Early in the second Matrix movie, Matrix Reloaded, the team pulls up in a car, gets out, and goes into a warehouse. The way the car parks, and the angle of the shot, make the license plate easy to read. It said, "IS 5416." I caught that the first time I saw the movie, but didn't remember what was on the plate. But I knew it had to be important. I went to see the movie again, in the theater, to write down the numbers and letters on the license plate. In a movie so complex with major religious and spiritual references throughout the series, I knew that license plate was a key to something. I was right. This video above sucks, but at least you can see the license plate.
Let me start this post by saying I just learned the Wachowski Brothers, that wrote the original comics, and wrote and directed The Matrix movie, are now the Wachowski Sisters. They've both come out as trans. What? That has nothing to do with this post, but it surprised me. You can see them in the original Matrix as the window washers at the office building where Neo works.
On to the license plate. Being a dork who thinks way to deeply about things on continuing level, I loved The Matrix trilogy. The idea that our everyday lives is really a simulation that we all believe in is a brilliant literary concept. But better than that, it's a great metaphor on multiple levels. For people who just never seemed to fit in to the superficial, everyday world that most people are wrapped up in, it seemed like a validation that there is something more, a deeper, perhaps more intelligent, or more creative aspect to life.
Deeper than that, the matrix life of Neo and the crew, and the "unplugged" life are a brilliant metaphor for spirituality. The Matrix trilogy is the most spiritual set of movies I've ever seen. This is brilliant, because a lot of devoutly religious people, who are not very spiritually evolved, hated the movies. You could write a book about the dozens of little things and nuances of spiritual awareness and insights tucked into those movies. There's the obvious, the underground world of humans was called Zion, the hill where ancient was built, deeply meaningful to Jewish people. There are the everyday superficial, materialistic life of Neo and everyone else in the matrix, then there is him taking the red pill, and becoming aware that there was something else beyond. In dream symbolism, a pill often means restoring harmony, healing. Blue symbolizes conformity. Red symbolizes energy, courage, and individuality .
The symbolism and metaphors just keep going through out the trilogy, getting deeper and deeper. The Oracle, in my opinion, represents intuition, following your heart, your gut instinct. The Architect, I believe, represents the intellect. So it's the classic battle that every human is constantly facing, mind versus heart. Do I do what "logically makes sense?" Or do I do what I'm really passionate about, "follow my heart? The Wachowskis managed to package all these layers of symbolism into a hardcore action movie. The movie moves and has crazy action, keeping people at all levels entertained, but there were also all these deeper levels, most of which our subconscious may pick up, but slide past our conscious mind, until we think about it later, or watch it several times. And even then, only bits and pieces seem obvious. As we dig deeper into the layers going on, the depth of spiritual references just keep going. That's why I loved The Matrix trilogy. You can keep getting insights out of these movies for years.
And then, in the second movie, the car pulls up, the crew gets out, to walk into the warehouse. And we get those few seconds where we can read that license plate. IS 5416. I was able to write it down the second time I saw the movie. But I went to see Matrix Reloaded a third time, just to make sure. Then I walked out, trying to figure out what IS 5416 was a reference to. It took a day or two, of just working my restaurant job I had then and thinking about it. Intellectually, I thought, "OK, there's a huge undercurrent of spirituality in this movie, and tons of Biblical references. Then it hit me. "The Bible. IS 5416 might reference a Bible verse." I wasn't online then, I think I went to the library to look it up. Isaiah 54:16 seemed to be the verse that made sense. That verse reads:
"Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals, and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy." - Isaiah 54:16, RSV
On the surface, this verse is about a blacksmith, who uses is bellows to heat up the hot coals, and get the metal red hot, to make sword, or some other item. But in the movie we have the agent, Smith, the bad guy, dressed in black, who chases Neo around, pops out of nowhere in the matrix, and continually attacks Neo. So the Bible verse in Isaiah, referenced on the license plate, is about Smith. That makes a lot of sense, and it's brilliant.
But it doesn't just reference Smith, this verse explains Smith. And here is where we leave contemporary religious thinking, and delve deep into spirituality. Smith's role, as the Bad Guy, an agent of the machines (a metaphor for materialistic life), is not just to attack Neo, and try to destroy him. Smith's role is to attack Neo, and beat on Neo the way a blacksmith forges a piece of steel to make a sword. Smith's role in attacking Neo is to forge him into into the "weapon for ravaging," or, metaphorically, into the super hero he's supposed to be. Neo isn't born "The One" (Yes, "One" is anagram for ,"Neo"), Neo becomes the one by battling Smith time after time, until he realizes that he can control the matrix. He learns that he can make those bullets stop mid-air, like at the end of the first movie, and do other things.
Smith, the Bad Guy, sees his role as mandate to destroy Neo, and save the matrix and the machines. But this obscurely referenced Bible verse helps us figure out that Smith's real role is to make Neo better, until he becomes that hero that can save them all in the end. Smith is like the boxer that a champion fighter practices against in the training gym, pushing him to improve day after day, to get ready for the prize fight. Only then does Neo become someone who can save everything in the end, fulfilling his destiny, and bring in the new age of peace.
Neo didn't realize who he was, or who was supposed to become. Trinity helped Neo realize he was The One of the prophecy. Smith didn't realize that he wasn't there to kill Neo, though he kept trying, he was there to push Neo to become someone neither of them imagined was possible. Then Neo is the hero who can defeat the machines, and bring the whole world into a new beginning, reset it.
In pretty much every action movie, the "bad guy" (or bad woman), is "evil," and must be destroyed, obliterated, or vanquished in some way. The message is "evil must be defined, destroyed, and not allowed to exist." But from the more enlightened viewpoint in The Matrix trilogy, Smith, the "bad guy," and all his clones, are a necessary part of the story. They are a negative force, but not necessarily "evil." Smith plays his role by trying to defeat Neo, but in reality he helps forge Neo into the Hero. This also ties into Joseph Campbell's whole idea of "The Hero's Adventure," introduced in his book, The Hero with 1,000 Faces." Heroes don't just pop out of nowhere, and then go on adventures. The real heroes are rather ordinary people, who go off on adventures, seeking something. Think young Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movie (now episode 4). It's the trials and the tribulations of the adventure itself that forge the person into the Hero. The adventure creates the hero. This was one of Joseph Campbell's big lessons studying religions and stories of heroes throughout history. George Lucas was a big fan of Campbell's, and incorporated many mythological ideas into the early Star Wars movies. J.R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy are other hero's adventure stories, combining classic mythological themes in fictional novels. The same it true of the Harry Potter books and movies.
And this, as Joseph Campbell, the comparative mythologist, figured out, is the metaphor for the potential of each of our lives. As humans, we can follow the "logical thing to do,' the Architect, and be the person everyone around us wants us to be. Or we can follow our intuition, the Oracle, which sets us off on a crazy adventure. That adventure, if we complete it, can forge us into the hero each of us is capable of being. The attackers we face in our own lives, like Smith in The Matrix, are not so much evil, as they are negative forces to challenge us, and seduce us into giving up, to push us, and to distract us from becoming our particular form of hero in life.
So that's what I got from noticing that license plate in The Matrix: Reloaded. Now, as Matrix Resurrections is about to come out, we have a much later sequel to the original trilogy of movies, along with the comics, graphic novels, and video games from 18-22 years ago, all of which added detail to the story in the movies. We'll see how this movie stacks up to the originals.
Neo and Smith fight in the first movie, when Neo is starting to believe in himself.
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