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When you say a movie was ahead of its time, it usually means you’re stating that it missed its mark upon its release and bombed at the box office. However, later on, it found its audience and turned into a cult classic. The Matrix isn’t that, it’s more of a film that became a cultural phenomenon upon its release, and yet it predicted the kind of world we would be living in today. There are few films that can do that.
The 1999 sci-fi classic given to us by The Wachowskis has themes and cultural significance that carry a lot of weight in today’s world, some for better, some for worse. Fans adored the film once it came out. Now people seem to find it incredible in its prediction of the 2020s and maybe even beyond. Taking the “red or blue pill” has more gravitas to it than it ever seemed and the fashion of The Matrix is still around to this day. The message at the core, in terms of what our true reality is, is all over the internet these days. With a fifth installment in the works, who knows what the franchise will further predict? Here are all the plot points that The Matrix (and its sequels) predicted for our so-called reality over two decades ago.
The Matrix
- Release Date
- March 30, 1999
- Runtime
- 136
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The 1980s saw big explosions and big muscles, with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and many other action stars kicking butt. However, by the mid-1990s, there needed to be a new symbol of action heroes, and although some of the names above were able to pivot a bit with their on-screen presence, the genre needed a recharged feel for its heroes.
Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix
Keanu Reeves had been around for some time before the script for The Matrix ever got into the hands of his agent. He had been in great action films like Speed and Point Break but never got lumped into the role of being an icon of the genre. It was when he took on the role of Neo in The Matrix and returned for its sequels that his credibility skyrocketed. Neo is a badass, but he comes with a lot of intellect as well. He’s a cross between the old wise man in a Kung Fu movie and Luke Skywalker. As we entered the new millennium, we started seeing action heroes use their heads a lot more. Something that still holds true to this day.
9 Meal Replacement Shakes
This is a weird one, but when Neo wakes up to the “real world,” he learns that food isn’t this lavish thing that humans have made this subculture out of; rather, it’s disgusting. The breakfast scene consists of the whole crew introducing Neo to what humans eat. It looks like stale oatmeal, yet it has all the nutrients in it to help keep the body running.
We Love Protein Shakes
Not just the fitness culture and gym rats alike, but many of us concoct meal replacement shakes to help us get through the day. Some of these shakes are made up to look fancy and appealing on Instagram; others are just a bunch of protein and vitamins to keep us chugging along. Since the late 1990s, the human race has become very dependent on the protein shake industry. It feels like a small, unnoticeable thing in the film, but the comparisons to now and then are there.
8 Fashion Trends
With the original film being such a landmark piece of cinema, of course, parts of what made The Matrix so great was its influence on other forms of culture. Fashion is one of them. The leather clothes, the boots — all black everything. Chances are, we passed someone on the street and thought to ourselves that they had seen The Matrix way too many times.
Dark Leather Clad Is All the Rage
It’s strange how most of these characters are all in black, and there is nothing about it that feels gothic. Neo and Trinity look like runway models in some German fashion show. The wardrobe of these characters is so generic when you think about it, and yet it becomes a supporting character in the film. Every year, there seem to be high-end clothing brands that release clothes that look like they were maybe in a deleted scene from the film. Celebs like Lady Gaga, Irina Shayk, and Bella Hadid have all been seen sporting something that makes them look like characters from The Matrix. The fashion of the film is part of what made the film a phenomenon.
7 EDM
A lot like the fashion, the music of The Matrix has aged pretty well. As a matter of fact, the soundtrack to the original and its sequels hit at a time when raves were growing and growing, showing us that in order to tear up a dance floor, sometimes we just needed a beat that was made on a computer and blasted through some loudspeakers.
The Era of the Rave
Raves were born in the 1980s, due to a surge of techno music being created in Europe at the time. By the 1990s, they were huge in America. The combo of heavy house music mixed in with techno beats made the cyberpunk aesthetic of The Matrix pop even more. This was not the birth of EDM music at all; no, that dates back to the late 1960s. However, the nightclub culture of people letting loose and rubbing up against one another to a crazy beat did seem very prevalent in the first film, as well as in the sequel with its over-the-top rave scene, and still mirrors how people party today.
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6 Twitter and Elon Musk
For a decade and a half, Twitter has sucked millions of Americans into a world where people can say whatever they want in 280 characters or less, and it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not; it can still blow up the algorithm. Twitter used to be a place for celebrities to talk about what they were doing on a random Thursday. Now, when you encounter someone addicted to the site, they oftentimes come off as a character in the world of The Matrix.
The Matrix Has You!
We will dive deeper into this ideology down the road in another entry, but Twitter has become a place where many have flocked to voice outlandish conspiracies, political agendas, and downright strange outlooks on the world around us. Many have felt that Twitter is where those who don’t trust reality go to spew and dig up information with no viable sources and pawn it off as truth. Elon Musk, Twitter (or X) CEO, once stated that we are living in a simulation, which must have driven Twitter nuts when he said that.
