I remember going to see The Matrix when it first hit cinemas. Keanu Reeves, tick. Wuxia, tick. Cyberpunk–– Yeah, nah. Hard to respect a grunge aesthetic that so blatantly screams slick corporate-blockbuster. I never did get around to watching any of the sequels.
 
Still, there’s no denying the impact the films had on popular culture. And so, when my family was recently choosing a Saturday night couch-bonding film, I decided it was time to introduce the Resident Digital Native – my RDN – to The Matrix. What would RDN make of this cult classic? And what would I make of the film, 24 years on?

Three minutes past the iconic opening of phosphorescent-green rain, I was struck by the extent to which The Matrix draws on a world that has melted away. Dial-up modems, landlines, green-on-black LCD screens. All of this had disappeared well before RDN was born.

But fast-changing technology is water off a digital native’s back, and tech-nostalgia is integral to present-day futuristic storytelling. What really dated the film, from RDN’s perspective, was its saviour narrative – the narrative of ‘the one’.

Cypher: You like him, don’t you? You like watching him?
Trinity: Don’t be ridiculous
Cypher: We’re going to kill him. Do you understand that?
Trinity: Morpheus believes he is the one.
Cypher: Do you?
Trinity: It doesn’t matter what I believe.

All that he is the one business. It’s so Harry Potter, so black-and-white morality. The RDN has been there in primary school, done that. In their worldview, in the worldview of their friends, he is the one is antithetical to diversity and inclusion, an impenetrable barrier to suspension of disbelief. TBH, it’s a bit boring.

I poke RDN on this. Neo, I say, might or might not be ‘the one’, but the AI entity in The Matrix is no Voldemort. It’s not a single, identifiable villain. It’s a metaphor for the systemic ills that beset our world. The whole film, in fact, is a metaphor about being transgender in a transphobic society.

Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy.

RDN shrugs. Their everyday reality is saturated with talk of out-of-control climate tipping points, with the threat of centuries-old conflicts turning nuclear and with the reality of AI technology moving so fast that our minds can’t grasp all the ways it’s changing our society. And that’s before we even get into endemic isms and phobias. From RDN’s perspective, talk of taking either the red pill or the blue pill is a false choice. Some days you choose to ignore it all. Some days, when you’re feeling strong, you take it all on.
 
It’s around this point in our Matrix dissection that RDN homes in on what really bugs them about the film: what’s up with all that quasi-mystical, quasi-philosophical stuff?

RDN is a huge fan of Zelda, and of fantasy-themed anime, but they prefer – they say – to take their sci-fi straight. When I chat about all this later, with my gen-X honey, they express an emphatic agreement – ‘I just want religion to effing stay out of my politics, out of my science and out of my science fiction.’ Righto. Guess that pushed a button.

I could have responded with some comment about the woo-woo in The Matrix being playfully ironic, but nah – RDN and my honey aren’t interested in that kinda arty talk. Fair ’nuff.

My Resident Digital Native doesn’t want to watch any of The Matrix sequels, even though they did enjoy having a giggle about latex and floor-length trench coats being combat gear of choice. They have agreed, however, to sit down with me, some weekend soon, to watch the original Blade Runner.

I wonder how that will go?