 and -1. That’s much too simple. Instead of saying that Neo and Smith merged, we can say that the Light One and the Dark One merged, just like the annihilation of a proton meeting an antiproton. Neo and Smith could fight each other to a standstill as the Light One and the Dark One, and if that’s all there was to it they might have ended up killing each other and that would be that. No elevation. No transcendence. But the reality is you have the Light One on one side, the Dark One on the other, and Neo in the middle.

Neo lays his power down. He steps away from his role as the Light One and goes into the middle path between the opposites. Smith cannot go there. Smith cannot, and will not lay his power down. Ans so Smith obliterated in the merging of the Light and the Dark. The most basic level to Smith’s devise is that he got himself connected to the Source. We know that when Smith copies himself upon another program, that individual can command the power of all the other Smiths and know what all of the other Smith’s know. Power and information shift freely within the horde. The Smith who copies himself upon The Oracle understands this, as The Oracle, through Agent Smith gives Neo information that she had previously given him, “Everything that has a beginning has an end.”

By this level alone, Neo is still very much apart of the Smith copy, and as they have merged, Neo is able to connect to the Source; the path where the One Ends, wiping out Neo’s code from the Matrix, and by association Smith as well. Connecting to the Source equals deletion for programs. Smith tells us this in Reloaded. So does The Oracle.

Additionally, after Neo is absorbed, we see the code view of the real world, a single pulse of orange light goes into Neo’s body (Orange light is code in the real world, green light is code in the Matrix). Some piece of code travels from machine city, presumably from the Source, into Neo. This is a reason why the machines need Neo. The Oracle understands this. It is by Neo’s choice and sacrifice that leads to Smith’s deletion. Neo is in his divinity. He has claimed the Holy Grail, the way between two opposites, and walked back into the Garden. It is the connection between Neo and the ground of all being. It is the taking of the fruit of the second Tree and the beginning of the ascent into Nirvana. The Buddha, sitting under the World Tree, was challenged by a thousand-armed god of Death and his legions. The Buddha reached out his hands and placed his fingertips on the Earth, which is the Source, and drew into himself the essence of the Infinite God. The death God and all his armies were shattered.

Neo is basically becoming a conduit for the divine. “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” The surgeon’s hands become God’s hands, the birthing mother’s body becomes God’s body, the Word of God flows from the pen of the author. The power of God flows into and through such people. When the surge goes into Neo, he acts as the door through which the Light of God enters the World.

Neo

Throughout the trilogy, the theme of tension between pairs of opposites is constant. It underpins everything else, and lack of understanding this theme leads to a basic lack of understanding the trilogy. It is obvious that Neo and Smith are to be regarded as opposite sides of the same character, but the theme of opposites goes far deeper. It is absolutely critical to understand the symbolism of creation stories. Creation stories are inevitably about splitting things apart. At first there is only singular. Then there is division. In the beginning, there was God. He separated light from darkness, the sea from the sky and the land. He is the weilder of the cosmic sword, cutting what was one into two.

Creation stories are the key. They are what get you started toward the big picture of the spiritual cycle. First, there is creation. Second is the exit from the Garden. Third is the Quest for the Holy Grail. Fourth is Reunion.

Then it starts over again. Then you have opposites. Exiting from the Garden is the opposite of the Quest. Reunion is the opposite of creation. Creation is birth. The moment of creation in the first film is the start of the One code, where Neo resurrects and consumes Smith, shattering him. Then comes the division. Smith tells Neo in the second film that something from Neo was imprinted onto him. In other words, the creative act is the dividing of The One- part continues as Neo, and part continues as Smith. Reloaded is the story of the Exit from the Garden. Leaving Revolutions as the story of the Quest for the Holy Grail.

Part of understanding the Holy Grail concept is that the Grail itself is not a thing. The Grail is a State of Being. The Holy Grail in Revolutions is Neo allowing Smith to absorb him. The Grail is a way- it is the doorway back into the Garden. Christ talks about himself as “I Am the Way,” and his blood is often used symbolically in Grail stories but remains the same; the blood of Christ, the sacrifice of the Christ, is the way.

A lot of perceptions are that of the Grail being a way towards immortality. That is a reference to the Tree of Life. Adam and Eve didn’t eat from that tree, and the ideas is that, with the Grail, you can get back into the Garden and chow on some immortality fruit. We need to read this as a story, however- these are metaphors. The tree and the Grail are both metaphors for a transformation in you. You obtain the Grail (the Royal Blood, your kingship, your divinity) by choosing the way of Christ. That way is the middle way between the pairs of opposites and the reuniting of the divided self.

