Ethical analysis on the movie The Matrix



Posted: Sunday, August 07, 2005

by Pedro A. Gueits

Before we start looking profoundly at the movie we first need to make a little introduction.We can place this movie on a complex category because it mixes a lot of characteristics like fantasy, reality, technology, love, action and suspense. This movie is very difficult to keep up with because of the series of randomly occurring problems. Lets try to discuss the most important problems and the ones that seriously define the drama of the movie.

The fundamental problem of the movie is the Matrix itself. The Matrix, as said in the movie, was created by the machines which on the other hand where created as A.I.( Artificial Intelligence) by the humans. In other words the machines can act and think by them selves. The machines treason the humans and placed them in a neural interactive simulation program design for their control, using them as the main source of energy. In other words the machines grow the humans like they were fruits or vegetables, resting in this modern civilization simulation program while they are used as a 100 volts battery.

In this problem we can appreciate to different types of communities and even thou they are not equal, they are dependent one on the other. The machines need the energy that the humans, been in this programmed dream world, can produce. The humans need the machines to take care of them because of been in this state of immobility, they need to be satisfied for their primary necessities. We can see this relationship between machines and humans in our daily lives. We depend almost completely of the help of some kind of machine in our daily labors and the machine have the necessity of maintenance which us have to provide for its good performance. The difference between human and machine relationship in real world and on the movie is that in real world the machines are not using us as there slaves (lets hope not).

Inside the Matrix we can fin other important community, like the terrifying programs called Agents . All the humans that know they exist are terrified by their presence, because of the extraordinary abilities of destruction they have .

Many ideologies can be found in this movie.The majority of the humans thought that, based on the fact that they had no neural connection to the Matrix, they were free of slavery imposed by the machines. Cypher, the bad human of the movie, did not think in this way. He thought that been out of the Matrix was like been out of what was completely real. This thinking was one of the reasons he betrayed Morfeous and his crew . The other reason that adds up to his betrayal was that he felt jealous towards Neo, because everyone believe that he was the chosen one .

We can see what the Oracle predicted when Morfeous was captured by the Agents. He was tortured and interrogated for the Sion codes . The Agents having the codes could destroy the Sion city. The only way to prevent this was to disconnect Morfeous from the Matrix program, but at the same time killing him. Neo had to decide what to do between disconnecting him or entering the Matrix.He was suppose disconnect Morfeous, but he didn't. He enters the Matrix and help him.

We can compared this decision with the ethics of aspirations, because he did not follow what he was supposed to do or what he was told to do. He went in the Matrix hoping and expecting to save Morfeous life. Morfeous, as all the humans, hoped in Neo to be the one for destroying the Matrix, as the oracle prophesies said . The Machines and Agents on the other hand expected to destroy Sion city and eliminated Neo whith all the crew, as they had always done with other humans that entered the Matrix. The Machines where wrong because Neo was really the chosen one. We can say that the human hopes came true in one part, in the part that Neo was the one, but not yet in the part that Neo will destroy the Matrix.

If we try to find a solution to this problem we can say that the best way to solve it is to free as many minds as we can from the Matrix, because the machines depend on the humans to survive and if many minds are unplugged from the Matrix they have less humans to use as energy supply. The people has to be free first and then destroy the Matrix because if you are kill in the Matrix you die in the real life, remember "the body cannot live without the mind". In this movie we found some things that are not yet solved, for example, Why if Neo was the one the Oracle told him that he was not? Will he destroy the Matrix? How will he destroy it? Lets hope he destroys it and save all the human minds from the Machines slavery.


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