If you’ve seen the trailer for The Matrix Resurrections, you might be wondering when it is set, so here’s everything we have on it so far. Obviously, the trailer is designed to give us just a glimpse of what’s to come, without giving the whole game away, but even if you’ve seen the film you might still need a recap on the details that answer the question.
The release date was the 22nd December 2021, so we’ve only recently found out out the full truth, so we’ll let you know which elements of the page cover the plot in detail and which might give things away a little too much for anyone that hasn’t seen the film yet. However, for the most part, we’ll keep things fairly top level to begin with, building on the trailer, and then we’ll go into some of wilder theories we had prior to the release.
AdvertisementThis should help you to follow along with the story a little better to give you the context to the setting and timeline. There are plenty of spoilers doing the rounds, but we’re going to steer clear of these and focus on the facts that don’t give the ending away for Warner Bros. We’re just as keen as everyone else to have fun talking about The Matrix 4 without ruining it.
The Matrix Resurrections timeline and the Morpheus problem
The biggest problem to overcome in terms of answering the question about when Resurrections is set is the presence of a seemingly younger Morpheus in the trailer. Lawrence Fishburne hasn’t been cast and in all fairness there is no specific reference to the character’s name in the trailer, but the style of everything seems to indicate that Yaya-Abdul Manteen II has taken up the mantel for the character.
AdvertisementHe appears at 01:08 with the same glasses as Fishburne in the three previous Matrix films holding the red pill saying, “time to fly”. If that isn’t enough, he turns up again at 01:30 in a fight sequence that is reminiscent of the iconic scene from the opening film.
The simplest explanation for this was that it’s meant to be a simple character for character swap due to some casting thing and we’re simply meant to accept a new Morpheus that hasn’t aged in the same way as Neo and Trinity. For example, maybe he decided to stay inside The Matrix while the others left to start a new life in the real world.
However, we now know that isn’t the case and even in the trailer you can see that Neo and Trinity currently exist inside the computer world, so that cast a lot of doubt on it being as simple as that. Another explanation for Morpheus looking so young is that he simply uploaded an alternate version of himself to always look at his best. Style seems to be pretty important to the character, so it is in keeping with his MO and it does work in terms of a post Revolutions existence where there’s a truce between the computers and humans.
AdvertisementThe final “easy” option is that the characters are actually different and Yaya-Abdul Manteen II has actually been cast as someone else that has a similar look to Morpheus. Yes, his style is a lot like Morpheus and his clothing and glasses line up, but it would be a little naive to assume that it’s definitely him. This turned out to be our best theory, but you can read on below to find out exactly what the deal is with the character in the film.
We’ll also put some of our wilder theories to the side for now and pick them up later on, but for the time being you can definitely assume that this cancels out the problem of when the film is set. In essence, it leaves us with a timeline post-Revolutions, 60 years, in fact, so from that standpoint The Matrix Resurrections would simply be a continuation of the narrative from that point onward.
The trailer supported this pretty well with the older visuals for Neo and Trinity, the “Have we met?” line at 00:34 when they shake hands, and the point about the only thing that matters to Neo being still in The Matrix at 01:26. This is Trinity, who died the last time we saw her, along with Neo himself.
The trailer even closes out on a line about going back to where it all started. Going back to the Matrix, so all roads seemed to lead to the conclusion that the obvious answer is The Matrix Resurrections is set after the events of Revolutions. If you don’t actually want to know why Morpheus is young then you can skip the following couple of paragraphs and move on to some of the alternative theories we had prior to watching the film.
For everyone else, the reality is that the Morpheus in 4 is an alternative version of him that was uploaded into a mini-looped reality called a modal by Neo. He eventually figures this out and with the help of Bugs manages to escape and they team up to form the cavalry for the latest iteration of the Matrix.
We’ve tried to answer the question without spoiling the ending, but if you need more info, or just want to join the debate, drop us a Tweet. You can also follow us on Twitter to see news and updates on upcoming films, and you can see more on the film in the run up to the release with the official Warner Bros. Twitter page at https://twitter.com/Warnerbros/.
Alternative theories on when The Matrix Resurrections is set
AdvertisementYou’ve only got to listen to the song playing throughout the trailer to get a sense that there’s more to everything than meets the eye. It’s White Rabbit by Grace Slick and for us it’s all about curiosity and finding new ways of thinking by digging a little deeper. Obviously, the heady, drug-fuelled 60s timeline for the song had a big influence on the lyrics, but that just ties in with the whole blue pill versus red pill thing.
If you take this clue and start looking around for more it doesn’t take long to find hints at a deeper set of layers to the world of The Matrix. The titles are the next big tell with the pluralisation of Revolutions reminding you that here things go around and around, and Resurrections is a series of rebirths.
This gives us enough to assume that it’s at least possible that the machines have built a new recycling system for The Matrix, so you never know how many times a person has been around the merry-go-round, or what timeline they’re on. If you die, you just get recycled and fed back into the machine. The Merovingian talked about the old system in Reloaded when he quipped about Neo’s predecessors, which was then confirmed by the Architect, who talked about there being six previous versions of The Matrix. The question is whether or not the one in Resurrections is a new one, an old one, the 11th, the 1000th… The possibilities are endless (as it turned out it wasn’t the 1000th, but hey, we were theorising).
It’s clear that memories can be wiped, or at least buried en masse, so it’s possible that age is irrelevant from an appearance point of view too. This created another rationale for why Morpheus is so young in the trailer and there are a few more tells to look out for that add weight to the argument.
The biggest of these is when Neo looks into the mirror at 01:05 and his face blurs momentarily to that of an even older man. Admittedly, it doesn’t look anything like Keanu Reeves, but that doesn’t take away the possibility of there being more to things than meets the eye.
We’ll update you with more details on the film as they get confirmed and you can also check out our movie news section to keep tabs on the latest upcoming films. Visit the Warner Bros. website at www.warnerbros.com to see more details on The Matrix Resurrections.
