As it turns out, the Wachowski's were not as creative as was once suspected in formulating their idea of a pod imprisoned human race being fed on by super-human (in their case machine) beings. Upon finishing H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, the main construct of The Matrix idea comes from the half-crazy bantering of a lost soldier in WOTW. I'm not saying the Matrix was not a well crafted story and movie (the first one), I'm just connecting references that I have been ignorant of. The Matrix did a great job of adapting original idea into its story reality.
In WOTW a soldier discourses the fact that in the light of the Martian invasion, people, those strong enough, will need to go underground, use London's old sewers and train tunnels as their home (think hover crafts flying through old sewer systems and utility shafts...zion, the underground city). The soldier also mentions the fact that most humans are not ready for this. Those comfortable in their dead-end jobs and stagnant lives will not only fail to flee from the Marian oppressors, but will willingly accept the new order of being locked-up and "taken care of" by the new oppressors (they will willingly trade in one lifestyle for the other. In this, Wells draws a parallel between the way most live and downright imprisonment). Sounds much like Morpheus' speech with Neo in the Agent training program.
In WOTW, it becomes clear that the Martians seek to use the human race as a food source. This realization comes as the narrator observes over and over Martian machines taking and collecting humans as opposed to simply vaporizing them with their heat rays and later witnessing humans having their insides sucked out (much like the Second Renaissance shorts in the Animatrix collection, only in the Matrix humans are used for the electricity the body produces and not it's fluids).
Further, the design and look of the machines at large, especially when one watches the Animatrix, heavily borrow from Wells' descriptions of the Martian machines in WOTW. WOTW, like The Matrix, describes the machines as being tri-pod walking machines including many whip-like "arm" structures. Again, though, no foul on the Wachowski's part, Wells was onto something and it continues to strike fear into the readers and viewers of this day and age. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
As an aside, I also find it interesting that the Matrix film was finished with a greenish tint and in WOTW, a greenish glow/smoke is always emanating from the Martians.
If you have not yet had the chance to read War of the Worlds count this as my formal recommendation to go pick it up at your local library. You can make a weekend of it, read the book (not long), watch The Matrix (the first one) and The Animatrix (Second Renaissance I and II) and enjoy the adaptation by an interesting film and the self-Satisfaction that you've just read the book portraying ideas that have yet to be creatively outdone.
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4 comments:
I loved this post. I can't wait to read the book so I have something better to say about it.
Given what you've written about other literature I've read, I as well can't wait until you write something better.
That's funny. I just re-read these comments and it makes me sound like I was being ridiculously cocky. What I meant was I wanted to say something better about the book than, "I love this post," not something better about the book than what you wrote. Perhaps I should have used the word "more" instead of "better". Silly.
Maybe that's tell-tale of what I think of you.
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