5 “Sheeple”
The major choice that Neo (or his Matrix name, “Thomas Anderson”) must make in the film’s first act is to decide if he should follow Morpheus down the rabbit hole or stay stuck in his boring life in The Matrix. This is a theme that echoes choices in most of our lives when we must make a risky choice to stay on the course of a mundane life or try something new and adventurous. But since this is a sci-fi action film, it comes with dangerous costs.
What Are “Sheeple”?
You hear the term “Sheeple” thrown around a lot. An internet phrase that combines the words ‘people’ and ‘sheep.’ It’s meant to signify that you are not open to the real world around you and that you’re just another person tied to a job and lifestyle that governs you in a toxic way. Many lifestyle gurus are out there preaching to you to break free from this these days. As well as many angry right-wing and left-wing internet trolls too. The word is used in the newest installment of the franchise, The Matrix Resurrections, which felt like a nice wink to the contemporary audience, but the tone of governing people’s lives in the simulation has always been there.
4 The Trans Allegory
At the birth of The Matrix in 1999, The Wachowskis went by The Wachowski Brothers. The pair came out as transwomen in 2012 and 2016, respectively. As the franchise has evolved over the last twenty-five years, many in both the trans community and moviegoers, in general, have picked up on the allegories and the themes of what it’s like to be trans within the original film and its sequels. Some tie it back to the film’s directors and their own self-discovery.
Neo Realizing His True Self
Both Lana and Lilly have confirmed this affirmation, but in 1999, the world was not quite ready for it. It’s all on the page for Neo, who is a man who always feels like a misfit in the world around him, and he always feels as if something is off internally as well. Neo has a liberating character arc of discovering one’s true self rather than living in the confines of the Matrix. It’s very easy to see the parallels between someone who realizes what they identify as. The Wachowskis have always made films that were slightly ahead of their time. The Matrix isn’t one of them, but having the trans community latch onto it and welcome it into their world is a sign of how truly progressive the film’s concept is.
3 The Rise of AI
We’ve lost count of how many science fiction movies have now felt more true than ever as of late. Films like The Matrix have now been lumped in with other sci-fi action movies like Ghost in the Shell (a big influence on The Matrix), The Terminator, and Blade Runner, to name just a few more. The rise of AI over the last year has left everyone, from writers to fast food employees, a little scared that robots are taking over.
The Dystopian Vision
The Wachowskis gave us a landmark cinematic dystopian vision in The Matrix twenty-five years ago. Now it feels like we are inching closer to the heavy plot point of the film, where AI enslaves humanity and goes to war against us. It may still be hundreds of years until something like that ever happens, but we are on the right (or wrong) path to something like that. AI is in the zeitgeist now; it’s not being kept behind the doors at MIT or in Elon Musk’s office. We’re all talking about the harm that it can do, and we can’t help but reference The Matrix.
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2 Do We Live in a Simulation?
From the green code that trickles across the screen throughout the film to how Neo controls bullets from the Agents who are out to get him. The Matrix conveys to us the idea that life is not controlled by some religious being in the sky but rather by highly developed technology. It’s a mind-boggling experience for some of us so-called “Sheeple,” but once we wrap our heads around it, it’s easy to look at the world around us and wonder if the movie is right.
Scientists Have Come Out Saying That We Live in a Simulation
If you don’t believe we live in a simulation, ask yourself this one thing: have you ever seen your neighbors bringing in groceries? This was stated in a fun little meme that popped up on the internet back in 2020 when we all had a lot of questions about the world around us. The Matrix was the best movie to set up this hypothesis of sorts, and even many scientists have come out and stated that we could in fact live in a simulation. Some have said it for the clicks, some have backed it with reputable knowledge, but pretty much all of them have referenced The Matrix.
The Matrix is full of iconic scenes that still hold up to this day. From bullet-time special effects to Keanu Reeves saying “woah,” it’s a film that packs a punch of massive entertainment. The scene where Morpheus offers Neo the option of taking the blue pill or the red pill is the most pivotal part of the movie. The blue pill makes him wake up in bed the next day, and nothing more comes of it. The red pill is the truth.
All We Want Is the Truth
Just think about it for a second: life doesn’t feel right for us more often than not, and why the hell can’t we make sense of that? That is our biggest challenge. The reason why The Matrix struck a nerve upon its release is because it felt like it gave people an answer to life’s deepest questions. Very few movies can do that. It also came out at a time of technological advances, and fear of pending events like Y2K hung over many people globally. We all needed something to soothe that anxiety and our fears of life. The red and blue pill scene is an analogy for all of us who are trying to get some answers to why we feel a certain way about the world around us.
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