The Quest is the journey to the World Tree, the sacrificial cross, and the gifts to the world. This is Neo’s journey to the machine city and to the Source. Neo chooses the way of the Christ when he stopes off the Mjolnir and onto the Logos. Logos is symbol-speak for Christ. This transition has another meaning; it is the laying down of the war-power of Thor’s hammer and the choosing of the word-power of Jesus or the Buddha. Before the Buddha was born, his mother was told her son would either be a great warrior-king or a great teacher. He choose teacher. Likewise, Jesus is offered dominion over the kingdoms of the world, which is taken to be mutually exclusive with continuing as a teacher.

On the Logos, Bane (an avatar of Smith) attacks, in which Neo’s eyes are scorched out of their sockets. Blind, he is mocked by Bane. This is identical to what happened to Jesus on his way to the crucifixion- he was blindfolded and beaten by the soldiers, who challenged him to use his second sight to identify his attackers. And we see that this is in fact Neo’s full awaking to his second sight. His first words after being blinded are, “I can see you.” The spiritual journey, the Quest for the Holy Grail begins, on the road that can be seen only with the inner eye.

As with creation stories and the talk of being divided, Neo is divided in another way, too.

The Merovingian

Going back to the Grail legend, the entrance back into the Garden is guarded by fiery angels. In the legend, there is a line of Frankish kings called the Merovingians, who are descended from Christ. They protect the Grail by their keeping of the bloodline of Christ. It makes perfect sense that on the Quest for the Grail one would encounter its protector.

There are two kinds of protection. The first kind is protection against evil. What evil? That is the second kind of protection; seeking to prevent anyone from attaining the Grail. The legend says that there are angels in favor of mankind, and those against mankind. This is the basis of the War in Heaven, the result of which is the casting out of Those Opposed, led by Lucifer. Casting out is part of the history of the Matrix, and it means to be “cast out from the machine city into the Matrix.”

We know that the “Merovingian” is a protector of the Grail, and we know that there are two protectors. The first protector is The Merovingian himself. The fact that his wife is Persephone makes it absolutely clear that he is Hades, who is analogous for Lucifer. The other protector is the fiery angel who calls himself a protector: Seraph.

Merovingian is opposed to mankind. He is also opposed to God, by which I mean the Architect and the Oracle. And the Merovingian will strike at them every chance he gets out of pure hatred, for being cast out, which is definitely not his idea. He hates the Oracle, because this “Age” of the Matrix is very much her creation. The One code was certainly not the Merovingians idea.

What does The Merovingian do? He guards the Grail- the return to the Source. There is his motivation for imprisoning the Keymaker- the route to the machine city and because the Merovingian cannot go, he forbids others to go as well by controlling the Keeper of the Doors.

With the Merovingian properly set up as the Devil, his introduction scene in Revolutions is in a club notably named Club Hel. The events at the club are tightly connected to the events at the Mobile Ave. Station, and it all gets its start when Neo halted the sentinals at the end of Reloaded and fell into a coma.

The coma is compared to death, and his transformation after waking up is larger than anticipated. In the Apostle’s Creed, Christ descends into Hell after his death on the cross. The Creed doesn’t really say any more than this, but it gets heavy interpretation in the Catholic Church, so there are several variations on the whole story. At the moment of his death, Christ’s soul and body separated from each other- his body stayed on Earth and his soul went down into Sheol, the place of the dead, or sometimes in varying stories Hell, and sometimes Limbo.

Trinity and Neo are the same person. If something happens to Trinity, we can just as well say it happened to Neo. This occurs after Neo resurrects Trinity- they are One. Therefore, Trinity’s trip to Club Hel counts as Christ’s descent into Hell, accompanied by Morpheus and Seraph.

When this trio approaches the main doors of Club Hel, the bouncers recognize Seraph and call him “Wingless.” Inside the club, the Merovingian calls Seraph “L’ange sans ailes” (Wingless Angel). This reveals a depth and complexity about Seraph that is very intriguing. He has had his wings clipped. Seraph, too, must be some kind of exile from the machine city, and his protection of the Grail may be work of atonement.

Also present in Club Hel is the Trainman, similar to the Boatman or Charon who serves Hades. Then the deal is proposed: The Merovingian will give them back their savior, in exchange to turn against God (The Oracle) by giving him her soul- The Eyes of the Oracle. Yet Trinity gets to the point and aims a gun at his head; Deal-making is out of the question with Christ towards the Devil. Hades was never good for letting the dead return to the world of the living. He always had to be coerced somehow.

