Of the numerous mysteries revolving round The Matrix Resurrections, the scenario with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s new incarnation of Morpheus has been notably fascinating due to what it suggests in regards to the path the brand new film’s story could take.

With so lots of the unique franchise’s actors returning to reprise their roles, Abdul-Mateen II—star of Aquaman and Candyman—seemingly taking up for Laurence Fishburne has stood out and steered that the brand new movie possible wouldn’t choose up instantly after The Matrix Revolutions. But as new as Abdul-Mateen’s Morpheus could seem visually, when audiences meet him this fall, he’ll be coming to the display screen with loads of consciousness about his predecessor’s historical past. In a current interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor opened up about how, after studying about who his character within the new movie was, he instantly felt that it was neither his place nor want to one-up Fishburne, who he thinks “already did what had to be done” with the Morpheus function.

The new script, Abdul-Mateen mentioned, each respects the unique incarnation of his character, whereas additionally making a manner for him to carve out a brand new arc and voice for him inside the franchise’s bigger persevering with story. “I play a character who’s definitely aware of the history of the Matrix [and] the history of Morpheus,” Abdul-Mateen mentioned. “This character is on a journey of self-discovery. There’s a lot in our story that’s about growth, defining your own path. Morpheus isn’t exempt from that.”

Though Abdul-Mateen didn’t go into element about how the brand new Morpheus got here to be, the actor’s feedback and among the visible similarities between the brand new movie and the originals could level to Resurrections selecting up after the occasions of The Matrix Online, Monolith Productions and Sony Entertainment Online’s canonical MMORPG from 2005. In The Matrix Online—which is ready after Revolutions the place Neo in the end defeated Agent Smith in a single occasion the Matrix—Morpheus continues to rally in the actual world in opposition to the Machines, who’re reluctant handy over Neo’s stays regardless of having agreed to an uneasy cease-hearth with humanity. After Morpheus units off plenty of large-scale public assaults within the Matrix designed to disclose the constructed nature of its actuality to giant teams of blue drugs who aren’t but able to be woke up, he’s ultimately hunted down by a program often called the Assassin who’s employed by the Merovingian.

Because sure items of the sport’s story had been meant to be mysterious, there’s at all times been a good quantity of uncertainty and hypothesis inside the fandom as to what precisely occurred to Morpheus after the Assassin gunned him down. The sport’s introduction of emergency jack-outs that allowed gamers to exit the Matrix at will may need supplied Morpheus a manner of escaping the Assassin. However, The Matrix Online’s cinematics and story pointed to the “original” Morpheus dying, and his ultimately being changed inside the Matrix with a digital clone constructed by the General, the embodiment of the lead Sentinel who spearheaded the assault on Zion through the First Machine War (detailed, partly, in The Animatrix.)

While the overall’s ersatz Morpheus was meant to create doubt, suspicion, and distrust between the Machines and Humanity, the sentient program ultimately got here to have the ability to assume for itself, so it’s very straightforward to think about that the Morpheus we’ve been seeing in Resurrections’ trailer is a brand new type of this sophisticated program. Other characters just like the Oracle have beforehand demonstrated how beings inside the Matrix are able to taking up new kinds that, whereas much like their unique selves, current as bodily completely different. That may very nicely be the case with this new Morpheus who clearly is aware of components of this story very nicely regardless of his being utterly new to audiences. Abdul Mateen additionally informed EW, “What the viewers will come to understand is that there are many rules of the Matrix. Age, appearance, the things we identify as real, can be manipulated in that world. The Matrix is where anything is possible.”

While all of this creates a really handy and canonically strong rationalization for why Fishburne allegedly wasn’t requested to return for the brand new film, it’d be a fairly large ask to anticipate individuals to recall particulars from a not-so-popular online game from the early aughts. More possible than not, although, The Matrix Resurrections goes to spell a major quantity of this thriller out when it hits theaters and HBO Max on December 22.

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