The Matrix Resurrections： Pulse of the Zeitgheist (2021 Reupload)
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
6
sentences flagged
Toxicity
23
sentences flagged
Hate speech
20
sentences flagged
Summary
Matrix Resurrections is a movie about Neo, Morpheus, Neo and Neo's relationship with the Matrix, and how the Matrix manipulates and manipulates us through the lens of the Matrix itself. It's a movie that lampshades everything, and I think it's one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Transcript
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So the other night, I sat down to watch Matrix Resurrections.
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So like I said, I went into this movie with very low expectations.
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In fact, you might even say that I was hate-watching it, just maybe.
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And as somebody whose entire sense of fashion was derived from the original movie, I was
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a little bit nipped that they were making another one, an obvious, unnecessary reboot,
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I really wasn't expecting much from it, and yet I was blown away.
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I was completely primed to hate this movie, and I thought it was so good that it actually
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That it actually redeemed Matrix 2 and Matrix 3.
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And yeah, this is going to be an unpopular opinion.
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because I do think that you should go and watch this movie yourself.
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I'm going to break down for you why I liked Matrix Resurrections.
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Now the very first point is that we all know this movie never should have been made.
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And the movie knows that as well. In fact, that is a major theme of the entire thing.
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Let me put it like this. If you were a fan of the original Star Wars promo,
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And that drove you to study martial arts, to practice meditation, then you understood the movies.
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If you like the original Star Wars, and you decide to dress up like a Jedi and scream like a 16-year-old girl while waving around a plastic lightsaber,
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then you didn't understand the movies. In fact, you completely missed the point of the movies.
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And if you're going to go see The Matrix Resurrections while fully jabbed with a face mask on, you don't understand what The Matrix is about.
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And Matrix Resurrections, it's heavily implied that if you are super excited for another
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stupid kung fu movie or some half-boiled philosophy presented in movie format, then you do not
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And those people are being heavily criticized in it.
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One of the things of lampshades is the fact that Lawrence Fishburne has been it.
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So you've got Abdul Martin II playing Morpheus.
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And his first line to Neo is word for word the exact same line that Morpheus said, except
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instead of saying it with a dramatic, gothic, lightning-backed rune, he says it in a public
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And he outright comments that, yeah, it doesn't work too well without the lightning, does
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And so he's not trying to play Laurence Fishburne, right?
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It would have been really hokey if he were trying to play Laurence Fishburne.
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He's playing a Morpheus with a different backstory, a recreated Morpheus.
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He's not playing the same Doctor as last time. It's a new one.
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They lampshade that, lampshade that, they go with it, and it actually works.
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Then there's Nioh, which, if you've seen the trailers, Nioh is caught back in the Matrix
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This new Matrix that he's in, he's a video game designer who designed the Matrix trilogy
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And he thinks that what happened to him is he psychologically fell into his own video
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Turns out that those video games were real life, and the idea that he's just a game designer, that is the illusion.
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And so everything is constantly being lampshaded throughout all of this.
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And one of the early comments about it, about how Neo is being forced to make a Matrix 4.
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Neo says, you promised me that we would move on from the Matrix. I did the
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trilogy. The story is complete. Nothing more needs to be said. You promised me.
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Yeah, but corporate wants a Matrix 4. And so you're gonna make a Matrix 4.
