The Mobius Matrix: Genre, Visual, and Narrative

Hsu 1

The Mobius Matrix: Genre, Visual, and Narrative

Premiered on 31st March, 1999, The Matrixwas an instant success for the Warner Brothers. The openingweek grossin the U.S. was 27,788,331 U.S. dollars; yet, in the following few months, with the growing international hacker fever, The Matrix earned an astonishing gross of 456,300,000 U.S. dollars world-wide, making it No. 45 in box-office of all time.Nevertheless, the long-waited sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, which was released on May 7th 2003, surpassed its previous installment with the gross of 735,600,000 U.S. dollars, and was No. 18 in all-time box-office. The final installment of the Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Revolutions, which was premiered at exactly on 2 p.m. GMTNovember 5th 2003in over fifty countries, eventually earned 424,000,000 U.S. dollars and made it No. 57 on the chart of all-time box-office.Such a commercially successful trilogy was only accompanied by The Lord of the Ring trilogy and Star Wars trilogy on the world-wide box-office chart. What is more, the fervor for the green-coded screen was also here in Taiwan; the three Matrix films earned, 95,000,000, 81,000,000 and 64,000,000 NT dollars; they were all on the list of Taiwan’s top ten box-office movies of each year.

The directors, Andy and Larry Wachowski, who only had only written Assassins in 1995 and directed Bound in 1996, were relatively unknown while the first Matrix was released, although their screenplay Carnivore, inspired by a book about filmmaker Roger Corman on the theme of cannibalism of upper classes, was selected by Empire magazine as one of the twelve greatest un-produced scripts. Yet, with the huge commercial success and film critics’ favorable feedbacks aboutThe Matrix, the Wachowski brothers became two of Hollywood big shots; they ranked No. 27 in Premiere's 2003 annual Power 100 List.Despite of the success that the trilogy brought them, the brothers insisted that “they would not have to do press junkets or interviews of any kind and they would not have to be photographed for promotional purposes [for the two Matrix sequels] for “they want the films to speak for themselves.” (IMDB)

Indeed, the Matrix trilogy does have much to say. Since the premiere of TheMatrix in 1999, film critics, audiences, professors, and philosophers have been discussing the meaning of the films. The religious, mythological, technological, and political metaphors and implications that abundantly float in the trilogy, which, according to the Wachowski brothers, are to “make intellectual action movies.”The result is, along with the huge commercial success, dozens of professor-written books discussing the philosophies behind the films, numerous articles analyzing the films, and, of course, countless websites and blogs dedicated to Neo and Trinity.

However, what exactly makes the Matrix trilogy so popular? In this thesis I will look into the trilogy in its genre, narrative, and visual qualities to analyze the reasons for the popularity.

Speaking of genre, the Matrix trilogy is a series of sci-fi movies, undoubtedly. But what distinguishes it from other contemporary sci-fi movies is that the Matrix trilogy maneuvers to present a mixture of cross-cultural product. Three of the ingredients that the Wachowski brothers employ are Hong Kong kung-fu action movie, Hollywoodsci-fi tradition, and cyberpunk. In the first part of my thesis I will analyze how the components work in the trilogy as a whole.

Kung-fu action movies have always been one of the great traditions of Hong Kong cinema industry.In the 60s to 80s, there was “the greatest icon of world’s martial art cinema” (IMDB), Bruce Lee, whose popularity not only privilegesHong Kong and Asia, but is also shared by American audiences. For example, in 1973, Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee’s posthumous work, earned 25,000,000 U.S dollar in America and 90,000,000 U.S dollars worldwide(IMDB).And Lee’s unique fighting style, namely the “Jeet Kune Do,”was so famous that the style itself became a representative of Oriental martial art in Hollywood cinema. Lee’s career in America was followed by another Hong Kong acton hero, Jackie Chen, whose The Big Brawl(1980) was produced in America by the same team of Enter the Dragon, though he did not make it into the mainstream Hollywood until Rush Hourin 1998. Just about the same time, Jet Li, knockedon Hollywood in Mel Gibson’s Lethal Weapon 4.And the next year, Woo-ping Yuen’s action choreography epochalwork, The Matrix, was released. And later Yuen choreographed Kill Bill and Couching Tiger and Hidden Dragon.

Despite the very long engagement that Hollywood has been somehow familiar with Hong Kong action movies, real kung-fu was not employed by Hollywood directors until the late 90s. Before that, Hollywood action movies were mostly about big muscles, gunfire and blue-screen explosions. And The Matrix is the first movie that successfully combinesHong Kong kung-fu with Hollywood action. What Woo-ping Yuen does in the Matrix trilogy is literally train the big movie stars with martial arts, and made them act and fight personally with each other before the lenses.Thus, in The Matrix Reloaded, we see Keanu Reeves himself as Neo dress in chic black coat and fight against Seraph (Collin Chou, a kung-fu master from Taiwan)with Chinese drums score in a very Jet Li way. Another scene in Reloaded, when Neo fights against Merovingian’s vampires and werewolves, the style of one against many and the use of weapons are obviously influenced by Jackie Chen’s dancing-like tense fighting style. And certainly the audience will recognize the patent gesture and yell of Bruce Lee along with the pose of Jet Li’s most famous role, Wong Fei-hung, when Neo fights Morpheus in the first installment.

