What do you think?
Rate this book
Popular Culture and Philosophy #11
More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded
This follow-up to the hugely successful The Matrix and Philosophy is broken down into seven "scenes" that explore some of the deeper issues in the movie series. Scene one examines the issues of fate, fortune, causation, and determinism in the trilogy. Scene two asks readers to consider the concept of freedom in the film and in "reality." Scene three analyzes the metaphysical links and breakdowns between the three movies. Scene four provides exciting glimpses into the meaning of the music and the evolution of the Animatrix. Scene five addresses the controversial issues of race, humanness, and violence. Life, love, and the meaning of it all are considered in scene six, while scene seven looks at the various religious elements that appear throughout the series. The three films comprising The Matrix have become a genuine cultural phenomenon; this book enriches both the enjoyment of the films and the understanding of life today.
226 pages, Paperback
First published February 8, 2005
6 people are currently reading
619 people want to read
About the author
William Irwin
123 books124 followersWilliam Irwin is Professor of Philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and is best known for originating the "philosophy and popular culture" book genre with Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing (1999) and The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (2001).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 13, 2013
Pretty good sequel and again well written if you loved the movies these two books will provide a better understanding of the themes in philosophy and existentialism predominantly in a readable format.
October 24, 2024
These philosophy books written about the Matrix series can be summed up by one of the scenes in Revolutions. It’s the one where the gun flies up in the air only to land in Trinity’s hand before she points it at the Merovingian’s head, seemingly crazed with her belief in the mission. Everyone has guns drawn, side eyeing the situation. But each is waiting for Trinity to actually do something before they know they’re allowed to righteously pull the trigger for some causal end. Most of us are convinced Neo really is that great. Who wouldn’t want to sacrifice everyone’s lives for those eyes?
Trinity, who by the end of the Matrix series is (arguably) “The One”…just seems like any other modern female love interest by the end of the trilogy. Who knew after three movies that one woman could covertly wield so much power. According to everyone who ever commented on the trilogy, either Neo or Smith must be “The One”. Then in the last installment, when yet again Lana gives us the eye roll, we’re back to more baseless, personalizing criticisms.
The Oracle is an old black woman who smokes cigarettes, did really no one see this coming!?…Shame on you Lana for making movie’s about the great philosophical illusions and never telling us the point! No one wants to admit women are the secret plot to all truth seeking missions…but tell us anyway! Give us more fuel to dislike the movies in serious dialectical projects! If you don’t tell us you’re a feminist, how are we supposed to know we should rationalize you for it!?
It’s as if these writers ignored female characters like Niobe as a love interest. A character who pulled the strings of Morpheus and Lock throughout the plot. Thereby shifting the philosophical implications of every character’s life. No one suspected these women could have so much narrative control over so many universes.
The analyses in this book were worse than the first book. It was tough to justify reading some of them. It isn’t surprising since not many understood the first movie. So when the second and third movies entirely contradict the first to make a philosophical point, most folks (philosophers just doing their jobs included) are no longer having fun.
Someone finally realized that Baudrillard was an influence in this book, so kutos to that one. Baudrillard did philosophy and convolutedly said the word “simulation” a bunch of times…is the level of interpretation we are still apparently at. Props to Lana for having to suffer through all these terrible negationist explanations of her movies. Movies no one gave a chance to. The Wachowskis have always left it up to interpretation and that’s probably for the best long term, as the movies will likely resonate and become better appreciated over time.
Art, as it was once known, not just before various technologies of representational reproduction, but also as capitalist social ontology, continues its decline. Especially cinema in America. These movies could easily mark in historical time when popular movies started getting bad due to the propaganda of funding sources.
A fan like myself has to laugh through the inevitability of philosophers taking themselves so seriously critiquing the movies. To of course make it abundantly clear how unseriously the philosophy, must, be taken. Most of the writers have projected that the movie was about their own aspect of philosophy, and then that this particular aspect for some reason needed a ton of analysis to have been done even better!
The theologians at least understood the artistic spirit of the movies, if they at times missed the structure of philosophical arguments. No one in this group has enough knowledge in all the areas to give a solid interpretation. Zizek, still lacking much theology background, at least knows more history and philosophy. So he curmudgeonly gets the closest to having anything meaningful to add…Although he still seems pissed, being a Hegelian, that he has to further specify what the world “real” philosophically means.
Zizek, delightfully says,
“The key feature of the entire Matrix series is the progressive need to elevate Smith into the principal negative hero, a threat to the universe, a kind of negative of Neo. Who effectively is Smith? A kind of allegory of Fascist forces: a bad program gone wild, autonomized, threatening the Matrix. So the lesson of the film is, at its best, that of an anti-Fascist struggle. The brutal thugs, Fascists developed by Capital to control workers by the Matrix to control humans), run out of control, and the Matrix has to enlist the help of humans to crush them in the same way liberal capital had to enlist the help of Communists, its mortal enemy, to defeat Fascism. (Perhaps, from today's political per-spective, a more appropriate model would have been to imagine Israel on the verge of destroying Arafat and the PLO, and then making a deal with them for a truce if the PLO destroys Hamas who have run out of control...”
Zizek, usually the comedian of philosophy, knows better, and yet, still no laughing. Zizek is the example of how most philosophers writing for this book missed the spirit of interpretation. Maybe because of Iraq and terrorism, and all that is going on at the time. I don’t know. But Zizek wrote an entire book about the first Matrix movie. He was one of the first philosophers who did take the movie seriously. And yet he seems willfully negative and uninspired to have done so! Like a splinter in the mind I suppose.
