Thanks. It’s been awhile since I watched the second and third movies. I just knew it ended without clarity and being open to interpretation. Which I guess allows me to project my own story onto it where humans are basically being preserved as organic life forms. Or even don’t exist organically at all. I enjoy writing that allows for that open ending.

I don’t mind the different interpretation but I don’t agree that machines would for some reason not have trans people exist in the matrix. Are we assuming they have the ability to assign someone’s “true” gender at birth? Trans women are trans women. Trans men are trans men. Simulating their genitals to be “correct” wouldn’t change that. What do they do with nonbinary people? Nonbinary people can’t be “tricked” to not conform to a set of binary gender identities.

Would trans or nonbinary people be more likely to question the Matrix? Sure, you could argue that. But so would neurodivergent people or anyone that’s feels they are not accepted by the social constructs of society. The reality that human beings accept and question the least is the reality that we live in. A reality where trans people exist. Humans (and especially trans/nonbinary humans) would be far LESS likely to accept a reality in which there are only two genders. It would make the matrix LESS believable not more.

I think you’re projecting the human history of attempting to erase trans people onto the machines. Which could be an interpretation. But I don’t see the machines as malicious or evil. I see them as logical in their methods of control.

I think the comment is saying the actual analogy was open to interpretation. Maybe, they said it poorly. The lack of clarity is on purpose. Though I never read the pre-movie version. Maybe it’s more clear. Is Switch an assigned male at birth character in the real world happy being cis? or a trans-man finally able to be accepted for their identity?

I’d say they simply wanted to have Switch as a character with this trait and leave the interpretation up the the audience. In that universe it’s not even clear if the “real world” is actually organic reality. Switch could be interpreted as a trans man, trans women, or even a nonbinary person forced to conform to gender roles in both the Matrix and the “real world”.

I think leaving this for the viewer to interpret would have been really good if it made it into the movie.

Also, the machines absolutely wanted conflict. The first matrix failed because it was a utopia. They realized that the struggles of being human were important to simulate. So you’re not correct in that. At least from literally what agent Smith explains in the movie.

https://youtu.be/9Qs3GlNZMhY

Also, an interpretation I have of the last movies is that the “real world” is just another level of the Matrix. It is a place for the minds of people to go that cannot be contained by the restraints of the lower level Matrix. It is a place that gives them purpose and struggle while maintaining order in the first level of the Matrix. So, yeah. Things can definitely be “thought through” in different ways. It’s why the movie was iconic. It’s not spoon feeding you exactly what the writers want you to interpret.

I always thought that in the end you would find out that the “real world” wasn’t actually real. The reality was that machines were not using them as batteries but were simply preserving the human race out of respect for their creators (like we preserve endangered species today). The machines were simulating multiple levels of a reality as some humans were stroking out or going mad as they discovered the simulation. The entire conflict was to deal with the human need for exploration and conflict in the face of control and restriction.

Smith even talks about it when he’s explaining how the first version of the Matrix was created to be a utopia.

It’s been so long since I watched it. Maybe this is an actual interpretation you could get from the ending and it’s why I thought it. I forget. But it made a lot more sense than being used as batteries.

Or the preservation of humans was deemed important because, well, humans are amazing. I think any artificial intelligence would be smart enough to know that organic life and billionaires of years of evolution were definitely something worth preserving. Even if that life could no longer live within the environment (climate change) that it once could.

Like, there are a million different better explanations than fucking batteries. So, even if that wasn’t the writers idea. I always found it much more satisfying to think this.

No one is talking about immigration and customs enforcement here.

Are we sure she wasn’t working with ICE before this photo was taken?

The crossover though is pretty common. There’s always money in the banana stand.