….
It was night, and inside an apartment.
A computer screen glows in the darkness, lines of green code scrolling endlessly.
Pull back to reveal THOMAS ANDERSON, known online as "Neo." Twenty-nine. Programmer by day, hacker by night. He's fallen asleep at his keyboard.
The phone rings.
He jerks awake, disoriented.
Nep questions. "Yeah?"
A voice over is heard. "Hello, Neo."
Neo freezes. That voice - he knows it, or thinks he does.
"Who is this?"
The voice over continues. "You know who this is. You've been looking for me, Neo. And now I have found you."
Neo. "...."
"The answer to your question is yes. The Matrix is real."
Neo asks. "What is the Matrix?"
"That's the question that's been keeping you up at night. The question that brought you here. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
….
Alexander tried to watch the film, but his eyes always shifted to the audience.
Luckily, he could see they were already leaning forward, and getting hooked, which made him slightly loosen his body.
Thereafter, the opening sequence unfolded–
Trinity's impossible physics-defying escape. Agents that moved too fast, fought too precisely. The first glimpse that something was fundamentally wrong with this world.
The action was spectacular. Alexander, and his had delivered on every technical promise - bullet time photography that made action feel like poetry, fight choreography that blended Hong Kong cinema with something entirely new.
But it was the questions that held people.
What is the Matrix?
Why can Trinity do the impossible?
Who are the Agents?
What is real?
Every scene raised the stakes without providing answers. The film was structured like a puzzle box, each piece clicking into place but revealing yet another layer of mystery.
Alexander had watched this film dozens of times in post-production. He had supervised the edit, approved the sound design, signed off on every VFX shot.
But watching it with an audience - feeling their collective confusion and fascination - was entirely different.
This was the test.
Not whether the film was technically accomplished. They already knew it was.
But whether audiences would embrace the uncertainty. Whether they'd trust the film enough to follow it down the rabbit hole without knowing where it led.
At the forty-minute mark, the reveal came.
….
Suddenly, Neo stands in infinite whiteness. Morpheus appears beside him.
He questions. "This isn't real?"
Morpheus' voice answers again. "What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
He produces a remote control, clicks it.
Suddenly they're sitting in chairs. The white void becomes a room - or the simulation of one.
He continues. "The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room."
He gestures to a window. Neo stands, approaches it.
Outside - a city that looks normal, and ordinary…
"You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes."
He stands beside Neo. "It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."
Neo questions. "What truth?"
Morpheus turns to face him directly. "That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."
He pauses, letting it sink in. "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
He produces two pills.
One red, one blue–
"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill…. the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
"You take the red pill…. you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
He extends his hands, offering both pills.
"Remember. All I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.
….
The theater was dead silent.
Alexander could feel the weight of that moment landing.
The choice, the point of no return.
Neo's hand reached for the red pill.
And the film shifted.
What had been a sleek sci-fi mystery became something darker. The real world revealed - not gleaming future cities but ruins. Humans grow in pods, machines harvesting them for energy. The truth that reality itself was a lie.
The audience reaction was visceral.
Gasps. A few people whispering 'what the fuck' under their breath.
Someone three rows ahead leaned over to their companion: "I was on my phone… Did I miss something?"
The film continued.
Neo's training, the revelation that the Matrix's rules could be bent, broken.
That belief shaped reality inside the simulation.
The action sequences escalated - lobby shootout, helicopter rescue, subway station confrontation.
But underneath it all, the philosophical questions kept building.
If your reality is a simulation, are you real?
If you can manipulate that simulation, does that make you a god or still a prisoner?
What does freedom mean when you've never known you were trapped?
At two hours and sixteen minutes, the final scene played.
….
Neo stands on a busy street corner, people rushing past, oblivious.
He's wearing sunglasses now, a long black coat… it looked classy.
He pulls out a phone and dials.
"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change."
INTERCUT with the MACHINE WORLD - vast server farms, artificial intelligence processing his words.
Neo continued. "I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.
He looks up at the sky - or rather, at the simulated sky.
"I am going to hang up this phone, and then I am going to show these people what you don't want them to see.
"I am going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible."
He pauses–
"Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you."
He hangs up.
Looks directly at the camera - at the audience.
Smiles.
Then he takes off, flying.
The camera pulls back, showing the city from above.
All those people, still trapped and unaware.
Neo disappears into the sky.
SMASH CUT TO BLACK.
[TITLE CARD: TO BE CONTINUED]
….
The credits rolled, but nobody moved, which made Alexander subconsciously gulp.
For a solid fifteen seconds, the theater sat in absolute silence.
Someone started clapping, then someone else, and within moments, the entire theater was on its feet.
A standing ovation….
Alexander looked like he was going to cry. Keanu, beside was grinning and accepting handshakes from people around him.
Gwendolyn behind the rows leaned close to Regal. "...you didn't want to direct this?"
"Hehah. Is that too late?"
….
Later | After-Party | Roosevelt Hotel | 10:34 PM.
The party was in full swing.
Cast and crew mingling with executives, press, and assorted Hollywood elite who had managed to secure invitations.
Keanu was surrounded by people asking about the training, the philosophy, what it felt like to play someone discovering their entire reality was a lie.
Alexander was doing his first major interviews as a director, looking more confident now that the film had actually screened and people hadn't walked out in confusion.
Regal stood near the bar, nursing a drink and observing.
A journalist from Variety approached - Lauren Mitchell, someone he had worked with before. Professional, smart, didn't ask stupid questions.
"Can I get a comment?" she asked. "On the record."
"Sure."
"The Matrix is going to be divisive. Some people will call it pretentious, overly philosophical. What do you say to that?"
Regal considered his answer carefully.
"I would say they are not wrong." he replied. "It is philosophical by choice. We wanted to make a film that entertained but also challenged. That made people think about questions that don't have easy answers."
"Questions about reality?"
"Questions about everything. Reality, identity, free will, the nature of consciousness. We live in a world where technology is advancing faster than our ability to process what it means. The Matrix is about asking–
"-what happens when we can no longer trust our own perceptions?"
Lauren was taking notes. "And you think audiences want that? Want to be challenged?"
"Some will. Some won't." Regal took a drink. "But I would rather make something that divides people than something everyone forgets the moment they leave the theater."
"Quotable." She smiled. "One more question…. the ending clearly sets up a sequel. Is that confirmed?"
"Nothing's confirmed, but if audiences want more of this story, we have more story to tell."
"Can you give me any hints about where it would go?"
"No."
She laughed. "Worth a shot."
After she left, Gwendolyn appeared with fresh drinks.
….
Across the room, Alexander was being interviewed by a film blog, gesturing enthusiastically about the bullet time photography and how they'd achieved certain shots.
Keanu was in deep conversation with one of the philosophy consultants they had brought in during pre-production, actually debating the finer points of simulated reality.
The crew was celebrating, drinking, relieved that months of brutal post-production had resulted in something they could be proud of.
And somewhere out there, in theaters across the country, midnight screenings were about to start.
People who had bought tickets weeks ago, who had been obsessing over trailers, who'd been asking "What is The Matrix?" for months.
They were about to find out.
Regal's phone buzzed.
A text from Simon: "First midnight screening reactions coming in. You want to see?"
He replied: "Huh… not tonight. Maybe tomorrow."
Tonight was for the team and celebrating what they had built.
He will find out tomorrow if the rest of the world agrees.
….
.
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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