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Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for The Matrix Reboot and Final Fantasy VII, including the original and remakes from 1997!
To say how similar it is to video games, the Matrix series probably comes ahead of all other movie series. Its story has even continued in the game, after all, the Wachowski sisters let the players of The Matrix OL inherit the story line of the original trilogy. Single-player games like Into the Matrix and The Path of Neo, with the Wachowski sisters, have also opened up a bizarre new ending to Neo's journey. So it's no surprise that Matrix Reboot has such a strong video game flavor.
There are many movies that have turned into one never-ending series after another, such as Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters (2016), and then Ghostbusters (2021). But Matrix Reboot isn't just a belated sequel; it's vastly different, stranger yet incomparably familiar. And in the video game space, we happen to have one word to describe Matrix Reboot: "Spiritual Sequel."
There are spiritual sequels in other forms of media, but video games occupy almost the entire length of the wiki page for this word for no reason. In gaming, sequels based on the framework of previous games are often of better quality; if you don't need to build the entire game from scratch, you have more time to polish the details to bring a better story, deeper themes, and bolder experiments to the game.
Just like other forms of media, in the field of gaming, remakes often carry the prestige of famous predecessors. However, the spiritual sequels in the field of games also have the ability to overcome the technical and spiritual limitations of the previous generation.
Matrix Reboot brings a newer version of The Matrix to contemporary audiences, built on a clearly recognizable framework of its predecessors to illuminate the series' core themes. In the film, Bao directly relied on clips from the previous game to reenact important scenes. Some of the main characters, such as Agent Smith and Morpheus, were literally recreated in the plot, and they changed actors and had new character ideas. Characters like Neo and Trinity are still played by the original actors, but the "resurrected" two are actually rebuilt from scratch by analysts — as if a video game would make a new model of the character in a remake.
The matrix reboot's video game color is all the more true in its fictional world, and the Matrix trilogy becomes three video games produced by game designer Thomas Anderson (Keanu Levis), but in reality, the world is nothing more than a new type of matrix that imprisons Thomas, and he must escape from it so that he can discover his true identity, Neo.
Even before Neo escaped, he could detect that the world around him was full of falsehoods. The games he made symbolized his deepest memories; the world he lived in was the closest to reality, but there was no real sense of freedom from the motherhood. Neo is also constantly searching for old memories, even going so far as to create a new version of his dead friend Morpheus in a secret server. It's both a resurrection and a reconstruction, and it doesn't take long for us to learn that Neo's resurrection is also true— the designers behind the new matrix reconstruct the bodies of Neo and his lover Trinity in The Matrix Revolution and bring the two back to life. Neo and Trinity's beautiful vision of each other is now cruelly twisted into energy, powering yet another abominable control system.
Like The Matrix before It, Matrix Reboot is a love story, but it's also a commentary on the current situation, and Lana Wachowski knows that the Matrix series will continue whether she and her sisters come back to direct. After Neo revealed his true identity as an analyst, the answer he got did not satisfy him. He and Trinity were resurrected for one purpose —to power the giant machine, to power the matrix, to power the Warner Bros., to Hollywood, to power capitalism. Neo and Trinity realize that the situation they are in after being forced to resurrect is neither honorable nor willing—such a life is painful and dry—so they choose to flee together.
But Neo and Trinity didn't stay out forever. At the end of the film, they re-enter the matrix where they were imprisoned. This time, they were in charge of the authority, and analysts and other previous obstacles could no longer stop them. The possibilities are endless today: they can liberate others and show them the world beyond the matrix, and they can make the matrix something else different — or both. They defeated their worst enemy, the system that forced them back into the story. As the screen darkened, Neo and Trinity returned to the realm of our reverie, and they were truly free.
To quote Final Fantasy 7 Remake, "The journey of the unknown will continue." This is the closing word of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and it's this game that reminds me the most about Matrix Reboot. Like Matrix Reboot, the final fantasy 7 remake starts with familiar things, but molds them into something completely new.
Fight fate with me
Final Fantasy 7 was released in 1997, just 2 years before The Matrix. But unlike The Matrix, the original FF7 is not timeless.
Its pace is long and protracted, and it doesn't have such a convenient modern mechanism as real-time archiving and difficulty setting. But its story, like The Matrix, is still haunted years later, telling the story of a desperate, reticent hero who is caught up in a fantasy adventure. And in the end, he must face the most terrifying truth—his true identity, hidden under the weight of trauma and resistance. The narrative of Final Fantasy 7 became a highlight in the history of video games, proving that even simple and rough graphics can present players with a vivid story of grief, trauma and love.
For years to come, players have been eager for a remake of Final Fantasy 7. In a 2002 forum post, fans speculated that there would be a remake of Final Fantasy 7 on PS2, and rumors and hopes continued all the way to the PS4 era, before the news of the remake of Final Fantasy 7 was finally announced in 2015. The actual release of the game will not be until 2020, at which point it is conservative to say that players expect it to be extremely high. But The Reset of Final Fantasy 7 even exceeded those expectations — it didn't recreate the story that players were familiar with in a more modern and refined way, and it directly subverted the pattern that a remake should have.
