Lana Wachowski, the director of the upcoming science fiction movie The Matrix Resurrections, has recently opened up about why she chose to bring back Neo and Trinity from the grave. As many fans of the franchise know, both characters died at the end of the 2003 action movie, The Matrix: Revolutions. However, the first trailer for the new instalment saw both Neo and Trinity living in a rebooted matrix, suffering from amnesia.
Although we may not have a clear answer to how Neo and Trinity got revived or what the film’s plot will look like, Wachowski did share the backstory to her decision for the characters returning to the dystopian nightmarish world. During a panel at the International Literature Festival in Berlin, the filmmaker revealed that it was her own tragic personal experiences that propelled the writing decision.
It turns out that bringing back the characters stemmed from the experience of Wachowski losing both her parents and a close friend. “I was crying and I couldn’t sleep, and my brain exploded this whole story,” the director revealed before adding, “suddenly I had Neo and Trinity. It was immediately comforting to have these two characters alive again.”
“My dad died, then this friend died, then my mom died. I didn’t really know how to process that kind of grief. I hadn’t experienced it that closely,” the director explained. “You know their lives are going to end and yet it was still really hard. My brain has always reached into my imagination and one night, I was crying and I couldn’t sleep, and my brain exploded this whole story. And I couldn’t have my mom and dad, yet suddenly I had Neo and Trinity, arguably the two most important characters in my life. It was immediately comforting to have these two characters alive again, and it’s super simple. You can look at it and say: ‘OK, these two people die and OK, bring these two people back to life and oh, doesn’t that feel good.’ Yeah, it did! It’s simple, and this is what art does, and that’s what stories do; they comfort us.”
You can watch the full chat below:
Wachowski’s sister Lilly, who famously worked with Lana on the franchise’s three other films, told Entertainment Weekly that her parent’s passing is one of the reasons she decided not to return for the Matrix 4 – wanting to move on.
Everyone deals with grief differently, and both sisters are entitled to their actions. The extra emotional depth to the production promises a detailed story, and Wachowski says the new movie blew away Keanu Reeves when he first saw it. Hopefully, the Matrix Resurrections will give the comfort Wachowski was after.
The film is currently set to release in US and UK cinemas on December 22, 2021. US fans can also look forward to it being available via the streaming service HBO Max on the same day.