Meanwhile, in the Matrix, we learn that Agent Smith was not actually destroyed, but he has been changed. Their numbers are such that it seems almost impossible for humanity to fight them off. In the real world, the Machine army is bearing down on Zion, the only “real” human city, located deep, deep underground. In The Matrix: Reloaded, Neo has become even more powerful, but things are looking grim, both in the real world and inside the Matrix. Once in the real world, where they operate from a cool ship called the Nebuchadnezzar (one of many resistance ships, each with its own crew), Morpheus explains the nature of reality. They offer him a Red Pill that frees Neo from the Matrix. He encounters Trinity (Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), figures who are renowned cybercriminals in the world of the Matrix but who are really members of the human resistance against the Machines in the real world. The first movie introduces Neo (Reeves), a seemingly normal guy with a skill for hacking. It, along with all the other movies, is streaming on HBO Max. The rest of the Animatrix is fine, but The Second Renaissance is extremely good, extremely upsetting, and adds a lot of context to the franchise. We get a brief recounting of this history in the first Matrix, released in 1999, but to see it play out properly you can watch The Second Renaissance, a two-part segment in The Animatrix, an anthology film produced by the Wachowskis that came out ahead of 2003’s Reloaded.