One of the great pleasuresfor the experienced audience while viewing the Matrix trilogy is to pick up the pieces of classic movies. That is, the trilogyuses many elements from other famous Hollywoodmovies. For example, the APU (Armed Personnel Unit) in Revolutions resembles to the mechanical robot that Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) drives to fight against the dark drooling monster. Nevertheless, to the audience of Star Wars, the mechanical design in the Matrix trilogy will also be familiar. Take Morpheus’Nebuchadnezzar for instance, the bumpy skin and shuttle shape are quite similar to Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon in Star Wars. What is more, the main decks of the two ships are nearly identical: huge glass windshield, narrow space with two seats for piloting, and gadgets all over the panel and ceiling. The memory of the shot from the inside of the ship when Han Solo commandedChewbacca to makeThe Millennium Falcon jump to hyperspace will surely put a smile on the audience’s face when they see Morpheus drives his Nebuchadnezzar with identical camera position and visual effect. Yet, the most obvious example of ingredients from other movies is Neo’s flightin Reloaded. When he is trapped in the mountainside and desperatelywants to save Morpheus, Trinity and the Keymaker, he springs up from the ground and certainly flies like Superman. In another scene, when he is asked how Neo is, Link literally replies “He is doing his Superman thing.”Yet, near the ending of Reloaded, when Neo flies in ultra supersonic speed to rescue Trinity, it certainly reminds the audiences of what Superman did in Superman: The Movie.They both fly fast to revive the one they love. Neo flies to catch falling Trinity and to resurrect her against his dooming prophetical dream; Superman flies so fast around the world that he turns back time and also resurrects his lovely Lois Lane from death.

Cyberpunk is one of the Sci-fi traditions that started in the 80s by a series of sci-fi novels by William Gibson. A cyberpunk novel often discusses the dilemma between humanity and technology in a dystopian world controlled by multinational corporations. The Matrix trilogy is strongly influenced by the cyberpunk tradition, especially Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984.)In this novel, Gibson first coins the phrase“the matrix” as a globalcomputer network which he describes as:

A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts….A graphic representation of data abstracted from the bank of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights receding. (qtd. in Featherstone and Burrows 6)

And to use the computer network, the hackers have to “jack in”through headsets called “trodes.”And those concepts are literally realized by the Wachowski brothers in the Matrix trilogy.

Even though the Matrix trilogy is heavily influenced by cyberpunk ideas, however, the trilogy takes a different route in many aspects, such as worldview, plots, narrative scheme, and attitude toward hi-technology.Thetwo worlds of the Matrix trilogy, on contrary to the dystopian society of cyberpunk, are “too stable.” (Jameson 123) That is, a cyberpunk society, which is well-exemplified in Blade Runner, is anarchical, messy, filled with crime and sins, while the two worlds in the trilogy, Zion and the Matrix, are depicted as two typical societies. One is primitive, and one is modern; but both worlds maintain a strong social order. Yet, when works of cyberpunk often narrate the bare struggles of human beings in the pessimistic technology-dominated future world, the Matrix trilogy is full of mythological elements, prophecies, and religious implications. And the salvation in the Matrix trilogy is also rare in the cyberpunk tradition for which often provides no clear solution to the dilemma of human condition in the technology world.And the Matrix trilogy also takes a different attitude towards technology. For example, in Blade Runner, the “replicants” (androids that are more human that human) are the incarnation of the dilemma between humanity and technology; Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford,) who is supposed to hunt down those “evil” machines, is trapped in the dilemma. On the contrary, the Matrix trilogy shows us about the danger of computer technology while itironically overdoses with computer. That is, the Zionists, though against the Matrix’s slavery, use the same computer technology to fight back without questioning it; the final decisive battle, without surprise, has to happen in the computer world. As Baudrillard argues, “[The Matrix trilogy] speaks out against technological alienation while at the same time playing on our fascination for the computerized world and synthetic image”(Lancelin, Aude).

Despite the questionable attitude toward technology, the Matrix trilogy is indeed a feast of dazzling special effects. In the second part of my thesis, I will analyze the visual qualities that separate the trilogy from other contemporary sci-fi movies.