It’s easy to be triggered by the movies. If this kind of criticism is derived from the “wokeness” of the movies, then the reappropriated exploitation of “wokeness” has a doppelgänger. The resemblance is in the eyes.
Trinity, who by the end of the Matrix series is (arguably) “The One”…just seems like any other modern female love interest by the end of the trilogy. Who knew after three movies that one woman could covertly wield so much power. According to everyone who ever commented on the trilogy, either Neo or Smith must be “The One”. Then in the last installment, when yet again Lana gives us the eye roll, we’re back to more baseless, personalizing criticisms.
The Oracle is an old black woman who smokes cigarettes, did really no one see this coming!?…Shame on you Lana for making movie’s about the great philosophical illusions and never telling us the point! No one wants to admit women are the secret plot to all truth seeking missions…but tell us anyway! Give us more fuel to dislike the movies in serious dialectical projects! If you don’t tell us you’re a feminist, how are we supposed to know we should rationalize you for it!?
It’s as if these writers ignored female characters like Niobe as a love interest. A character who pulled the strings of Morpheus and Lock throughout the plot. Thereby shifting the philosophical implications of every character’s life. No one suspected these women could have so much narrative control over so many universes.
The analyses in this book were worse than the first book. It was tough to justify reading some of them. It isn’t surprising since not many understood the first movie. So when the second and third movies entirely contradict the first to make a philosophical point, most folks (philosophers just doing their jobs included) are no longer having fun.
Someone finally realized that Baudrillard was an influence in this book, so kutos to that one. Baudrillard did philosophy and convolutedly said the word “simulation” a bunch of times…is the level of interpretation we are still apparently at. Props to Lana for having to suffer through all these terrible negationist explanations of her movies. Movies no one gave a chance to. The Wachowskis have always left it up to interpretation and that’s probably for the best long term, as the movies will likely resonate and become better appreciated over time.
Art, as it was once known, not just before various technologies of representational reproduction, but also as capitalist social ontology, continues its decline. Especially cinema in America. These movies could easily mark in historical time when popular movies started getting bad due to the propaganda of funding sources.
A fan like myself has to laugh through the inevitability of philosophers taking themselves so seriously critiquing the movies. To of course make it abundantly clear how unseriously the philosophy, must, be taken. Most of the writers have projected that the movie was about their own aspect of philosophy, and then that this particular aspect for some reason needed a ton of analysis to have been done even better!
The theologians at least understood the artistic spirit of the movies, if they at times missed the structure of philosophical arguments. No one in this group has enough knowledge in all the areas to give a solid interpretation. Zizek, still lacking much theology background, at least knows more history and philosophy. So he curmudgeonly gets the closest to having anything meaningful to add…Although he still seems pissed, being a Hegelian, that he has to further specify what the world “real” philosophically means.
Zizek, delightfully says,
“The key feature of the entire Matrix series is the progressive need to elevate Smith into the principal negative hero, a threat to the universe, a kind of negative of Neo. Who effectively is Smith? A kind of allegory of Fascist forces: a bad program gone wild, autonomized, threatening the Matrix. So the lesson of the film is, at its best, that of an anti-Fascist struggle. The brutal thugs, Fascists developed by Capital to control workers by the Matrix to control humans), run out of control, and the Matrix has to enlist the help of humans to crush them in the same way liberal capital had to enlist the help of Communists, its mortal enemy, to defeat Fascism. (Perhaps, from today's political per-spective, a more appropriate model would have been to imagine Israel on the verge of destroying Arafat and the PLO, and then making a deal with them for a truce if the PLO destroys Hamas who have run out of control...”
Zizek, usually the comedian of philosophy, knows better, and yet, still no laughing. Zizek is the example of how most philosophers writing for this book missed the spirit of interpretation. Maybe because of Iraq and terrorism, and all that is going on at the time. I don’t know. But Zizek wrote an entire book about the first Matrix movie. He was one of the first philosophers who did take the movie seriously. And yet he seems willfully negative and uninspired to have done so! Like a splinter in the mind I suppose.
It’s easy to be triggered by the movies. If this kind of criticism is derived from the “wokeness” of the movies, then the reappropriated exploitation of “wokeness” has a doppelgänger. The resemblance is in the eyes.
February 28, 2008
به برهوت واقعیت خوش آمدید. این کتاب ترجمعه شده توسط نیما ملک محمدی و شهریار وقفی پور . کتابی هست در مورد فلسفه ماتریکس . با شماست قرص آبی را بخورید یا قرص قرمز
October 30, 2015
The beginning is techy, but keep going. I wanted more info about the characters.
August 26, 2020
Purchase More Matrix and Philosophy here for just $10!
A fun philosophical look at the two Matrix sequels made by iconic trans filmmakers the Lana and Lilly Wachowski. The Wachowski Sisters have explicitly stated that the Matrix series is partly informed by their experience as trans women.
Bea - The Book Grocer
A fun philosophical look at the two Matrix sequels made by iconic trans filmmakers the Lana and Lilly Wachowski. The Wachowski Sisters have explicitly stated that the Matrix series is partly informed by their experience as trans women.
Bea - The Book Grocer
April 25, 2022
Somewhat cliche, and an attempt to cash in on the franchise.
October 11, 2022
A good read that follows the same style as the last book. Great for any fan of the series who is willing to work just a little bit for a richer understanding.
October 27, 2023
Simply worth reading and rereading!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews