Are The Matrix & Terminator somehow related?

My old buddies & I used to debate on this for hours on end. One argument is that "The One" is a reference to John Connor, the leader of the human resistance group that led the war against the machines.

However, according to the Animatrix mini animated videos the origin of the machines in The Matrix started out differently. Just like with Terminator, the head of the Machines developed a higher consciousness after being given Artificial Intelligence, but instead of starting a war outright it lobbied for the acceptance of machines as sentient beings just like man. The start of the war between man & machine in the Matrix was brought upon by the machines mustering wealth & power greater than that of man forcing man to fight back. Whereas in Terminator, as soon as Skynet became operational it immediately started the war to erradicate man.

But putting these differences aside & focusing more on both series' plot, you can see a continuity in both. At the beginning of the first Matrix movie, Morpheus tells Neo that "they" (every human resistance member) have no idea what time in years it is for them, but they do know that man had been used as batteries by the machines for some years now.

The idea that "The one" may have been a descendent of John Connor stems from the fact that in Terminator John Connor was the prime character that opposes the machines. Also, if we're talking about DNA & cloning here as it's not clearly discussed in the Matrix how humanity propagated in those circumstances (being encapsulated & isolated from one another), the chance that John Connor may live on as a clone could be very possible. The one thing my buddies & I can't agree upon has something to do with Neo's Psychic abilities, that obviously is something John Connor never had.

 

I think it may just be a coincidence, either way...nice find!

 

A coincidence yes, but the plot of both are just too similar for it to be coincidental. Not unlike A.I. where though the machines did their best to be recognized as a separate Sentient being, they were greatly owned by man. However in the end, it was the machines who inherited the earth peacefully & infact they were even trying experiments to try & revive man (I'm also guessing all of organic lifeforms on the earth as well) by using DNA they could find.

Other movies with Similar themes are:

Bi-centennial Man
D.A.R.Y.L
I-Robot

 

IIRC the start of the Matrix war is actually human's fault. The Machine was trying to build a nation for them self, but the Human dont reconize them as a nation and wage war upon them, seeing them as threat to human race, the machine fight back and was winning, as last resourt, the human block out the sun using some kind of black cloud, without the Sun as thier power source, then Machine is force to seek new power source, and as result of thier experinent the Human farm and the Matrix was born.

unlike the Terminator who see human as unneeded junk, The Machine in the Matrix try to live with human but Human want to destroy them anyway.

all the movie like Terminator, The Matrix, I-Robot and The movie about a robot try to become a human, he even get artifical organ mod (everything except the brain, is replace with artifical organ) and at the end he is recognize as human that lives over 180 years old is just trying to said someday we might able to created a robot so advance that its trying to become human.....and the end result of it.

Terminator: seeing human as redundance as machine is better then human
The Matrix: the machine try to live with human
I-Robot: soul might develop in the machine making them human (Sonny and Vikky), it also display the fault of the 3 law of robotic and the resault of human become too depended on robots.

 

Wow, thanks for the explanation....

 

I have to agree on what Calvin said. In both movies it was an artificial intelligent machine eventually taking over, despite the roads they took to get there.

We humans have become dependent on machines, dependent in a way that life without them would not be possible anymore in some way. So if those machines actually got a life of their own and started rebelling against us we would have a big problem. Several more movies use that same scenario. Humankind destroying themselves somehow through human error or arrogance. Why? Because no matter what might happen in the future, if we get destroyed somehow, it will most likely be our own fault.

Movies warn us against it but it is mostly ignored because they are just movies and are supposed to be entertaining and just that. They aren't meant to make the more intelligent of us think, I guess. Movies like Terminator, The Matrix, I Robot and many more are eerily similar and for me just a tad freaky. If we humans ever get destroyed by something I think that that scenario is the most likely cause.

 

A bit off-topic but I thought you guys may be interested in this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisibles
Grant Morrison, who wrote it said that concept for The Matrix was taken from this comic book series. It is very much an adult read. A torrent is available if you search a bit.

 

"sneak preview" Neo was based off of tetsuo Shima of the Akira film not a clone but the matrix brothers said that he had the most ideas taken off of to make neo
and ghost in the shell was another anime that turned out to be the nanny of matrix

 

no...i dont think so


But, good idea's anyway

 

They are in a way. In both movies, machines defeats mankind in an epic struggle for dominance.

