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I\'ve only seen the first one. I see wonderful parallels with the Gospel. The Gospel teaches that we are living under Rome/the Ruler of this World, but we are, in fact, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. However, this overlap in realities is not clear to everyone. \"Those who have ears to hear, let them hear!\"
The analogy I see between the Matrix and the Gospel is that the Matrix represents the World, and reality, the Kingdom. As soon as one realizes that the power of the World/Matrix is not the ultimate authority, but that the the Kingdom/reality is what is ultimately binding, we can be free and the supposedly all-powerful denizens of the World/Agents have no power over us.
Of course, their is no Son of God in the Matrix, so the allegory is not perfect. We can\'t stop reading our Bible yet . . .
Chew on this: you can look at the first movie as the retelling of The Story. The story of how the chosen one first does not believe, then resists. After starting to believe (\"You mean I can dodge bullets? No, being the One means you don\'t have to\"), the chosen one must die, but is brought back to life by love. After returning to life, the chosen one transcends the matrix. The chosen one sees the matrix for what it really is, but returns to the matrix to save those still trapped by the illusion.
Now if that doesn\'t sound familiar....:)
While I agree with ICXCNIKA that there IS a mishmash of diferent religious philosophies in there, to my mind the movies (all 3, taken as a whole, although the first was the best) do something very important - they lay out the battle between belief and unbelief- between faith and raging materialism, (as well as free will vs determinism) as represented by Neo/Morpheus vs Agent Smith/the Merovingian, and it is clear that unbelief and determinism are the dead-ends. This is beginning to become unusual in an ancreasingly nihilistic, materialist world where \'this life is all there is\' and death is just the ultimate tragedy and the Clavinistic \\"we are all doomed to do what we do\\"/\\"it is inevitable\\".
Neo\'s \\"I believe, because I choose to\\" really hits a nail on the lie (that I myself bought into for many years) that you can\'t \'just believe\' - you need proof, evidence...
Not that the Wachowski brothers are Orthodox or anything, but they DO agree on important pre-requisites for accepting the Truth.
I greatly enjoyed the first movie. So much so, we named a litter of puppies after the characters :D The first born was a black pup we named Morpheus... who then \\"morphed\\" into brown markings. Neo ended up looking the most like his father. Trinity was third born, at midnight, and the most beautiful of the four. Matrix was the last one... and a beautiful black and white with white-blue eyes. And yes, that was totally off-topic ... but fun!
The first movie did a wonderful job at story telling. And Chris_P did a great synopsis on the story and how it did beautifully tie into a very familiar story. The 2nd would have been better if I hadn\'t seen the first. It seemed to me that it was trying too hard to be \\"as good\\" as the first, and it seemed to draw away from the story.
The third seemed to pull off its story a little better.
JMHO
paraskeva wrote:
I greatly enjoyed the first movie. So much so, we named a litter of puppies after the characters :D The first born was a black pup we named Morpheus... who then \"morphed\" into brown markings. Neo ended up looking the most like his father. Trinity was third born, at midnight, and the most beautiful of the four. Matrix was the last one... and a beautiful black and white with white-blue eyes. And yes, that was totally off-topic ... but fun!
The first movie did a wonderful job at story telling. And Chris_P did a great synopsis on the story and how it did beautifully tie into a very familiar story. The 2nd would have been better if I hadn't seen the first. It seemed to me that it was trying too hard to be \"as good\" as the first, and it seemed to draw away from the story.
The third seemed to pull off its story a little better.
JMHO
What you pull out is plain vanilla perennial philosophy.
I think there is more to these movies than that, the persistent dream of finding oneself the secret prince and wizard who will save the world. On that level, it\'s the same fantasy as Harry Potter. But the story gets stranger, not for the rather tame sex scenes or distanced violence, but because it simultaneously shows a universe of archons over prakriti, and denies this as only an antitype of a more serious reality.
Begging your pardon, but Solaris was written by the Polish science fiction writer Stanilaw Lem. Otherwise, your point is good.
