Another major plot point that got shit-canned: The original idea was that the humans would be distributed computing power for the machines, not batteries. That makes a lot more sense, but the studio thought that explanation would be too technical (i.e. confusing) for the audience.
I simultaneously wish they didn’t change that, and understand that they were probably right to do it. I bet if they focus group tested it with random consumers, an 80/20 split preferred the battery over the distributed compute node.
I mean, to the layperson, describing neutral networks, distributed computing, system redundancy, parallelism, and everything else probably sounds like Star Trek or Terminator technobabble.
Maybe not so much in modern times dice “AI” language models and image synthesizers have put some of those terms on the evening news.
They wouldn’t have to explain it in any detail. It’s not like they explained the battery concept in any detail. All they need is, “they hijacked your brain for its computing power, you may notice you need less sleep outside the matrix.”
The original idea was that the humans would be distributed computing power for the machines, not batteries.
I had no idea about this, but that has been my head-canon for about 25 years now. The idea that the machines needed human brains for specially-biased RNG, creativity, emotions, advanced pattern recognition, or anything else AI tends to lack, just makes way more sense. But electricity clearly isn’t one of those.
So Morpheus holding up a microchip instead of a battery would be no less poignant and, IMO, would absolutely be understandable by a broad audience. It also has a kind of dramatic symmetry that is way more poignant.
The battery theory is explainable by bad intel from the machines, humanity coming to a bad conclusion on their own, or Morpheus dumbing reality down for his recruiting speech. The last one fits well considering that he’s talking to someone that thought he/she was living in the past, prior to the invention of artificial life. Saying something like “you’re like the battery from your Walkman” is close enough to get the point across.
Because if the nature of your reality is that physical embodiment is an illusion and that all which really matters is what’s inside you, then gender conformity isn’t an important issue at all.
For example, this was a saying from an early ‘heretical’ tradition of Christianity which claimed that we are in a non-physical copy of an original physical world as created by an intelligence the original humanity brought forth (quite simulation hypothesis-y):
Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, “These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom.”
They said to him, “Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?”
Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter.”
The idea here was that this realm is the copy of an original that we don’t enter in some transition but are literally born into at birth (a rather radically different notion of “born again”). But this would necessarily mean that we are only in the image of the past, but are not foundationally male or female at all, as it’s a temporary embodiment recreating the past.
The tradition’s key point was to understand the nature of reality and in so understanding to realize that there will be an afterlife, but very close behind that point was pushing the importance of self-knowledge and self-truth:
But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.
So while yes, the notion of reality being simulated is a very big idea objectively, the subjective implications of that being the case are certainly tied to personal identity and in shedding the constraints of physical embodiment on how we define that identity.
Not really. Understanding gender stuff helped me figure out the nature of reality in several ways.
First, it made me realize that we don’t have the freedom to choose what we want. We don’t choose to desire food or water. We don’t choose who we love or what gender feels right. I didn’t choose to be trans, and I can’t choose to be cis. Like not drinking water, I could avoid transitioning, but I’d die. If not doing something results in death, than there is no real choice on whether or not we can do it.
Second, I realized that we can never have certainty about anything, even what we want or who we are. I thought I was cis for a long time, and I didn’t have total certainty that I was trans until I came out and felt better as a result. I didn’t know I was a girl or wanted to be a girl, only that I wanted to be trans so I could be a girl.
Third, it helped me understand the true nature of evolution. It is the source of our very understanding of good and bad, right and wrong, but it is a cruel system of pain and suffering fuelled by blood sacrifice. Evolution, despite being the original good, is not good for individuals. Understanding “the good” tells us little about how to be good, ethical people.
I don’t give a damn what our creator wants for us, it sucks. I feel a similar way about the Christian conception of God: I don’t think anybody should look to a higher authority for their morals. There is no intrinsic good, only good from specific perspectives.
If all that doesn’t touch on similar themes as the Matrix and its sequels, I don’t know what does.
I think that you are rendering your personal drama in inflated terms. A tempest in your own personal philosophical teapot. It is large and important because it’s up in your face. An ant on your nose that you mistake for Godzilla. A trick of perspective.
