Somehow I started thinking about 1984 one night a week or two back. Specifically, I was thinking how in the final third of the book, as Winston Smith is "reeducated" by the Party, Winston asks whether the "Brotherhood", a resistance organization, actually exists. He's told he'll never know. That would seem to suggest either it doesn't exist, or it isn't powerful enough to represent a threat to the Party. Out of curiosity, do you think the other two nations are run similarly to Oceania? Are they really always fighting, even though it never seems to get anywhere?
Anyway, I started to think about the ways the Matrix trilogy draws from 1984. There's this massive proportion of the population that just goes through life thinking things are exactly as they appear, but really they're sitting in a vat of goo, essentially plugged into a virtual reality, while they produce energy for machines. Then there's a select few who know about the VR, and the goo vats, and think they've got some measure of control of their lives, fighting the machines, but really, they're being manipulated by the machines as well. The Party still controls everything, and Zion only existed because it keeps humanity around to keep the machines in a better level of existence. Though really, what do the machines do with their existence? We never really see them doing anything like building great civilizations, or art, or interstellar travel, so would it really make a difference if they didn't have humans as batteries? It just means there'd be fewer of them, right?
Back when I first saw Matrix: Reloaded (Alex had the DVD), I thought Neo showing off powers outside the Matrix meant the resistance really didn't know how badly they'd been played. I figured it meant that even the humans who thought they were out of the Matrix, were still actually in the program. The machines had anticipated human rejection, and set up a part of the program specifically for those individuals, which had only limited access to the rest of the humanity. I thought that would have been quite awesome, even though it is like that story you see in comics and cartoons where the villain traps the hero in their own mind, then the hero escapes, but the villain wins, but it turns out the villain is the one trapped inside their own mind now, and just having a happy dream. Of course, that wasn't the direction the Matrix trilogy went, but I think that would have been really in the 1984 vein. Of course, that probably would have seemed to defeatist and depressing for movie audiences, and so we got what we did. Whatever that was. I'm still not sure what happened. Let me check Wiki real quick. Yep, still not sure what happened. Never mind, moving on.
Actually, I'm not sure I had anything else. That's a pretty weak end for the post, but what can you do? Well, it's not on you, I suppose, it would have been up to me to plan this better. If I think of something else, I'll come back and add it, howzabout that?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
'Course, even if the brotherhood existed, they probably wouldn't tell. Might give the poor sucker enough hope to fight more than they wanted.
anonymous: You're absolutely right of course. And the way the handled the situation, they've replaced what could have been hope with doubt and fear.
Even if the Brotherhood existed, and Winston met up with them later, he never would have trusted them, because now he'd have been convinced it was another trap by the Party.
I always thought the Brotherhood was a big setup engineered by the Party. Give people the illusion of an internal threat to go along with the external one and the masses become more loyal.
Of course, it's been a decade since I've read that book.
If you think that's something, wait till you see how Alan Moore quasi-coopted 1984 for the LXG Black Dossier.
Ye Gods.
Post a Comment