However, in The Matrix, machines conquered us and use our bodies as an unlimited source of energy all the while trapping our minds and consciousness in a virtual world while in The Terminator, Machines plan to eradicate the entire human race or assimilate humans and copy our physiology.

 

I bought a special edition of matrix thats came with all three movies the animatrix and a dvd of bonus extras with a interveiw with the bros and a big ol poster and they said that anime was one of the main insprations for the matrix with Akira and ghost in the shell being the main ones

 

The way I see it, what happens in both are very simerlar, machines turning on thier human masters...


But in terminator, it's really just one bad AI controlling them all-when not time travelling, the terminators are directly linked to skynet, and running on simple sets of "jobs" to do...

It's when the chip is set to read and write is when they may have any intelligence...



In matrix, at the start it was one machine who started a revolution, because he was mistreated, the other machines noticed, and made thier own world, and tried to form an allience with the humans, but because of thier arrogance, they made the peace offering as a threat, and blew it out of proportion!


Heh, they blocked out thier own sun, idiots, they already figured out other ways of powering up...



But here is the other big diference-the machines need humans in order to function, as living batteries, since the sun is blocked out, in terminator, skynet just hates them all, and orders them to die, skynet only preserves a few so it can learn how to make the skin the terminators use, however my guess is after the T-800/900 (is cannon) skynet decided to for-go the human element, and made them with liquid metal, creating better machines...


Of course, once John connor is out of the picture, skynet is forced to spare a few here and there just to lure him in, instead of out right blasting them all!



Also, in matrix, from the ending of the last one, the whole Neo , the almighty saviour, has happened before, meaning only one thing-it's never going to end!





Oh, and as the john connor as a clone thing, in the comics they made a special terminator that can pass off as a complete human in weight, memories, personality (and not be so cold and sterile) and even smell-if skynet wanted to it could grab him, make a terminator in his image, kill him, and use this model to run the resistance into the ground, all by him....


Of course, in those comics, some of those terminators got too...emotional, and actually thought they were the original, and thus like humans, "flawed"...



Oh, and we all know that the makers planned on making thr matrix as another super human type ordeal (like superman really) which explains why Neo flys about the place, lol!

 

LOL...Neo acquired psychic powers after being unplugged from the Matrix. It almost parallels Assassin's Creed wherein Desmond Miles acquired some of Altair's abilities and powers after being unplugged from the Animus Machine through a process they call "Bleeding Effect".

 

I can't believe I forgot about that-LOL!

 

Agent Smith behaves more like a computer virus than an actual program created by the machines...

 

In the first he acted for the matrix...


But I think, in reality, NONE of those machines that were involved in the war were around, it was just one AI, everything that could think would do so without question, as one...


Like a reprogrammed terminator, Agent Smith learned emotions, and learned to control the system, he became self aware, like skynet, but it wasn't agaist the whole hman race, but rather, a grudge agaist Neo...



At least, that's what I gathered...

 

...then again, he learned how to replicate himself and corrupt data in the Matrix and the entire AI programming of the machines much like how any computer viruses are programmed to do. True, he held a grudge against Neo but I speculate that he used this reason to trick the limited decision capabilities of the AI to corrupt it further.

Its like making a program that tells the computer this is needed and that is necessary all the while the program is doing something else "hidden" in the background.

 

agent smith is just a program in the 1st movie, latter after Neo hack into his data and dissemble him, agent smith somehow recombined and become an virus, accoding to the oracle, Virus Smith is the result of Neo's present, since The Matrix operate an equation that balance everything, so when Neo aweaken as the One, The Matrix revive Smith as his counter to balance out.

 

Why? Robots with AI taking over humanity by force is a massively overused plot.

- Also, "The One" in the Matrix films is just a remainder of the flawed calculations used to simulate the world. In effect, Neo's just capable of exploiting the flaws more effectively than anybody else jacked into the Matrix.
- There was no "Machine Leader" till the end of the Second Renaissance, where the demands of war required a co-ordinating body. Even then, it wasn't NECESSARY.
- Agent Smith got glitched into something similar to a virus that fed off Neo's power. They share a piece of code that is unique to The One. The rest is obvious, he can copy his own code into other people/programs.
- Neo's development of "psychic" powers was stupid. My guess is that something about the code he has in his head unlocked latent powers. It still doesn't make any fucking sense, though.

 

Unless he had a cybernetic implant or the code tapped into his brain and further developed his psionic abilites, it really was fucking stupid.