Sunday, March 31, 2019

Twenty years ago today

Morpheus gave us all the red pill and showed us the real world.

A movie like The Matrix might never happen again

Watching today, Neo seems like the poster boy for a disaffected Generation X, a non-conformist who escapes his dull life as a cubicle drone to become a god.

I can agree with that.

I never saw The Matrix in the theaters.  I saw the trailers on tv, but it didn't seem that interesting.  The trailers showcased the special effects, but that was it; nothing about the story.  I expected the movie to be shallow on plot and relying on explosions and martial arts to carry the day.  I figured it would be short-lived at the box office before quickly fading from memory.

Man, was I wrong. 

I eventually saw the movie later when it came to cable.  It's now one of my favorite movies of all time.

And in hindsight, the movie definitely seems to have represented a turning point in American cinema.  Perhaps even a peak of sorts.  Which, of course, was also a theme in the movie: according to Morpheus, 1999 represented the "peak" of our civilization, which is why the machines used that era as the basis for the Matrix.

As Cypher might say... what a mind-job.

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