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One of the characters says to him, they took your story, something that meant so
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much to people like me and what is it and they turned it into something trivial that's what the
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matrix does it weaponizes every idea every drink that is what the Hollywood machine does that is
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what modernity does it takes meaningful stories it takes it takes human creation that mass markets
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it. It turns it into something cynical. It takes a beautiful story and then abuses it,
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shoves diversity into it, shoves messaging into it, turns it into something they can sell on a
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lunchbox. The Matrix 4 is completely aware of this and it's hating the people that want to buy the
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lunchbox so he shouldn't want to be the lunchbox you should want to self actualize
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somebody asked me no what's it like being a great video game maker you must be very proud of yourself
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and he says well i guess we entertained a lot of kids you know here stupid me i thought i was
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doing something that mattered i thought i was creating art and i made the corporation a few
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million dollars and i entertained a lot of kids you can see this the whole movie starts with this
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reflection upon the past uh 20 years of like what what did we even accomplish
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right this this uh this gen x energy of just geez i i worked so hard i seemed like we were
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were going somewhere, and then the whole thing got captured. Got captured by the
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Matrix again, and I guess we entertained a lot of kids. We made some fun video
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Even the people that are fans of the Matrix trilogy, half of them just think
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the fight scenes are really neato, and the other half have the most absurd
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interpretations of the whole thing uh they the original matrix series was about crypto fascism
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it was about how capitalist exploitation and it's like no shut up shut up stop shoving your your
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your poli-sci degree your your sociology degree into this movie okay like whatever contemporary
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thing that you're trying to do it's like stop just please stop no death of the author try and
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understand what the author was actually trying to create and take it on its own merits but nope
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nope we're all hopped up on our modern buzzwords and everything needs to be interpreted through
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that lens in some vain sense of self-aggrandization
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the movie is well aware that it shouldn't exist and that the people who wanted to exist the most
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are the people that won't get it there's a movie made under duress and yet
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it's a fantastic movie one of the most beautiful bits of cinematography i've ever seen is in this
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movie the the new the new people trying to wake up neo trying to get him out of the new matrix
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are explaining to him that yeah yeah everything like the matrix trilogy actually happened it
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wasn't video games it was your life and at one point they walked through a torn open movie screen
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filming the original matrix which is just beautiful beautiful storytelling
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So yeah, if you don't think this movie should have been made, you're actually the person
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it was made for, not the people who were begging for it to be made.
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So one of the main themes of it is Gen X despondency.
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You know, what have we accomplished aside from entertaining a few kids?
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And there's this huge desire, you know, you had Fight Club, you had The Matrix, you had
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There's generational energy saying that we wanted to be free.
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Neo gets out of the Matrix and then he finds out that the crew that got him out of the Matrix
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half are human half are robots half are machines and he asks wait machines are on our side right
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now and they say not all seek to control just as not all want to be free
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He runs into one of his old companions from the good old days.
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They say, and this is not just a reference to the story of the original Matrix movies,
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but it's a reference to when the original Matrix movies came out.
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The 2000s saw this, this move towards greater liberty for people.
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Less social control, less planning out our entire lives.
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We could explore all these new ideas, read any book that we wanted, network with people
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Where did the old wild west of the internet go?
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Zuckerberg is building the metaverse to entrap everybody's souls.
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We were just rebelling against the centralized planned society.
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And now it's just sheer chaos and people are begging for more tyranny.
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and this this leads us to the villains in the matrix in the new one see in the original you
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had the architect right 1990s oh we figured out civilization it's the end of history son daughter
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you will go and get this degree you will buy the house with the white picket fence you will get
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married and have 2.4 children. You will do all these things. Your life is planned out. There's
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nothing else to do. The architect. And the villains in the original were the agents.
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Anybody could be an agent. You never knew when you're going to run into one.
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But the agents were, well, absolute slaves to the system. Absolute believers in the
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But now we've gone from the world of Clinton and George Bush
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to, like I said, a world ruled by people like Zuckerberg.
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So instead of an architect, we have an analyst.
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The great villain of this series is a psychiatrist.
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Better not take those red pills, they could get you into trouble.
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Take a blue pill, calm down, just do what you're supposed to do every day.
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Don't worry. I've got everything under control. You just follow all of my rules.
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I will diagnose you without input from you.
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I'm going to dictate what your mental illnesses are, and you will believe it.
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And the villains, you've got the analysts at the top instead of agents.
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You still have agents, but they're not the primary antagonists.
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Instead, you've got bots because the analyst figured out that, you know, these agents are really expensive.
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Training them up, you know, having a functional legal system, now that's really difficult.
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Instead, instead of having laws and cops and enforcement when you break the rules,
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instead of all of that nonsense, we're just going to replace 10% of the population with bots.
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And these bots will be used to modulate public opinion, encourage obedience in everybody.
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Why spend all the money on the court system, on right and wrong and discovery, when we
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could, we could just give you a seven-day ban to social media for saying hate speech.
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They let you back on, and you will become your own police.
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So instead of the frightening agents, we've got the zombie horde.
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And by the way, folks, you're not catching the connection to COVID just yet.
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The only people wearing face masks in the movie are bots.
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this is just a small one but i really liked it was the generational dynamics so you've got
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the most gen x person that ever lived neo um piano reeves and he winds up leading a team of zoomers
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now as badly like gen x got completely disenfranchised and half of us were murdered
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in the womb we are a small generation that has no control over anything whatsoever and especially
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at this point like we're getting older and it's like what yeah what have we accomplished the
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the millennials were thrown into debt provided no culture and the best they can do is be victims
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most of the time they're a hero generation with nothing to be heroic about and then you've got
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the zoomers who are you know like they're getting the the end of the human centipede
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the absolute leavings of the society the boomers created they should be the most depressed
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and yet one of the one of the really weird things that's happening
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the the old the old conservatism is dead the gop is an absolute joke like the whole bushism
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all of that that is absolutely dead on the vine and somehow conservatism became the new counterculture
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simultaneously the the big left has become completely the only ones being effective
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are neoliberals and they don't believe in anything they don't stand for anything
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and the the radical left the neo-marxists these people are being exposed bit by bit
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right everybody just about everybody is opposed to critical race theory being taught in classrooms
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and so they're out the left which is normally the forward looking group
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are the most despondent while the conservatives have become the cheerful radicals
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and so you've got these zoomers coming up now these zoomers and young millennials that should
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be utterly hopeless all you have to hope for is adhd medication uh unlimited pornography and you
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know like you can be whatever gender you want you're just not allowed to have sex with real
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people because you might get covered but you can look at all the porn that you want
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and yet these kids have some energy to them there's this conversation where they're they're
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going into battle for the first time with neo leading them and one of them says it's like oh
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The other guy's like, yeah, I guess you're right,
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but I'm okay with that, at least it's exciting.
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And yet there's a strange, strange sort of optimism
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that we might be able to fix that isn't there, folks.
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The last Nomad generation, they were the ones leading World War II.
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And this has Keanu Reeves in a similar role, actually connecting with the youth.
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I like what that is saying about the zeitgeist.
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in the second movie the architect explains to him that you see the way the matrix works
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the way any system of reasoning works is there's always going to be that one bit that destroys the
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whole system that doesn't fit in the system whether you're talking about virgul's incompleteness
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theorem of mathematics uh or or any any system of categorization that uh bureaucracy tries to
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implement, it doesn't matter. Reality is bigger than any finite logical system, and that was the
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problem with the matrix. And so there would always be a one, the exception to the rule,
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that one misfit that just did not fit into the system, and that thing that broke the old system
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would be utilized to create the new system so it wasn't that neo was the one it's that he happened
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to be the one but anybody could have been and so yeah and the new one he is still the one
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And then there's the ultimate goal of the new Matrix.
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The first Matrix wanted to keep people inside of it so they could serve as batteries for the machine overlords.
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In this matrix, they've got a new goal, and that is to keep man and woman separated.
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If man and woman, if yin and yang are able to come together and dance, the creative potential
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But to maintain the system of control, the analyst needs to keep them separated.
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man and woman and we can harvest energy off you here's your social media attention here's your
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porn work at the corporation be a good battery for the system just don't you dare get married
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don't you dare have an intimate relationship that is stronger than your bond to the government
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stronger than your bond to the matrix and to ensure that the two of you never get together
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we've got an army of bots we've got them populating Twitter and Facebook they're
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going to report on you if you say anything inappropriate and they're
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going to influence you with their AI generated opinions to keep men and women
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hating one another because as long as men and women hate one another we can
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The movie is absolutely brilliant, it is absolutely a really uplifting statement about the zeitgeist,
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The fact that this movie got made means that the people trying to maintain this system
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Which is why it's absolutely bizarre to me that this movie's getting so much hate.
