G and I spent a ton of time trying to deconstruct Smith after the movie. One of our conversations started with him arguing one thing and ended with him arguing the complete opposite thing. Yeah.
I do also tend to think that Smith is acting outside of Official Matrix Control -- but I don't know what his goal is or how much control or awareness the Matrix does have. Especially since -- on the one hand -- it seems that the Matrix has ubiquitous-power capability -- but on the other hand -- it's not exercising that power, or else is plan is even weirder than we can tell so far, or else we were wrong and it's such a complex system it can't keep track of itself. (And it has, then, in a sense, its own free will? OK, too weird.)
And yeah, I await an explanation of the Neo/machine thing too. I mean, it would be totally consistent for him to be able to manipulate their programs and hence stop them, but there would need to be a medium of interaction, and I'm not really ready to postulate telepathy. On the other hand, we do know that the Matrix/machines have some kind of control inside Zion -- they built it, and Smith could psychically suborn that assassin dude (ie events which happen inside the Matrix can permanently alter stuff putatively outside it, so maybe this can go in reverse?).
Zion could be a Matrix, too. But I would find that terribly unsatisfying. Infinite recursion would be a lame plot, and it would render irrelevant all that totally cool stuff the Architect said. (Although I guess it would create a possibility that the sixth matrix is the sixth nested matrix and Neo has to climb back through all of them and vanquish the previous chosen ones, which would at least be an awfully cool fight scene. But still a lame plot.)
no subject
I do also tend to think that Smith is acting outside of Official Matrix Control -- but I don't know what his goal is or how much control or awareness the Matrix does have. Especially since -- on the one hand -- it seems that the Matrix has ubiquitous-power capability -- but on the other hand -- it's not exercising that power, or else is plan is even weirder than we can tell so far, or else we were wrong and it's such a complex system it can't keep track of itself. (And it has, then, in a sense, its own free will? OK, too weird.)
And yeah, I await an explanation of the Neo/machine thing too. I mean, it would be totally consistent for him to be able to manipulate their programs and hence stop them, but there would need to be a medium of interaction, and I'm not really ready to postulate telepathy. On the other hand, we do know that the Matrix/machines have some kind of control inside Zion -- they built it, and Smith could psychically suborn that assassin dude (ie events which happen inside the Matrix can permanently alter stuff putatively outside it, so maybe this can go in reverse?).
Zion could be a Matrix, too. But I would find that terribly unsatisfying. Infinite recursion would be a lame plot, and it would render irrelevant all that totally cool stuff the Architect said. (Although I guess it would create a possibility that the sixth matrix is the sixth nested matrix and Neo has to climb back through all of them and vanquish the previous chosen ones, which would at least be an awfully cool fight scene. But still a lame plot.)