Why The Matrix Matters

The third and final film in The Matrix franchise, The

Matrix:Revolutions, opened this week. I havent seen it yet
because I have been hiding out in the North Georgia
mountains but I have been doing a lot of research and

November 6, 2003

The third and final film in The Matrix franchise, The Matrix:Revolutions,
opened this week. I havent seen it yet because I have been hiding out in the
North Georgia mountains but I have been doing a lot of research and
thinking about the Matrix phenomenon this year for my new book project.

To understand why The Matrix is important, you have to go back to the

concept of Transmedia Storytelling, which I spelled out in a column earlier
this year: In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does
what it does bestso that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded
through television, novels, and comics, and its world might be explored and
experienced through game play. Reading across the media sustains a
depth of experience that motivates more consumption. Offering new
levels of insight and experience refreshes the franchise and sustains
consumer loyalty.

The Matrix pushes this idea of transmedia storytelling as far or further than
anyone has gone before, building out the world of The Matrix across not
only three feature films, but also a series of comics (first released on the
web and now in print), a series of anime movies (The Animatrix), and an
ambitious video game (Enter The Matrix) which contains more than an
hour of original footage featuring the cast of the movie. Each of these
works adds something important to our appreciation of the wholenone of
redundant, each has its clear aesthetic contributions.

Game designer Neil Young uses the term additive comprehension to

describe the ways that we accrue information in transmedia storytelling, so
that The Second Renaissance (one of the anime) fills it the events between
our present society and the world depicted in the films, The Kids Story
(also anime) introduces a minor character who appears without explanation
in Reloaded, and Enter The Matrix (the game) provides backstory on Ghost
and Niobe (two marginal characters in Reloaded who get more screen time
in Revolution). In one of the flashier examples of transmedia storytelling,
an urgent message gets introduced in The Flight of the Osiris (anime) and
left at a post office, where the player retrieves it in Enter the Matrix (game),
and the impact of its contents are made clear in the opening scenes of
Reloaded (feature film).

The Wachowski Brothers sketched out the game levels with Shiny
Entertainments David Perry, developed scenarios for many of the anime,
and writed scripts for some of the comics. Fans argue that this gives these
other works creative integrity.

Yet, at the same time, they work with distinctive and recognized artists in
these other fields, artists like Paul Chadwick (Concrete), Neil Gaiman (The
Sandman), and Peter Bagge (Hate) in the comics or Mahiro Maeda (Neon
Genesis Evangelion), Peter Chung (Aeon Flux), and Andy Jones (Final
Fantasy) in the anime, who bring their own thematic preoccupations, visual
style and fan followings to the project. Each of these, and many The
resulting works cohere, more or less, together, but also are distinctly
different and accomplished on their own terms.

Even within the feature film, the Wachowskis have consistently showcased
the contributions of other creative artists, including conceptual artist Geoff
Darrow (who brings a Euro-comics influence to the project), martial arts
choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping (who links it to the Hong Kong tradition),
and costume designer Kym Barrett (who brings to it the high style we
associate with her work on the films of Boz Luhrman).

Most film critics frankly havent been willing to make the effort to get
this franchise because they are stuck within a mono-media rather than a
trans-media paradigmand thus, the second two films walk away with a
row of Gentlemans Bs. They can see something new is going on here but
they really dont know what to make of it.
Traditional film aesthetics assumes not only that everything you need to
know will be in the movie but that it will be repeated at least three times in
case you blinked. The Matrix isnt playing by those rules: it is
experimenting with a new kind of popular culture, one which is by design
more open-ended, more multilayered, more provocative and evocative,
more exploratory than any one spectator is going to be able to process.

You are always going to feel inadequate before The Matrix because it
expects more than any individual spectator can provide. That is its strength
and its limitations. The film depends on the power of internet communities
to look at the work from many different perspectives, pool their knowledge,
and compile the information for us. The Matrix isnt designed to be the end
of the communicative and creative process but rather the beginning.

In the end, there is not one Matrix experience, but many. We hear this from
no less an authority than Keanu Reaves: What audiences make of
Revolutions will depend on the amount of energy they put into it. The script
is full of cul-de-sacs and secret passageways.

So far, the audience has been prepared to give them more leeway than the
critics have. The dramatic sales figures for Enter the Matrix and the
Animatrix suggest audiences were ready to buy into the concept of
transmedia storytelling.

Some critics are arguing that the third film suffers because it is trying to do
too much, close off too many openings, and has this feel of ticking off plot
elements. This is not surprising given the fact that the aesthetics of
transmedia storytelling are still relatively undefined.

Transmedia storytelling is trying to take an economic imperative (the need

to build up franchises in an era of media conglomeration) and trying to turn
it into a creative opportunity. There remains an uneasiness about what is
ruling this processart or commerce.

The Wachowskis are violating a core principle which I described in my

column: Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable
autonomous consumption. That is, you dont need to have seen the film to
enjoy the game and vice-versa.
Whether The Matrix experiment fails or not, it marks an important chapter
in the emergence of this new transmedia aesthetic.