The Matrix

I am not exactly sure where to start. There was so much going on in the movie; I had difficulty following all of it. Despite my best efforts to read the film, I kept getting distracted by a few things. The first is Neo. He is suppose to be this master hacker and programmer, but he doesn't even know what simple computer terms mean. An example is when he finally makes it out of the matrix and into the real world. When they are connecting him to the program simulations, he is told they need to disconnect his output port (something along those lines, I don't remember the actual quote). It is amusing to me that he does not understand what that means. There are several other times that his lack of knowledge about basic computer terms bug me, but I am going to stop now because I could complain about this for a while. The other thing that distracted me was the matrix itself. It is a program that is so complicated that you have to read it through its code. While this is not a big deal, the code itself (the green lines going down the screens) made me laugh. It consists of numbers and letters; however, there were also Japanese and Chinese symbols among the other characters. This may seem like it has no relevance, but it relates to me. This is because I can see more of the Japanese culture influencing this film then I see Daoism in it. Though, I am not going to talk about this subject because it does not relate to anything we have read in class. Instead, I am going to talk about Neo as a hero.

Neo is not a typical hero. At first, he is willing to follow several instructions given to him by Trinity that lead him to take the red pill. When he finds out that he is suppose to be the one, he sort of rejects that idea. He doesn't want to be a hero because he does not believe in his abilities. This is even shown when he is fighting Morpheus. He doesn't think that he is capable of being faster and stronger, but he is eventually he gets there. I think that he becomes faster and stronger because Morpheus is pushing him and Neo just wants to hit him. When Morpheus is taken to be cracked, Neo wants to rescue him, not because he thinks he is the chosen one, but because he doesn't want to lose him. Also, when the oracle tells him that he is not the one, he is surprised but mostly upset because he doesn't know what to tell Morpheus; he doesn't want to disappoint him. These times are what makes Neo a hero. He doesn't want to be one, but he wants to make his friends happy and is willing to risk his life to get them back; he puts everyone else before him (well, at the end he does). Being brave, courageous, and caring are attributes of a hero.

Another part of the film that interested me is Morpheus. Morpheus is actually the Greek god of dreams. He can be apart of someone's dream, talk to them, and even wake them up. This is interesting because Morpheus is the one that wakes Neo up from his dream (it could be argued that Neo wakes himself up). Morpheus can also travel in and out of the dream. He shares several characteristics to that of the Greek god.