Since Abdul-Mateen was cast, rumors have persisted that he’s playing a younger Morpheus, which seems to be confirmed by the teasers, but, again, things might not be as they seem. Follow me down the rabbit hole…
The first shot we see in the teaser for the Abdul-Mateen character shows him staring at himself in the mirror, condensation on the glass made to resemble Matrix code (“digital rain”) over the mystery man’s face. He looks intently into the mirror, as if examining himself, perhaps a little surprised at his own appearance? In other teasers, we watch Neo take blue pills in front of a mirror but his reflection isn’t right at all — looking back at Reeves is a much older man. In yet other snippets, we watch hands reaching through mirrors, like when Neo touched the liquid glass in the first movie just before waking up in the real world.
So what’s going on here? The green hue of the scene confirms this is Abdul-Mateen inside of the simulation, so why does he look slightly surprised by his residual self-image? Is this movie somehow a continuation of Neo and Trinity’s story but also a Morpheus origin story? Is this the face of a man only just starting to learn the truth?
Well, that doesn’t really seem to be the case.
When this movie is set may not be as important as what version of the Matrix this movie takes place in. I theorized in an earlier article that The Matrix Resurrections could be covering a different version of the simulation altogether, one where some events happen as they did in the original trilogy but where there are big alterations, too. As the Architect once told Neo in The Matrix Reloaded, the Machines have created several versions of the simulation, tweaking things as needed to improve the program and make humanity more subservient. It’s an endless loop that has seen the heroes try to save Zion from the Machines several times before.
We learned from the Architect that the One’s role isn’t just a prophecy, an event foretold by the Oracle, but a role designed by the Machines to solve an anomaly within the program. In essence, the One’s role is to reset the Matrix and start the clock again until the next “final battle.” But as we know from The Matrix Revolutions, Neo and his friends found a way to change things, to save Zion from being destroyed and give other plugged-in humans the chance to leave the simulation if they chose to. Most importantly, there was finally peace.