Author's Notes:
Many people have that certain movie that opens their eyes to the possibility of Film: for some people it's Star Wars, for others it's Lord of the Rings - for me, that film was 1999's The Matrix. The Matrix was and still is (to me, anyway) one of the most creative, original, and intellectually stimulating films to be made in the history of cinema. Like many people, I eagerly awaited the arrival of the sequels… only to come away bitterly disappointed from watching them.

Now, there were many things that ended up detracting from Reloaded and Revolutions: over-usage of CG graphics and action sequences in place of Story, poor writing and dialogue, lame secondary characters, critical references to other Matrix media that most audiences didn't see, self-referential moments that would decend to self-parody, etc., etc….

For me, however, there was one glaring problem that I could not overlook in the sequels: the character of Neo himself. In my view, this was NOT the same character that we last saw at the end of the first film. His powers appeared to have "de-evolved", his intelligence turned to nothing, his personality was dull and less interesting, and up until the last 1/4 of Revolutions, it seemed like he really didn't give a crap about anyone other than Trinity. And then, of course, there's the ending: where Neo chooses to sacrifice himself for the "Love & Peace" of Humanity and the Machines…

That… is complete and utter bull.

In my frustration, I returned to the first film and began studying the various subjects and works that influenced it. It was from these elements and my interpretations on The Matrix that made me decide to go back and re-edit the sequels in a manner that I felt expanded on the themes of the original - an Edit that would ask the question:
"What if the Neo that we saw in Reloaded and Revolutions… wasn't the true ONE after all?"


Links
Edit's Main Page - http://fanedit.org/7661/