Resurecting this thread cause I just rented the DVD last night. And I watched it again this afternoon.

Very interesting thread.

My observations:
- I think there is no doubt that Neo is human. It is actually repeated many times in the movie.

- I think the movie somewhere leads to a necessary machine/human cooperation.  The conversation with the counselor goes in that direction, but also the Oracle herself says at one point something like (I don't remember exactly) "We need to work together". Since she is a program and Neo is human, she refers to a machine/human cooperation. And then she says later "You made a believer out of me". I think she thinks that this time Noe will do the right thing as opposed to the 5 previous times.

- Smith puzzles me. But I don't recall him going out of the Matrix. Where in the movie is that? The meeting at the beginning takes place in the Matrix, and the part where he picks up the phone to zap out of the Matrix was only one of Neo's dream. Maybe it will happen in the 3rd movie, but we didn't see it happen for real in this one, afaik. But he did indeed gain something from Neo, he says so himself. What though? A bit of humanity, making it eventually possible for him to go out of the Matrix?

- Is there a sub-matrix? Now that is the most intriguing part. What the hell happened with the sentinel?  How can Neo stop it?  I don't think it's a sub-matrix. I think that Neo's visit with the Achitect somehow changed him again. Made him somewhat more aware, more "connected" to the machines. As the sentinels get closer he stops and says "Something changed.", then "I can feel them", after which he raise his hand and stops them, then collapses.  It's not a sub-Matrix. After all, he didn't jump over buildings or do the Superman thing. He just said that something changed because he could FEEL the machines now.  So, he seems to have aquired some sort of connection with the machines, now. But when is "now"? What instigated it? The meeting with the Architect?  Meeting him got a sort of illumination effect on him?  But why did he pass out?

- Persephone. What is her role? The Oracle did tell Neo that the keymaker was being held prisoner by the Merovingian, and that he wasn't going to let go of him without a fight. BUt hten she gives him a piece of paper and tells him to be there precisely at that time, then he'll have a chance. Obviously in referance to Persephone being there then.  So is she just an instrument helping them get the keymaker or is her role actually bigger than that?  Can she be the Mother?  Why would the Mother marry the Merovingian?  Well, the Merovigian is one of the oldest programs, the Oracle said; and the Mother is supposed to have brought emotions into the Matrix. Persephone does say that the Merovigian was different at first, much like Neo. A loving, passionate man?  Something Persephone (the Mother?), now longs for? A possibility.

Overall, I agree that Neo's passion is what makes him different than his 5 predecesors.  His love for Trinity, but also his passiante self overall.

But talking about his 5 predecesors, somebody mentioned that the Matrix is like "reset" overy time Neo entered the Source. Actually, I don't believe that's correct. I believe the Matrix just goes on, but with added information. It's basically "patched" then continues on.  What is "reset" so to speak, is Zeon.  "The One" gets to choose a number of humans, then gets Zeon started over.  I see Zeon acting a bit like a recycle bin (somebody else mentionned that comparision). All the defective humans are dumped there; and when the One enters the Source, the Matrix gets "patched" with added information and the recycle bin gets emptied.
Also, I'm not sure that "The One" looks the same every time, nor do I even think its name is always "Neo". The Merovingian really acts as if it's the first time he meets Neo, but yet he refers a few times to his "predecessors".

Anyway. Just my own 2 cents on this extremely interesting (and old) thread.

Oh, and I did rent the Matrix game on PS2 a few months ago. Spents the evening at a friend's house playing PS2, and I rented the Matrix game for the occasion.  Very cool game, but I didn't go very far. In the whole evening (many many hours), I went as far as that highway race that starts with the chasing of an airplane. I agree with somebody else who said that the car race bits were horrible. I could not get passed that level. I must have tried something like 20 times. Harrrr! Anyway, it was fun still.

Hehe, Stumpy. No, it's not possible!

Voo, cats and dogs have been extinct for for a long time. The machines didn't hook them up to the Matrix, just humans.

