What the hell goes on with Morpheus? That’s the question on fans’ minds after spending Judgment Day trying to decipher all of the new Matrix Resurrections teasers released by Warner Bros. If you attend WhatIsTheMatrix.com immediately, you’ll be asked to form a choice: the red pill or the blue pill. counting on the pill you select and therefore the time of day you visit the location, you’ll be treated to a teaser that changes slightly almost whenever you watch it. consistent with EW, there are 180,000 variations of the video.
While the complete trailer will hit the web on Thursday at 9 am ET, the teasers contain snippets of footage from the new movie, including our first looks at Neo and Trinity also as Jessica Henwick and Jonathan Groff’s characters. But most significantly, the teasers introduce Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s mystery man, a personality who looks and sounds tons like Morpheus…
“This is that the moment for you to point out to us what’s real. immediately you think it’s…” says Abdul-Mateen within the teaser, reciting the time at which you’re watching the video.” but that couldn’t be beyond the reality. might be this is often the primary day of the remainder of your life, but if you would like it, you gotta fight for it.”
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The teasers are amid a couple of shots of Abdul-Mateen’s character, who looks equally like Morpheus, but there also are several scenes that suggest…well, that this couldn’t be beyond the reality. But before we jump into a number of the pictures, you would possibly be wondering why it’s Abdul-Mateen who seemingly filling the Morpheus role and not Laurence Fishburne. As revealed by Fishburne himself last year, he wasn’t invited back to reprise his iconic role despite Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss being tapped to return, alongside Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, Lambert Wilson because of the Merovingian and Daniel Bernhardt as Agent Johnson.
Since Abdul-Mateen was cast, rumors have persisted that he’s playing a younger Morpheus, which seems to be confirmed by the teasers, but, again, things won’t be as they appear. Follow me down the rabbit hole…
The first shot we see within the teaser for the Abdul-Mateen character shows him watching himself within the mirror, condensation on the glass made to resemble Matrix code (“digital rain”) over the mystery man’s face. He looks intently into the mirror, noticing how its surface turns to liquid when he touches it. There are other strange things happening with mirrors in these teasers. In other clips, we watch Neo take blue pills ahead of a mirror but his reflection isn’t right in the least — looking back at Reeves may be a much older man. In yet other snippets, we watch hands reaching through mirrors, like when Neo touched the liquid glass the primary movie just before awakening within the world.
So what’s happening here? The green hue of the scene confirms this is often Abdul-Mateen inside the simulation, but judging from his reaction to the mirror, he doesn’t seem aware that he’s within the Matrix. “Morpheus” looks genuinely surprised by this sudden glitch, something Fishburne would’ve taken without becoming upset within the original trilogy. So does this mean this movie follows Morpheus before he was unplugged? is that this movie somehow a continuation of Neo and Trinity’s story but also a Morpheus origin story?
Well, that doesn’t really seem to be the case, as we learn in other clips.
When this movie is about might not be as important as what version of the Matrix this movie takes place in. I theorized in an earlier article that The Matrix Resurrections might be covering a special version of the simulation altogether, one where some events happen as they did within the original trilogy but where there are big alterations, too. because the Architect once told Neo within the Matrix Reloaded, the Machines have created several versions of the simulation, tweaking things as required to enhance the program and make humanity more subservient. It’s an endless loop that has seen the heroes attempt to save Zion from the Machines several times before.
We learned from the Architect that the One’s role isn’t just a prophecy, an occasion foretold by the Oracle, but a task designed by the Machines to unravel an anomaly within the program. In essence, the One’s role is to reset the Matrix and begin the clock again until the subsequent “final battle.” But as we all know from The Matrix Revolutions, Neo and his friends found how to vary things, to save lots of Zion from being destroyed and provides other plugged-in humans the prospect to go away the simulation if they chose to. most significantly, there was finally peace.
But just how long did that peace last? The title “Resurrections” suggests that a replacement version of the Matrix has been brought online, which might explain why events from the primary movie are happening again but in slightly alternative ways.
For example, within the picture above, an older Neo is back within the sparring program with “Morpheus,” undoubtedly practicing their Kung Fu and jiu-jitsu. The dojo looks familiar but at this point, Neo wears black while Adbul-Mateen is clad during a red gi. This shot also happens to be the simplest evidence that, yes, Abdul-Mateen plays Morpheus which he will guide Neo on this new adventure.
Things get more complicated, though…
Later within the teasers, you see what seems like an Agent chasing our heroes down hallways that look quite almost like those Neo ran through within the original film, just before his death and resurrection within the third act. But this point, its Henwick’s blue-haired badass dodging bullets while Abdul-Mateen is often seen running ahead, wearing sunglasses that don’t really look anything just like the ones worn by Fishburne’s Morpheus within the original trilogy. (It does almost appear as if he’s wearing a second pair of glasses over his more traditional rimless pince-nez glasses, but that would just be the standard of the screengrab.)
More importantly, “Morpheus” is kind of dressed like an Agent here. What the hell goes on?
I don’t have the answers. And this last image only complicates things further. Here we see “Morpheus” being formed from thousands of little particles expelled by some kind of machine. Are those alleged to be tiny nanobots, kind of like more advanced versions of the insect droids that formed Deus Ex Machina’s face within the Matrix Revolutions? Is “Morpheus” acting so weird because he’s actually a machine?
That certainly would be quite the twist if true. What if Morpheus was a machine cell, just another system of control right along — a “true believer” designed to rally Zion around the One so as for the Machines to more easily lead humanity through the loop that might eventually cause the city’s destruction?
Yeah, that sounds a touch far-fetched even for a Matrix movie. Maybe it’s just this version of “Morpheus” that’s a machine, created to jump-start Neo’s journey after another faction has kept him hooked on the blue pill for years. What if this is often a version of the Matrix where Thomas Anderson never need to make a choice in 1999 and has lived his life unaware of his true purpose? During this scenario, maybe it might be the Machines themselves trying to awaken Neo. After all, without him completing his journey, the program can’t survive.
We’ll finally determine what the hell is basically happening when The Matrix Resurrections hits theaters and HBO Max on Dec. 22.