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I've got three speculations as to why people don't like this movie.
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Number one, it's an unnecessary remake, and we're very burned out on unnecessary remakes.
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especially after the oh god marvel franchise just the same stupid movie again and again and again
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but that said there have been some really good remakes coming out like just as people realize
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just as the the shift is happening that yeah we need to stop remaking movies let's try making a
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new movie we've had a whole bunch of really good remakes come out doom haven't seen it yet but I
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hear it's fantastic the the new Ghostbusters not feminist Ghostbusters the new Ghostbusters that
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one's fantastic you've got Blade Runner was supposed to be pretty good so it's almost like
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creative spark is back right that the past 20 years have just been this descent into like first we had
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bush with this war boundary then we had obama with no hope no change and then we had trump the lame
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duck now we've got five and yet there's creative energy reasserting itself like as as the things
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get tighter. The control, the commodification of all culture, of all
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spirituality, there's something happening. There's creative energy
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we're trying. So that's my first suspicion. The movie was very meta. It's
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very aware that it's an unnecessary sequel and people jump to conclusions
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about it. Number two, the second reason people don't like this movie is Identity
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politics. On our side. I think people are rushing to judgment about Lena Wachowsky's
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creation because of who and what Lena is. And I'm sure, like, listen, Lena is immersed
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in Hollywood, surrounded by Hollywood culture, and probably has pretty predictable opinions
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about drama and Elon Musk, and has probably posted some dumb tweets about that stuff,
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right? Whatever, whatever. Doesn't mean that Lena cannot tap into the zeitgeist. Does not mean
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the fact that everybody calls Jessica Henwick's character
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The people that claim The Matrix was about crypto-fascism are being ridiculed.
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The radical leftists are, to a certain degree, they are the villains.
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which is another nice thing back in the original movies you had neo and trinity dressing like
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complete edgelords and in this one he's wearing a wool coat and she's wearing just just a regular
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biker jacket right pretty down to earth they leave the crazy matrix clothing for the kids
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right and so yeah some kids got blue hair these days i know it's the end of the world they're all
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social justice warriors, right? No. Bugs is a great character.
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But the final reason I think that people jump to conclusions about this movie is because
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we've been inundated with all sorts of films that are, they go to extremely great lengths
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to create a believable environment. There's a series called Invincible, which
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Which, while extremely well-written, is everything that we should hate about modern movies.
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It's nothing but America is evil, fathers are terrible, you should hate white people,
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And yet there's so many people that are, you know, moderate, like the people that are
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generally opposed to critical theory that seem to like it for some reason.
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whereas i watched them like this is the most critical theory movie i've or tv series i've ever
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seen i think it's because invincible spends so much time world building now quite frankly the
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world building doesn't actually make sense to think about it for five minutes but because
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there's so much time devoted to this is how he balances being a superhero and going to high
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school this is how that works ad nauseam because there's all this world building
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people overlook the implausibility of the world while in matrix resurrection there's
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almost no world building the the movie is actually about the metaphors
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But, let's be frank, using humans as batteries is really, really stupid.
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And what were the red pill and the blue pill anyway?
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They actually explain in this movie that when Morpheus said to Neo,
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you know, blue pill, you go back to your regular life, red pill, you find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
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yeah they were sugar pills the pills were not about
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activating the special effects to get them out of the matrix
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you can't force somebody out of the matrix you can't force red pill somebody they will reject it
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they will react violently. You need to get their consent. You need to get them to agree that they
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want to know the truth. So even in universe, red pill and blue pill are purely metaphorical.
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And the movie itself, it's purely metaphorical, right? No, it doesn't really make sense that the
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robots are using humans for batteries. It doesn't really make sense that this, that, and the other
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thing the world building is nonsense it is about what all these metaphors represent
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so if you go into this movie understand that this is a statement about where we are as a culture
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and how how we might be able to fight back against this creeping commercialization this this creeping
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consensual analytical tyranny that's being built for us
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and if you just enjoy the visuals feel the energy of the movie
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So with that said, carpet if you're around, can you try anything?