Yesterday, The Matrix: Resurrections trailer finally dropped. It was a highly anticipated trailer, and we’re here to break it down for you frame by frame.
I’ve spent hours going through the trailer, getting stills and looking for callbacks and hidden easter eggs, so let’s dive straight into it. We’re covering a lot of ground, because in the Wachowskis incredible world of The Matrix, everything has a meaning.
Down The Rabbit Hole With The Matrix: Resurrections
The trailer starts off by showing us Mr. Anderson himself in therapy with franchise newcomer and beloved actor Neil Patrick Harris as Thomas’ therapist. There are a few interesting thing right from the get-go here: firstly, we see that NPH’s character has a black cat. Fans will remember that the black cat was noted by a young Neo in The Matrix, stating that he just had déjà vu. Déjà vu occurs in the Matrix when something has changed.
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We then see Harris’ character is wearing a blue glasses frame and blue attire, but more on that later.
Thomas (who will just be referred to as Neo from here on out) talks about the dreams he’s having, and we then see split second moments of the visions which have been compiled below. Some of the highlights include seeing a more modern version of bullet time, Neo’s body, which is still blinded from him and Smith’s real life battle in Revolutions being preserved by the robots, possibly giving a explanation as to how he survived and finally, Neo seemingly awakening from the Matrix once more.
We then see one of the most important scenes in the trailer. Neo meeting Trinity, once again played to perfection by the phenomenal Carrie Ann-Moss and it seems like they’re only meeting each other for the first time, or so they think, the scene ends with Trinity asking “have we met?”.
We then see a short montage of Neo taking blue pills that his therapist prescribed him and doing some really weird stuff. We then see a place called Corky’s Masssage which was a location in the Wachowski’s first movie, Bound. We see Neo looking at things strangely and this continues until he decides to stop taking the blue pills.
He then goes to Priyanka Chopra’s character who not only has a copy of Alice in Wonderland, which is a reference to one of the many famous lines from the first film, in this case one spoken by Morpheus, but is also believed to be the little girl from Revolutions known as Sati.
“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
Remember how I mentioned that NPH was wearing blue glasses frames? Well, Chopra’s character is wearing red ones. I’m theorizing that Harris’ character is intentionally suppressing Neo by prescribing blue pills and Chopra, with this logic, would be freeing him from the blue pills due to her red frames along with the rabbit hole reference. Like I said earlier, in the world of The Matrix, everything means something, even down to the colours of glasses frames
After this, Neo seems to look into a mirror and find an old version of himself before changing back to himself again and we FINALLY get to see Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in action as a much younger Morpheus than the one from the previous films. Apparently, Fishburne couldn’t return due to scheduling conflicts but it makes me wonder why he’s also so much younger than over a decade ago. Morpheus mirrors a classic moment from the first film when Neo is first given the option to choose the red or blue pill. A cool little detail is that the designs of the actual pills have changed as well.
In the original trilogy, the pills were gel capsules but in this one, they look more like an actual pill. Probably irrelevant to the story but a cool detail nonetheless. He says to Neo “time to fly” and the camera cuts to Neo taking the red pill. For those who don’t remember, the red pill would severe your connection to the Matrix while also allowing Morpheus and the Nebuchadnezzar to track you down. I’d assume the same happens here but I also feel that in this world, Neo would gain his old memories back.
We then get ANOTHER very important callback to the first film in the next scene that shows a tattooed rabbit. In the first film, Trinity met Neo after he followed the girl with a tattooed rabbit to a club. This is also a good time to note that the music in the trailer is Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ and this is no coincidence as explained above.
We then see other agents and Morpheus explains to Neo that Trinity has given him purpose and a reason to fight and stay alive. We then see a recreation of the famous martial arts scene from the first film where Neo just obliterates Morpheus. I’m backtracking a bit to point out that Trinity has lines of code running down her. I have no idea what this could mean other than that Neo can see the code while in The Matrix.
After this, we get a good 4-5 seconds of footage of the real world including what appears to be Zion, the last human city and the pods where humans are connected into the Matrix. We’ve seen them in bits already in this trailer, such as when Neo awakens. We see some shots of Neo and Trinity on a building along with Jessica Henwick’s character doing some action shots. The highlight of this episode is that we finally get to see a classic and integral part from the original films. We get to se a brand new Agent back in action.
We then cut to the part that shocked most fans and was making the headlines of multiple Matrix articles yesterday. We see a gun fight in a movie theatre yet we also see that The Matrix is playing at the same time. This lines up with reactions from the test screenings of this film stating that the film would be as meta as Scream.
I think that The Matrix‘s existence in this universe is equivalent to how Stab is in the Scream films. But, my theory is that this is what causes Neo’s awakening. The first image is from earlier in the trailer right before he chooses the red pill and the second one could possibly be after he takes the pill.
Afterwards, we see a action sequence on a train along with Morpheus shooting up a place and Neo running away from an explosion. Something interesting to note is he is running from a sign that says Deus X Machina which was a very important and large theme in the first 3 films.
We then continue this montage of incredible clips that show us Trinity’s body hooked up to the Matrix along with some incredible Trinity oriented action sequences where she seems to have new abilities as well as a moment where she has many different faces. There’s a popular theory that the people in the Matrix aren’t Neo and Trinity but rather just look like them but in the real world, are completely different people so this could possibly hint towards that. We then see Morpheus get frightened by a mirror when his hand goes through it. This seems like an important moment in the film due to how much it was shown in the earlier teases.
These last few moments are possibly from the final battle in the third act. It seems that Neo is fighting Jonathan Groff’s character indicating he could be an antagonist. We then see Neo do some sort of Haduken move along with his classic move of stopping bullets, However, in the next sequence, it’s almost like there’s a Matrix ZombieFest going on as everyone’s eyes are green. Could this be something the Agents cause? Only time will tell.
Finally, this mind-blowing montage ends with Neo and Trinity falling of the building together. We can only assume that they’ve regained their old memories and remembered their love for one another but again, we won’t know until December.
The film’s incredible trailer ends with Jonathan Groff’s character speaking to Neo and saying “After all these years, to be going back to where it all started, back to the Matrix” and the camera cuts to the title card of the film. This line could mean a lot of things. He could be talking about the first film or the actual Matrix. It’s a great way to end such a great trailer though and it makes me want more from this film.
If you couldn’t tell, I adored this trailer. It was everything I wanted and more. If these trailers are indication of anything, it’s that The Matrix franchise will get a proper continuation with a great story. I cannot wait to see what Lana Wachowski has in store for us when The Matrix: Resurrections releases December 22nd, 2021.
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