A careful viewer of the Matrix trilogy will certainly find out that fashion is very much emphasized in the films. Every character in the Matrix world dresses in the most fashionable outfits. From Neo’s Airwalk boots, to Morpheus’ most talked about sunglasses by Blinde Design; they are all carefully chosen to strengthen the visual effects (and are also available on The Matrix shop website) The emphasis on fashion is rare in any kind of movie, let alone the characters in dystopian cyberpunk who traditionally dress in shabby clothes. This use of fashion reverses the stereotype dull hero of sci-fi movies, and makes them cool rebel hackers. And this is one of the ways that how the Matrix trilogy stands out from the row of sci-fi movies.

As aforementioned, kung-fu is a crucial element for its popularity and uniqueness. Before The Matrix, we rarely see billionaire movie stars get trained and fight in martial art style. Yet, thedistinguishing feature of kung-fu in the Matrix Trilogy is the use of modern technology, i.e. the computer graphic engineering. One particular example is “the burly brawl” in Reload, in which Neo fights against more than one hundred Agent Smiths. The fight choreography itself is mostly traditional kung-fu: a man fights with his fists and kicks; but the cinematography is advanced. With the help of computer generated images, the movement of the camera, unlike traditional kung-fu movie’s medium shot, ranges from bird-view shots, to extreme close up of the expression, and to a dizzyingrotating 360 degree shot around the fight. And this scene is often compared to a contemporary PlayStation2 videogame “Dynasty Warriors 3” produced and published by Japanese software company Koei. In the game, the warriors have all kinds of unique moves to blow enemies away; that is exactly what Neo does to his ever- multiplying enemies. Yes indeed, the trilogy is like a game, and in the first installment, Nebuchadnezzar itself is a giant machine on which there are numerous computers for simulation and hacking. Neo’s experience on board is thus like in an arcade game center; we see him play the simulation games of “the fight with Morpheus.” In this scene we see Neo as the player and Morpheus as the boss of the game. As the common procedure of gaming, the player Neo at the beginning is defeated by the more skilled boss Morpheus, but after continuous practices, the player will finally surpass the boss. Nevertheless, in the final stage when Neo is running for life from the sentients in the streets and apartments, the process is also like a classic horror game on PlayStation --- Biohazard 3, produced by Capcom, in which the player is also running for life in the streets and buildings from zombies, which are also creatures with human appearance but without human hearts. In Biohazard 3, the player has to open all kinds of door in order to escape from the zombie city, and sometimes the boss waits behind the door. If the player is not ready or not experienced enough, the outcome will usually be a sudden death of the player. It is the same with Neo; he opens the door, he meets the boss, not ready yet, and suddenly died. Fortunately, it is a game, in Biohazard 3, the player can always restart again; in the Matrix game, Neo also restarts again, it is Trinity who kisses Neo; that is, she pushes the “restart” button, or, under the situation of arcade games, she inserts the coins, and Neo resurrects from death. And this time Neo knows the trick and thus beats the boss, Agent Smith. And as the tradition of videogame, the robot boss must explode after being defeated; Agent Smith does follow the tradition and give us an explosion.

The story of the Matrix trilogy can be interpreted in two ways, as Bildungsroman, or, a search for the true self, and as the Messianicsalvation of human kind. In the last part of my thesis, I will analyze the narrative structure of the trilogy in these two ways.

In the first installment, Neo is reborn to the real world innocently and nakedly like an infant. He knows nothing about the world and is repeatedly educated by Morpheus about what the Matrix is and what he can do as the One. Yet, as Hollywood tradition requires, the hero must have a girlfriend, so the first installment is about Neo’s journey to become the One and the double plot about how Trinity falls in love with Neo. And in the second installment, because of Oracle as a computer program and the Architect’s address, the heroic status of the One is put into a doubt; but the love between Neo and Trinity undoubtedly grows enormously. And in the last installment, despite others doubt of his identity as the One, our hero, Neo, decides to do what he chooses to do. And in the end, he triumphs over the enemy and ends the war, proving he is really the One. Yet, if we look closely into the plot, we will find that the second and third installment is actually a repetition of the first installment. The process of the first installment goes with the procedure:

Neo’s rebornMorpheus’ declaration of Neo as the OneOracle’s declaration of Neo as not the OneDespite of the doubt, Neo sets out to do what he choose to doSuccessfully complete the mission, proving he is the One.

And the second and the third repeats at the point where the doubt begins, i.e. the revelation of Oracle as a program, and finally Neo proves again that he is the One savior. Interestingly, the love between Neo and Trinity is so strong that they are like an androgynous One. Trinity kisses and resurrects Neo in the first installment, and Neo resurrects and kiss Trinity in the second installment. And in the last installment, Trinity dies just few minutes before Neo’s sacrifice. And the trilogy as a whole, though with some modifications, fits into the traditional process of the search of an identity of a hero.

The messianic messages in the trilogy are abundant; Neo as Christ is born to save human race. But unlike Jesus’ benevolent love, Neo fights fiercelyagainst his enemy. That is, in the Matrix trilogy, Jesus is Superman who beats the enemy. But what is he fighting against? There is an obvious binary opposition in the trilogy: