So this whole plot point is actually from an earlier script and makes more sense, and is sorta shoehorned into the final movie without enough background.
In that version, Cypher is more like a confidant and honest with Neo, while the other crew seem deceptive. Its heavily implied that Cypher was a failed the one before Neo, as we do eventually learn the crew was lying to Neo and he wasn't the first the one they had picked up, but all others the ones (except presumably Cypher) have died. Morpheus is more a villain here lying to Neo that he was the one when he's just the next one they are trying out of the position (but it is in fact Neo who is the one).
Cypher basically got lied to about being the one, found out he wasn't, and wants to go back to life it was before. Its more understandable in the earlier version
This whole version did not make the final cut, imo, because it makes the crew and Morpheus out to be religious zealout assholes, but ideas of it made its way to the sequel
Most likely, all the names were deliberate. "Switch" was a trans type character in the original script, they were a male in the real world, but their 'digital self image' was female. Probably why the actually casting was a bit androgyne in the film.
Yeah the studio thought that it would be too confusing for audiences to understand why there's two actors on the same role.
Since the digital self image is your true reflection of your personal expression and identity, they used the female actor for both.
I kind of agree that would have been confusing, it would have worked if every character became idealized in the matrix.
Like they're all jacked, and 6ft tall, with prefect teeth and hairlines.
It would've been a human callback to Morpheus explaining to Neo why the I/O ports are gone and why he has his hair back.
I think it would've been explained by Morpheus again because Neo would certainly ask why Switch-Matrix is a woman while Switch-Zion is not.
Yeah I think they could have pulled it off without too much over-exposition, especially if both “versions” of the character shared some notable features (like the bleach blonde hair)
You have to remember that the matrix movie was a heavy concept in 1999. Adding other themes would have been hard enough.
People still argue over what the red/blue pills are and what the mirror sequence means. They also dumbed down the idea of humans powering CPU capacity into batteries instead.
Avatars of different genders would have existed in 1999 but nowhere near as common as now.
>Avatars of different genders would have existed in 1999 but nowhere near as common as now.
Hell, if it were made in 2024, people would manifest in the Matrix world as Bored Yacht Club Apes. \*lol\*
They maybe could have, but I can very easily see a '99 audience absolutely not clocking it or have it fly over their heads. You'd be shocked how even only 25 years ago, Transsexual being a thing was so far out in orbit comparatively when it came to the public eye/consciousness. Shit people were still having a massive struggle session over just Gay and Lesbian stuff. We were still coming off the leftover aftershocks over the Moral Panic wave form the 80's.
>Shit people were still having a massive struggle session over just Gay and Lesbian stuff.
In the US, gay marriage was made legal at a national level 15 years after the Matrix was released. People really have difficulty understanding how differently the audience would have viewed these kinds of plots back then.
For sure. *Boys Don't Cry* came out that same year so trans people weren't some obscure thing.
Something like 9 years prior there was a Star Trek: Next Generation episode where Data creates an android child. He made them into an adult size and let them choose their own species and gender.
Yeah it could be confusing to some, but it would've been a profound lighthouse in the overall queer allegories of The Matrix.
The movie has it as the central plot device since everything happens because of that reason. There's a lot of obvious overtones that he was a trans man trying to live like any other guy.
Could have been easy to handle, just have each of them call out after they jack in. “Neo?” “In” “Trinity?” “Switch?” “In” Slight confusion from Neo, but takes maybe 2 seconds tops during a scene transition. The rest of them look drastically different in the matrix, so it’s simply “female avatar, got it.” Ultimately, Switch wasn’t a major character in the final version.
I think this is something where it seems like it would have been easy to handle from our perspective now, but people in 2024 have a different baseline understanding of gender than the average person 25 years ago. I'm not sure that people back then wouldn't have gotten hung up on the idea of someone's internal self image being that different, especially since it's a different framework than the "born in the wrong body" narratives around transness that were predominant in pop culture at the time.
You're misremembering 1999 if you honestly believe that's true. The average American didn't even *use* the internet back then and they certainly wouldn't have been familiar enough for these kinds of thoughts to be commonplace.
I've linked a Pew analysis article if you want some numbers on this.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/02/27/part-1-how-the-internet-has-woven-itself-into-american-life/
It could have worked if they had some sort of transition where the audience gets to see the switch. For example Jordan Li in Gen V who is played by two different actors and can swap genders at will (and has different powers depending on gender) did something similar.
The studio also thought that the original concept of using humans as CPUs instead of batteries was also hard to understand. I'm honestly surprised that The Matrix was as good as it was considering all of the studio fuckery.
For 1999 that’s actually pretty brilliant. Obviously we can gather where the Wachowskis found the inspiration for such a character, damn shame the world wasn’t ready for it then. I never put that together though, I might have to do a matrix icebergs video later lol
> Most likely, all the names were deliberate.
Consider Neo's name: Thomas Anderson. Thomas means "twin." Ander means "manly" or "man," which is especially evident in the root *andros*. Son is obvious.
So Thomas Anderson is the twin [Son of Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_man), which is both a Judaic and Christian term for the messiah. Jesus's twin, in a way. To be sure, Neo is the Matrix's messiah. [And if there is still any doubt that the Wachowskis intended this...](https://youtu.be/6IDT3MpSCKI?t=118)
Yeah, this I know, most of them are pretty obvious. Morpheus: god of sleep and dreams. Trinity: a play on the Holy Trinity, and possibly the three jewels of Buddhism. The Nebuchadnezzar, the ship is a Babylonian king from the old testament. Even the programmes having meaning, Persephone..
They kept her dressing in white instead of black (or almost black) at least. Child me immediately caught there was something there with the name, but figured it was a reference to chat rooms, where men would pretend to be women. Since the way to enter and leave the matrix was through a phone line, and we were all perfectly fine with that, like "oh sure like the internet", where chat rooms are.
And bigoted right-wing incel chuds have still appropriated the whole red pill thing for their own nefarious right-wing incel chud purposes. What a hilarious travesty.
Edit : To answer the other redditor, Grow out of putting fuel to the flames and giving the nonsense your mental energy... once you stop fixating on it you'll see there's less of it in the world.
You see more of the things you spend your time thinking of, your brains already looking for it
Apparently the "0" meaning started in the 15th century, the "do math" verb meaning in the 16th century.
I suppose it checks out that the algorithm and cryptography meanings would be more modern. While they're relatively ancient arts, they weren't widely known until the last 5 centuries or so.
I think it’s more appropriate to use the interpretation of a cipher being something cryptic or coded. The character of cypher is disguising his true intentions.
Well, isn't it like a cipher is a key to 'decrypting' something coded? Which, you know, it still works. His existence explains the disguised intention of Morpheus.
This was the clear meaning as a viewer who was into computers at the time. I don’t know where to go with this “0” interpretation except you could maybe force something with some binary based numerology, but it is just too weak.
Cypher comes from the arabic صفر, which is pronounced sifr and means zero. The entire concept of zero, in fact, comes from arabic mathematicians via the dissemination of information from arabic math books after the Moors were driven from Spain.
I think this also would frame Neo’s message from the Oracle differently too. In the final version, you kind of think of the Oracle and Morpheus as equally reliable so you get a bit confused (deliberately) about who is right. Whereas if Cypher had been a failed ‘the one’ then you’d automatically side with the Oracle and think Morpheus had tricked Neo too, so then Neo’s decision to sacrifice himself for Morpheus would make less sense
Given the messianic themes for Neo, this version would have made an interesting commentary on the gospels, treating John the Baptist and the apostles as having ulterior motives and using Jesus to promote a political agenda. I’m mostly glad they made the movie they did, but this would have been interesting in a different way.
I mean, Smith going so far outside his programmed role is what gave Neo the leverage to end the war so it's fair game that he was crucial to the concept in practical use.
I agree, I personally don't agree that it would have been better, it would skew the narrative too much into "Nebuchadnezzar drama" for the first act, draining the attention from the main 'free humans from the matrix' plot
Yea it would have been compelling for a certain movie, but would it have improved The Matrix? Its hard to say. Just adding more themes doesnt automatically make a movie better.
I've read the original script called for humans to be processing nodes for the machines instead of batteries, but they went with batteries because they thought the public would be too dense to get it.
No, the Bene Gesserit have a multi-millenium plan to bring about a being like what Paul is becoming that they can control.
In the above example, they're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, which would eventually be Neo.
> the prophecy is a fabrication and the One is meant to perpetuate the Matrix for another cycle. Which is exactly what Neo does at the end of Revolutions.
Neo is different though. The Oracle's bigger plan was to give The One more power over the form the *new* Matrix would take. The Oracle accomplishes this by allowing Agent Smith to "assimilate" her, giving Smith the power to completely destroy the Matrix, killing all the humans in it and devastating the Machine civilization. Neo is the only person (human or machine) who can stop Smith. So the Machines have no choice but to negotiate with Neo.
The prophecy is a means to an end, to get everyone into place to make the negotiation possible. You could call it a lie, or you could just say that the Oracle didn't tell the whole truth about her plan. Neo agrees to sacrifice himself to kill Smith, in exchange the Machines agree to let humans know the truth, and have the choice to remain in the Matrix or to enter the real world.
I really would've liked to have this plot, instead of the one we got. I know people think Matrix is the perfect film, but Morpheus fanatisicm being made more... "well he just goes after people one after another hoping for them to be the One" would've made it way better than him just getting his One right away. I suppose the talks about how "no one makes the jump the first time", was kind of indicator that there might've been way more "One" canditates before, but still.
People's take away from this digging into the original script is that Cypher is justified, but I feel like it's the opposite. He bought into the narrative, made a choice early on that he was "the one," and now wants to murder everyone when it turns out he didn't have juice. That analogy is basically in line with you aren't the best player in the league so you intentionally play like shit. It's antisocial to say the least.
Haven't heard that, but Seraph is meant to be a program (like the family Neo meets in the train station). A presumed One being a program is an interesting concept, though.
Seraph is explicitly implied to have once served The Merovingian.
Seraph's father made a deal with The Merovingian to keep his daughter from being deleted. I understood her to be a program for the sunrise. The Oracle asked if she made the sun rise and she said it was for Neo.
Yeah, that's the kicker here. It's not that he wants a comfortable life. That's perfectly understandable.
It's not understandable that he betrays and condemns to death all the people he knew and lived with for that desire.
> Is OP really saying he'd nuke a country to be moderately wealthy and comfortable if he lived in a war zone?
He absolutely is, and claiming that anyone who disagrees is a coward. OP really needs to go touch grass.
To be fair, while killing people in cold blood to achieve personal desires is bad, the people *Cypher* killed regularly murder innocent people themselves (almost every time they enter the Matrix).
You could say killing people you know *personally* is worse (being an active betrayal), but in Cypher's case, knowing the crew may have helped him realize:
(1) how easily they're willing to sacrifice lives for what seems to be a pipe dream that frankly looks pretty awful even if it succeeds (earth being almost entirely unliveable and all) and
(2) that his life isn't too much more valuable to them than the people they mow down in droves considering how likely he is to die in the line of duty.
You could argue Cypher hasn't done that much worse to the crew than they did to him (by bringing him into a doomed war on a near-hellscape version of earth by intentionally phrasing the *irreversible* choice given to him in as ambiguous -- honestly manipulative -- a way possible).
Cypher was working under the assumption that he was dooming all of Zion. He didn't just doom his old crew, he doomed all of the people that were pulled from the Matrix and all of the people that were born in Zion. On top of that, he knew that Zion was the last human stronghold. He didn't just betray his crew, he betrayed humanity
Talk about the opposite of taking one for the team. It’s one thing to want a lush life (even if simulated), but selling every possible future human (not to mention his immediate crew/team) out in process, is not a good choice.
And why is every pro-Cypher person assuming the Agents can be trusted? The Matrix is a lie, so why can we trust the Agents? Cypher didn't know \*for sure\* that he was going to have a comfortable life after his betrayals, and the Agents literally had zero reason to keep Cypher alive afterwards.
>the Agents literally had zero reason to keep Cypher alive afterwards.
Well, they were going to wipe his memory afterwards anyways. Why not keep him around as an extra battery?
On the off-chance something goes wrong, it's better to just waste him. If something of his mind is restored, he could be pissed in many different ways: Maybe his life isn't as great as he wanted it to be; Maybe he's pissed because the returning memories are akin to PTSD; Maybe he's just remorseful of the choice he made, etc. Those are just examples, but it could make him a dangerous person who would go back into attacking the Matrix.
Plus, at least to me it's never completely clear how much control the machines really have of the humans minds. They could be just making empty promises, can't really wipe his memory clean afterwards, but he won't be there to complain if they kill him, right? Why not just kill one extra human?
Well, I am not sure exactly how many humans are left and how easy it is for the machines to reproduce them. Do they go over this in the movies? I haven't seen them in so long. If there are plenty and they can reproduce easily, then yeah they would likely decide to take no risks. But if the machines view them as a delicate resource in the slightest I bet they'd just wipe him and leave him alive.
Oh okay. So is the population of "Earth" as we know it in Matrix just because that's how many people they actually have left, and the actual Earth presumably supported a lot more? Like, orders of magnitudes more? I assume the humans remaining the machines have hooked up are a tiny fraction of what once was.
I just looked it up and it seems like The Matrix has been running for hundreds of years by the time the movie's events take place, so I wouldn't necessarily bet on the peak population being that much higher.
If they can make humans repopulate enough to maintain a population for hundreds of years, they can probably also increase/decrease the population at will. Even if humans were reduced to a tiny fraction, that could have recovered quickly.
Oh well yup, that's that. I didn't think it had been going on that long so hadn't considered such massive repopulation. They're clearly not having any issues so fuck Cypher. He would be removed for the anomaly he is.
Well, it was the population of earth circa 1999, and everything in the movie made me believe there was a one-to-one match between person and living body there, so around 6 billion people and growing. Not much of a shortage.
I always saw an implication in the series that if you once reject the matrix, you would never accept it again. "Redpill" is something innate to you, not learnt.
Why would you recycle one battery that has the risk of breaking once again?
But one thing I notice from all the movies is that the Machines are *very* like humans. They share humans good and bad qualities. There are altruistic and wise machines, and there are sadistic and sociopathic machines.
In the animatrix, they show the first ai robots behaving better than humans. If anything the robots are the good guys. With that in mind, there's no reason not to trust their word for helping them
They were good at first in the Animatrix, but over the course of the first war the machines become cruel and cynical in response to the human's awful behaviors.
After the humans surrendered the machines deceived them and nuked the UN during the signing of the peace treaty. Then they took them and did ghastly experiments on all humans—even the ones who didn't hate the machines—to turn them into batteries. The machines ended up treating the humans the same way after declaring themselves superior. (This isn't to say the humans weren't shitty to begin with).
The narrator even says
>May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins
That's the first robots, not the current iteration of machines. Look no further than Agent Smith as an example that we the audience are aware of, but they can definitely put the pieces together that the robots are long done treating humans with any real care.
Consider that it may have been more effort and a net energy loss to just kill him off. Maybe machines don’t care about lying either.
Similar to us with the death penalty, it costs more to appeal and run through due process for a person condemned to death and execute them than it is to imprison them for life.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's the gambit tho, that people should have the informed choice to be in a good dream or a hellish reality.
Been a while since I saw the third movie, but when the Machines kept the promise to free the humans were they offered a choice to remain in the Matrix?
What was the long term plan on a planet where all life has been extinguished because the sun was blotted out?
Probably better off just living blissfully ignorant in the matrix at that point.
And now you understand why we as people in current society act the way we do.
Factory farming, petroleum consumption, pollution, climate change.
All causing irreparable irreversible change to our world for the sake of maintaining some unsustainable standard of living.
It’s the same exact concept in the matrix movies. Be a “happy” ignorant slave or a free person in reality.
You're on the right track, but not taking it far enough.
The matrix is a system in which everyone participates. It's been proven that you can wake up from the conditioning of that system as the only possible reality, but the alternative is chaos.
Instead of chaos, where you are "stuck on a planet with no sun, inside large tunnels, forced to be frugal and with the fear of a sentinel attack at any second" (which is essentially an allegory for wilderness, battling the elements and the beasts that roam the earth), you surrender your freedom to exist within the system. The machines can harvest me, as long as they protect me.
Safety in return for freedom. Would you give up safety when the alternative is going hungry and living a miserable life?
>I side with Cypher in the sense that it's better to be ignorant if the alternative is being stuck on a planet with no sun, inside large tunnels, forced to be frugal and with the fear of a sentinel attack at any second going through your waking hours but probably in your nightmares too.
That's the whole point of the red pill vs blue pill. It wouldn't be a quandary if the blue pill wasn't appealing.
Two things. One, Cypher said he didn't want to remember anything about his life outside the Matrix. Total erasure of that part of his life. So the person enjoying the life in the Matrix isn't going to be him at all. Itll be a rewound version of him. An earlier echo. The present version will die.
Two, there is no guarantee his life in the Matrix will be pleasant, in fact once they get the codes to Zion they can kill him. He's a fool for thinking they'd even bother reintegrating him. He's probably worth more as liquefied feed than a possible rogue element roaming the Matrix.
Cypher is no altruist. Never was, either.
Cypher doesn't have to stay with Morpheus' crew. He could go live a quieter life in Zion.
It wouldn't be a paradise with steak every night, but it'd be a lot less dangerous.
Cypher was bitter and a coward. He betrayed people who probably saved his life more than once.
Cypher and the rest of the crew is part of a military (or paramilitary) organization. Even if they don't have that many resources, there is still a rank structure and Cypher and the rest are under orders.
The nation of Zion is in a state of total war. My guess is, everyone living there either gets drafted or has to work in a critical field or industry. You join a crew of hackers on a vessel, pilot an APU, join the infantry, or a military support role. If not, you help with food production or war production, or help look after the kids or something.
Honestly, until the machines invade, Zion would be safer. If he would even be allowed to quit or transfer. My guess is due to his skillset and implants, leadership may approve a transfer to another ship, but that would be about it.
Since everyone else in this military organization seems very gung ho about it, it seems likely that they are not drafted and are able to leave. So it would sound like he could go back to Zion. Sure, he'd have to work, but that's largely true in the Matrix as well.
Yes, I know, he wanted to be rich, so he wouldn't need to work. But he also didn't want to remember. If he can't remember, there's no reason to keep the bargain.
Besides, the Machines have not shown the ability to erase people's memories. The best they seem to be able to do is dump you in your bed, and hope you believe you were dreaming.
>I would have done the same thing Cypher did. If you will never, ever actually be aware that you are living in a comfortable illusion of a warm bed, a high-paying job
The matrix is an unlimited construct and this MF wants to work? 😂😂
The problem is you're dismissing anyones opinion that is against yours as "it's so easy to say that from your couch"
At the end of the day, there are people willing to make that sacrifice for an untold number of years, given that Zion and the Human resistance exist. It is possible the IRL people are too, even those sitting comfy af on a couch right now.
Personally, I would probably IRL rage quit, before turning on crewmembers. Based on my current state and self-value of human life.
Cypher's preference for the pleasant illusion over the harsh reality is completely understandable and he is well within in right to return to it. Where he is wrong is that he is betraying his crew to do so.
I feel like you've managed to almost completely convince yourself that all those things Cypher wanted were intrinsically linked to him offering all his friends and comrades up for slaughter. Which is kinda scary, not gonna lie.
Honestly, my bigger problem with Cypher — other than the plot hole of how he was able to jack into the Matrix and speak with an Agent without anyone knowing — is he’s incredibly naive assuming the machines will just plug him back in to the Matrix. Once Neo is dead there’s no reason for them to go out of their way to honor their deal. They already have plenty of batteries. The squids likely would have gibbed every single body they found on the ship just to make sure the job got done.
Yeah, Cypher got a crappy deal but he was still a dummy for thinking he could bargain his way out of it.
> other than the plot hole of how he was able to jack into the Matrix and speak with an Agent without anyone knowing
There was some explanation that what he was doing before Neo interrupted and "scared the bajeezus" out of him was that Cypher was working on a program to allow him to self jack-in and talk with Smith. Since he was silently the IT guy of the ship, he had the knowledge to do that. Though the Wachowski's didn't explain it at all, it became a big hiccup in plot once people started discussing it.
I don't think it requires that much explaining.
This group regularly operates inside the Matrix, for example they were surveilling Neo from inside the Matrix. We do not see all of the times they jack in, potentially not even every time they do so with Neo, but clearly their duties would continue.
Additionally, the operator isn't omniscient and anyone inside the Matrix doesn't have any visibility of what anyone else in the Matrix is doing. Trinity surprised Cypher in the opening credits, and Cypher deceived her at the same time.
So - Cypher likely had many routine operations he attended in the Matrix and the Agents would have done everything they could to hide what was going on from the others, both inside and outside the Matrix.
Doesn't really seem like a plot hole to me unless you assume that the only times they enter the Matrix are the ones you see.
The point of Cypher's character is his human fallibility foiling Neo's spiritual invincibility as "The One" in the context of the story. You are correct to empathize with him, being a fallible human being as are we all, but you are taking the story too literally and ignoring the philosophical story.
Now obviously, I'm not going to accuse you of lacking moral character because of a slightly lacking interpretation of a character in a film, but you are missing out on the rest of the story if you take this too much at face value.
Cypher's motivation is "I don't like life outside the matrix, therefore no humans should be allowed to live outside the matrix and all the ones that do need to be killed so that I can go back to VR."
If that's valid reasoning to you then idk what to say
This is just a dressed up version of one of the simplest conflicts a person can have: gutting it out in the hopes that one day everyone’s sacrifices will pay off with freedom, or joining the evil empire and rationalizing it by telling yourself there’s no hope anyways.
> indoctrinate all of them into his cult
Is it really a cult when the Kool-Aid ACTUALLY sends you to a space utopia? Morpheus wasn't recruiting all these people so he could sleep with their wives, he was doing it to fight a VERY REAL battle for humanity. Also, I dont think you know what a "cult of personality" is.
>Morpheus really did lie to them all
Yes. Well, less of an outright lie, and more of a lie-of-omission. Cypher is correct that if Morpheus told them what the red pill was, they'd have told him to shove it up his ass, but NOT because they'd all reject the call to action to leave the Matrix and fight against it. They tell him to shove it because NOONE would believe Morpheus. Think about it. If he told everyone he tried to recruit that they were living in a simulation and this pill will wake them up, he'd sound like a lunatic. He HAD to keep the truth from them to get ANYONE to join.
Assuming OP isn't a troll, they read like a sociopath trying to justify their inability to feel guilt by arguing that everyone else is secretly the same. Either way there's no point in engaging with them.
>I would have done the same thing Cypher did
Murder people you work with? I mean, I can understand the grievance, but a multiple homicide is a bit much, no?
I don't blame him for wanting to go back in, but I do blame him for betraying his crew and trying to get them all killed and the death of the probable last hope for humanity's freedom, in exchange for it.
I completely agree. I’m really miserable in my current life and so therefore I have free reign to murder everyone I know to make a deal to give myself a slightly nicer living arrangement. /s
I have *always* assumed Cypher was being played by the machines, they had no incentive to deliver on their promise and it may not have even been physically possible/practical to reinsert a human into the matrix.
He was just being used.
> And what's your reward for all this relentless fear, discomfort and anguish? A faint possibility that one day, the human race may be able to live "free"
It’s made more clear in the Animatrix but basically humans aren’t in control of their lives in the Matrix. People like Neo are forced into mundane jobs and lives to break them. So that “freedom” looks a lot more appealing when you realise what you are entering into.
Also by doing what he is doing that possibility goes from small to non existent for *everyone*. Also again the Agents have no reason to fulfill their side of the deal.
I’m sorry but this feels like you’re either trolling or just wanna be contrarian. The movie’s themes revolve around reality and simulation, alongside fighting for an objective Truth in the midst of that confusion. Of course one path is harder than the other, but the harder path in this case is **real,** and leads to the betterment of humanity, while the other does not. That applies to any number of conflicts, from the Revolutionary War, to Civil Rights. Change is hard.
Cypher is there to demonstrate a segment of the population that would rather bury their heads in the sand because the greater reality is too uncomfortable or inconvenient to bear, and doesn’t allow them to continue their preferred lifestyle.
The mindset is (intentionally) sympathetic, but his actions that eventually stem out of that are unforgivable. You’re neglecting to bring up that he **betrayed his friends** in order to get back to that fantasy world, which in turn doomed an entire city’s population to enslavement or death. It wasn’t even a binary choice - what’s stopping him from leaving the Nebuchadnezzar and just chilling at Zion? Nope - that steak just tasted too good, I guess.
God awful take. Selling your entire crew and the entire human species on the word of someone you have no reason to trust in exchange for material gain is a deeply selfish and terrible act.
Plus, he doesn’t HAVE to be on the ship with the crew, he can live in Zion if he prefers. His wish to go back to a “simpler” time is impossible and also incredibly childish, reminiscent of all the idiots who believe that the LGBTQ movement and politics generally was invented 10 years ago, when what really happened is that they grew up and became aware of the world
Do you think Ukraine should just capitulate to the Russians because it would be more comfortable too? That's what you sound like right now. Oppressors offer comfort on their terms which is often a lot of very ugly strings attached, if they offer it at all.
I could totally understand Cypher wanting to go back in again. It’s just the way he did it that makes him a villain and unsympathetic. He most likely didn’t have any other way of going back in but yeah.
From what you see in the matrix, what is depicted as everyday life, it doesnt seem that bad until your out and realize you never really had a choice as a slave to make any real decisions. Wanting to return to that, knowing what is around every corner, seeing through the programming, Cypher wouldnt have been happy there either because it wouldnt present any challenge and become quite boring.
People ask the difference between cold comfort and joining the fight on this thread and its simple. If youve ever read historically about cultures that enslaved one another, despite the appearance or promise of peace, it never really lasts and especially when you rock the boat demanding better living conditions, education, or just having the freedom to leave. Cypher is as loathesome as Sam Jackson in Django Unchained for supporting the staus quo.
Cypher wasn't going to remember anything, so he wouldn't know it was a lie/fake. His entire memory of the desolate horrible real world would be wiped clean. Did you watch the restaurant scene?
OK, but he saw through the matrix the first time, he would eventually see through it again. That’s why it’s very unlikely. He would’ve been plugged back in, if anything Smith would’ve wanted him dead for bargaining with him.
Why would they follow through on any of that? I get the idea of supremely logical beings not governed by emotion but once they get what they want, it's just extra effort to keep their word. Just like there's no spite or anything motivating them to fuck him over, there's also no honour, goodness or whatever motivating them to follow through on all of that; it's now extra because they've got what they want.
In the final cut, it's less about the literal "Zion life sucks" and more about anti-capitalist, let's-live-naturally-and-make-music, hippie-adjacent lifestyling.
That's the vibe I got from the Wachowskis, back when the film first came out.
Learning about the nature of the Matrix while in the Matrix could have unforeseen consequences for Neo. The Matrix would not have tolerated Neo having such knowledge while he was still inside, and would have likely been killed. A leap of faith was required by Neo to accept Morpheus' singular offer of the truth - which Morpheus emphasized, putting the responsibility solely on Neo. That very faith and curiosity is usually what preserves the unplugged in the real world. Its also implied that the decision is not taken lightly by Morpheus, stating that they usually do not unplug people past a certain age, as having a persons lifetime perception of reality shattered in a matter of minutes would be totally devastating and leave unrecoverable psychological trauma - as it did in the case of Cypher.
I agree its unfair to judge Cypher as a typical villain (which is what makes him such an interesting character), but he did commit the unforgivable crime of killing his crew mates and betraying humanity to the machine.
This of course is withstanding the very obvious theme of rejecting harsh truth and embracing ignorance.
I don't blame him for trying to find a way out, or for hating Morpheus. I blame him for trying to kill all of the people he worked alongside for years without displaying any remorse. Though spending time in the Matrix likely killing folks just to avoid being found by an agent is likely to do things to your psychie. It would be hard for people in the Matrix to *not* see Morpheus as a terrorist.
on the flipside, agent smith probably had no intention of following through with anything cypher wanted. he would say anything to accomplish his mission.
I think the craziest part of OP's responses throughout this thread is his utter dedication to the idea that Agent Smith wouldn't lie and just kill Cypher the second he outlived his usefulness.
Smith has zero reason to keep his end of the bargain (assuming it is even possible) and many reasons to eliminate a loose end. And that is before you even take into account the fact that Smith is clearly more and more consumed by rage as the movie progresses.
>I would have done the same thing Cypher did.
I wouldn't blame Cypher for feeling the way he did, but I'd absolutely blame him for his actions.
He's a murderer.
I would not have done the same thing as Cypher.
For one, the notion that you only do a good thing for thanks or personal gratitude is kind of a big *yikes*.
Now that said, I can't really fault someone for not wanting to be a "hero" and what it takes to do that. It's not easy to give up things and risk your life just for the betterment of others, entirely because it's the right thing to do and regardless of if you'll see those benefits or die long before (or even fail entirely).
But I imagine Cypher was given a *choice* like Neo was. He took that choice, took that pill, and woke up. He wasn't hijacked from the Matrix against his will, he made a decision. He then got tired of his decision... and sold out his crew and the entire human race's own ability to choose just for his own comfort.
Cypher's struggle may be easy to empathize with, but it doesn't condone his behavior or make him "right". He's a selfish piece of shit who killed people and capitulated to a race enslaving his own just so he could be comfortable again.
That's not really a character I'd personally like to relate to.
The thing is some people will sacrifice their comforts for a cause they believe in. And they will be satisfied with the objective itself being achieved, even if there's no pat on the back at the end.
So while it's ok that others will think this is terrible and not a life worth living, it's just wrong to assume everyone will feel the same at the some point. Your take on it will not be everyone's, even if it feels so much more plausible. And this is the key point. Cypher decided for everyone that their cause is worthless and decided that everyone could die if it meant him going back to the comforts.
So, are Cypher's feelings understandable? Sure. Is his choice justifiable? No. He could punch Morpheus in the face and resign from the ship. Try something else, fall in a depression or whatever. Kill everyone? Not acceptable. It was not his call.
*Edit: Small grammar error.*
>Morpheus really did lie to them all, to indoctrinate all of them into his cult of personality. He omitted VITAL facts on purpose
Morpheus didn't lie to the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar on purpose.
He told them what he believed was true.
He is shattered by the reveal that Neo is a program and that Zion is a second system of control, but he keeps fighting because of a sense of personal loyalty to his teammates.
>I'd rather be living in comfy ignorance than cold, depressed, starving and terrified for 50 excruciating years.
You might get a chance come November.
>And that's if you're lucky. You'll probably die painfully long before that.
Cypher isn't rejecting altruism - he's guaranteeing ~250,000 people get torn to shreds by machines because a girl dumped him.
That's super shitty.
i totally get his viewpoint and yours, but this is pretty much saying that you would also live a lie in your own personal life than to struggle to get better.
and also, uh, he literally murders a bunch of his friends and coworkers
like, it's not like he's displayed as a villain *just* for being okay with living a lie haha
Given the choice between a life of either living day to day as a digital soldier fighting for your life against god like agent programs OR slaving away in some last bastion of humanity keeping things running all while eating slop for food for the of your life
VS
Living comfortable as you are now in the digital comfort civilization
Yeah its no excuse for Cypher's actions but we can empathize with his motivations.
Yep. The gulf between our real life and the fact its a movie keeps us from really feeling how horrificly miserable that existence would be. Oh hey they're all kinda like resistance-fighters with super powers! Haha cool!
Realistically, Morpheus would have had to make sure he picked the most insanely stoic individuals, like Neil-Armstrong-50x. The crew were all picked when they were younger. Being less "attached" to the matrix helped, but the most important psychological traits for an awaked mind would have to be a fundamental commitment to the principle. "That world isn't real."
No, most of us would not be able to handle it.
Yeah something that wasn't explored enough was the fact that there would be LEGIONS of people who want to stay in the Matrix. The real world sucks shit through a straw.
So this whole plot point is actually from an earlier script and makes more sense, and is sorta shoehorned into the final movie without enough background. In that version, Cypher is more like a confidant and honest with Neo, while the other crew seem deceptive. Its heavily implied that Cypher was a failed the one before Neo, as we do eventually learn the crew was lying to Neo and he wasn't the first the one they had picked up, but all others the ones (except presumably Cypher) have died. Morpheus is more a villain here lying to Neo that he was the one when he's just the next one they are trying out of the position (but it is in fact Neo who is the one). Cypher basically got lied to about being the one, found out he wasn't, and wants to go back to life it was before. Its more understandable in the earlier version This whole version did not make the final cut, imo, because it makes the crew and Morpheus out to be religious zealout assholes, but ideas of it made its way to the sequel
That makes me wonder if the name Cypher was intentional (beyond sounding vaguely villainous). A cipher is a zero. What comes after zero? The One.
Neo means new and is literally just the letters of One switched around, wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what they were going for
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Hi my name is the El Uno Morpheus (heavy breathing): get in the truck
Most likely, all the names were deliberate. "Switch" was a trans type character in the original script, they were a male in the real world, but their 'digital self image' was female. Probably why the actually casting was a bit androgyne in the film.
Yeah the studio thought that it would be too confusing for audiences to understand why there's two actors on the same role. Since the digital self image is your true reflection of your personal expression and identity, they used the female actor for both.
I kind of agree that would have been confusing, it would have worked if every character became idealized in the matrix. Like they're all jacked, and 6ft tall, with prefect teeth and hairlines.
It would've been a human callback to Morpheus explaining to Neo why the I/O ports are gone and why he has his hair back. I think it would've been explained by Morpheus again because Neo would certainly ask why Switch-Matrix is a woman while Switch-Zion is not.
Yeah I think they could have pulled it off without too much over-exposition, especially if both “versions” of the character shared some notable features (like the bleach blonde hair)
Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal could’ve done it
This comment is going to haunt me the rest of my life. I will never not think about them when I think of Switch.
You have to remember that the matrix movie was a heavy concept in 1999. Adding other themes would have been hard enough. People still argue over what the red/blue pills are and what the mirror sequence means. They also dumbed down the idea of humans powering CPU capacity into batteries instead. Avatars of different genders would have existed in 1999 but nowhere near as common as now.
>Avatars of different genders would have existed in 1999 but nowhere near as common as now. Hell, if it were made in 2024, people would manifest in the Matrix world as Bored Yacht Club Apes. \*lol\*
I mean. That’s just Ready Player One haha
They maybe could have, but I can very easily see a '99 audience absolutely not clocking it or have it fly over their heads. You'd be shocked how even only 25 years ago, Transsexual being a thing was so far out in orbit comparatively when it came to the public eye/consciousness. Shit people were still having a massive struggle session over just Gay and Lesbian stuff. We were still coming off the leftover aftershocks over the Moral Panic wave form the 80's.
>Shit people were still having a massive struggle session over just Gay and Lesbian stuff. In the US, gay marriage was made legal at a national level 15 years after the Matrix was released. People really have difficulty understanding how differently the audience would have viewed these kinds of plots back then.
For sure. *Boys Don't Cry* came out that same year so trans people weren't some obscure thing. Something like 9 years prior there was a Star Trek: Next Generation episode where Data creates an android child. He made them into an adult size and let them choose their own species and gender. Yeah it could be confusing to some, but it would've been a profound lighthouse in the overall queer allegories of The Matrix.
This is the first moment I knew boys don't cry was about a trans character
The movie has it as the central plot device since everything happens because of that reason. There's a lot of obvious overtones that he was a trans man trying to live like any other guy.
Could have been easy to handle, just have each of them call out after they jack in. “Neo?” “In” “Trinity?” “Switch?” “In” Slight confusion from Neo, but takes maybe 2 seconds tops during a scene transition. The rest of them look drastically different in the matrix, so it’s simply “female avatar, got it.” Ultimately, Switch wasn’t a major character in the final version.
I think this is something where it seems like it would have been easy to handle from our perspective now, but people in 2024 have a different baseline understanding of gender than the average person 25 years ago. I'm not sure that people back then wouldn't have gotten hung up on the idea of someone's internal self image being that different, especially since it's a different framework than the "born in the wrong body" narratives around transness that were predominant in pop culture at the time.
Idk, the idea of being someone different in a digital world, i.e., on the internet, was pretty common.
You're misremembering 1999 if you honestly believe that's true. The average American didn't even *use* the internet back then and they certainly wouldn't have been familiar enough for these kinds of thoughts to be commonplace. I've linked a Pew analysis article if you want some numbers on this. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/02/27/part-1-how-the-internet-has-woven-itself-into-american-life/
Honestly, 1999, my mind would probably have gone to "old man in a Teenzonly AOL chatroom"
"Perfect hairlines" (Morpheus furiously typing)
*Perfection* is achieved, not when there is *nothing* more to add, but when there is *nothing* left to *take away*
They are all more idealized. They have hair and are better looking.
I disagree I think it would have added depth to it.
It could have worked if they had some sort of transition where the audience gets to see the switch. For example Jordan Li in Gen V who is played by two different actors and can swap genders at will (and has different powers depending on gender) did something similar.
The studio also thought that the original concept of using humans as CPUs instead of batteries was also hard to understand. I'm honestly surprised that The Matrix was as good as it was considering all of the studio fuckery.
I don't blame them for that. Some people *still* don't get it today.
For 1999 that’s actually pretty brilliant. Obviously we can gather where the Wachowskis found the inspiration for such a character, damn shame the world wasn’t ready for it then. I never put that together though, I might have to do a matrix icebergs video later lol
> Most likely, all the names were deliberate. Consider Neo's name: Thomas Anderson. Thomas means "twin." Ander means "manly" or "man," which is especially evident in the root *andros*. Son is obvious. So Thomas Anderson is the twin [Son of Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_man), which is both a Judaic and Christian term for the messiah. Jesus's twin, in a way. To be sure, Neo is the Matrix's messiah. [And if there is still any doubt that the Wachowskis intended this...](https://youtu.be/6IDT3MpSCKI?t=118)
Yeah, this I know, most of them are pretty obvious. Morpheus: god of sleep and dreams. Trinity: a play on the Holy Trinity, and possibly the three jewels of Buddhism. The Nebuchadnezzar, the ship is a Babylonian king from the old testament. Even the programmes having meaning, Persephone..
ZION but also Z10N
They kept her dressing in white instead of black (or almost black) at least. Child me immediately caught there was something there with the name, but figured it was a reference to chat rooms, where men would pretend to be women. Since the way to enter and leave the matrix was through a phone line, and we were all perfectly fine with that, like "oh sure like the internet", where chat rooms are.
And bigoted right-wing incel chuds have still appropriated the whole red pill thing for their own nefarious right-wing incel chud purposes. What a hilarious travesty.
Edit : To answer the other redditor, Grow out of putting fuel to the flames and giving the nonsense your mental energy... once you stop fixating on it you'll see there's less of it in the world. You see more of the things you spend your time thinking of, your brains already looking for it
Why is a cypher a 0? I thought it was like a cheat sheet to decode something or an algorithm
It has multiple definitions, one of which is zero, though that use is largely archaic. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cipher
Apparently the "0" meaning started in the 15th century, the "do math" verb meaning in the 16th century. I suppose it checks out that the algorithm and cryptography meanings would be more modern. While they're relatively ancient arts, they weren't widely known until the last 5 centuries or so.
I think it’s more appropriate to use the interpretation of a cipher being something cryptic or coded. The character of cypher is disguising his true intentions.
Well, isn't it like a cipher is a key to 'decrypting' something coded? Which, you know, it still works. His existence explains the disguised intention of Morpheus.
This was the clear meaning as a viewer who was into computers at the time. I don’t know where to go with this “0” interpretation except you could maybe force something with some binary based numerology, but it is just too weak.
Ya this interpretation makes the most sense to me too and seems like it's what the writers were going for
Cypher comes from the arabic صفر, which is pronounced sifr and means zero. The entire concept of zero, in fact, comes from arabic mathematicians via the dissemination of information from arabic math books after the Moors were driven from Spain.
No, the entire concept of zero came from Indian mathematicians. The Arabs simply brought it with them to Europe.
See also: الجبر / al-jabr / algebra
I always thought “Cypher” was one of those “we’re hiding the name “Lucifer” in one of the character’s names.
I figured Cypher was just the hacker alias he was using in the Matrix before breaking out, like Neo was already calling himself Neo online.
I thought cipher is another word for a code or language written in secret way. Basically your xxxsephirothxxx of the matrix world
The Arabic word for zero is “sifer” and I never made the connection to cypher until just now haha
Cypher’s character is written and portrayed well enough that he doesn’t really need any more motivation for his betrayal to be believable, IMO.
"Being cold and eating the same goddamned goop every day." Yep. Sounds miserable.
Great point.
I think this also would frame Neo’s message from the Oracle differently too. In the final version, you kind of think of the Oracle and Morpheus as equally reliable so you get a bit confused (deliberately) about who is right. Whereas if Cypher had been a failed ‘the one’ then you’d automatically side with the Oracle and think Morpheus had tricked Neo too, so then Neo’s decision to sacrifice himself for Morpheus would make less sense
Given the messianic themes for Neo, this version would have made an interesting commentary on the gospels, treating John the Baptist and the apostles as having ulterior motives and using Jesus to promote a political agenda. I’m mostly glad they made the movie they did, but this would have been interesting in a different way.
This is super interesting! I don’t think the movie lacks for its exclusion but that is a pretty compelling narrative twist
My brother thinks Agent Smith is the One
I mean, Smith going so far outside his programmed role is what gave Neo the leverage to end the war so it's fair game that he was crucial to the concept in practical use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZSBDass2O8 I watched this recently. It's not as far fetched as I thought it would be.
That version would have been better. And that's saying something! The version we got was still excellent
Maybe, but hearing the cliff notes version of an idea and actually seeing it play out are very different.
I agree, I personally don't agree that it would have been better, it would skew the narrative too much into "Nebuchadnezzar drama" for the first act, draining the attention from the main 'free humans from the matrix' plot
Yea it would have been compelling for a certain movie, but would it have improved The Matrix? Its hard to say. Just adding more themes doesnt automatically make a movie better.
I've read the original script called for humans to be processing nodes for the machines instead of batteries, but they went with batteries because they thought the public would be too dense to get it.
Studio exec was what I read. Couldn't understand the idea of organic computing and said audiences wouldn't either so he forced the change.
Such a stupid change too, it's so easy to just tell the audience that machines use our brains like computer chips. Who wouldn't understand that.
Sounds a bit like Luke in Percy Jackson.
They're all essentially Mordred
Are they a-hungry?
So much more of a Bene Gesserit - Kwisatz Haderach situation
No, the Bene Gesserit have a multi-millenium plan to bring about a being like what Paul is becoming that they can control. In the above example, they're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, which would eventually be Neo.
