Dystopian Film: The Matrix

Films are about helping us understand and not escape from reality. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

There are many dystopian films that reveal what technology is doing to humanity. The film ‘The Matrix’ directed by the Wachowskis being one of these films. The Wachowskis have used this film to reveal to the audience that humanity is escaping from reality, and are hiding in and relying on the technology that they have created. There are three ideas in this film that help portray this message. They are: humanity will destroy the Earth, our reliance on technology is what will enslave us, and we will be the cause of our own extinction.

The Matrix explores the idea that humanity will destroy the Earth with the technology that has

The Matrix looks at the idea that humanity will become enslaved by their obsession and reliance on technology. In The Matrix humanity is trapped physically and mentally. The power plant scene highlights how they are physically trapped, the camera pans down towers of pods to reveal the humans trapped to the pods by wires. These wires are showing that humans are trapped by the technology that they had created. This scene is used as a metaphor for what will become of the human race, also to highlight what reliance on technology will do to humanity and show that humans sometimes don’t understand how reliant they have become. The purpose of the power plant scene is to highlight to the audience that people are physically trapped by their reliance on technology and to make them think about how reliant they are on their technology. The restaurant scene is used to reveal how humanity is mentally trapped. In this scene Cypher is requesting that Agent Smith put him back in The Matrix, he does this because he doesn’t like the reality of the ‘real world’. This express Cypher’s emotions to the audience, it shows that he is tired and scared of the knowledge that comes with the ‘real world’ and needs the calm, quiet life that he once had. Cypher comments on how ‘Ignorance is bliss,’ Revealing that he is willing to be trapped within The Matrix and to be dependent on the system, and the machines. This is shown when Cypher says ‘I don’t want to remember nothing, nothing.’ The directors have

Our dependence on technology will be what destroys humanity, and at the rate that humanity is developing technology, it will take over the quicker than we think. In The Matrix the Morpheus torture scene is used to reveal how technology is taking over humanity, in this scene Agent Smith refers humans to zoo animals and Dinosaurs. This is important because dinosaurs are extinct, Agent Smith is highlighting what will happen to humanity if we carry on with our obsession and reliance on technology. Agent Smith talks about how humans stopped thinking becoming just another animal on the food chain moving machines to the top, which it’s part of the evolutionary cycle. “Evolution, Morpheus, evolution, like the dinosaurs.” The point of this example is to highlight how our dependence on technology has pushed humanity to extinction, the directors have used this scene to highlight how humanity will be the reason for their own extinction if they carry on with this dependence on technology. The purpose is to make the audience think about the way in which they depend on technology and what they can do to better themselves. Another scene is the farming scene, in The Matrix people are used as a source of energy for the machines. They are kept in a comatose state and then processed when dead to feed the next growing generation, “Human beings are no longer born, but we are grown.” The machines treat humans like cows, this is shown to compare how humans have farms with cows that they fatten