Code.00: Plot Summary of The Matrix Trilogy

1. The Matrix (1999)

A virtual reality space simulating a city in 1999. Thomas Anderson, a programmer working for a major software company, operates secretly by night as a highly skilled hacker under the alias “Neo.” He is haunted by a vague sense of incongruity that “something is wrong with this world” and an unidentified question: “What is The Matrix?” One day, guided by a mysterious woman named Trinity, Neo makes contact with Morpheus, the leader of the rebellion, and is presented with an ultimate choice. Take the “Blue pill” and return to the fiction known as everyday life, or take the “Red pill” and awaken to the wasteland of truth.

Choosing the Red pill, Neo is swallowed by a liquefying mirror and awakens inside an eerie Pod. The world he believed to be reality was, in fact, “The Matrix”—a colossal Simulation continuously fed into human brains by rebellious artificial intelligence (machines) to cultivate and exploit humanity as “bio-energy (batteries).” Rescued aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, Neo downloads martial arts and knowledge through a Plug in the back of his head, undergoing training to fight Agents (the system’s surveillance programs). Morpheus fanatically believes that Neo is “The One” who will liberate humanity from the machines’ control.

However, upon visiting The Oracle, Neo is told, “You have the gift, but it looks like you’re waiting for something. You are not The One right now,” and is further prophesied that he will be forced to make a choice: sacrifice Morpheus’s life or his own. Shortly after, Cypher, a crew member unable to endure the harshness of reality, betrays them, selling out his comrades in exchange for virtual bliss. As his allies lose their lives one after another due to Cypher’s treachery, Morpheus acts as a human shield to let Neo escape and is captured by Agent Smith.

Following the prophecy, Neo makes the decision to risk his own life to rescue Morpheus. Storming the enemy’s building heavily armed alongside Trinity, Neo exhibits superhuman movements, dodging bullets, and succeeds in a miraculous rescue. However, just before escaping, his path is cut off by Agent Smith. After a desperate struggle, Neo is shot in the chest in “Room 303” and completely loses his life. Yet, in the real world, the moment Trinity confesses, “The Oracle told me that I would fall in love, and that man would be The One. So you can’t be dead,” and kisses him, Neo achieves a miraculous resurrection. In the eyes of the awakened Neo, the “green source code” that constructs the world is now visible. No longer bound by the code of physical laws, he dives into Agent Smith, destroying him from the inside, unleashes his complete power as The One, and takes flight into the sky.

2. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Six months after the previous film. Having awakened as The One and gained god-like powers to fly and stop bullets within the virtual space, Neo’s mind is nevertheless tormented every night by a “nightmare” in which Trinity falls from a building to her death. Meanwhile, in the real world, a desperate report arrives: an army of 250,000 machines (Sentinels) is tunneling through the earth’s crust toward Zion, the last human city, bringing total annihilation in a matter of days.

Seeking a breakthrough, Neo visits The Oracle once again, only to discover that she herself is a part of the system (a program). Furthermore, Agent Smith, who was supposed to have been destroyed in the previous film, makes an appearance. He has mutated into a “purposeless virus” freed from the system, acquiring the ability to overwrite the code of others and self-replicate infinitely. Fending off an epic brawl against countless Agent Smiths, Neo seeks out The Keymaker, who holds the key to The Source of The Matrix. To do so, he attempts to contact The Merovingian, one of the oldest programs that manipulates Causality, and his wife Persephone. After a fierce highway chase and at the cost of his comrades’ sacrifices, Neo finally comes face-to-face with The Architect, the creator of The Matrix, beyond the door of light.

What The Architect reveals is a despairing truth that shatters the very foundation of the resistance’s beliefs. The “prophecy” was merely a pressure release valve to stabilize the system, and the rebellion of Zion was nothing more than a part of the machines’ control mechanism. To prevent the collapse of The Matrix, an “Anomaly” burdened with the bugs accumulated within the system was created—this was the true identity of The One. Neo is merely the sixth incarnation of The One, and the destruction of Zion is a predetermined course that has been repeated five times in the past. The Architect presents Neo with two doors. Choose the “right door” to Reboot the system, select a handful of humans, and rebuild Zion. Or choose the “left door” to save the falling Trinity, resulting in a fatal system crash and the extinction of all humanity.