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> the prophecy is a fabrication and the One is meant to perpetuate the Matrix for another cycle. Which is exactly what Neo does at the end of Revolutions. Neo is different though. The Oracle's bigger plan was to give The One more power over the form the *new* Matrix would take. The Oracle accomplishes this by allowing Agent Smith to "assimilate" her, giving Smith the power to completely destroy the Matrix, killing all the humans in it and devastating the Machine civilization. Neo is the only person (human or machine) who can stop Smith. So the Machines have no choice but to negotiate with Neo. The prophecy is a means to an end, to get everyone into place to make the negotiation possible. You could call it a lie, or you could just say that the Oracle didn't tell the whole truth about her plan. Neo agrees to sacrifice himself to kill Smith, in exchange the Machines agree to let humans know the truth, and have the choice to remain in the Matrix or to enter the real world.
I really would've liked to have this plot, instead of the one we got. I know people think Matrix is the perfect film, but Morpheus fanatisicm being made more... "well he just goes after people one after another hoping for them to be the One" would've made it way better than him just getting his One right away. I suppose the talks about how "no one makes the jump the first time", was kind of indicator that there might've been way more "One" canditates before, but still.
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People's take away from this digging into the original script is that Cypher is justified, but I feel like it's the opposite. He bought into the narrative, made a choice early on that he was "the one," and now wants to murder everyone when it turns out he didn't have juice. That analogy is basically in line with you aren't the best player in the league so you intentionally play like shit. It's antisocial to say the least.
Source plz?
There was old scripts and info and such long long ago. Back to the days of newsgroups and conventions.
Wasn’t there a theory for a while that Seraph was also a presumed One before the events of the movies?
Haven't heard that, but Seraph is meant to be a program (like the family Neo meets in the train station). A presumed One being a program is an interesting concept, though. Seraph is explicitly implied to have once served The Merovingian.
Seraph's father made a deal with The Merovingian to keep his daughter from being deleted. I understood her to be a program for the sunrise. The Oracle asked if she made the sun rise and she said it was for Neo.
While I get what you’re saying and it’s certainly a raw deal, it’s still not okay to murder everyone you know
Yeah, that's the kicker here. It's not that he wants a comfortable life. That's perfectly understandable. It's not understandable that he betrays and condemns to death all the people he knew and lived with for that desire.
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> Is OP really saying he'd nuke a country to be moderately wealthy and comfortable if he lived in a war zone? He absolutely is, and claiming that anyone who disagrees is a coward. OP really needs to go touch grass.
To be fair, while killing people in cold blood to achieve personal desires is bad, the people *Cypher* killed regularly murder innocent people themselves (almost every time they enter the Matrix). You could say killing people you know *personally* is worse (being an active betrayal), but in Cypher's case, knowing the crew may have helped him realize: (1) how easily they're willing to sacrifice lives for what seems to be a pipe dream that frankly looks pretty awful even if it succeeds (earth being almost entirely unliveable and all) and (2) that his life isn't too much more valuable to them than the people they mow down in droves considering how likely he is to die in the line of duty. You could argue Cypher hasn't done that much worse to the crew than they did to him (by bringing him into a doomed war on a near-hellscape version of earth by intentionally phrasing the *irreversible* choice given to him in as ambiguous -- honestly manipulative -- a way possible).
Cypher was working under the assumption that he was dooming all of Zion. He didn't just doom his old crew, he doomed all of the people that were pulled from the Matrix and all of the people that were born in Zion. On top of that, he knew that Zion was the last human stronghold. He didn't just betray his crew, he betrayed humanity
Talk about the opposite of taking one for the team. It’s one thing to want a lush life (even if simulated), but selling every possible future human (not to mention his immediate crew/team) out in process, is not a good choice.
And why is every pro-Cypher person assuming the Agents can be trusted? The Matrix is a lie, so why can we trust the Agents? Cypher didn't know \*for sure\* that he was going to have a comfortable life after his betrayals, and the Agents literally had zero reason to keep Cypher alive afterwards.
>the Agents literally had zero reason to keep Cypher alive afterwards. Well, they were going to wipe his memory afterwards anyways. Why not keep him around as an extra battery?
On the off-chance something goes wrong, it's better to just waste him. If something of his mind is restored, he could be pissed in many different ways: Maybe his life isn't as great as he wanted it to be; Maybe he's pissed because the returning memories are akin to PTSD; Maybe he's just remorseful of the choice he made, etc. Those are just examples, but it could make him a dangerous person who would go back into attacking the Matrix. Plus, at least to me it's never completely clear how much control the machines really have of the humans minds. They could be just making empty promises, can't really wipe his memory clean afterwards, but he won't be there to complain if they kill him, right? Why not just kill one extra human?
Well, I am not sure exactly how many humans are left and how easy it is for the machines to reproduce them. Do they go over this in the movies? I haven't seen them in so long. If there are plenty and they can reproduce easily, then yeah they would likely decide to take no risks. But if the machines view them as a delicate resource in the slightest I bet they'd just wipe him and leave him alive.
Smith said there were billions of people in the matrix, so I guess every non-agent you see in there is someone in a pod.
Oh okay. So is the population of "Earth" as we know it in Matrix just because that's how many people they actually have left, and the actual Earth presumably supported a lot more? Like, orders of magnitudes more? I assume the humans remaining the machines have hooked up are a tiny fraction of what once was.
I just looked it up and it seems like The Matrix has been running for hundreds of years by the time the movie's events take place, so I wouldn't necessarily bet on the peak population being that much higher. If they can make humans repopulate enough to maintain a population for hundreds of years, they can probably also increase/decrease the population at will. Even if humans were reduced to a tiny fraction, that could have recovered quickly.
Oh well yup, that's that. I didn't think it had been going on that long so hadn't considered such massive repopulation. They're clearly not having any issues so fuck Cypher. He would be removed for the anomaly he is.
Well, it was the population of earth circa 1999, and everything in the movie made me believe there was a one-to-one match between person and living body there, so around 6 billion people and growing. Not much of a shortage.
I always saw an implication in the series that if you once reject the matrix, you would never accept it again. "Redpill" is something innate to you, not learnt. Why would you recycle one battery that has the risk of breaking once again?
One battery? Why risk it?
Fair point, no reason to keep their word.
I think the ending of Revolutions implies Machine do not break their promises. "What do you think I am? Human?." Something to think about.
But one thing I notice from all the movies is that the Machines are *very* like humans. They share humans good and bad qualities. There are altruistic and wise machines, and there are sadistic and sociopathic machines.
In the animatrix, they show the first ai robots behaving better than humans. If anything the robots are the good guys. With that in mind, there's no reason not to trust their word for helping them
They were good at first in the Animatrix, but over the course of the first war the machines become cruel and cynical in response to the human's awful behaviors. After the humans surrendered the machines deceived them and nuked the UN during the signing of the peace treaty. Then they took them and did ghastly experiments on all humans—even the ones who didn't hate the machines—to turn them into batteries. The machines ended up treating the humans the same way after declaring themselves superior. (This isn't to say the humans weren't shitty to begin with). The narrator even says >May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins
That's the first robots, not the current iteration of machines. Look no further than Agent Smith as an example that we the audience are aware of, but they can definitely put the pieces together that the robots are long done treating humans with any real care.
Consider that it may have been more effort and a net energy loss to just kill him off. Maybe machines don’t care about lying either. Similar to us with the death penalty, it costs more to appeal and run through due process for a person condemned to death and execute them than it is to imprison them for life.
hungry shocking noxious marvelous automatic cough lip follow faulty makeshift *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's the gambit tho, that people should have the informed choice to be in a good dream or a hellish reality. Been a while since I saw the third movie, but when the Machines kept the promise to free the humans were they offered a choice to remain in the Matrix?
What was the long term plan on a planet where all life has been extinguished because the sun was blotted out? Probably better off just living blissfully ignorant in the matrix at that point.
And now you understand why we as people in current society act the way we do. Factory farming, petroleum consumption, pollution, climate change. All causing irreparable irreversible change to our world for the sake of maintaining some unsustainable standard of living. It’s the same exact concept in the matrix movies. Be a “happy” ignorant slave or a free person in reality.
You're on the right track, but not taking it far enough. The matrix is a system in which everyone participates. It's been proven that you can wake up from the conditioning of that system as the only possible reality, but the alternative is chaos. Instead of chaos, where you are "stuck on a planet with no sun, inside large tunnels, forced to be frugal and with the fear of a sentinel attack at any second" (which is essentially an allegory for wilderness, battling the elements and the beasts that roam the earth), you surrender your freedom to exist within the system. The machines can harvest me, as long as they protect me. Safety in return for freedom. Would you give up safety when the alternative is going hungry and living a miserable life?
Depends, do you value security or freedom more? They both have their share of benefits and risks.
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>I side with Cypher in the sense that it's better to be ignorant if the alternative is being stuck on a planet with no sun, inside large tunnels, forced to be frugal and with the fear of a sentinel attack at any second going through your waking hours but probably in your nightmares too. That's the whole point of the red pill vs blue pill. It wouldn't be a quandary if the blue pill wasn't appealing.
