There’s conflicting stories about it so it’s hard to verify, but apparently the battery thing was a rewrite.
Apparently originally the people plugged into the matrix were meant to be the very hardware the matrix was run on. As in all their brains together formed a literal neural network that provided the processing power to run the matrix. This is then why knowing it’s not real and believing you can do “the impossible” within the matrix can cause you to be able to bend reality. The story goes that executives thought it was too high of a concept for audiences to grasp and demanded the change to the battery explanation to make it simpler to follow.
Yeah, it was changed because someone thought that the explanation scene wouldn’t work if they were holding up a CPU. They forced them to use a battery instead, forever ruining the backstory.
I’d never heard Neil Gaiman as the origin of that theory. I’d always heard it came from commentary on the DVDs myself. I just don’t own the films. But I guess that’d be the conflicting stories bit right?
I’ve heard this too, but even this has an issue. It’s circular. Why imprison humans so their brains can be used to run the matrix which is designed to imprison them?
Presumably the brain network was performing more than the task of simulation. I.E performing processing tasks for the machines. More humans = more brains = more processing headroom (ha, clever) for more machines.
Yeah I just don’t find that explanation credible at all. The brain is a 40 watt guesswork machine, not a high performance processor. I love the matrix, but it was never built on a solid premise.
It is a work of fiction… If a solid premise means it must adhere to every real world realistic standard, you are going to find every single work of fiction lacking.
I understand. Like I said I still love the films but I think things are even better when they are thought out at more levels. The premise here wasn’t just “we don’t have that technology yet” - it was patently not credible under thermodynamics.
It would make a very apt metaphor for the machines as a social construct, fragments of billions of people’s subconscious thoughts combining to maintain the system that holds them captive.
i mean they kind of go into that in the movies don’t they? The machines didn’t want to completely destroy humanity. So they tried to create the matrix as “The Perfect Prison” for them. Using their own minds to create the very prison to hold them in would fit right into that wouldn’t it?
Their desire to preserve humanity is only touched on in The Animatrix and supplementary materials. It doesn’t even agree well with the primary film trilogy, where they clearly risk “the end of your species” repeatedly, and even in the best case scenario reduce humanity to 24 individuals, which is well below the minimum threshold for a viable gene pool.
I mean it’s been a while since I’ve seen the films but I was under the impression that the whole “end of your species” thing was the last resort after they had tried repeatedly to avoid it. I could very easily be wrong but that was the impression I had gotten even from the films.
That every effort to preserve humanity had been tried prior to this but humanity keeps trying to exterminate the machines. Multiple attempts at containment and refining the matrix as a prison to keep them from destroying the machines and possibly themselves in the process. But that they had reached a point where it was clear that no matter what the machines did humanity would never stop seeking their complete annihilation.
In the broad strokes yes but if preservation really mattered that much to them, they would have adjusted their plan in so many ways. Is it really an existential threat to leave 500 people instead of 24? Do they really need to threaten The One with total extinction to get him to choose to participate in the matrix? That really makes it seem like the matrix is a higher priority to them than human survival: the matrix or nothing.
There’s conflicting stories about it so it’s hard to verify, but apparently the battery thing was a rewrite.
Apparently originally the people plugged into the matrix were meant to be the very hardware the matrix was run on. As in all their brains together formed a literal neural network that provided the processing power to run the matrix. This is then why knowing it’s not real and believing you can do “the impossible” within the matrix can cause you to be able to bend reality. The story goes that executives thought it was too high of a concept for audiences to grasp and demanded the change to the battery explanation to make it simpler to follow.
Yeah, it was changed because someone thought that the explanation scene wouldn’t work if they were holding up a CPU. They forced them to use a battery instead, forever ruining the backstory.
Apparently Neil Gaiman invented that theory but it was never confirmed by the w. brothers
https://screenrant.com/matrix-resurrections-human-batteries-plot-hole-not-fix/
*W. Sisters now.
I’d never heard Neil Gaiman as the origin of that theory. I’d always heard it came from commentary on the DVDs myself. I just don’t own the films. But I guess that’d be the conflicting stories bit right?
I’ve heard this too, but even this has an issue. It’s circular. Why imprison humans so their brains can be used to run the matrix which is designed to imprison them?
Presumably the brain network was performing more than the task of simulation. I.E performing processing tasks for the machines. More humans = more brains = more processing headroom (ha, clever) for more machines.
Yeah I just don’t find that explanation credible at all. The brain is a 40 watt guesswork machine, not a high performance processor. I love the matrix, but it was never built on a solid premise.
It is a work of fiction… If a solid premise means it must adhere to every real world realistic standard, you are going to find every single work of fiction lacking.
I understand. Like I said I still love the films but I think things are even better when they are thought out at more levels. The premise here wasn’t just “we don’t have that technology yet” - it was patently not credible under thermodynamics.
It would make a very apt metaphor for the machines as a social construct, fragments of billions of people’s subconscious thoughts combining to maintain the system that holds them captive.
i mean they kind of go into that in the movies don’t they? The machines didn’t want to completely destroy humanity. So they tried to create the matrix as “The Perfect Prison” for them. Using their own minds to create the very prison to hold them in would fit right into that wouldn’t it?
Their desire to preserve humanity is only touched on in The Animatrix and supplementary materials. It doesn’t even agree well with the primary film trilogy, where they clearly risk “the end of your species” repeatedly, and even in the best case scenario reduce humanity to 24 individuals, which is well below the minimum threshold for a viable gene pool.
I mean it’s been a while since I’ve seen the films but I was under the impression that the whole “end of your species” thing was the last resort after they had tried repeatedly to avoid it. I could very easily be wrong but that was the impression I had gotten even from the films.
That every effort to preserve humanity had been tried prior to this but humanity keeps trying to exterminate the machines. Multiple attempts at containment and refining the matrix as a prison to keep them from destroying the machines and possibly themselves in the process. But that they had reached a point where it was clear that no matter what the machines did humanity would never stop seeking their complete annihilation.
In the broad strokes yes but if preservation really mattered that much to them, they would have adjusted their plan in so many ways. Is it really an existential threat to leave 500 people instead of 24? Do they really need to threaten The One with total extinction to get him to choose to participate in the matrix? That really makes it seem like the matrix is a higher priority to them than human survival: the matrix or nothing.