»Mega City Theory«

There's been a lot of interesting discussion about the theory that the entire Matrix is set in one big "Mega" city. Although, there seems to be a lot evidence against this, most of it comes from peripherals like the Animatrix and the Comics. But the general feel of the movies seems to suggest that it does all occur inside one big city.

For example, the City is always referred to as "The City." There are little things, like how Morpheus says that they should always stay off of "The Freeway." You can easily interpret that as "stay off of freeways in general". But the dialogue always struck me that he was specifically speaking of this particular freeway and that it is known as "The Freeway".

Anyway, the movies have a strong similarity to Dark City which takes place in a single isolated city where people are unconsciously persuaded not to leave. "The Truman Show" was also brought up where people actively dissuaded from leaving.

There are a billion reasons not to believe this theory and it would be easy to pick it apart. However, can anyone come up with arguments for this idea? Or is there very conclusive evidence inside the movies that this theory is false (not "it doesn't make sense")? I think this theory is worth exploring because it seems to me that it is consistent with the feel of the movie.

A piece of evidence against this theory that I've pointed out is that the Merovingian's Chateau seems to exist outside of the city (500 miles North of the City). But the Chateau is inhabited exclusively by exile programs. The restaurant it was attached to was in the middle of the city.

Anyway, thoughts?

In the comic Goliath, the guy lives in London, which would be a separate city. But can we trust the comic writers to interpret the story the way the directors wanted us to?

I don't know. I don't trust peripheral sources in making or breaking a theory. And I think the comix are the most peripheral of the sources. I don't want to get into an argument about whether we need to take comix and Animatrix into account, so I'm asking for evidence for or against the theory that is within the primary sources: The Movies.

the merovingians mansion is "all the way up in the mountains"

500 miles from the city "to the south"

i rest my case

Yes. . .but the part of Merv's Chateau that does not exist inside the City did not have any humans in it. The part that had the humans was inside the City.

in M1, there are newspaper reports on Morpheus that reference Heathrow airport, i think.

i'd have to check, but i think there's also one in French.

Oh ya....thats what I forgot. I knew there was another reference to London. Definitely the paper says Heathrow Airport. Good catch

Duo: It crosses everyone's mind at least once. The wish to return to an ordinary life. A carefree life in the country. The life we had before knowing all this.

CIS: Even if that life was just an illusion?

Duo: It's ironic that one can be more at peace in the virtual world.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to what city "The City" is? I know alot of the street names are actual streets in Chicago, home of the Bros., but the architecture isn't congruent with real life Chicago. I know it's due to the fact they filmed in Sydney, but am just curious if anyone has any thoughts on the issue

"they used to be cities that spanned hundreds of miles...now these sewers are all thats left of them"

this quote suggests that most of the cities grew until they were basically all one big city in certain parts of the world

so in turn...chicago,new york washington and boston may have become 1 big city

london,birmingham etc may have become one big city

the whole of japan is almost 1 big city now anyway

so i think that the matrix is meant to suggest that this happened

scientheist wrote:

Duo: It crosses everyone's mind at least once. The wish to return to an ordinary life. A carefree life in the country. The life we had before knowing all this. CIS: Even if that life was just an illusion? Duo: It's ironic that one can be more at peace in the virtual world.

This is another level to all of it! Animatrix does this quite a lot - they just add another level which isn't literally relevant to the movies but is totally consistent with the metaphorical theory.

In this script from program they are using the COUNTRY and the CITY as two opposites, one less "real" than the other. The same way the matrix is less "real" than the "real" world.

The country is natural and therefore "real" - the city is made by man and is therefore "virtual".

Just more metaphors banging out the same old "questions".

Akshat Gupta wrote:

In the comic Goliath, the guy lives in London, which would be a separate city. But can we trust the comic writers to interpret the story the way the directors wanted us to?

I am REALLY concerned about that. any statement of the wachowskys about how much influence they have on the comics?

In M1, there is a reference to Heathrow Airport as well.

i know this is off-topic, but can anyone remember the first MegaCity that you read in fiction? i mean, who did it first?

i'm leaning towards Asimov. *L*