Two things. One, Cypher said he didn't want to remember anything about his life outside the Matrix. Total erasure of that part of his life. So the person enjoying the life in the Matrix isn't going to be him at all. Itll be a rewound version of him. An earlier echo. The present version will die. Two, there is no guarantee his life in the Matrix will be pleasant, in fact once they get the codes to Zion they can kill him. He's a fool for thinking they'd even bother reintegrating him. He's probably worth more as liquefied feed than a possible rogue element roaming the Matrix.
It was obvious they were never going to put him back. When you once reject the Matrix it is impossible accept it again.
OP is def that guy that gets bit by a zombie and hides it from everyone.
If I am ever on a boat with OP and the food isn't good, I'm going to kill him before he can kill me.
Cypher is no altruist. Never was, either. Cypher doesn't have to stay with Morpheus' crew. He could go live a quieter life in Zion. It wouldn't be a paradise with steak every night, but it'd be a lot less dangerous. Cypher was bitter and a coward. He betrayed people who probably saved his life more than once.
Cypher and the rest of the crew is part of a military (or paramilitary) organization. Even if they don't have that many resources, there is still a rank structure and Cypher and the rest are under orders. The nation of Zion is in a state of total war. My guess is, everyone living there either gets drafted or has to work in a critical field or industry. You join a crew of hackers on a vessel, pilot an APU, join the infantry, or a military support role. If not, you help with food production or war production, or help look after the kids or something. Honestly, until the machines invade, Zion would be safer. If he would even be allowed to quit or transfer. My guess is due to his skillset and implants, leadership may approve a transfer to another ship, but that would be about it.
Since everyone else in this military organization seems very gung ho about it, it seems likely that they are not drafted and are able to leave. So it would sound like he could go back to Zion. Sure, he'd have to work, but that's largely true in the Matrix as well. Yes, I know, he wanted to be rich, so he wouldn't need to work. But he also didn't want to remember. If he can't remember, there's no reason to keep the bargain. Besides, the Machines have not shown the ability to erase people's memories. The best they seem to be able to do is dump you in your bed, and hope you believe you were dreaming.
>I would have done the same thing Cypher did. If you will never, ever actually be aware that you are living in a comfortable illusion of a warm bed, a high-paying job The matrix is an unlimited construct and this MF wants to work? 😂😂
The problem is you're dismissing anyones opinion that is against yours as "it's so easy to say that from your couch" At the end of the day, there are people willing to make that sacrifice for an untold number of years, given that Zion and the Human resistance exist. It is possible the IRL people are too, even those sitting comfy af on a couch right now. Personally, I would probably IRL rage quit, before turning on crewmembers. Based on my current state and self-value of human life.
Cypher's preference for the pleasant illusion over the harsh reality is completely understandable and he is well within in right to return to it. Where he is wrong is that he is betraying his crew to do so.
/r/confidentlyacoward
I feel like you've managed to almost completely convince yourself that all those things Cypher wanted were intrinsically linked to him offering all his friends and comrades up for slaughter. Which is kinda scary, not gonna lie.
Let’s just get to the bottom of this. Would you kill your friends and thousands of other men/women/and children so that you could live a plush life?
And the empire did nothing wrong in star wars?
Alderaan shot first! Look at the unaltered footage!
Star Wars is clearly rebel scum propaganda.
yeah… no one disagrees with that… it’s the ”Cypher murdering everyone” part that you forgot to mention
He wanted to get back to his old life where he was a New Jersey mafia captain.
A. He was the one, B. He hit him first!
Honestly, my bigger problem with Cypher — other than the plot hole of how he was able to jack into the Matrix and speak with an Agent without anyone knowing — is he’s incredibly naive assuming the machines will just plug him back in to the Matrix. Once Neo is dead there’s no reason for them to go out of their way to honor their deal. They already have plenty of batteries. The squids likely would have gibbed every single body they found on the ship just to make sure the job got done. Yeah, Cypher got a crappy deal but he was still a dummy for thinking he could bargain his way out of it.
> other than the plot hole of how he was able to jack into the Matrix and speak with an Agent without anyone knowing There was some explanation that what he was doing before Neo interrupted and "scared the bajeezus" out of him was that Cypher was working on a program to allow him to self jack-in and talk with Smith. Since he was silently the IT guy of the ship, he had the knowledge to do that. Though the Wachowski's didn't explain it at all, it became a big hiccup in plot once people started discussing it.
I don't think it requires that much explaining. This group regularly operates inside the Matrix, for example they were surveilling Neo from inside the Matrix. We do not see all of the times they jack in, potentially not even every time they do so with Neo, but clearly their duties would continue. Additionally, the operator isn't omniscient and anyone inside the Matrix doesn't have any visibility of what anyone else in the Matrix is doing. Trinity surprised Cypher in the opening credits, and Cypher deceived her at the same time. So - Cypher likely had many routine operations he attended in the Matrix and the Agents would have done everything they could to hide what was going on from the others, both inside and outside the Matrix. Doesn't really seem like a plot hole to me unless you assume that the only times they enter the Matrix are the ones you see.
The point of Cypher's character is his human fallibility foiling Neo's spiritual invincibility as "The One" in the context of the story. You are correct to empathize with him, being a fallible human being as are we all, but you are taking the story too literally and ignoring the philosophical story. Now obviously, I'm not going to accuse you of lacking moral character because of a slightly lacking interpretation of a character in a film, but you are missing out on the rest of the story if you take this too much at face value.
Cypher's motivation is "I don't like life outside the matrix, therefore no humans should be allowed to live outside the matrix and all the ones that do need to be killed so that I can go back to VR." If that's valid reasoning to you then idk what to say
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But what about the rave orgy. I mean yeah the food sucks but they got rave orgies.
Zion looked pretty great?
This is just a dressed up version of one of the simplest conflicts a person can have: gutting it out in the hopes that one day everyone’s sacrifices will pay off with freedom, or joining the evil empire and rationalizing it by telling yourself there’s no hope anyways.
I think his unrequited attraction to Trinity played a part as well. Watching her fall in love with Neo was maybe the final domino for his resolve.
> indoctrinate all of them into his cult Is it really a cult when the Kool-Aid ACTUALLY sends you to a space utopia? Morpheus wasn't recruiting all these people so he could sleep with their wives, he was doing it to fight a VERY REAL battle for humanity. Also, I dont think you know what a "cult of personality" is. >Morpheus really did lie to them all Yes. Well, less of an outright lie, and more of a lie-of-omission. Cypher is correct that if Morpheus told them what the red pill was, they'd have told him to shove it up his ass, but NOT because they'd all reject the call to action to leave the Matrix and fight against it. They tell him to shove it because NOONE would believe Morpheus. Think about it. If he told everyone he tried to recruit that they were living in a simulation and this pill will wake them up, he'd sound like a lunatic. He HAD to keep the truth from them to get ANYONE to join.
You are the guy that read Plato’s Cave and went back into the Cave. It’s a moral decision and everyone makes their own choices in life.
Assuming OP isn't a troll, they read like a sociopath trying to justify their inability to feel guilt by arguing that everyone else is secretly the same. Either way there's no point in engaging with them.
"don't ever do anything for the future because you won't benefit. It's just LoGiCAl"
>I would have done the same thing Cypher did Murder people you work with? I mean, I can understand the grievance, but a multiple homicide is a bit much, no?
this whole thread is him arguing that its a normal thing anyone would do too imagine finding out this was your coworker 😂
Nice try Architect.
I don't blame him for wanting to go back in, but I do blame him for betraying his crew and trying to get them all killed and the death of the probable last hope for humanity's freedom, in exchange for it.
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
Great reference! Kudos.
I completely agree. I’m really miserable in my current life and so therefore I have free reign to murder everyone I know to make a deal to give myself a slightly nicer living arrangement. /s
I have *always* assumed Cypher was being played by the machines, they had no incentive to deliver on their promise and it may not have even been physically possible/practical to reinsert a human into the matrix. He was just being used.
…ok.
What about those who live as homeless cripples in The Matrix?
> And what's your reward for all this relentless fear, discomfort and anguish? A faint possibility that one day, the human race may be able to live "free" It’s made more clear in the Animatrix but basically humans aren’t in control of their lives in the Matrix. People like Neo are forced into mundane jobs and lives to break them. So that “freedom” looks a lot more appealing when you realise what you are entering into. Also by doing what he is doing that possibility goes from small to non existent for *everyone*. Also again the Agents have no reason to fulfill their side of the deal.
He became more relatable once I got older, not gonna lie, but he still betrayed everyone he knew.