At this very instant, Neo at the Mobil (ie, Limbo) station says, “You got yourself into this. You can get yourself out.” And that’s exactly what happens.

Mobil Station

This scene is severely misunderstood. The two mots important scenes in Revolutions are Mobil Station and the final showdown with Smith. Mobil Avenue tells us exactly what’s going to happen to happen at the end of the movie.

Mobil is an anagram for Limbo. Whereas Trinity (one with Neo) descends into Hell, the other half descends into limbo.

In Mobil Station with Neo is the program family. Mobil Station is the place between the machine city and the Matrix (the river styx). At first it seems they are smuggling their daughter out of the Matrix, but rather the opposite. The program family is from the machine city and they are smuggling their daughter into the Matrix, where there are plenty of exiles who have no purpose. As long as an Agent doesn’t find her, the daughter will be safe.

With Mobil being Limbo, this is the place were purified souls go to await the ascension of Christ into heaven. Now, what are they waiting for?

Because Mobil Avenue leads to machine city, Neo will ascend to heaven in the machine city. Going back to The Architect and the creation of the Matrix, this particular version is 6.0, or the sixth day. Neo represents genuine human beings, the human being eats the apple and leaves the Garden. Also in the Reloaded post which I said would come back to later, the trinity of the Matrix is Brahma (The Architect), Shiva (The Oracle), leaving Vishnu.

Neo’s coma is metaphorical death. The sixth incarnation of Neo didn’t make it past the Architect’s chamber in Reloaded, but at least something of him survives to Mobil. This is the end of him. Neo 6.0, who is the serpent, who is Parashurama in Hindu-Vishnu spirituality, never leaves Mobil Avenue Station. The Neo that rides the train out at the end of the sequence is the seventh incarnation; Neo 7.0.

This is explained throughout the scene in detail. The first thing we hear spoken is “Good Morning,” by Sati. That means, “Welcome to a new day.” Neo is a new person. His opening shot in the film is him opening his eyes, symbolic to a “new day.”

Like good fiction, we are having the entire movie explained to us in the first few minutes. Sati means “Self-immolation.” More generally, willing self-sacrifice. This points directly at the final moments between Neo and Smith. It is intersting that Sati knows Neo’s name already. It isn’t that Sati recognizes Neo, but her father surely does, because they are they same person, and in that Sati knows what will come.

The part about being lost is important. This is about why Neo is at Mobil. If he was there intentionally, he wouldn’t be lost. As we learn from the Oracle later, Parashurama isn’t prepared to go into the machine city. He cannot touch the Source and survive. He pops into Limbo entirely by accident.

Frequently in these films there are lines of dialogue that seem to carry a particular, superficial meaning but in fact are deep wells of symbolism. In Reloaded, when neo and the Oracle talk in the park, Neo asks the Oracle why she is here. “Same reason as you,” she says. “I love candy.” What this really means is that the Oracle delights in disobedience, she loves the eating of the apple. When Neo says, “I know you” to Sati’s father, Rama Kandra, it’s the same thing. Yes, he recognizes Rama Kandra from the restaurant, but what it really means is that Neo recognizes Rama Kandra like a mirror image. Neo is meeting himself. The Neo-in-black is Parashurama, the Serpent. Rama Kandra is Ramachandra, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, the Christ.

In the Vishnu stories, Parashurama actually meets Ramachandra and there is a “passing of the torch”, so to speak. There is no way the meeting between Neo and Rama Kandra is a coincidence. After Parashurama cedes to Rama, Parashurama goes off to live in the mountains (between Earth and Sky) to await the next age of the world. Welcome to Mobil Avenue Station: Parashurama (Neo 6) stays in Mobil; Ramachandra (Neo 7) leaves.

In Hindu mythology, Kamala is really the wife of Ramachandra, who is present with Sati and her husband. Taken their names alone, the meaning here is that from divinity springs perfect sacrifice. In the discussions with Neo and Rama Kandra, the framing of the film is rather important; standing between them is Sati- meaning Neo’s self immolation will lead to his transcendence. The Grail.

Rama Kandra’s job as a program is to oversee feeding the liquefied dead humans to the living humans in the power generation pods, as explained in the first film. This is life. This is the Oroboros.

