The Delicious Dessert of the Real

Like all nerds, I love franchise opportunities. The more of something, the usual better. Half a thousand Star Trek Episodes, 200+ of Stargate, the Law & Order universe, infinitely many written words that range from Isaac Asimov to Richard Morgan to Kameron Hurley, and then... the hated trilogy.

I have every hope Pacific Rim turns into a series. After Hellboy 3, of course. And then there are the THREE Indiana Jones films, the Original and canonical Star Wars films, The Nolan Batman trilogy especially Dark Knight Rises which is awesome to seduce someone to since Tom Hardy's Bane voice equals lubricant, and finally The Matrix and select parts of its following ventures.

I love The Matrix. So much. Partly because it's sci-fi and it's required, partly because the first film's message affects me so closely, and partly because a huge area of me wants to be something that i'm not, and that if i believed and tried hard enough i could change things for the better.

I live in a world of limbo. Halfway between life and death. A dreamworld, if you will. And it's all because of biology. I am a scientist. I have to become one, and nothing will ever stop me from it, CSU system not accepting applications be damned.

It's because of that mindset that I realize that for all purposes of Darwinian natural selection I should not be alive. Ten years ago, a thousand years ago, I should have succumbed to a wasting disease. A natural and randomly occurring disease, that serves to control the properties of natural selection, a deoxy-ribonucleic acid based computer code aimed at preventing the virus from over expanding outside its containment limit.

But here I am, because of the end results of the thousand year long experiment with the science of medicine and its subfield of oncology, and you're reading this sentence. Which is why I'm dedicating my precious free time to writing about a movie franchise that inspired countless loners to start wearing black leather trenchcoats and pretend they knew kung-fu.

There's only so much I can say about this that hasn't already been said, from the philosophy to the visual style (i fukkin love green), to the implications of artificial intelligence, to the morality of having a huge orgy while a war is going on and you're fighting against the extinction of your entire species , but I'll try to bring something original to this conversation. Which I will start off with a quote. Highly unoriginal, I know.

"Morpheus: I won't lie to you, Neo. Every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought an Agent, has died. But where they have failed, you will succeed. 
Neo: Why? 
Morpheus: I've seen an Agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air. Yet their strength and their speed are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.
 Neo: What are you trying to tell me, that I can dodge bullets? 
Morpheus: No Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to." ~ http://thematrixtruth.remoteviewinglight.com/html/transcript-of-the-matrix-5.html

Every time I hear Larence Fishburne deliver that quote about Agents, I get the chills. There is something so powerful, so finite about his performance, if i was a voing man i'd have nominated Larry for a best supporting oscar right then and there.

Morpheus is so steadfastly sure in his beliefs that when they are invariably proved correct on the rooftop fight in that faceless L.A. rescue scene that it almost makes me a religious man.

I wish I could believe. Truly I do. If there was anything else that I could place my trust in in this universe aside from the inevitable forces of entropy and decay, I would. I don't like crying, but at the end of the day when you face it, the End of All Things is all that is left to me.
The Matrix is a parable of God, I know that for a fact. The original film is a commentary on the differences between logic and belief, a blending of science fiction, fantasy, western, thriller, drama, comedy, action, romance, foreign, every fucking genre you could imagine that it's the BEST Hollywood could ever churn out. This is the best we will ever get on the subject of philosophy. And it's not that bad. Reloaded and Revolutions are increasingly flawed realizations of the same premise, while Animatrix for all of its flaws is around the same level as its source material in quality.
I cannot and will not ever recommend the Matrix enough. The Wachowski siblings (one of whom apparently and applaudingly underwent gender reassignment therapy and I helped contribute to through the purchase of a ticket) stumbled upon one of the greatest philosophical contributions to decaying western society that we have ever known. There is so much that is RIGHT with The Matrix that I cannot criticize it, for all objections fall flat, especially since we truly do live in a dream world. Our very species cut off from the harsh reality of day.

In the end, would I choose the red pill or the blue pill? I may never really know. I hope against hope to make the right choice, the best choice, and it is my strongest wish that you do, too.