One Question Never Answered

Rating: 6/10 (7 July 2011)

Okay, if you still have to worry about a spoiler alert after all these years, you probably won't read this anyway.
Though I didn't completely love or hate The Matrix sequels (but much less love -- except for Jada), I did have one HUGE question that I have yet to see answered (maybe it was, but not spending 10+ hours on-line looking. I have a life) -- After the Architect explains things, nothing is said about how much time has actually passed for humans under the machines. The original movie give the idea that it's been a little over a century, but The Architect refers to the five others before Neo (and 5 other Zions). Now if you calculate how long it would take to go from 27 original humans to 250,000, by birth or freed humans, the time can be anything from a several hundred years to few thousand.
Now, the only reason I ask is that this should have been an important aspect of the movie. Because Mother Nature would have cleared the skies in a couple of hundred years (like after the dinosaurs), and the growth of plant and animal and ocean life would have affected the machines too. Plus, by that point, some humans would have returned to the surface.
Of course, my question itself is part of the failing of the sequels. The depth of the story expressed in the first film gets lost in CGI fighting scenes promoted in the two others. The last two fell short, sorry. I just wish there were more strong minds in those Hollywood conference rooms who look beyond the money to ask the questions that we, as paying fans, walk out of the movie theater asking ourselves.