Rama is in charge of recycling. He encompasses not just the glory of the Divine but also the gritty, earthly orobos- the world snake eating its own tail. This is a lesson. You do not achieve the Grail by eliminating or leaving behind your animal self. It is as much a part of you as the divine. This is directly referenced in the blinding of Neo by Bane, who after revealing he is Agent Smith, goes on to state that he finds humans disgusting. He cannot accept both the animal side and the divine side.

After Neo leaves Mobil Station, Link admits that Neo’s code was reading different as before. This is because it’s not the same Neo. Good morning, Neo. Today is the seventh day.

Sati

Explained in the Reloaded post, there are gifts of the divine that make their way into the Matrix with Neo’s sacrifice. Neo’s gift to the machines was programs with the ability to have emotion.

There are two separate parts to the ending. The first part is what see of the humans, the second part is what we see of the machines (or programs). With the climax over and Neo’s ascension complete, the first human who speaks is Lock, and we are informed of all the human ramifications of Neo’s actions.

Lock states, “It doesn’t make sense.”

The defeat of rationality is central to transcendence. You cannot grow into your true humanity by rational means. It’s a non-rational journey. This is why Neo could have not simply pummeled Smith into submission; why the Christ has to irrationally allow himself to be sacrificed; why Ghandi cannot simply shred everyone with a machine gun. To Lock, the only thing that would have “made sense” would be for Neo to come blasting through the hordes of squiddies with some kind of super power. The unraveling of the rationality puzzle is tied up with exploring Neo’s powers, especially why he has powers in the real world. This applies to Sati.

Morpheus, an opposition to Lock asks if the end of the war is real. In the first film he asks Neo, “Have you ever had a dream you were so sure was real..,” therefore Morpheus is waking from a dream and into the seventh day (Nirvana). This is shown in the Matrix as well, as the first program we see is Sati, walking up from being asleep. Her first line is “Good Morning.” This puts Sati directly into the center of all meaning as far as the machines are concerned.

A new age has begun for humans. A new age has begun for machines. A new age has begun for the Matrix. Sati is the new machine. Sati represents willing sacrifice. The programs of old are perfectly rational. Sati is the opposite. She is set apart from earlier machines. She is the new; the Oneness of Neo (new) ascended to the Source and imprinted onto the program mind. This is Neo’s gift to the Matrix.

We then meet The Oracle and The Architect once again…. this time approaching one another in a lush, green park, ala The Garden, after creation. Their conversation is short but complex, with the two talking of playing dangerous games as to The Architect, playing an irrational game is not something he understands but The Oracle does. That was her purpose.

They also discuss peace, but they both know this time will be short. Resumed conflict is imminent, but it will be along different axes. The machine/man conflict is truly over, but there are still things to work out, e.g. to unplug or not to unplug.

The Architect can’t see past any choices. The Merovingian will not want to give up his kingdom. There is still a threat, obviously, and enough of a basis to bring about a fourth film. Both are the old programs, the old way. Sati shows up next, the new program, the new way.

There are two things to note about the final set of lines spoken in the film. First, Sati apparently makes the sunrise. She had no directive to make it. She says, “I made it for Neo.” Nothing more, nothing less. It’s because it was what she wanted to do for sentiment. She cared. She has emotion.

The second thing is that the Oracle says she did not know things would work out as they did, but she believed they would. This displays that The Oracle has human weakness, to hope. The Architect is the primary route for humans to get back to the Source. Humans needs the most machine based program to get to the Source. The opposite is true for machines. Getting to the Source means going through the Oracle, who is the most human like program. That is why Smith’s path took him to The Oracle.

This connects with Neo’s real world powers and moots the battery question (why don’t the machines just use cows?). The human’s path of ascension leads them to the machines. The Machines path of ascension leads them to the humans. Now that the age of ascension has arrived, these gateways are unnecessary. It is Sati’s time. The time of gift.

The Four Ages

It should be noted that these ages are exactly like the steps of the “spiritual cycle” when talking about the Holy Grail. These Ages are a cycle. First is the Perfect Garden and the wheel turns once again. This is why the Oracle says that Neo will be back. The second age is The Wasteland. The third age is the Return to the Source, and the fourth age is Nirvana.

Each of these are the grand re-writes of the Matrix that Smith and the Architect tell us about. Even Persephone talks about a much older version of the Matrix, one which vampires and werewolves were part of the design world. The third age is what the trilogy is all about. The first film starts near the end of the Third Age, and the last film closes with the dawning of the Fourth Age.