Some of the changes are far-reaching and straightforward. Final Fantasy 7 Remake, for example, has a more complex combat system, built on top of the game's core mechanics, but is a great experience to play. The remake also changes the infamous Bee House scene , which was originally a comedic scene with crossover overtones , has now become a fun queer dance scene. Most players like me are expecting nothing more than these new changes. But the remake is far more daring than that. All players familiar with the original game know how the plot will develop. The remake cleverly makes this a real obstacle to the game, introducing ghosts to force the characters to follow the storyline of the original 1997 game.
The reputation baggage of the previous game has now become an enemy that players must fight against in the game. As the remake unfolds, the characters find a way to break away from their original route and divide their world into parallel realities. Before starting final fantasy 7 remake, players often thought they knew how the story would progress, but they wouldn't know they were dead wrong until the list of producers started scrolling. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has made Final Fantasy 7 something entirely new, and the word "remake" in its title has since given new meaning to "remake."
That's the point of the story – they never end
Matrix Reboot took a similar approach, but critics didn't give the famous sequel to the series, which Lana Wachowski returned alone to direct, as well as Final Fantasy 7 Remake. This may be because we need to look at Matrix Restart from the perspective of a video game. Kotaku's Carolyn Petit in her article "The Matrix Reboot's View of Video Games" goes something like this:
In the world of the movie, the so-called matrix is actually just a well-designed MMO game, people don't know that they are playing the game, but there is a system in the world that can decide what is possible and what is impossible. It's as if most games have a tightly chimeric system that determines—or at least tries to decide—how players interact with the game, what they can and can't do... In a sense, I feel like Neo, Trinity, and the others on Murphy's side are like speed-up players in the matrix — what they would do in this "game" system, most players wouldn't do at all, because the system wasn't designed to include permission for those things.
Matrix Reboot represents more than just a reconstruction of the World of The Matrix, just as the analyst reconstructs the Matrix and recreates Trinity and Neo to power it. It also ends the film to Neo and Trinity with a sort of "God Mode"; they have gone beyond cheaters and Speedcom players to become true developers. Lana Wachowski is not in "God Mode", she participated in the creation of the original "Matrix" movie and concept, and now she has built a new story on the scaffolding of many previous works.
But just because she can do that doesn't mean she wants to. According to Entertainment Weekly, Warner Bros. originally asked the Wachowski sisters to "come up with a sequel every year."
"I never had any interest in continuing this series." According to Entertainment Weekly, Lana Wachowski said this during the discussion session of the Berlin International Literary Festival. But after that, according to Wachowski, she experienced a bitter separation in her life: "My father died, my friend died, and then my mother died." I didn't know how to face such pain. I've never experienced this before."
One night, she couldn't sleep, and the idea of "Matrix Restart" suddenly flooded into her mind. "I'll never see my mom and dad again... Then all of a sudden I thought of Neo and Trinity, who were probably the most important characters in my life," she said, "and it was a relief to think of them, and it was as simple as that." You can look at these two people and then 'Well, these two people are dead.' Well, isn't it pleasing to have these two people come back to life? "That's it!" Isn't that what art and storytelling do? They give us solace, and that's how important they are."
Reliving memories of the past can be painful, but in the right circumstances, it can also heal the heart and give a sense of control and stability. You know what's going to happen, so you know how everything is going to go — and this time, you might be able to change it. As Emily Vanderwerff writes in her analysis of The Matrix Reboot, the film begins with a familiar but bizarre atmosphere: "The first scene is basically an elaborate remake of the first scene, and in it the characters who are equivalent to the super fans of The Matrix point out the novelty and difference of this time." As the matrix reboot unfolds, its rendition of the previous game becomes even more bizarre. Today, the new Morpheus doesn't do much philosophical thinking at the end; instead, he simply "Barabala Barra" halfway through his previous famous lines.
And like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, this once-familiar world has been recreated into something new — thankfully. VanDerWerff went on to write:
If we, the fans, repeatedly demand that our favorite characters return again and again, then we will never be able to give those characters any real relief or end. We're trying to keep these characters back in the worst moments of their lives for our own entertainment. We inadvertently place them in an endless cycle of trauma, into stories of wishful thinking that as long as you have enough motivation to overcome the trauma.
Fans of Final Fantasy 7 have begun speculating about imagining the original plot they want to change. They were particularly curious about whether the future direction of the remake would remove the death of the game's most impressive character. Will Final Fantasy 7 Remake take Crowder's story out of a new path without deep trauma? Parallel universes have been introduced into the game, which allows Zacks, a beloved character who died to protect Claude, to survive the fateful battle. Will this reality collide with the one we already knew?
I'm not sure the games behind Final Fantasy 7 Remake will answer that question. Before I watched Matrix Reboot, I also felt that the death in the original game should not be rewritten in the remake. But now, I'm not so sure of that view. This Lana Wachowski's God mode made me understand now that retelling a story with a resurrected character can still lead to a fascinating and heartwarming experience—even if the character's death was crucial in the original.
I do hope that the Matrix series doesn't continue now, so that Neo and Trinity can be free forever in our imaginations. Every player knows that playing in God Mode can quickly get the game boring, and there's really no room for development after Matrix Restart. However, it is always quite interesting to unlock everything in the game before finally shutting down the whole game and leaving.
Translation 丨 TNKSKS
Edit 丨 Tonkotsu Ramen
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