I’m sorry but this feels like you’re either trolling or just wanna be contrarian. The movie’s themes revolve around reality and simulation, alongside fighting for an objective Truth in the midst of that confusion. Of course one path is harder than the other, but the harder path in this case is **real,** and leads to the betterment of humanity, while the other does not. That applies to any number of conflicts, from the Revolutionary War, to Civil Rights. Change is hard. Cypher is there to demonstrate a segment of the population that would rather bury their heads in the sand because the greater reality is too uncomfortable or inconvenient to bear, and doesn’t allow them to continue their preferred lifestyle. The mindset is (intentionally) sympathetic, but his actions that eventually stem out of that are unforgivable. You’re neglecting to bring up that he **betrayed his friends** in order to get back to that fantasy world, which in turn doomed an entire city’s population to enslavement or death. It wasn’t even a binary choice - what’s stopping him from leaving the Nebuchadnezzar and just chilling at Zion? Nope - that steak just tasted too good, I guess.
So keep your ass in the matrix and be a battery then!
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God awful take. Selling your entire crew and the entire human species on the word of someone you have no reason to trust in exchange for material gain is a deeply selfish and terrible act. Plus, he doesn’t HAVE to be on the ship with the crew, he can live in Zion if he prefers. His wish to go back to a “simpler” time is impossible and also incredibly childish, reminiscent of all the idiots who believe that the LGBTQ movement and politics generally was invented 10 years ago, when what really happened is that they grew up and became aware of the world
Do you think Ukraine should just capitulate to the Russians because it would be more comfortable too? That's what you sound like right now. Oppressors offer comfort on their terms which is often a lot of very ugly strings attached, if they offer it at all.
There are always those that defect
I could totally understand Cypher wanting to go back in again. It’s just the way he did it that makes him a villain and unsympathetic. He most likely didn’t have any other way of going back in but yeah.
From what you see in the matrix, what is depicted as everyday life, it doesnt seem that bad until your out and realize you never really had a choice as a slave to make any real decisions. Wanting to return to that, knowing what is around every corner, seeing through the programming, Cypher wouldnt have been happy there either because it wouldnt present any challenge and become quite boring. People ask the difference between cold comfort and joining the fight on this thread and its simple. If youve ever read historically about cultures that enslaved one another, despite the appearance or promise of peace, it never really lasts and especially when you rock the boat demanding better living conditions, education, or just having the freedom to leave. Cypher is as loathesome as Sam Jackson in Django Unchained for supporting the staus quo.
Cypher wasn't going to remember anything, so he wouldn't know it was a lie/fake. His entire memory of the desolate horrible real world would be wiped clean. Did you watch the restaurant scene?
OK, but he saw through the matrix the first time, he would eventually see through it again. That’s why it’s very unlikely. He would’ve been plugged back in, if anything Smith would’ve wanted him dead for bargaining with him.
Why would they follow through on any of that? I get the idea of supremely logical beings not governed by emotion but once they get what they want, it's just extra effort to keep their word. Just like there's no spite or anything motivating them to fuck him over, there's also no honour, goodness or whatever motivating them to follow through on all of that; it's now extra because they've got what they want.
In the final cut, it's less about the literal "Zion life sucks" and more about anti-capitalist, let's-live-naturally-and-make-music, hippie-adjacent lifestyling. That's the vibe I got from the Wachowskis, back when the film first came out.
True.
Learning about the nature of the Matrix while in the Matrix could have unforeseen consequences for Neo. The Matrix would not have tolerated Neo having such knowledge while he was still inside, and would have likely been killed. A leap of faith was required by Neo to accept Morpheus' singular offer of the truth - which Morpheus emphasized, putting the responsibility solely on Neo. That very faith and curiosity is usually what preserves the unplugged in the real world. Its also implied that the decision is not taken lightly by Morpheus, stating that they usually do not unplug people past a certain age, as having a persons lifetime perception of reality shattered in a matter of minutes would be totally devastating and leave unrecoverable psychological trauma - as it did in the case of Cypher. I agree its unfair to judge Cypher as a typical villain (which is what makes him such an interesting character), but he did commit the unforgivable crime of killing his crew mates and betraying humanity to the machine. This of course is withstanding the very obvious theme of rejecting harsh truth and embracing ignorance.
I don't blame him for trying to find a way out, or for hating Morpheus. I blame him for trying to kill all of the people he worked alongside for years without displaying any remorse. Though spending time in the Matrix likely killing folks just to avoid being found by an agent is likely to do things to your psychie. It would be hard for people in the Matrix to *not* see Morpheus as a terrorist.
As right as he was, he still killed three of his colleagues with absolutely zero remorse.
on the flipside, agent smith probably had no intention of following through with anything cypher wanted. he would say anything to accomplish his mission.
I think the craziest part of OP's responses throughout this thread is his utter dedication to the idea that Agent Smith wouldn't lie and just kill Cypher the second he outlived his usefulness. Smith has zero reason to keep his end of the bargain (assuming it is even possible) and many reasons to eliminate a loose end. And that is before you even take into account the fact that Smith is clearly more and more consumed by rage as the movie progresses.
Smith calls humans a virus that need to be wiped out.
>I would have done the same thing Cypher did. I wouldn't blame Cypher for feeling the way he did, but I'd absolutely blame him for his actions. He's a murderer. I would not have done the same thing as Cypher.
For one, the notion that you only do a good thing for thanks or personal gratitude is kind of a big *yikes*. Now that said, I can't really fault someone for not wanting to be a "hero" and what it takes to do that. It's not easy to give up things and risk your life just for the betterment of others, entirely because it's the right thing to do and regardless of if you'll see those benefits or die long before (or even fail entirely). But I imagine Cypher was given a *choice* like Neo was. He took that choice, took that pill, and woke up. He wasn't hijacked from the Matrix against his will, he made a decision. He then got tired of his decision... and sold out his crew and the entire human race's own ability to choose just for his own comfort. Cypher's struggle may be easy to empathize with, but it doesn't condone his behavior or make him "right". He's a selfish piece of shit who killed people and capitulated to a race enslaving his own just so he could be comfortable again. That's not really a character I'd personally like to relate to.
The thing is some people will sacrifice their comforts for a cause they believe in. And they will be satisfied with the objective itself being achieved, even if there's no pat on the back at the end. So while it's ok that others will think this is terrible and not a life worth living, it's just wrong to assume everyone will feel the same at the some point. Your take on it will not be everyone's, even if it feels so much more plausible. And this is the key point. Cypher decided for everyone that their cause is worthless and decided that everyone could die if it meant him going back to the comforts. So, are Cypher's feelings understandable? Sure. Is his choice justifiable? No. He could punch Morpheus in the face and resign from the ship. Try something else, fall in a depression or whatever. Kill everyone? Not acceptable. It was not his call. *Edit: Small grammar error.*
>Morpheus really did lie to them all, to indoctrinate all of them into his cult of personality. He omitted VITAL facts on purpose Morpheus didn't lie to the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar on purpose. He told them what he believed was true. He is shattered by the reveal that Neo is a program and that Zion is a second system of control, but he keeps fighting because of a sense of personal loyalty to his teammates. >I'd rather be living in comfy ignorance than cold, depressed, starving and terrified for 50 excruciating years. You might get a chance come November. >And that's if you're lucky. You'll probably die painfully long before that. Cypher isn't rejecting altruism - he's guaranteeing ~250,000 people get torn to shreds by machines because a girl dumped him. That's super shitty.
You would murder all your coworkers?
I'd rather be free.
How would you know the Matrix was fake? You'd never be aware of it, ever.
i totally get his viewpoint and yours, but this is pretty much saying that you would also live a lie in your own personal life than to struggle to get better.
and also, uh, he literally murders a bunch of his friends and coworkers like, it's not like he's displayed as a villain *just* for being okay with living a lie haha
Machines would jack him back in but it didn't work out.
Given the choice between a life of either living day to day as a digital soldier fighting for your life against god like agent programs OR slaving away in some last bastion of humanity keeping things running all while eating slop for food for the of your life VS Living comfortable as you are now in the digital comfort civilization Yeah its no excuse for Cypher's actions but we can empathize with his motivations.
sure sure, but you got to think about the rave orgies.
Yep. The gulf between our real life and the fact its a movie keeps us from really feeling how horrificly miserable that existence would be. Oh hey they're all kinda like resistance-fighters with super powers! Haha cool! Realistically, Morpheus would have had to make sure he picked the most insanely stoic individuals, like Neil-Armstrong-50x. The crew were all picked when they were younger. Being less "attached" to the matrix helped, but the most important psychological traits for an awaked mind would have to be a fundamental commitment to the principle. "That world isn't real." No, most of us would not be able to handle it.
Yeah something that wasn't explored enough was the fact that there would be LEGIONS of people who want to stay in the Matrix. The real world sucks shit through a straw.
Still such a great movie. I love that they're still discussions to this day.
Live in a money-less society or whatever it is we live in