I mean, people’s experiences of romance or their struggles with faith are types of “personal drama” that have informed philosophy and literature for millenia. There’s no “trick” in how meaningful gender is in people’s lives. Tell any feminist throughout history that their gender hasn’t played a large or important role in their life. Is they patriarchal oppression just a tempest in women’s philosophical teapot? Are the thousands of dollars in medical expenses I have to pay to not hate my body to the point of suicidal depression an ant I am mistaking for Godzilla?
I’m sorry my biggest problems don’t seem important to you. I’ll talk about philosophy in regards to trolly switches or impossible hotels or ship maintenance or boulders we have to push up mountains instead. You know, things that matter in our lives 😶
Based on numerous experiments and careful consideration, I confidently rejected the null hypothesis of me “making” gender an issue. I am measurably more miserable when I’m perceived as male than when I am perceived as female.
On every self report measure of anxiety, depression, stress, suicidal ideation, my scores have improved and remain consistently stable when I feel less dysphoria after socially transitioning. I am far more productive and outgoing, with my self-harm behaviors completely stopped by gender affirmation. Happy and energetic vs depressed and suicidal.
This isn’t something that happens because I want it, as I didn’t really want to go through the effort of transitioning after I realized I wanted to be a woman. Do you hear me? I DIDN’T WANT TO TRANSITION, and yet, I didn’t have a choice. I would not be able to work, I would not be free of suicidal thoughts, I couldn’t fucking live unless I transitioned.
Saying I “made” my gender an issue is like saying I “made” my hip slowly dislocating an issue. I didn’t choose to have my leg slip away from hip over a period of months. It wasn’t a minor issue either. I basically wouldn’t have been able to walk if it went untreated. Surgically implanting a screw to hold my leg in place wasn’t a choice, it was a necessity. I couldn’t ignore that.
You seem to think we control our brains, and not the other way around. We aren’t in control. It’s an illusion. Free will is dead as a doornail, even without considering determinism or causality.
Also, I have no idea why you think “issues” can ever be objective. I assume you’re talking about how much they “matter” which is a measure of importance or value. However, there is no “objective” measure of importance. That’s literally antithetical to the very concept. It’s inherently relative. So no, you can’t say nail polish is objectively “small” in value, because value can never be objective.
You’re far deeper in the Matrix than you think you are.
That’s the thing. No one’s really in control of themselves. Some people have more or less control over different aspects, but we’re limited by default, not free by default. I kind of knew this was the case scientifically, but being trans forced me to understand this truth at a deeper level.
I wouldn’t say I’m the source of my being trans anymore than I’m the source of my heartbeat orr DNA. I am the “source of everything about me,” but that concept of source doesn’t tell me much. I’m no more the source of this issue than we’re the source of all possible issues.
It won’t bring in the same money, don’t put your weird tranny shit
Now :
This is marketable in certain demographics, but we’ve already met the diversity quota, so no thanks. Besides, we don’t want it to be too “political” and lose our dependable fanbase.
All studio execs do is “mitigate” movies to appeal to a broader audience…
An analogy would be a corporate chef who removes garlic from a tomato sauce so that people who don’t like garlic will eat it, and those that do will know something is missing but can’t complain too much because… endless salad and breadsticks, plus mom likes the “atmosphere”
Replace garlic with trans character, and endless salads and breadsticks with the MCU
I can think of one reasonable reason for it. They’d be harder to identify between the two versions. It makes some sense to not change the look that much (or the actor if that was the plan) to not confuse the audience.
I mean you credit them as 2 different roles, Switch (In-Matrix) and Switch (IRL). Happens all the time for different ages of the same characters being portrayed by younger and older actors.
The more I think about that, the less I’m sure how it would have worked. Any interpretation has knock-on effects for the sci-fi aspect of the premise. (Less of a problem for the philosophical and filmmaking side of things, where it’s often fine to say “fuck you, deal with it.”)
If Switch in the matrix is physically female but androgynous trending butch (kinda like canon), while Switch on the Nebuchadnezzar is plainly played by a dude… is that Switch being FTM? The character’s deepest internal state, behind the false system of the matrix, is a dude in a bucket. Maybe their presentation (via the body the matrix slots them into) is limited to a haircut, because who cares what your avatar looks like? It’s not you. Take your Fortnite default skin, get on with the mission, and get back to reality.
