Each time a franchise releases a new movie decades after the last, there's always a risk, but The Matrix Resurrections has particular challenges that are unique to it. The fourth movie in The Matrix franchise, directed by Lana Wachowski, is releasing 17 years after what was thought to be the final movie, The Matrix Revolutions. But in 2017, rumors started circulating that Warner Bros. was planning a reboot of the franchise and in August 2019, it was officially announced that a reboot wasn't happening, but Lana Wachowski was returning for a fourth Matrix movie and direct sequel.
As with most sequels long in the making, it will be a mix of old and new. Leading the Matrix 4 cast are Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, who are returning, along with Jada Pinkett Smith, Lambert Wilson, and Daniel Bernhardt. The majority of the cast, however, are brand-new faces to the Matrix franchise. They include Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as a young Morpheus, along with Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Priyanka Chopra, Christina Ricci, Telma Hopkins, Toby Onwumere, Max Riemelt, Brian J. Smith, and Eréndira Ibarra, all in undisclosed roles.
As expected, even less is known about the story. The first trailer for The Matrix Resurrections revealed that Neo doesn't seem to remember his past, nor does Trinity. Outside of that, there's a big question mark where confirmed storylines might be. Despite such little information being known, intrigue and anticipation have been high for an audience eager to see what Wachowski could possibly do to elevate the fourth movie beyond the already groundbreaking original trilogy. Even still, Matrix Resurrections has a few big challenges ahead of it.
The First Matrix Movie Was So Influential It May Seem Derivative Now
This isn't necessarily a problem unique to The Matrix Resurrections (or even to movies), but it's certainly a degree of magnitude more significant than most. There's no official term for it and everyone seems to have their own phrase for the phenomenon where a body of work was so enormously influential in decades past that when that filmmaker (or musician or writer) releases something new for the first time in decades, the young, brand-new audience views that work as derivative. A few people have dubbed it "the John Carter effect" and John Carter of Mars is an apt example for the eponymous term. Edgar Rice Burroughs' property has been around since 1912 and was vastly influential on later works of science fiction, including Dune, Flash Gordon, Superman, Avatar, even Star Wars. Yet by the time Disney finally released the first John Carter movie in theaters in 2012, it ironically came across as a generic mishmash of those very same franchises to a new audience that had no connection to the original source material and it subsequently bombed in theaters.
While it's highly unlikely The Matrix Resurrections will bomb, it does face that same challenge with a new generation. It's impossible to overstate how influential The Matrix was when it first came out in 1999. The modern technique used to create the "bullet time" effect of a scene frozen in time is ubiquitous in movies today, but a new method was pioneered for the original Matrix, the term derived from the scene in which Neo dodges a bullet for the first time. In 1999, watching Neo slow down time enough to see the ripples of displaced air a bullet made as it tore through the air was groundbreaking; now it's simply commonplace, the effect used across movies, TV and video games. Beyond just bullet time, The Matrix advanced moviemaking visuals and VFX techniques to the point it essentially became the blueprint for modern superhero films, leading to the rise of the comic book movie genre in the early 2000s to today, where it now dominates modern audiences' perception of blockbusters. Likewise, the story elements that The Matrix tackled of A.I., being in a simulation, and the dangers of the internet were brand-new in 1999 when only about 50% of American households had a computer. Twenty years later, those concepts have been explored ad nauseam in everything from Free Guy to Black Mirror. The Matrix Resurrections will be hard-pressed to tackle those themes in such a way that they still seem fresh and relevant.
The Look Of The Matrix Resurrections Might Throw People
Stemming from that concept of "what was once influential now seems derivative," the look of The Matrix Resurrections may disappoint some. The original movie had a lot of gray and blue tones with tinges of sepia and lurid yellow-green, with that green tint heightened in the Matrix sequels and the original movie shortly being remastered with a stronger green tone. It's that and the iconic green-and-black color scheme of the falling code that people tend to associate most closely with the "look" of the Matrix franchise, one that slotted in neatly to the cyberpunk explosion of the mid-90s to early 2000s. The new trailer for The Matrix Resurrections, however, shows a film that is far brighter and less green-tinged than the original movies, which is partly due to narrative continuity. The rebooted Matrix cycle at the end of The Matrix Revolutions looked distinctly different from the ones that came before: brighter and sunnier, it suggested a more hopeful future. With the numerous shots backlit by the setting sun in the new trailer, it appears this might still be the case in the new movie.
However, the trailer also shows that The Matrix Resurrections has fallen prey to the scourge of the blue-and-orange color palette of modern movies. There's a reason this color scheme dominates so many movies today, the main reason being that, as blue and orange are on opposite sides of the color wheel, they're complimentary. Blue and orange are chosen over other pairings because orange works best with human skin tone, which tends to fall into the orange range. On top of that, the shift to digital over film meant that suddenly, it was much easier to color grade multiple scenes simultaneously with a single color scheme. Color correcting is a long, painstaking process when done scene by scene and the schedule of most blockbusters doesn't allow for that much time, so the much easier, faster process is to choose one color palette that complements most scenes in a movie and apply it to as much as possible, hence the dominance of blue and orange in movies. It's understandable, but unfortunately, it means The Matrix 4 runs the risk of looking like every other tentpole movie today when historically, its legacy has been to establish the look for movies that follow.
The "Blue Pill/Red Pill" Concept Is Damaged Goods Now
Upon its release in 1999, The Matrix offered up a narrative that was steeped in the ethos of the late '90s, filtered through the classical philosophical lens of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave." The concepts of being a corporate drone versus freedom from being chained to a desk, the way capitalism has turned people into mindless consumers, technology being used to impinge on one's privacy, and a society remaining sedated and docile through mindless content and mundane daily routines were big narrative throughlines of pop culture in the growing cynicism of the late 1990s. The Wachowskis distilled those abstract ideas down into the simple framework of taking a blue pill vs. a red pill. Taking the blue pill erases the knowledge of the "real" world from a person's mind; taking the red pill wakes them up to the truth of the world, which is that it's an artificial construct known as the Matrix.
Unfortunately, in the two decades since, the entire concept has been co-opted by the alt-right. Initially, the red pill was taken from The Matrix and incorporated into the hostile manosphere of the internet, from men's rights groups to pickup artist forums to rape apologists, all gravitating toward Reddit forum The Red Pill, which espoused that women actually ruled the world and men were victims and the real oppressed class. It swiftly spread to other far-right corners and conspiracy theorists, and today, "taking the red pill" or "being red-pilled" is used by everyone from QAnoners to white nationalist neo-Nazis to mean someone who has been "awakened" to the "truth" of the world – that truth varying depending upon which particular conspiracy theory one adheres to or minority group one irrationally hates.
The Matrix Resurrections has its work cut out for it to reclaim the concept from the cesspools of festering digital sewage that have held it hostage over the years and transformed it into something vile. The idea of taking a red pill is now firmly steeped in negative connotations and it will be a challenge to redirect the idea to aim at the target it was meant to. That target, of course, is punching up at those in power, rather than what it's become today, which is people with power convincing themselves they're actually victims and punching down. When people like Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump tweet about taking the red pill with zero self-awareness or indication of irony, it's a blaring neon sign that the concept has jumped the shark. And, while certainly possessing less of a squick factor, the idea that taking a blue pill, i.e. a prescription drug, in any way dulls one to the "real" world or turns one into a sheep is still a problematic message and outdated notion.
That's not to say there's not still much to be excited about for The Matrix Resurrections. Lana Wachowski is a deliberate and thoughtful, dynamic filmmaker, and one of the most ambitious storytellers in Hollywood. The movies and TV shows she's made with her sister, Lilly, haven't always landed, with their vast ambition outstripping a cohesive narrative. But Wachowski remains a must-watch filmmaker, if only because what she has achieved when her grand visions have lined up with execution continuously hints at the potential inherent in her project. Hopefully, even without Lilly this time around, Lana Wachowski has another jaw-dropping film on her hands with The Matrix Resurrections.
