🔴"This Is The Sixth Version": Here's Why The Matrix 5 Rebooting The Franchise Is Impossible🔴
0"This Is The Sixth Version": Here's Why The Matrix 5 Rebooting The Franchise Is Impossible
The Matrix 5 is happening, but it might be impossible for it to reboot the franchise according to The Matrix’s own lore. A little more than two years after The MatrixResurrections premiered to divisive reviews and poor box office performance, The Matrix franchise is set to return with a brand-new film. Drew Goddard will direct the film, with Lana Wachowski serving as executive producer. Not much has been revealed about The Matrix 5’s story, but the project is being described as a new addition to the saga’s cinematic canon.
Currently, the most likely scenarios are that The Matrix 5 is either a standalone film set in the same continuity as the previous ones or a full reboot. While either option would be a trick thing to pull off, The Matrix 5 will have a massive challenge ahead if it wants to reboot the series. This is because the concept of a “Matrix reboot” already exists within the Matrix movies themselves.
The Matrix universe is so tied to the concept of reboots – as in different iterations of the Matrix simulation – that it would be impossible for Matrix 5 to truly reboot the franchise. Any attempts to start The Matrix from scratch would just feel like another iteration of the simulation, regardless of how different it would be from previous movies. To put things in perspective, the announcement of Matrix 5 has led many to question whether this new film will take place in the new cycle of the Matrix launched at the end of Resurrections.
The events of the first three Matrix movies take place in the sixth iteration of the simulation, a major reveal Neo and the audiences only learn about in Reloaded. The confusing conversation between Neo and the Architect created a lot of questions, but it made clear that everything Neo and Morpheus believed in was a lie. More than 600 years had passed since humanity torched the skies – not 100 – and that version of Keanu Reeves’ character was not the first “One.” Neo as presented in The Matrix was actually the sixth version of The One.
Assuming The Matrix 5 will not try to ignore everything that came before, the film has essentially two options – it can either be a prequel or a sequel to the original films. That is not to say Matrix 5 must be limited by what the previous movies have done, only that it might have to make its placement in the franchise’s timeline clear to avoid any confusion. For example, a Matrix prequel set in any of the five iterations of the simulation not depicted in the movies would be an interesting approach.