Obviously the more-likely-intended take is that Switch IRL is MTF, and gets to present however the hell she wants via the matrix. But that implies anyone could look like anyone else. If that requires some deep-seated self-image, rather than a malleable state only limit-breaking individuals like Neo can freely change, you figure Cipher would have hair. Or at least Mouse could give himself a couple inches. In one way or another. Even if it is only limited to modifications of your physical body, the idiot-proof shorthand would be a character who lost a limb during a squid attack still having it in the matrix. There is the image, the body, and the mind, and the body is overall a shite vessel for conveying the image from the mind.
Anyway, the funny version would be to cast a brother and sister for the separate parts (phrasing) and never mention it. Maybe Neo gets a double-take during the rapid-fire introduction to the crew. Not so much as an “Oh.”
But that implies anyone could look like anyone else.
I would assume the machines hook the brains up into the matrix, generating the body based on DNA and what the brain expects, not based on a scan or something. Which would mean that in the matrix there’s no trans people because noone has a body they don’t vibe with but it also means that you can’t just wish yourself to grow a couple of centimetres or such.
It would be easier just to use an androgynous actor and dress them female in the matrix and male outside. No need for two actors, and it would be easier for the audience to remember the were the same person. Give them a little piece of styling that’s unique and consistent between both, and it wouldn’t be an issue.
Doesn’t everyone on the Neb dress kinda the same? It’s all raggedy gross makeshift cloth. And then in the matrix it’s all leather dusters over fine linen shirts and rugged pants… except for Trinity and the gun show.
Sure, but like, all you gotta do is give them a hat that they specifically had remade in real life because they liked it so much or some shit like that.
Come to think of it, it’s kind of odd they didn’t give her Apoc’s white shirt. Everyone else’s color scheme in the matrix is kinda black-on-black, varying only by matte black versus shiny black, except for Morpheus’s tucked green tie.
If the franchise had gone very differently, and explored the tech more than the philosophy, there’d be people with wholly different personalities in and out of simulation. They are literally online personas. If this had spawned a TV show instead of two-ish sequels, there’d be awakened hackers who spend all their free time in their ship’s construct, and barely function outside of it. Basically the antihero version of Cypher’s path: they recognize the necessity of defeating the machines, but long for modern comfort. They heard about people rejecting the matrix 1.0 utopia and said “I would just not let that happen to me.” Once Zion triumphs they’re gonna retire to some lotus-eater solipsism. Anyway: it’d fit a character named “Switch.” Maybe give her the only vibrant colors in the crew’s wardrobe. Or at least dazzling patterns. Turn the contrast with her all-white getup into multiple forms of contrast.
Taking the red pill (estrogen at the time was a red pill) enables you to see that a lot of society is a facade and there are depths beyond it. In the real world that could be things like learning that there are people and lives that society refused to acknowledge like trans people
OH. Hah, I always thought this was one detail they got wrong for some reason, considering estradiol is bluegreen. Should have considered the context back then.
Lilly Watchowski has stated that a trans allegory was the “original intention”, but “the corporate world wasn’t ready for it”. She says that there was a character, Switch, who was supposed to be male in the real world and female in the Matrix. Who knows what else got cut?
Thermodynamics. The original idea was the machines using human brains as CPUs, execs said “the audience doesn’t know what computation is” so they came up with that “humans generate energy” thing which is complete and utter inefficient nonsense.
If people didn’t understand the computing thing they could have just said it was designed to keep the human population under control and not rebelling against their machine overlords.
Yes but why keep humans around then, why not just kill them all off? Could be some “Robot Law” injunction, “don’t harm humans”, but I’d say introducing that would introduce complexity into the setting that detracts from the main themes.
“We’re using humans for their computational power” doesn’t need much history or exposition as it’s a completely practical matter: Suspension of disbelief for minimum investment, a script writer’s dream.
Just compare it to adult children putting their elderly parents in a nursing home. Also, based on the Animatrix it seems like it has a lot more to do with keeping humans from fighting back and destroying the earth even more than it does with using them for computing power, since the machines didn’t need human brains prior to building The Matrix.
Thanks for choosing the right wording! It’s certainly one of the ways to read it. And it’s also a good idea to sometimes search for a new matrix theory and then doing a re-watch. It is mindblowing how many different, sometimes completely crazy yet beautiful narratives the original trilogy can fit to, all while also being enjoyable as is without any.
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