I had a friend who posited that the Wall-E/Inception scenario would have been a far more interesting prequel backstory for The Matrix than what was actually presented in Reloaded and Revolutions.
Basically, that the remaining "real world" humans were deluding themselves with this grand narrative of a lost war against the machines, when in fact it was humanity's own environmental screwups that blotted out the sky, and most people willingly submitted themselves to a simulated fantasy world that was set right before the collapse of civilization. And if there were multiple "one" persons or matrices or whatever, it was only to keep resetting the simulation and re-playing that golden period. Basically, you would turn the first movie on its head, where Morpheus becomes the character who has to question his world and assumptions, and break free from a tyranny of lies.
> where Morpheus becomes the character who has to question his world and assumptions, and break free from a tyranny of lies.
Narrative differences aside, this is what happens to Morpheus in the Matrix movies though. In The Matrix Reloaded Morpheus comes to realize that finding Neo doesn't end the war with the machines and that the prophecy he believed in was just another system of control. Morpheus says, "I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me."
That's a really cool thought. It's great that the Matrix is set far in the future, after the rise of the machines. There are a lot of possible tie-ins/mashups, e.g. with Terminator.
Given the stuff Neo pulled at the end of Revolutions, there are implications that The Matrix is actually a Matrix inside a Matrix and "waking up" is just an illusion. Which ties perfectly with your idea - we created Dom0 Matrix to free us from thinking and then fabricated DomU Matrix inside it to make things interesting again...
Precisely! However, if you think about it, the Matrix Trilogy does not contradict this notion. Many people believe the "real world" presented is in fact another layer of the Matrix, otherwise, how would Neo have superpowers in that world (among other issues)?
> Many people believe the "real world" presented is in fact another layer of the Matrix, otherwise, how would Neo have superpowers in that world (among other issues)?
Short answer: WiFi
Longer answer: For reasons (probably involving systems of control, because, hey, it's the Matrix), in addition to the high-bandwidth wired connections, the implants in humans attached to the matrix also include lower-bandwidth wireless units, and the machines (obviously) have wireless network connections to coordinate mobile units. Neo can hack machines (or formerly Matrix-connected humans) via his (and their) wireless interfaces, giving him “superpowers” in the physical world.
I've read that an African American woman laid claim to the invention of both terminator and matrix and claimed that the former was a prequal to the latter. Which makes a lot of sense.
Basically, that the remaining "real world" humans were deluding themselves with this grand narrative of a lost war against the machines, when in fact it was humanity's own environmental screwups that blotted out the sky, and most people willingly submitted themselves to a simulated fantasy world that was set right before the collapse of civilization. And if there were multiple "one" persons or matrices or whatever, it was only to keep resetting the simulation and re-playing that golden period. Basically, you would turn the first movie on its head, where Morpheus becomes the character who has to question his world and assumptions, and break free from a tyranny of lies.