While the previous five chose the right door out of Universal love for all of humanity, Neo prioritizes his intense Exclusive love for the individual Trinity, ignoring logic and diving through the left door. Catching the rapidly falling Trinity in the nick of time and removing the bullet from her heart with his bare hands, Neo saves her life. However, what awaits them upon returning to the real world is the loss of the Nebuchadnezzar due to a sudden attack by the machine army. Facing the approaching swarm of Sentinels, Neo manifests powers in the real world that were supposed to be usable only in the virtual space, stopping the machines with telekinesis, but falls into a coma immediately after. Furthermore, the mind of Bane, a man rescued as the sole survivor of another ship, has been hijacked by Agent Smith, who has infiltrated the real world.

3. The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

The mind of the comatose Neo is trapped in “Mobil Avenue,” a Limbo on the boundary between The Matrix and reality. There, he meets the Rama-Kandra family, who, despite being programs, possess “love” and seek to protect their daughter Sati, teaching Neo that unconditional emotion exists even within machines. Through the efforts of Trinity, Morpheus, and Seraph, the guardian of The Oracle, Neo is freed from The Merovingian’s control and visits The Oracle one last time. She warns him that Agent Smith, rampaging as Neo’s negative Shadow, will eventually consume both the virtual and real worlds. Shortly after, The Oracle is attacked and assimilated by Agent Smith.

Meanwhile, in the real world of Zion, a massive swarm of Sentinels breaches the defense line and floods into the dome, marking the beginning of humanity’s bloody, desperate last stand centered around the APU (Armored Personnel Unit) corps. To save humanity, Neo makes the decision to board the hovercraft Logos with Trinity and head directly for “Machine City (01),” the stronghold of the machines. However, they are attacked by a stowing-away Bane (Agent Smith), and Neo’s eyes are burned by a power cable, rendering him completely blind. Yet, having lost his physical sight, Neo awakens to a transcendent sense that allows him to see the machines’ energy as “golden light,” and he defeats Bane.

The Logos crash-lands into the heart of Machine City after breaking through a barrage of fire, but the impact leaves Trinity fatally wounded. She conveys her final love to Neo and passes away. Bearing his grief, Neo confronts the Deus Ex Machina, the collective will of the machines. The Deus Ex Machina accepts Neo’s deal: “Smith has grown beyond your control. I will defeat Smith, and in exchange, you stop the attack on Zion,” and reconnects Neo to The Matrix.

It is a world completely overrun by copies of Agent Smith and battered by a violent thunderstorm. Neo and the prime Agent Smith, who has absorbed even The Oracle’s power of foresight, engage in an epic final battle, covered in mud and soaring through the sky. Beaten down by overwhelming power, Neo is screamed at by Agent Smith: “Why do you persist?!” To which Neo thrusts his Free will, replying, “Because I choose to.” However, the moment The Oracle’s words (“Everything that has a beginning has an end”) come out of Agent Smith’s mouth, Neo realizes the truth. The only way to balance the equation is not to defeat him with force, but to willingly accept assimilation. The moment Neo surrenders his resistance and is assimilated by Agent Smith, the light from The Source surges back through Neo, and every Agent Smith within The Matrix is engulfed in light and purged.

In the real world, the machine army retreats from Zion as promised, and humanity erupts in jubilation. Then, in a park within the Rebooted Matrix, which has regained its tranquility. There shines a beautiful, brilliantly colored “sunrise” created by Sati, the program girl born from the bug of love, as a token of gratitude to Neo. The freedom of “love and choice” has been brought to the system, and a new Synthesis between machines and humans has begun.