The first Matrix movie is straight Valentinian Gnosticism, much like the world view in Philip K. Dick\'s later novels. In the second 2 they start playing with and mixing and matching their cosmology, which is what made (in my opinion anyway) so much fun. And having Cornel West (Counciler West) on screen was a hoot.
I\'m an oddball, I loved the 3rd one the most... maybe because it doesn\'t deal so much with the philosophy of things anymore, but more of the fighting/struggle aspect.... \\"ok we\'re in this mess, and it\'s going to be messy to get out of it\\"
In Korea when people are in difficult situations, or nervous about some situation, others always say \\"fighting!\\" kind of an acknowledgement that \\"yeah it\'s tough, but you have to do it anyway - so try hard\\"
anyway, that\'s why i like the 3rd one.... and the action scenes are cooler because they are based in the real world
Robotom: Actually, I agree about the 3rd movie. I liked all three, but I thought 2 was the weakest. In the first they are making their movie to fit their cosmology by the 3rd they were remaking their cosmology to fit their movie, and they got it all mixed up, which is why the movie is so confusing,,,and so interested.
We should not look to these for teaching on faith and morals. The Wachowkis are what Evelyn Waugh or Walker Percy would call bad Catholics, or what My Lady CyranoRox would call Theomachists. Not unbelievers but people who are mad at God (and/or the Church) and have a bone to pick, like Ivan Karamozov, or Job, orJacob, called Israel, the God-wrestler, or Our Father Abraham (But what it there are 10 righteous?), like maybe a few of us...
The point is not that the Wachowkis don\'t have the right answers, they don\'t, the point is they are asking the right questions, which is a good way to start.
Yeh, and the actions scenes in third are really cool....
Neo/One/Eon stands in for the Son; being the son of the Archetect and the Oracle, twin to Smith, the destroyer of Isiah 56:18 [which rather charmingly is on his licence plate].
The analogy works with a Mormon, arian, or Gnostic Christology. But did you see V? the got a great deal closer, really only as far from an Orthodox subtext as Sabellianism [Who is but a function of What] permits.
Personally I thought the movies were good. My favorite bad guys where the twins with the white dredlocks.
If you want a movie collection that has something to do with Christianity then you need to look at Star Wars (IV, V, VI). I\'ll explain my thesis or nerdness.
Darth Vader is the vicor of the emperor
(the Pope is the vicor of Christ)
The Emperor has the red imperial guards
(Catholic cardinals)
Luke Skywalker
(is Martin Luther leader of the reformation, also Luke Skywalker cuts the hand off of Vader -symbol of Luther attacking the Pope yet he becomes his own pope)
The Death Star
(St. Peters Basilica)
The rebellion is a group of rebels only to destroy the Empire
(Protestants)
Chewie
(Pentecostals - speaking in tongues and all that)
Ewoks
(Omish, Mennonites, very primitive)
The Force
(its the so called dead Religion even by the generals of the death star)
Yoda
(hermit monk of the \\"dead religion\\", uses physical training to develop the force,)
Enjoy :)
On a serious note, Star Wars does show what the basic Christian realm is like. You have the warfare of the industrial revolution. The age old human sin of creating our own world on our own terms, rather than God\'s world on God\'s terms. Even though the feat of the Death Star is impressive on a evil scale Vader says its no match for the power of the dark side. You see the basic elements of the training of Luke Skywalker with extreme isolation in physical training comparable to the hermits of silence started in Sketis, Africa. Luke having to accept his past, and in order to make choices in doing good. (You live by the sword you die by the sword, Vader\'s and Luke\'s hand are cut off). Yoda and Ben are dead but alive always interceding and helping Luke, which is the symbol of the Saints.
Enjoy! :)
I am a fan of the older versions my favorite is Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, my reasons in respective order, the teaching of Yoda to over come the dark force, and for Darth Vader\'s love of his son triumphs! The new ones were not like the originals but one good thing is that the message was that the one Anikin skywalker was prophetic to kill the last Sith Lords. Which he becomes a Sith however in the Return of the Jedi he does fulfill the prophecy by killing the Emperor!