Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Themes

In The Matrix and in Star Trek, I'm not sure if it constitutes as a theme, but a common subject referred to is mathematics. In The Matrix when Neo explores the ship, he asks about the numbers contiuously streaming on the computers. Cypher tells him that it is just a stream of codes and once you figure out how to decipher them you can just see them as a blonde or redhead. In the Star Trek episode "The Royale", there is a reference to Fermat's Last Theorem. According to Mathworld.com, Fermat's Last Theorem is a claim "to have discovered proof that the Diophantine equation has no integer solutions for n > 2 and x, y, z is not equal to 0". I'm not really interested in mathematics, I just think it's clever how they incorporate the mathematics into television shows and film; someplace other than behind the scenes.
Another recurring theme throughout the Matrix is religion. Neo's journey closely resembles that of Jesus Christ. From being 'the one', resurrection, people having blind faith in his abilities, etc. Also, the character's names in themselves can be a references to religion. Take a look at this site http://www.matrix-explained.com/symbolism_in_the_matrix.htm and also this wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_character_names. They show a little bit more of how in depth the thought process behind the movie was and how much the Wachowski brothers reference christianity and technology in their work.

1 comment:

  1. There is quite a bit of research out there on religion in The Matrix. UNLESS you want to do the actual cinematographic representation of religion! That might be cool. (I also like the odd science references in SF. good catch!)

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