The big theme of these films is choice. The humans and the Oracle talk about choice and understanding, whereas The Architect and The Merovingian believe that choice is an illusion. It all pertains to growth. Growth requires the cycle- the exit and the return- and the cycle requires making a genuine choice. Neo makes it abundantly clear that nothing at all is moving him except his own will to move.

Nirvana: In the fourth age, the Matrix as an entity remains. It is fundamentally different Matrix, however. The Matrix of the fourth age is a voluntary construct. If a human wants to leave or enter the Matrix, he will be free to do so. If a program wants to enter or leave the Matrix, it will be free to do so. This is essentially the lifting of the machines’ draconian insistence on purpose. The consequence of the freedom to come and go and to know the truth is that the Matrix of the fourth age will be adjustable to the wishes of its inhabitants. It will be an age of Gods, human and machine.

Outside the Matrix, in the real world, humans will continue to live underground and machines will continue to live in their city. Emissaries from each group will eventually be welcome by the other, and the groups will gain from each other. It will be an Age of Gods, human and machine.

This cycle will break and the Age of Gods will end. But to go back, the first stage is The Perfect Garden, and will repeat itself with the new incarnation of the Matrix.

In the beginning, the Architect had to design and implement a world for humans to live in. Naturally, that world would be perfect in all its aspects, and ever need of its population taken care of.

We can perhaps imagine that everyone is beautiful, healthy, and serene. No one ages and no one is ever injured. It is an absolute Utopia. There would have been some mechanism for dealing with the actual death of humans outside the Matrix, to prevent still-connected people from noticing that someone was no longer around and getting sad about it, but I admit I cannot think of a very good way to do that. And that might be the crack in the armor. At some point suffering is going to creep into the picture, if only because of the passage of time. I don’t suspect it would take that much, though, to get people chafing at the perfection. In order to be perfect, everything must be predictable. Most, if not all people will do almost anything to avoid being predictable. The more the environment succeeds at prediction, the harder they will try to disprove the environment. In other words, they will try to wake up from the Matrix. In mythic terms, we are at the equivalent of eating the apple. We want to know, no matter the cost. Like Neo, we are compelled to take the red pill.

So suffering enters into things. Smith says, “No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost.” The First Age enters a period of time (probably a very short period of time) when everything is in crisis. The idea that something is wrong with the world is spreading. Clearly the Matrix is going to have to be rewritten. And that is a point of division among machines. There is a disagreement. Smith says, “Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world.” That seems to suggest that the machines are divided about what to do next.

At the time of the First Age the Merovingian is a program in the machine city (not the Matrix). He does not think humans are worth the trouble and advocates that the machines should abandon them and figure out a way to live alone. Much of what Smith says about humans in the first movie is applicable to the Merovingian’s opinion at this time. A number of other programs in the machine city also believe that the failure of the Matrix proves humans are ungovernable and their entire species should be scrapped. The division among machines regarding humans is older than even the first Matrix, however. The decision to enslave humanity rather than terminate it was not a unanimous one. All those who were opposed then are opposed now. The old differences resurface, and the Merovingian attempts to “fork” the machine world. A machine civil war followed, fought entirely in codespace, and eventually the Merovingian and all the dissenters were brought back into conformity. Now dawns the Second Age.

The Second Age is The Wasteland. After the machine civil war is over, the Architect remakes the Matrix into a wasteland. It is no less perfect, but rather than a blissful Utopia the Matrix of the Second Age is a world of Mad Max-style hedonistic excess. We see what it was like in Club Hel. The entire world was that way. It is the age of vampires and werewolves. The Second Age is the Kingdom of the Merovingian.

The Merovingian was expelled from the machine city into the Matrix. His purpose as a program in the Matrix is to control the traffic between worlds. This is a job he shares with Seraph, who is also a gatekeeper. Together they guard the way back to the Source, and the Keymaker and the Trainman are their servants. For a time Seraph and the Merovingian are partners, although they interpret their duties very differently.

We already know from the Oracle that the Merovingian desires power. He probably had this urge all along, and asserted it from time to time, culminating in the disagreement over the failure of the First Age. Constrained by his purpose in the Matrix of the Second Age, he seeks power related to controlling the traffic of data (i.e., “a trafficker of information”). He uses his guardianship as a means to gain influence over other programs — you can move data for a price, he says, taxing everything that passes through his fingers. The currency he demands is loyalty and debt; deletion codes are his prized winnings. He gains exclusive control of the Keymaker and the Trainman, and he ensnares Persephone. The vampire and werewolf programs come under his control as well, as do the Twins and other such creatures. Not too long after the Second Age Matrix is created, the Merovingian is its master — he is the King of the Wasteland.