Paxx: I believe the scene where Smith enters the real world is the one where he takes over the body of a "free" man (I forget his name, Zane maybe?), and then answers the phone and travels into the real world. It's as if he has possesed this person, or learned from his melding with Neo how to imprint his "consciousness" onto the human mind.

Later, at a Zion council meeting, you see this character try to talk his Captain into volunteering to accompany the Nebuchadnezzar to redezvous with the Oracle. His Captain declines, and when Neo and Co. are boarding the Nebuchadnezzar, the man is seen approaching Neo from behind with a knife in his hand (which he just deliberately cut himself with, apparently because he wanted to know what it was like to bleed). But Neo's biggest fan, "the kid", runs up to see him off and disturbs the man's opportunity for a sneak attack. At the end of the movie, after Neo has stopped the sentinals and collapsed, you see Neo and this man both on beds inside a hovercraft.

In previews of the third movie, we see this man talking to Neo, saying something like, "Don't you recognize me? Look at the inner me," and the Neo somehow looks beyond the man's flesh and sees Smith inside.

So I think it's safe to assume that Smith has indeed left the Matrix and inhabited a human body at this point. I don't recall if the initial possession and phone travel occurred in Neo's dream or not, but it seems his dreams are more like preminitions either way.

As for Neo's ability to stop the sentinals, I assumed he was changed somehow in his visit with the Architect. None of his predecessors have ever chosen the path that Neo chose, they all returned to the source. So no one can know what might happen if the One meets with the architect and then returns to Zion without returning to the source. Perhaps Neo learned something from Smith as well. Maybe he gained an understanding of the Matrix and the machines that none of his predecessors ever had.

I'm sure it will take me a while to fully undertand this story long after I've seen Revolutions next month, but it sure is fun to speculate.

And outside of the Matrix nonetheless...

Maybe there is a sub-matrix after all. Man, more thinking to do.

I don't recall if I brought this up when we had the discussion originally, but as they are walking in to meet the Merovingian, somebody else is being escorted out.

From the theatrical showing, I remembered Neo's glance over at him, but the gentleman and his escort were at the edge of the frame and you might think it was just a wide shot of them approaching the head table there.

But whoever is being taken out shows up in some of the Revolutions trailers as well. As best I can tell from the DVD at any rate.

November 5th is creeping this way... Though I'll have Indiana Jones and Sopranos4 to tide me over until then.

I don't think it's a sub-matrix really. We know that our brains basically function as a series of electrical impulses, much like computers. I think Smith was able to overwrite this man's consciousness with his own via the organic-electrical circuitry that is our brains. Just like free people who die in the Matrix also die in the real world (because their minds make it real), Smith was able infiltrate this man's mind in the Matrix and make it real. He can't change the man's appearance in the real world, however.

Other than this man, the only people we saw Smith change into copies of himself were people who are still connected to the Matrix. This isn't much different than the way Agents are able to move into the body of anyone who is still connected to the Matrix. Smith, however, has learned how to do it without deleting the existing instances of himself, so he creates copies rather than simply moving from one person to another.

Apparently, he has also learned how to do it to people who aren't connected to the Matrix, like this man. Perhaps he takes over the mind of everyone he turns into a copy of himself, but all the others are laying in incubators in the real world and not much use to him.

I've avoided reading some of the more detailed sites with speculation on Revolutions to avoid spoiling it. Just have my own speculations based on the film and what others have brought up here.

But what's been brought up before with the dependence on machines (councilman interaction) and the oracle's "believe me, I know, the only way we are going to get there is together" and "you've made a believer out of me", there would seem to be some level at which they'll both have to coexist. Witness the one Animatrix bit about this as well.

Do the programs have a soul? And is the "temporary reinsertion of the code you carry" bit just about Neo's experiences... or his bond with Smith? Which is quite the little integral anamoly or systemic flaw in and of itself...