The Most Philosophical Science Fiction Movie Ever!

Rating: 10/10 (12 August 2000)

There are so many reasons why I think "The Matrix" is the most brilliant science fiction movie ever made but I like to present its philosophical implications because that's what interested me most. Now, most people may think that "The Matrix" is just a great science fiction movie with lots of amazing special effects but there is more to it than that. As a person with special interest in philosophy, I was amazed by the plot. It's like Plato's theory of forms converted into a science fiction plot! Plato is one of the greatest philosophers of all time from ancient Greece who theorized that the world we live in is not real. Instead, it is a reflection of a real world and all the objects we see are mere shadows of the ideal forms which exit in that real world. I do not want to go into much detail for I think the implication is obvious: The world we live in is "The Matrix" where nothing is real; it is a computer-generated reality in which human minds are trapped while our real brains are hooked up to a giant computer administering that program to consume our energy. So everything we see is just a reflection of the objects created in that program, electronic signals stimulating our nerves to give us the impression that we are actually sensing material objects. In fact we are just watching the shield put in front of our eyes to prevent us from seeing the truth (just like in Plato's cave). Now this plot is amazingly parallel with the most recent findings in physics; Bertrand Russell explained it in a completely scientific way that we can never know if the real world exists because all we sense is just electronic signals stimulating our senses; we cannot know where these electronic signals are coming from or if the source of these signals is a "material substance" in the sense we think of the term. "The Matrix" suggests that these signals are delivered to us by a computer. There have been many empiricist philosophers, like George Berkeley and David Hume who denied the existence of the material world but their methods of proving their theories were not as scientific as the ones developed in the mid 1900s. "The Matrix" is a movie where implications in these philosophical theories are presented in science fiction which, I think, makes "The Matrix" so special. I sometimes think that this world is not real and our real existence lies in another dimension. I have friends who have the exact same feeling. Those of you who have similar thoughts will find the science fictional interpretation of their thoughts in "The Matrix".

The fact that "The Matrix" is a computer-generated reality makes all the visual effects, specially the fighting scenes, very plausible. Luckily, this fact makes it possible to create any kind of visual effects without the risk of making it look unrealistic (this is a computer program, anything can be real). "The Matrix" is definitely one of its kind; it is not like most other science fiction movies where humans are against aliens. The screenplay is so original that it makes it surpass all other science fiction movies except, maybe my other science fiction favourite, "The Planet Of The Apes". I cannot imagine a science fiction fan not liking this movie.