But all is not well in the Matrix. As before, some humans accept the program. Many others do not. The terms of expression in the Matrix were remade, but the essential premise was the same — humans are still commanded to do what they are told, to accept their world without question. The urge to take the red pill remained, and a growing number of people refused to believe in the Matrix. So a second crisis was looming for the machines. At the same time, the tension between Seraph and the Merovingian was growing. It is likely that Seraph met the Oracle during the time of crisis, and saw a way to fulfill his purpose through her.

The Oracle was a program from the First Age Matrix whose job it was to help predict what humans might do, and thereby allow the Matrix to function as a fully predictive construct. Her job was the same in the Second Age. By the time she meets Seraph, her predictive powers are quite good, and she knows how to rewrite the Matrix yet again so that humans would accept the program fully.

Of course, the Merovingian is not in favor of rewriting the Matrix again. He tries to destroy her, but Seraph intervenes and protects the Oracle. That is the nature of the “betrayal” and the bad blood between Seraph and the Merovingian. And that is also how Seraph came to protect the Oracle full time, and how the Merovingian came to hate the Oracle obsessively.

Eventually, despite the Merovingian’s efforts, the Matrix was rewritten to the Third Age. The Merovingian’s influence was enormous, however, and he was able to take a substantial part in the rewriting process. He preserved himself, Persephone, a host of henchmen, and much of his kingdom. He also preserved his old job: he still polices the route between worlds.

The Seven Incarnations of Neo

There were two Ages of the Matrix that failed. Then the Architect introduces us to the Third Age, the design “stumbled upon” by an intuitive program (i.e., the Oracle). It is this design of the Matrix that permits The One and allows humans to grow — to disobey now and then — yet that disobedience is still under control.

The first of The One would undoubtedly arrive at the start of the Matrix 3.0, and continuing through each reboot of the same programming for 6 variations of Neo.

The sixth version of Neo is quite different than all who came before him. The Architect confirms this by stating that his “Five predecessors were, by design, based on a similar predication: a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the One. While the others experienced this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific, vis-a-vis love.”

Is it possible that each of the previous Neo’s looked different? I think so. My own personal suspicions and not based upon fact from the subtext of what is The Matrix Trilogy makes me believe that Seraph was at one point, a previous incarnation of Neo.

Now regarding Neo’s special abilities: the functioning of the Matrix is the way to understanding these. It’s quite a popular opinion that the abilities in the Matrix correlate exactly to strength of will. The idea is that Neo is just willing himself over these obstacles. I think that ignores the facts. Neo’s powers in the Matrix manifest when he feels deep bonds with other human beings, most of all Trinity. As his relationship with Trinity grows, so does his power in the Matrix. The Matrix is powered by human bio-electricity. What is that? It’s thoughts and feelings, impulses and urges of the body. Therefore, everything in the Matrix is the result of human emotion, or more accurately the ebb and flow of the aggregate emotion of the entire human race.

Neo is genetically designed to tap into this aggregate bio-electrical circuit, and he focuses and amplifies that energy. The extent of that amplification is tied to his personal emotional level. In his previous incarnations, Neo’s generic feeling toward the rest of humanity afforded him a certain amount of power in the Matrix. But this time around, because of Trinity, the depth of his emotion is incredibly multiplied. As a result, so is his power in the Matrix.

It’s not a very big leap from powers in the Matrix to Neo’s powers in the real world. All the human bio-electricity flows from the pod fields to the Source, and then it is redistributed back to the Matrix along well-defined channels. The humans plugged into the Matrix then have experiences, from which they have emotions, and their emotional energy flows back to the Source.

It isn’t power that the machines need from humans, it’s feelings, belief, and hope. The electrical power angle is just the metaphor. What makes the machines go on day after day? Why do they continue? What reason do they have to exist?” Aside from ringing all the symbolic bells in the entire story, it spotlighted the exact nature of the machines’ power source. The machines go on because the humans go on. The will to live and to grow and to feel and to experience is what they do not have and cannot invent. The power they get from human beings is the power to hope.

Neo’s — humanity’s — path is toward reunion with The Source, with God. At the same time, the machines’ path is toward reunion with another God, the human beings who created them. They are each other’s path to the divine. As the Oracle said, the only way forward is together.