NEOTRIN + text posts and tweets » resurrections edition

I want to write for him but ive got such writers block

- rupi kaur

2023 BottleRock Napa Valley

NAPA, CALIFORNIA - MAY 27: Keanu Reeves of Dogstar performs during the 2023 BottleRock Napa Valley festival at Napa Valley Expo on May 27, 2023 in Napa, California.

I’m sure you can understand why our beloved parent company, Warner Brothers, has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy.  They informed me they’re gonna do it with or without us.

The Matrix Resurrections (2021) dir. Lana Wachowski

Why We Ship: Neo/Trinity (The Matrix)

I have not felt compelled to write one of these posts for a long time, but I watched The Matrix: Resurrections again while I was working this afternoon, and Goddess, I have so many feelings about these two.

I think it's hard to convey how utterly capitating the original Matrix was, back in 1999. And I could not have said, then, everything I can say about it now, because I didn't have the knowledge of myself, or the vocabulary, or simply the experience to be able to articulate why Neo and Trinity (and Trinity especially, but that's a separate post) felt like everything. Even apart from the incredible worldbuilding and commentary on society that was The Matrix itself, they were something special.

A lot of people got really salty and irritated with Resurrections because they felt like it was "less about the Matrix" and "more just about Neo and Trinity." And god damn, if that doesn't say everything about two different audiences who watched the original trilogy. If you didn't see that the whole trilogy was about Neo and Trinity's love from the beginning, then we were not watching the same films. Neo is The One because Trinity loves him; that is established in the first movie. He cannot be The One without her; he cannot believe in himself as The One without her and her love. "The Oracle told me that I would fall in love, and that the man I loved would be The One. So you see, Neo, you can't be dead. You can't be . . . because I love you." She literally brings him back from the dead with her love; she makes him The One because she loves him. She is the driving force behind all of it. And it's not a coincidence that Neo does the same for her in Reloaded; he catches her in midair, he pulls a bullet out of her body and keeps her from dying because she is everything to him.

And here I am, still writing a post that is more about Trinity than about Neo and Trinity together. But this is what still strikes me about them after all of these years: their love is complete and beautiful and all-consuming, but it is also grounded very firmly in the grim reality they are living. They are not blind about the fact that they could die; they know that every minute of every day, and every minute the spend in The Matrix, could be the last one. They do everything they can to keep that from happening, and they train with everything they have to try and prevent it, but they know, all the time, that one of them could lose the other. They cherish every moment they have, because they are living in this terrible world where another day is never a certainty. But even with all of that, and all that they feel, they are willing to fight, to do whatever needs to be done to try and bring down the machines and the Matrix. They do not shy away from what they see as their mission and their duty to others, even while they are so anchored in each other.

And it's part of what makes Revolutions so tortorous (I hated that movie when it came out; it broke my heart). They know. They've known it's coming; they've been waiting for it, and they go to die together. They still hope that somehow, they will make it, but if they don't, their entire intent is to die together. Because they love each other, they have literally saved each other's lives and brought each other back from the dead, and they have spent their entire time together trying to dismantle the Matrix. If they have to give up their lives to do it, then they will. And I think the thing that hurt so much, when I watched Revolutions as a much younger person (and who am I kidding, it still hurts) is that they still died apart. Trinity died first, and then Neo, and while Neo was with Trinity when she died, he had already been blinded and couldn't see her, and he died alone. And it felt like a betrayal of everything they were in the most gut-wrenching, soul-destroying way. Their love not only changed the world, it saved the world and destroyed the Matrix and altered the relationship between the machines and humans - and they still died apart.

I remember being emotionally devastated by that last film, so much so that I couldn't watch the trilogy again for years. I was so shattered by the ending, it hurt so much, that I couldn't bear to revisit it. And again, I don't know that I could have said that at the time, but I felt it.

When the trailer for Resurrections came out, I was so emotional the first time I watched it that I felt a little blindsided. I had packed away everything Neo and Trinity meant, because their ending hurt so much - and then there they were, on my screen again, getting another chance. Getting the second chance and the ending they should have had - defying the odds with their love one more time, and in an even more epic way. Neither of them is living, in the Matrix. As Thomas and Tiffany, they're existing. They're brainwashed. They barely remember who they used to be - Thomas is convinced it's all in his head, and Tiff is only Trinity when she's working on and riding her bikes. It's only when they find each other that they start to find themselves again. And even when Neo escapes and he's back in the real world, the hope of Trinity and his love for her is the only thing that keeps him strong enough to keep fighting, the only thing that allows him to access his former powers as The One.

They help each other survive. And it's complicated and difficult and not always pretty, and it's always in the midst of a world that is against them and trying to destroy them - but they survive because their love survives. They love together and fight together and survive together, always.

Thinking about The Matrix Resurrections. How Lana Wachowski decided to give another chance for Neo and Trinity and undo their deaths without undoing what they accomplished. The peace is intact and they get to live it. They get to create their own world and no longer are batteries in a game that weaponizes their feelings. They get their happy ending.

I kept thinking, why does this story feel like a memory?

so cute that carrie anne was looking forward to giving this compliment and after keanu got shy she tried to explain herself. yes, carrie anne this man has aged remarkably well.

The Verge (2021)

don't know what i'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you

the many faces of Jonathan Groff

the matrix resurrections.

2021.12.22

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS (2021)

Dir. Lana Wachowski

Dogstar Visits The SiriusXM Studio

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 22: Keanu Reeves of Dogstar performs at SiriusXM Studios on September 22, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

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